~CASUAL ART FAIR: CYRIL MAZARD & MARK ENGER, GHOST
CYRIL MAZARD . . . brings on the GHOST ARMY !!
what is the LOWER EAST SIDE – without the ghost of MARK ENGER, RIP ?!!!
one of my first encounters . . upon arriving was CYRIL MAZARD.
we both have a dear, dear departed friend in common – the late, great artist & screen print maestro / redneck genius . . MARK ENGER.
CYRIL was exhibiting & selling some indie zine / books of his own making – including this soft cover, full color catalog, titled: ‘Cyril Mazard – 50 Paintings 1996-2012’, which featured this quite good portrait of . . MARK ENGER – towards the back.
titled: ‘MARK BY CYRIL’, 2011 . . I guess it was painted after Mark’s untimely death, Jan 7, 2011.
this sweet & so so talented authentic civil war / cowboy . . lost the battle with throat cancer. yeah, he smoked, he drank coca-cola like it was water, actually . . instead of water, and he lived and worked in his silkscreen studio amidst all the fumes . . so there ya go, another lonely cowboy rides off into the sunset.
I’m only cracking jokes, because otherwise I’d be crying, and that’s why it took me so long to start – these Casual Art Fair posts.
talk about . . ‘outsiders’ !!
I mean, if you can call WALTER ROBINSON, an ‘outsider’ with decades, decades !! of writing about the art world – under his belt, a recent & very successful, traveling museum retrospective, & . . a big big show – now up at JEFFREY DEITCH – an ‘outsider’ . .
then what do you call . . MARK ENGER ???
Redneck ?
Lower East Side cowboy . . legend – that you never heard of ?
so, when I get so down on WALTER, and all those other status quo ‘critics’ – mouthing off their bs & highly predictable garbage – in the mainstream cesspool of the NYC artworld – it’s because of the really great AMERICAN MASTERS – like MARK ENGER aka EXPLODING SKY WORLDWIDE, who never had a chance in hell – though I did my best to scream his name . . out loud, and to Walter, too.
who could have helped bring his work to the front page, but totally dropped the ball.
CYRIL MAZARD, ‘GOING HOME’, 2011
amen, RIP . . MARK.
RIP, MARK ENGER. born 1963, Fort Still, OKLAHOMA, died 2011 Newark, New Jersey.
that made him 44 yrs at death. sad, sad beyond the beyond.
ARCHIVAL PHOTO: NANCY SMITH, NYC NOV 10, 2006.
someone told me last week, that it’s not just really . . ALL about what you did in your lifetime that matters – but who remains, to tell your story !!
I’m – hoping that’s true.
see: MARK ENGER’S MEMORIAL – art lovers archive
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH