Lower East Side 1984. Ken Schles: Invisible City by Ken Schles
Our city has such an incredible history of art. For over 60 years New York has had the reputation of being the home to brilliant thinkers, poets, dancers, actors, film directors, folk musicians, rappers, painters, writers and overall, minds. Not only has New York influenced mainstream culture decade after decade, but its also the home to Avant-Garde jazz, American experimental cinema, Street art, Salsa, Rap and Hip Hop and Punk. All bubbling countercultures and communities of artists that were experimenting in brand new ways.
The last few years I’d been studying different art scenes and communities in New York’s history. Documentaries, old articles, experimental work; you name it. I became (and still am)obsessed. I was feeling fueled. Energized. Incredibly inspired. I’d begin to wish I was there. Was I born in the wrong era?
There’s just something about emcees and DJ’s at block parties. Warhol’s studio. Jonas Mekas getting arrested for showing experimental films. Art, neighborhood and nightlife communities thriving, sharing and inspiring each other.
It’s this, our love for South Brooklyn and our love for art creators that bring The Slinger to life. This publication is dedicated to putting a spot light on great thinkers, writers and artists around us today. It’s dedicated to artists who need an audience. It’s dedicated to give small, personal art a big stage. That’s been our mission with Green Lung Studio, an art and performance space in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that’s been our mission with the Barely Working Show, a relaxed interview based podcast designed for the indie film industry and in an extremely related way, that’s what we’re aiming to do here.
Need an audience? Let’s f*cking find one.
During the final episode of the late great Anthony Bourdain’s show Parts Unknown, he continually asked his guests about 70’s New York and if it was “as great” as they remember or if it was just romanticized. None of the answers to this question were the same. We all remember things in our own way. When Bourdain proposes the question to Lydia Lunch, a leading artist and performer in NYC’s No Wave scene of the early 70’s, it brought a lot of our vision for The Slinger into focus. “I still have shit to do.”
Lydia and Tony having lunch. Zero Point Zero Production.
That’s her answer. That’s her answer when asked to remember the ‘good old days’. She goes on not focusing on remembering what was, but focusing on the current. The movement happening now.
Our mission is to stop celebrating independent art only after their time has come and gone. Let’s give it love and give artists money for their work and find out the beautiful art and community right around us today, now, in our own neighborhoods and in our own backyards.
“New York is this ever-evolving, living creature.”
Will there ever be art greater than Stevie in ’74, I don’t know. But The Slinger’s goal is to build the stage, publication and platform for the great works of writing, thought, music and art that try. When Lydia Lunch said, “New York is this ever-evolving, living creature,” a follow up question we’ll answer is, what’s the dope shit now?
Let’s make dope shit people.
- Green Lung Studio