Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Larry Rivers: The Polyamorous Painter of the Chelsea Hotel

Everyone remembers the Dutch Masters Cigar Box painting, which hung in the lobby for many years before the hotel took it down and tried to sell it, only to be sued by the artist Larry Rivers’ estate, who won the return of the painting by claiming it had only been on loan to Stanley Bard. Rivers lived in the hotel in the fifties and sixties, returning frequently thereafter to visit friends. One of these friends was the librettist Arnold Weinstein, who helped Rivers write his autobiography, What Did I Do? a rollicking romp through several decades of the New York art scene—and much else besides. River went everywhere, did everything, and knew everyone, and is as famous for his high-octane, polyamorous lifestyle as for his often wildly transgressive artworks.

Though it came out in 1992, Rivers’ book is well worth reading, and Rivers’ art, especially that from the sixties, is overdue for a reevaluation. Leave it to say, I’m as fascinated by the multiple layers of
meaning inherent in the Dutch Masters paintings (a series of works), as I am bemused by Rivers’ portrait of Napoleon, which he labeled, for no apparent reason, “The World’s Greatest Homosexual”, by turns mystifying and enraging most everyone in France.

            Anyway, if you’re interested, I review Rivers’ book in the Fall 2022 issue of a great little magazine, The Exacting Clam, which also features lots of odd, brilliant, and brilliantly odd prose and poetry. You can read much of The Clam online, or you can order a print copy on Amazon.

Ed Hamilton

BETTINA GROSSMAN: BETTINA. POEM OF PERMANENT RENEWAL

Readers in France still have time to make it to The Recontres d'Arles Bettina exhibit. Her work is on display until August 28.

The Rencontres d'Arles presents the first monographic exhibition of American artist Bettina Grossman, better known as Bettina. Bettina spent the first years of her career in Europe before returning to the United States in the 1960s. Shortly after, a traumatic fire destroyed much of her work. In 1970, she moved to the legendary Chelsea Hotel and, to recover from this loss, worked a lot. After years of producing in isolation, the artist was featured in two documentary films, which led her to meet Yto Barrada. In the tradition of artists supporting – and nurturing – the work of other artists, a strong relationship ensues, which culminates in multiple projects. L' exhibition at the Salle Henri-Comte offers a unique insight into Bettina's life in New York. Whether photography, video, painting, sculpture or textile design, his works are serial, modular and rigorous – each having a function in a larger and self-referential system, where we find forms repetitive geometric shapes with a transcendental and almost shamanic dimension.


Bettina, as you know, was part of the Chelsea Hotel artistic community until her death in 2021.