Mark Morrisroe

American "queer-punk" performance artist, photographer and experimental filmmaker (10 January 1959, Malden, Massachusetts — 24 July 1989, Jersey City, New Jersey). Mark Morrisroe was one of the forerunners of the "Boston School" of photography in the 1970s and dominated New York's experimental queer punk scene in the mid-to-late 80s. He established Clam Twins drag duo with Stephen Tashjian (best known as [a717269]), which debuted at the Pyramid Club in NYC's East Village. Morrisroe produced over 2000 artworks, mainly photographs and prints, throughout his short career. Mark Morrisroe was born to a dysfunctional family and left home at fifteen, hustling the Boston streets. His mother once rented out a room to notorious serial killer Albert DeSalvo (1931—1973), a.k.a. "Boston Strangler," and Mark later spread rumors he was DeSalvo's illegitimate son. Morrisroe attended the Art School at the Museum Of Fine Arts Boston, graduating with honors. Mark befriended several future collaborators and fellow artists during his student years, including Nan Goldin and David Armstrong (5). Mark's photographic career began when he picked Polaroid Model 195 "Land" camera. Morrisroe experimented with development techniques, gaining enough prominence that Polaroid Corporation eventually sponsored him, providing free film, cartridges and chemicals. One of Morrisroe's iconic techniques was "sandwich" prints, produced by enlarging two overlaid negatives of the same image to achieve a "painterly" impression on the resulting photo. He also directed three experimental "no-budget" Super8 films, including Laziest Girl in Town (1981), Hello from Bertha (83) and Nymph-O-Maniac (84). Mark had several solo exhibitions at Pat Hearn Gallery in 1985–88 and participated in acclaimed group shows at Artists Space: "Split Vision" (85), curated by Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin's "Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing" (89). Mark Morrisroe died at only 30-years-old, from AIDS complications. He became the subject of several large-scale survey exhibitions and retrospectives at ICA Boston (1995), MOCA (97) in Los Angeles, and other prominent museums in the USA and abroad.