By Michael Dang, Public Programs and Exhibitions Assistant, 2023
This photograph by Bud Lee was taken as documentation of the February 1974 Decca Dance, an important meeting/performance that united the international group of mail artists dubbed the “Eternal Network.”1 Decca Dance took place in Los Angeles in celebration of Art’s 1,000,0011th Birthday, with the main event being a mock-awards gala held at Elk’s Lodge.2 Participants in Decca Dance included Willoughby Sharp, Lowell Darling, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov of Image Bank, Kate Craig, Hank Bull, Eric Metcalfe, Glenn Lewis, General Idea, Robert Cumming, among others.3 Lee’s photographs of the event, including this one, were published in a 1974 issue of Esquire magazine, which was a significant legitimizing moment for these mail artists.4
At the centre of the image is the artist John Dowd, wearing a FETISH t-shirt, pictured with his frequent collaborators, John Baylin (behind him to the left) and Beautiful Zeke or Zeke Smolinsky (to the far right of the image). Dowd was the subject of a fanzine or “club,” a collaboration between himself and Baylin, that primarily included photocopied collages and photomontages that appropriated imagery from entertainment and popular culture.5 Dowd was a bartender at the leather bar the Eagle’s Nest in New York City and was known for his physique, reminiscent of the strapping muscly figures of the influential queer illustrator Tom of Finland.6 It was during his employment at the Eagle’s Nest that Dowd caught the attention of artists in the Eternal Network including Baylin, Ray Johnson, Jimmy De Sana, Morris and Trasov.7 Also in this image are two of the founding members of General Idea – AA Bronson (who is shielding his face from the sun at the far left) and Felix Partz (behind Dowd and Smolinsky). Both Dowd and Partz are seen holding plexiglass Hand of the Spirit wands, an iconic fetish symbol that signaled “glamour and artificiality while claiming an otherworldly spiritual presence” for members of General Idea, Image Bank and others.8 The artists associated with the John Dowd Fan Club also had close artistic relationships to Morris and Trasov, as Baylin had founded the sardonic subsidiary of Image Bank entitled Bum Bank.9 Lee’s photograph captures an important moment at the height of the correspondence art network, where unbridled collaborations, in-jokes and references as well as deep connections were fostered between artists internationally. This photograph will be reproduced for both the exhibition and the catalogue of the Brooklyn Museum’s Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Making Zines opening 17 November 2023.
Works from the Collection considers works in the Belkin’s permanent collection in conversation with ongoing exhibitions, programs and the world around us. This entry is part of a series by Michael Dang, Public Programs and Exhibitions Assistant and candidate in the Critical and Curatorial Studies Program at UBC, that digs into the Belkin’s Archive collection. Dang has been researching works in the Archive in preparation for his upcoming practicum exhibition opening in 2024. To see more of the Belkin’s archival collection, visit belkin.ubc.ca/collection.
