Bobby Grossman

Bobby Grossman

Bobby Grossman and Randy Gun:


“Once I graduated from RISD, I was ready to live in NYC. I had little patience and didn’t want to spend the summer at home with my parents in Westchester.

The quick fix was meeting with Stanley Bard [manager and part-owner of the Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rd Street, NY] at the Chelsea Hotel and leasing a suite on the 9th floor - 911 directly across from Charles James [celebrated American fashion designer] and Virgil Thomson [American composer and critic].

I knew RISD people nearby (Talking Heads, Andre Leon Talley, etc.) but now it was time to make new friends.  There was a couple my age I’d run into in my hallway since our doors were adjacent — after a few passes, we made our introductions.  It was easy since Randy was a rocker with an electric guitar. His apartment was just a tiny room with a bed.  Mine, a suite with a fireplace - two bedrooms and a kitchen and a new Sony color TV.  Randy and I bonded over Yankee games.  A few weeks passed, Randy knocked on my door explaining Stanley locked him out, along with his possessions since he was behind in rent. We became fast friends.

We’d often visit our mutual friend Chris Kelly who worked at Bleecker Bob’s [celebrated new wave/punk rock record store] and shop for the newly released records like the Beach Boys, Iggy Pop or the Sex Pistols - we’d play them repeatedly back at my place. 

Randy and I hung out together at CBGB and the other clubs. We’d arrange photo shoots with the Erasers and Randy’s band, The Necessaries. With a brief pause of a few years I continued my friendship with Randy.”


Text by Bobby Grossman, May 17, 2021, edited by Janis Gardner Cecil  


Bobby Grossman and Randy Gun:


“Once I graduated from RISD, I was ready to live in NYC. I had little patience and didn’t want to spend the summer at home with my parents in Westchester.
The quick fix was meeting with Stanley Bard [manager and part-owner of the Chelsea Hotel, 222 West 23rdStreet, NY] at the Chelsea Hotel and leasing a suite on the 9th floor - 911 directly across from Charles James [celebrated American fashion designer] and Virgil Thomson [American composer and critic].



I knew RISD people nearby (Talking Heads, Andre Leon Talley, etc.) but now it was time to make new friends.  There was a couple my age I’d run into in my hallway since our doors were adjacent — after a few passes, we made our introductions.  It was easy since Randy was a rocker with an electric guitar, His apartment was just a tiny room with a bed.  Mine, a suite with a fireplace - two bedrooms and a kitchen and a new Sony color TV.  Randy and I bonded over Yankee games.  A few weeks passed, Randy knocked on my door explaining Stanley locked him out, along with his possessions since he was behind in rent. We became fast friends.

We’d often visit our mutual friend Chris Kelly who worked at Bleecker Bob’s [celebrated new wave/punk rock record store] and shop for the newly released records like the Beach Boys, Iggy Pop or the Sex Pistols - we’d play them repeatedly back at my place. 


Randy and I hung out together at CBGB and the other clubs. We’d arrange photo shoots with the Erasers and Randy’s band, The Necessaries. With a brief pause of a few years I continued my friendship with Randy.”


Text by Bobby Grossman, May 17, 2021, edited by Janis Gardner Cecil 

Bobby Grossman is an artist and photographer. He was born in Manhattan, grew up in Westchester, New York and earned his BFA at The Rhode Island School of Design. Grossman moved to New York City in 1976 taking up residency at the Hotel Chelsea. Working as a freelancer by day, he found his way to Warhol’s Factory on Union Square.   During that same period, he became a regular presence while documenting the scene at CBGB and eventually the Mudd Club. Grossman’s reputation as a contributing photographer to both major publications and underground journals was soon well established.


Bobby Grossman’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, catalogues and films. His first photo credit was the cover shot for Talking Heads 1977 EP and single, “Psycho Killer.” Group exhibitions include the legendary 1980 “Times Square Show and the 1981 exhibition,  “New Wave/New York”, at PS1, among many others. 


Grossman was the photographer for Glenn O’Brien’s public access television show, TV Party.  He made a cameo in the film Downtown ’81, written by O’Brien and filmed by Edo Bertoglio in 1980-81, which starred Jean-Michael Basquiat. 


Grossman’s contributions to film include Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, 2011, by Tamra Davis; William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, 2010, by Yony Leyser,  and the No Wave documentary, Blank City, 2010.  His work is included in the documentary Andy Warhol: Fifteen Minutes Eternal, 2014; Basquiat: Rage to Riches, 2017, and filmmaker Sara Driver’s 2018 release, Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Grossman collaborated with Richard Prince on COWBOY, as well as with Shepard Fairey on multiple projects. 


Additional photographic contributions include multiple images for O’Brien’s book, Intelligence for Dummies, 2017, and Debbie Harry’s, Face It: A Memoir, published in 2019. 

        

Grossman is presently at work on a monograph of his photographs entitled Low Fidelity.  An exhibition of his work was recently on view at The Lofts at Beacon, in Beacon, New York. 


Text by Richard Boch, edited by Janis Gardner Cecil

Bobby Grossman is an artist and photographer. He was born in Manhattan, grew up in Westchester, New York and earned his BFA at The Rhode Island School of Design. Grossman moved to New York City in 1976 taking up residency at the Hotel Chelsea. Working as a freelancer by day, he found his way to Warhol’s Factory on Union Square.   During that same period, he became a regular presence while documenting the scene at CBGB and eventually the Mudd Club. Grossman’s reputation as a contributing photographer to both major publications and underground journals was soon well established.


Bobby Grossman’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, catalogues and films. His first photo credit was the cover shot for Talking Heads 1977 EP and single, “Psycho Killer.” Group exhibitions include the legendary 1980 “Times Square Show and the 1981 exhibition,  “New Wave/New York”, at PS1, among many others. 


Grossman was the photographer for Glenn O’Brien’s public access television show, TV Party.  He made a cameo in the film Downtown ’81, written by O’Brien and filmed by Edo Bertoglio in 1980-81, which starred Jean-Michael Basquiat. 


Grossman’s contributions to film include Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, 2011, by Tamra Davis; William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, 2010, by Yony Leyser,  and the No Wave documentary, Blank City, 2010.  His work is included in the documentary Andy Warhol: Fifteen Minutes Eternal, 2014; Basquiat: Rage to Riches, 2017, and filmmaker Sara Driver’s 2018 release, Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Grossman collaborated with Richard Prince on COWBOY, as well as with Shepard Fairey on multiple projects. 


Additional photographic contributions include multiple images for O’Brien’s book, Intelligence for Dummies, 2017, and Debbie Harry’s, Face It: A Memoir, published in 2019. 

                 

Grossman is presently at work on a monograph of his photographs entitled Low Fidelity.  An exhibition of his work was recently on view at The Lofts at Beacon, in Beacon, New York. 


Text by Richard Boch, edited by Janis Gardner Cecil

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