Taking the form of a memoir, it tells of New York City in the 1970s and the correlation between artistic and sexual experimentation; Crimp’s own move from Greenwich Village to Tribeca and from the gay scene to the art scene; about his first confrontation with performance art and the work of Gordon Matta-Clark; and about his friendships and interactions with artists such as Joan Jonas, Peter Hujar and Alvin Baltrop.

Douglas Crimp (b. 1944) is Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester, New York (since 2002). He is author of Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics, (MIT Press, 2002); On the Museum’s Ruins, (MIT Press, 1993), How Do I Look? Queer Film and Video (co-red.), (Bay Press, 1991), AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism (red.), (MIT Press, 1988) and October: The First Decade, 1976-1986 (co-red.), (MIT Press, 1987).