Mick Rock's Iggy Pop portrait
Last Thursday, Williamsburg's Fast Ashley's Studios threw a party. There was free beer, outrageous conversation and, somewhere in there, a preview of the emphatically capitalized photo show AMERICA, the auction of which runs through April 30 at auction.igavel.com, with proceeds benefiting Americans for the Arts.
As the studio is right next to Vice headquarters, many of its employees showed early to drink away their sorrows at having created Kari Ferrell, the most obnoxiously hyped lady-outlaw since Ashley Dupré. "Every time a short Asian girl comes in," said one staffer, "I'm like…" he broke off to mime looking suspiciously at someone. Did he really think she'd come this close to the office? "I'm not supposed to talk about it," he sighed.
Some intrepid souls pushed through the crowd to get a better look at the photos, which ranged from the iconic (Mick Rock's photo of Iggy Pop) to the debatable (Mark "The Cobra Snake" Hunter's photo of tits, braces and beer).
DJ Carrie Whitenoise, who works at nearby Brooklyn Studios, paused to chat, calling Fast Ashley's "a pioneer of photo studios in Brooklyn." What makes photo studios in Brooklyn so goddamn special? "The people, the artists, the creative types," she said before flitting off to talk to a friend.
Justin Tranter of Semi-Precious Weapons was characteristically hyperbolic: "[Show participant] Vincent Skeltis is the greatest photographer of all time, and he's really violent and sexual as a person" he purred, a devilish gleam in his black-rimmed eye.
Despite her towering importance to punks everywhere, attendee Allison Wolfe, of Partyline and Bratmobile fame, was disarmingly cheery. Anything new in the works? "I'm giving a talk at Sarah Lawrence College on riot grrrl," she said. "It's cool to see it could be written into history as part of the feminist movement."
With that in mind, I retired to Vinnie's pizza with photog-about-town Rebecca Smeyne to inhale vegan Hawaiian slices—all in the name of sisterhood.
