I never met the Russian artists Vitaly Komar or Alexander Melamid, but I did have an interaction with them that resulted in one of my favorite photographs. This is how it happened.

Some time in the spring of 1981, my friend Laura Foreman, was asked to create an installation for The Monumental Show, an event scheduled to be held in an old munitions factory in Brooklyn. The building was not in a nice neighborhood, the nasty old polluted then and still polluted Gowanus Canal was stagnating right next it, but there was every expectation The Monumental Show was going to be a very hot event.

Laura went all out and created an installation she called Roomwork, a comment on newspapers and television The work consisted of six folding chairs, on which were placed four fully dressed dummies, one dummy torso, and Laura herself. There was a glowing television set, a kitty litter tray, full of litter and little kitty turds and the entire installation, the floor the TV, the kitty litter tray, everything, except for Laura and the dummies, was covered papier machet-like with old issues of The New York Times. It was a wonderful installation piece and the first time that she’d been invited to participate in a major show.

Roomwork was installed and looked terrific. But then there was trouble. There were a few pictures that the landlord and the police and most importantly, the ever trouble-causing violent thugs of the Jewish Defense League found offensive. Sometime after the show opened and the word got out, the thugs appeared and among other things, slashed a painting by Komar and Melamid that was part of their installation piece. Part of the piece was a portrait of Hitler and the JDL wasn’t pleased. The show was closed down shortly thereafter. In those days people didn’t stand up to these guys as they did when their true roots and intentions became more widely known.

Laura needed photographs of her installation; she’d been told that Arts Magazine planned to do a feature on the show and wanted to run a photograph of her work. She asked if I could do the job. Even though the facility was closed, Laura was pretty sure she could bribe someone and get inside the building. It sounded like a good idea to me and I packed up my cameras.
It worked and we got inside.  It was Saturday, June 20th and we had the place to ourselves. I set up the Deardorff and I took a number of installation shots. Once I was finished, Laura decided she wanted to do some more. She wanted the same shots but now she was naked. Then she wanted me to take a picture of her in the same state with a piece someone had created out of a skeleton in a telephone booth. I set up the camera and it worked out. While she put on her clothes, I wandered around and had a look at what was left of the show.

There was an enormous floor to ceiling Keith Haring. I took a snapshot of part of it. Then I came upon the slashed Komar and Melamid. It had a big pile of garbage in front of it and I thought this was too good an opportunity. I yelled over the Laura to get out of her clothes immediately. I grabbed the Deardorff and framed the picture. I only had two sheets of film left. I took one of the slashed Hitler garbage littered tableau and then I asked Laura to step into the frame and pose as if she was looking at a picture at the Met. I used my last piece of film and got a good one.

Laura Foreman, The Monumental Show, Brooklyn, New York, June 20, 1981