‘Make Me Famous’
Village East by Angelika, Manhattan
August 16-21

Brian Vincent’s art world documentary, “Make Me Famous,” put me in mind of a question that’s been bugging me for years: Whatever happened to Jedd Garet? Mr. Garet — or, rather, his paintings — can be glimpsed during the run of Mr. Vincent’s picture, not as a subject of discussion but as background scenery. 

The canvases, with their slickly rendered shapes and cartoony glyphs, were quite the thing back in the day. If Mr. Garet didn’t achieve the renown of contemporaries like Jean Michel-Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Keith Haring, his work was reviewed in the art press, acquired for museum collections, and generated enviable buzz.

A cursory internet search uncovers that Mr. Garet is still with us, as are many artists who came of age during the halcyon days of 1980s Manhattan and, in specific, the Lower East Side. As a starry-eyed newcomer to New York City in the mid-1980s, I caught the tail end of what was something of a cultural reckoning — and definitely a finger in the eye of propriety. The demimonde was on the ground and possibility was in the air. Being too much of a milquetoast to partake in the club scene, I took note of artists, tiptoed around the squalor, and mooted the price of fame.

Fame is also on the mind of the hipsters who managed to survive poverty, the AIDS epidemic, rampant drug use, and the vagaries of New York real estate. “Make Me Famous” features actors, artists, and performers who have become just that, including Eric Bogosian, Kenny Scharf, David McDermott, Peter McGough, Marguerite Van Cook, and a onetime muse to the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Claudia Summers. Age and illness have since caught up with other figures interviewed for the movie: the painters Duncan Hannah and Richard Hambleton, and photographer Marcus Leatherdale.

The focus of “Make Me Famous” is Edward Brezinski. You might ask who that is, and it’s a question Mr. Vincent doesn’t altogether answer or, perhaps, can’t answer. Although a participant in the Lower East Side art scene — Brezinski is featured in a lot of video tapes from the era, many of which are employed here — this scion of suburban Michigan ultimately dropped out, moving first to Berlin and then France. He lived in obscurity and died in a hotel at Nice. Or did he? Among the mysteries of Edward Brezinksi is that his death certificate can’t be located, but you’ll not catch me spoiling this movie.

Mr. Vincent is wise to the off-topic nature of his venture. “It flabbergasted people…,” he writes, “when I told them I wanted to focus on Brezinski.” Give the director this much: He’s spared us another hagiography of oversold talent and blue chip investments. Nor does he romanticize the druggy, D.I.Y. nature of the bohemia that was Alphabet City, though there is a suggestion that it had more integrity before it was hijacked by rapacious opportunists like Jeff Koons, Haim Steinbach, and Mary Boone. 

Most of the participants interviewed for the picture remember Brezinski as aggressively ambitious, moderately talented, and a pain in the butt. Brezinski fancied himself a player, but his ability to play nice was limited. He alienated friends, and fisticuffs were common. In a fit of pique, he tossed a glass of wine into the face of an art world power broker, Anina Nosei.

All of which were small potatoes compared to the evening Brezinski ate a work of art. This happened at the opening for the first significant solo exhibition by a sculptor, Robert Gober. The title treats included in “Bag of Donuts” (1989) looked good, but they were treated, unbeknownst to Brezinski, with a chemical preservative. An ambulance took him to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Fifteen minutes of fame commenced when Page Six of the New York Post picked up yet another story of art world tomfoolery. The Associated Press subsequently made it international news.

“This won’t be good for my career,” the artist mused, but, then, his career seemed stuck anyway. The art market was shifting its focus to post-conceptualism from painting. A from-the-heart painter found himself at the mercy of ideological and artistic fashion. So, it’s worth noting that “Bag of Donuts” would go on to fetch almost a quarter of a million dollars at auction, and that Brezinski’s work can’t get the time of day. Which of these two upshots counts as the greater injustice can be pondered by those who watch Mr. Vincent’s quixotic labor of love.