Joe Brainard (March 11, 1942 – May 25, 1994) was an American artist and writer associated with the
New York School. His prodigious and innovative body of work included
assemblages,
collages, drawing, and painting, as well as designs for book and album covers, theatrical sets and costumes. In particular, Brainard broke new ground in using
comics
a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...
as a poetic medium in his collaborations with other New York School poets. He is best known for his memoir ''
I Remember'', of which
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster (February 3, 1947 – April 30, 2024) was an American writer, novelist, memoirist, poet, and filmmaker. His notable works include '' The New York Trilogy'' (1987), '' Moon Palace'' (1989), '' The Music of Chance'' (1990), ' ...
said: "It is ... one of the few totally original books I have ever read."
Life
Joe Brainard was born on March 11, 1942, in
Salem, Arkansas, spent his childhood in
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...
, and moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 1960.
He is the brother of painter John Brainard.
Brainard became friends with
Ron Padgett
Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School (art), New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969 ...
,
Dick Gallup, and
Ted Berrigan during high school while working on the literary journal ''The White Dove Review'', which was printed five times during 1959/1960. The 18-year-old Brainard joined the journal as its art editor after fellow
Central High classmate Padgett sent Brainard an anonymous Christmas card praising his work.
After high school, the artist re-united with the ''White Dove'' boys in New York City shortly after leaving the
Dayton Art Institute.
[Padgett, Ron. (2004). ]
Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard
''. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press.[Kline, Joshua. (2010)]
''The White Dove Review: How a Group of Tulsa Teens Created a Literary Legend''
, This Land Press.
By 1964, Brainard had already had his first solo exhibition and was ensconced in a circle of friends that included
Frank O'Hara,
Kenneth Koch,
Alex Katz,
Edwin Denby,
Larry Rivers,
Fairfield Porter,
James Schuyler,
Jane Freilicher,
Virgil Thomson,
John Ashbery, among many others. He also began a relationship with
Kenward Elmslie which lasted much of his life, despite having other lovers. He found much success as an artist, until he removed himself from the art-world in the early 1980s. He devoted the last years of his life to reading.
Brainard died of
AIDS
The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
-induced
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
on May 25, 1994.
Works
Visual and literary work
Brainard began his career during the early
Pop Art era, and while his work has a certain affinity with Pop Art, it does not fit the definition of the genre:
The inimitability of Brainard's work is located partly in its resistance to categorization, in its breadth, and in its rapport with and awe of the quotidian:
Particularly in the collages, drawings and small works on paper, Brainard transformed the everyday into something revelatory:
''I Remember''
Joe Brainard's ''
I Remember'' radically departs from the conventions of the traditional memoir. His deft juxtapositions of the banal with the revelatory, the very particular with the apparently universal accumulate into a complex depiction of his childhood in the 1940s and '50s in Oklahoma as well as his life in the '60s and '70s in New York City. ''I Remember'' has inspired many homages and adaptations. As the poet and critic
Geoffrey O'Brien wrote in ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', ''I Remember'' "revealed
rainardas the inventor of an altogether new sort of book. The work eventually became globally popular and a widely used text for writing workshops."
Publications
* ''I Remember'' (Angel Hair, 1970)
** ''I Remember More'' (Angel Hair, 1972)
** ''More I Remember More'' (Angel Hair, 1973)
** ''I Remember Christmas'' (Museum of Modern Art, 1973)
** ''I Remember'' (first collected edition, Full Court Press, 1975)
** ''I Remember'' (new edition, Penguin, 1995)
** ''I Remember'' (new edition, Granary Books, 2001, 4th printing 2005)
* ''Selected Writings'' (Kulchur, 1971)
* ''Bolinas Journal'' (Big Sky, 1971)
* ''Some Drawings of Some Notes to Myself'' (Siamese Banana, 1971)
* ''The Cigarette Book'' (Siamese Banana, 1972)
* ''The Banana Book'' (Siamese Banana, 1972)
* ''The Friendly Way'' (Siamese Banana, 1972)
* ''New Work'' (Black Sparrow, 1973)
* ''12 Postcards'' (Z Press, 1975)
* ''29 Mini-Essays'' (Z Press, 1978)
* ''24 Pictures & Some Words'' (BLT, 1980)
* ''Nothing to Write Home About'' (Little Caesar, 1981)
* ''Ten Imaginary Still Lifes'' (Boke Press, 1995)
* ''The Nancy Book'' (Siglio Press, 2008)
* ''The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard'' (Library of America, 2012)
*''Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard'' (
Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...
, 2024)
Collaborative work
* ''Some Things'' (C Press, New York, 1964), with Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan
* ''The Baby Book'' (Boke Press, 1965), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''Bean Spasms'' (Kulchur, 1967) with Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett
* ''The 1967 Game Calendar'' (Boke Press, 1967), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''100,000 Fleeing Hilda'' (Boke Press, 1967), with Ron Padgett
* ''The Drunken Boat'' (privately printed, nd), with Ted Berrigan
* ''The Champ'' (Black Sparrow, 1968), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''Album'' (Kulchur, 1969), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''Recent Visitors'' (Best & Co./Boke Press, 1971), with Bill Berkson
* ''Neil Young'' (The Coach House Press, 1971), with Tom Clark
* ''Sufferin' Succotash/Kiss My Ass'' (Adventures in Poetry, 1971), with Ron Padgett/Michael Brownstein)
* ''Self-Portrait'' (Siamese Banana, 1972) with Anne Waldman
* ''Shiny Ride'' (Boke Press, 1972), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''The Class of '47'' (Bouwerie Editions, 1973; SUNY Buffalo Art Gallery, 2007), with Robert Creeley
* ''The Vermont Notebook'' (1975), with John Ashbery
* ''I Love You, de Kooning'' (Bolinas, Calif.: Yanagi Broadside late 1970s), with Bill Berkson
* ''1984 Comics'' (Marz Verlag, 1983), collaborations with Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Michael Brownstein, Kenward Elmslie, Larry Fagin, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Harry Mathews, Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, Peter Schjeldahl, James Schuyler, and Tony Towle
* ''Sung Sex'' (Kulchur, 1989), with Kenward Elmslie
* ''Pay Dirt'' (Bamberger Books, 1992), with Kenward Elmslie
Solo exhibitions
''Selected Collections'' include Berkeley Art Museum, Chase Manhattan Bank, Baron Guy de Rothschild, Fogg Museum, Harvard; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum, Time-Life, Inc,. Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. The Mandeville Special Collections Library at UCSD also has a large archive of works by and about Brainard collected by Robert Butts from 1960 to 1992.
[''Register of the Joe Brainard Archiv]
' In the Mandeville Special Collections Library archives (accessed 1/20/2011).
His work in theater included set designs for Frank O'Hara's ''The General Returns from One Place to Another'' and
LeRoi Jones's ''The Baptism''. Brainard also did sets and costumes for the
Louis Falco Dance Troupe and the
Joffrey Ballet Company.
Notes
External links
Official Website of Joe Brainard I Remember Joe Brainard (2012; video remembrances by
Bill Berkson,
Brad Gooch,
Robert Pinsky,
Edmund White, and others)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brainard, Joe
1942 births
1994 deaths
American artists
American gay writers
LGBTQ people from Arkansas
LGBTQ people from Oklahoma
American gay artists
New York School poets
Writers from New York (state)
AIDS-related deaths in New York (state)
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from Manhattan
American LGBTQ poets
20th-century American poets
American male poets
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American LGBTQ people
Gay poets