Know Your ABC’s at the Emily Harvey Foundation

Hand-painted sign, for the “Real Estate Show” (1980) at the Emily Harvey Foundation exhibition “ABC NO RIO: 45 YEARS”. New York, NY

By JOHN DRURY May 26, 2025

Downtown was once peppered with these places – these not-for-profits, in addition ABC No Rio – Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo’s great EXIT ART (1982-2012; bringing many now established makers to light) and the decade long run of the Thread Waxing Space (1991-2001), to name but a few; venues generally begun by artists, for artists, serving first, an unrestricted creativity; that not merely catering to desperate sales and the deep pockets of collectors, as granted support dollars were often the fuel a creative freedom.

Enter Colab, and the Real Estate Show. For those in need of a history lesson – Collaborative Projects Inc., was an artist collective, who grouped to hang their own exhibitions, publicize their own shows and raise their own monies; a DIY effort, retaliation a failing economy and voicing concern for the immediate community about them; a community where they lived and worked. The Real Estate manifesto described the subject of the guerilla exhibition, as “resistance to abusive landlord speculation within the real estate industry”; that in affect permitting the city to stockpile buildings (they had accumulated hundreds below Houston Street in the 1980’s), and allowing them to sit empty, while vital housing needs went unaddressed.

ABC NO RIO: 45 YEARS”, at the Emily Harvey Foundation. Foreground - Cara Perlman, “Bricks”, glazed ceramic; background -Christy Rupp, “Rats”.
 

And so, on January 1^st of 1980, a group of artists cut the lock on a long vacant building on Delancey Street and installed an art exhibition. On January 2^nd, the very next day, the city re-padlocked the dilapidated structure, with the artworks inside. A deal was made a few weeks later, between the artists and the city’s Housing Preservation and Development Department, resulting in the groups control of a building at 156 Rivington Street. The dilapidated building was relinquished to the artists - and ABC No Rio was born.

Procured shortly after the Real Estate Show and included in this landmark exhibition at the Emily Harvey Foundation, are artworks that not even the artists who produced them, have seen for 40 years. Every ensuing decade of ABC No Rio’s program gets its own slice of the spotlight. And if you love ephemera like I love ephemera, also on display are the flyers and show announcements, created over the duration of the ensuing four decades. Guile, works. And I am a firm believer in a stick-to-it determination bearing fruit.

ABC NO RIO: 45 YEARS at the Emily Harvey Foundation. Bobby G., (c. 1981) “A little drawing of the cardboard band. I was using these sinister looking cartoon choppers, as a symbol of police and imperialistic militarism”.
 

Nothing it seems is quick, as it pertains to real estate in this city, and no less than 30 years passed before that portion of Delancey Street saw redevelopment. In the balance of karmic tit-for-tat (thank goodness), the building on Rivington Street was recently razed, and a brand spanking new replacement is currently under construction; testament, that what does work, is the persistence of rebellion.

And so, I implore you - to get out “there”, kids; wherever you are. There is opportunity, for the proactive. Free of rebellious action, victimhood is guaranteed. Make your mark. WM