Luis Frangella at Pier 34 with his large-scale murals, 1983, photography by Andreas Sterzing. © The Estate of Luis Frangella. Courtesy of Cosmocosa.
A central figure in the East Village art scene, Argentine artist Luis Frangella played a pivotal role in shaping the artistic landscapes of 1980s New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid—communities devastated by the AIDS epidemic that claimed his own life in 1990. Known as a cultural pollinator, his annual travels between cities carried not just artwork across borders but also ideas and discussions. Through this ongoing exchange, he helped weave the fabric of relationships that made up the international art world of the 1980s, and contributed significantly to the multicultural ethos that defined New York’s creative scene.
Frangella was a key presence at the influential Civilian Warfare Gallery, and became a mentor of and frequent collaborator with artists such as David Wojnarowicz. And his commanding, expressionistic paintings were exhibited alongside the work of his contemporaries, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
In recent years, Frangella’s work has gained renewed attention from both institutional and private collectors, with acquisitions and exhibitions by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rubell Family Collection, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (Museo Moderno), among others. But he is long overdue for wider visibility and a place at the forefront of contemporary art history, an effort that Buenos Aires-based Cosmocosa gallery, which represents the artist’s estate, is looking to jumpstart with a solo presentation of Frangella’s work at Independent 20th Century.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1944, Frangella studied architecture before moving to the US in 1972 to work as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he collaborated with the composers John Cage and Maryanne Amacher, among other experimental creatives. In 1976, Frangella relocated to New York with the abstract painter and sculptor Russell Sharon, where he lived and worked until his death.
From the outset, Frangella conceived of painting as a conceptual space where light, perspective, and color became tools to question perception itself. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981, which allowed him to develop a more expansive and expressive style.
Andreas Sterzing, Pier 34, Luis Frangella (head), David Wojnarowicz (grass), 1983, Ed. of 5. Courtesy Cosmocosa, © Andreas Sterzing.
In April 1983, the artists Wojnarowicz and Mike Bidlo, who took over an abandoned customs warehouse on Pier 34 on Manhattan’s far west side, and invited their friends to produce site-specific works there. Frangella was one of the first to take part, painting a series of monumental murals of Neo-Classically styled torsos. “Luis used these big brushes and was an elegant painter,” said Ground Zero Gallery founder Marguerite van Cook, in an interview for the book David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side.” Watching Luis paint with long brushes and with such facility was astounding.” Original customs forms and papers from the companies that once operated on the Pier were found by Frangella and Wojnarowicz, who produced works using them, all labeled “New York Cuba Mail Steamship Company”.
Many other artists soon joined, turning what was once primarily gay cruising grounds into a guerrilla public art gallery. But the site was closed in the middle of an exhibition “opening” that June in a raid by the Port Authority police, who arrested some artists for trespassing and seized a squatting figurative sculpture by Bill Downer; the pier was demolished by city authorities the next year.
Luis Frangella alongside his Torso, horizontal, 1984. Courtesy Civilian Warfare Archive.
Civilian Warfare directors Dean Savard and Alan Barrows with Luis Frangella’s masks, 1984, East Village NYC, with David Wojnarowicz's frieze featuring Peter Hujar stencil portraits on top, photography by Marion Scemama. Courtesy Alan Barrows.
Luis Frangella in his studio, 1984, photography by Andreas Sterzing. © Andreas Sterzing. Courtesy of Cosmocosa and Independent.
Following his work at Pier 34, Frangella became completely enmeshed in what was already being called the “East Village Scene”. He was invited to participate in almost every major group show held in the city’s downtown galleries, nightclubs and alternative art spaces that year. In addition to exhibitions at Civilian Warfare, Frangella was included in the “Wild West Show” at Piezo Electric, as well as at Limbo Lounge, Danceteria, ABC No Rio, Sensory Evolution, The Terminal Show, and Fashion Moda. Hal Bromm Gallery in Tribeca gave Frangella his first solo show in New York in 1983 and he continued to exhibit there throughout his lifetime.
Frangella also frequently appeared in the critic and curator Carlo McCormick’s famed magazine column “Art Seen”, published in The East Village Eye, in which he chronicled the neighborhood art community. As the writer and musician Keiko Bonk recalled, Frangella—being an immigrant from South America, and used to having close ties with his friends and family—sometimes felt at odds with the individualistic American lifestyle. So naturally, he formed his own support network, cooking for friends and colleagues after art openings at his home and studio in the East Village, where artists gathered, strengthened bonds, and formed a tight-knit community.
Luis Frangella, La propuesta de matrimonio (The marriage proposal), 1984, Acrylic on canvas, 39 3/8 x 70 7/8 in. Courtesy of Cosmocosa and The Estate of Luis Frangella.
Frangella’s breakthrough came in 1984. He had four solo shows in different cities—with Civilian Warfare in New York, Galería del Retiro in Buenos Aires, Ciento in Barcelona, and Bar-bar-O in Stockholm—and his work was being steadily bought by collectors. He was also the subject of an extensive review by the art critic Holland Cotter in Arts Magazine.
In June of that year, Frangella travelled to Argentina with Wojnarowicz, bringing along the work of their peers to install in the group exhibition From New York: 37 East Village Artists at The Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAyC) in Buenos Aires. Returning to the US later that year, Frangella participated in the two most important institutional exhibitions that presented the East Village scene as a “movement”. The first was curated by Janet Kardon at the ICA Philadelphia and the second, Neo York, was held at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California.
But as media and curatorial attention peaked in 1985, insiders started to see cracks in the community. This coincided with the height of the AIDS epidemic, which took the lives of many artists and cultural figures. Frangella himself began to feel unwell during this time, as he recorded in his diary, although his symptoms were at first mild. But his preoccupation with mortality might be seen in his paintings during this time, when Frangella introduced candles and skulls in his canvases, classic vanitas symbols. Homoerotic themes also became more prominent in his work, and Frangella paid homage to his bisexual interests with the nine-meter long Pink Frieze, in which male and female torsos alternate.
By 1986, the East Village scene was definitively over. Sales had halted, galleries closed, and conversations and concerns about AIDS were part of daily life. Frangella, nonetheless, kept his artistic ambition and voraciousness intact. Using his collaborative contacts, he strengthened his ties in Europe, mainly through his Spanish galleries Buades and Ciento, and prepared for some career-defining solo shows. The next year, Buades dedicated a solo booth presentation to Frangella at Art Basel.
Health wise, Frangella had his ups and downs, but he still felt energetic enough to produce work. He never wanted to be tested for HIV, although the symptoms were evident. His life-long partner Russell Sharon decided to get tested, however. It came back positive.
Luis Frangella, Untitled (Head), 1984, Acrylic on vinyl canvas, 45 1/2 x 55 1/2 in. Courtesy of Cosmocosa and The Estate of Luis Frangella.
Nonetheless, Frangella still worked to refine his painting. As he wrote in his personal diary in 1986, he made a conscious decision to pare down his image-making, and over the next two years he produced some of the most compelling work of his career. In the blink of an eye, for example, a boldly colored painting of a skull dramatically lit by candle, is striking in its simplicity.
While Frangella was still travelling around Europe for exhibitions in 1988, his strength was declining. His works became smaller in scale, his subjects more mundane. His compositions contained less angst, and an almost meditative focus on object representation.
At the end of his life in 1990, he was only able to draw from his bedside, and these drawings soon became scribbles. Gracie Mansion held a fundraising show for him, where his friends and supporters bought these almost unintelligible works for $100 each. It was how the community supported each other. Frangella made it to the opening in a wheelchair.
He wanted to die in his native Buenos Aires, but was told it wouldn’t be medically possible, as there was a total lack of treatment there. In early November, his brother Roberto and sister Lia arrived in New York, knowing the end was near. His partner Russell Sharon returned from staying with family in Minnesota to take care of Frangella. At some point, he lost the ability to speak Spanish. On December 7th, 1990, Frangella died in his bed, near the window, with Sharon (who is still alive today) by his side.
