Steven F. Arnold
Encyclopedia
Steven Arnold was a California-based multi-media artist
, spiritualist, gender bender
, and protegee of Salvador Dali
. His work consisted of drawing
s, painting
s, rock
and film
poster
art, makeup design, costume design
, set design, photography
, and film
.
Steven also played an instrumental role in giving "The Cockettes
", the famed psychedlic San Francisco drag troupe, their first chance to perform on stage in exchange for free tickets to his "Nocturnal Dream Show" - which was among the first-ever Midnight Movie showcases. This launched The Cockettes into underground fame. Early in his career, Steven also nurtured a prolific creative relationship with pioneer of the wearable art
movement Kaisik Wong which lasted until Kaisik's death in 1989. Their work together included the production and design of a play titled "Dragonfly", and several tableaux vivant photography collaborations. Throughout his life, Steven's eccentric modes of expression led him to the upper-crust of both coasts, including encounters, in some cases lifelong friendships, with the likes of Vogue's Diana Vreeland
, actress Ellen Burstyn
, psychedelic explorer Timothy Leary
, Jay Leno
, The Cars
, George Harrison
, Blondie
's Debbie Harry
, John Waters
' star Divine, and Warhol Superstar
Holly Woodlawn
. Among Steven's most notable early works is a rarely seen film gem titled "Luminous Procuress," starring Pandora and featuring The Cockettes, which was lauded by Salvador Dali
, and Andy Warhol
, among others. In fact, Dali was so impressed with the film, that he invited Steven, Pandora (Steven's muse, and the film's star), Kaisik Wong, and their entourage to help him open his Dali Theater-Museum in Figueres, Spain. "Luminous Procuress" was edited and scored by electronic music forefather Warner Jepson. The film continues to be screened worldwide, including showings at the Tate Modern
, London , and CPH:DOX, Denmark . Steven's 1969 short-film "Messages, Message", which invited to Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival
, was recently featured at the Tate Modern
, London, and the List Visual Art Center Film Night at MIT.
Although his early film work garnered him much attention, Steven was best known for his exquisite, surreal, black & white tableau vivant
photography produced from the old pretzel factory he called Zanzibar Studios in Los Angeles. His photography has been exhibited at the Tate Modern
, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou
, Paris; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
; among others. Steven Arnold's works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art
, New York; Frankfurter Kunstverein
, Frankfurt, Germany; the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA), New York; Cinematheque Francaise
, Paris, France; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(SF MoMA); the Oakland Museum of California
; and the Cincinnati Art Museum
. His works are in the private collections of: Mikhail Baryshnikov
, Ellen Burstyn
, Cher
, Salvador Dali
, Goldie Hawn
, Yves St. Laurent, Diana Vreeland
, and many others. Steven published three books of photography during his lifetime: "Reliquaries", with foreword by Ellen Burstyn
, "Epiphanies", with afterword by James Leo Herlihy
, and "Angels of Night." Details on some of Steven's early film work is to be included in the book Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000 to be released Fall 2010. Tokion
and Lurve magazines have also recently printed articles featuring Steven's photography and sections of the upcoming retrospective biographical/autobiographical fine art book and documentary film, Steven Arnold's Heavenly Bodies, by Stephanie Farago and Steven Arnold.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, spiritualist, gender bender
Gender bender
Gender bender is an informal term used to refer to a person who actively transgresses, or "bends," expected gender roles. Gender bending is sometimes a form of social activism undertaken in response to assumptions or over-generalisations about genders...
, and protegee of Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. His work consisted of drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s, painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
poster
Poster
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
art, makeup design, costume design
Costume design
Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
, set design, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
.
Steven also played an instrumental role in giving "The Cockettes
The Cockettes
The Cockettes were a psychedelic drag queen troupe founded by Hibiscus in the late 1960s in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. The troupe performed outrageous parodies of show tunes and gained an underground cult following that led to mainstream exposure.In 1971, over differences in...
", the famed psychedlic San Francisco drag troupe, their first chance to perform on stage in exchange for free tickets to his "Nocturnal Dream Show" - which was among the first-ever Midnight Movie showcases. This launched The Cockettes into underground fame. Early in his career, Steven also nurtured a prolific creative relationship with pioneer of the wearable art
Wearable art
Wearable art, also known as Artwear or "art to wear", refers to individually designed pieces of hand-made clothing or jewelry created as fine or expressive art...
movement Kaisik Wong which lasted until Kaisik's death in 1989. Their work together included the production and design of a play titled "Dragonfly", and several tableaux vivant photography collaborations. Throughout his life, Steven's eccentric modes of expression led him to the upper-crust of both coasts, including encounters, in some cases lifelong friendships, with the likes of Vogue's Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...
, actress Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
, psychedelic explorer Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
, Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
, The Cars
The Cars
The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...
, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
's Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
, John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
' star Divine, and Warhol Superstar
Warhol superstar
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life...
Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn is a Puerto Rican-born transgendered actress and former Warhol superstar, who appeared in his movies Trash and Women in Revolt .-Early life:...
. Among Steven's most notable early works is a rarely seen film gem titled "Luminous Procuress," starring Pandora and featuring The Cockettes, which was lauded by Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, among others. In fact, Dali was so impressed with the film, that he invited Steven, Pandora (Steven's muse, and the film's star), Kaisik Wong, and their entourage to help him open his Dali Theater-Museum in Figueres, Spain. "Luminous Procuress" was edited and scored by electronic music forefather Warner Jepson. The film continues to be screened worldwide, including showings at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London , and CPH:DOX, Denmark . Steven's 1969 short-film "Messages, Message", which invited to Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, was recently featured at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London, and the List Visual Art Center Film Night at MIT.
Although his early film work garnered him much attention, Steven was best known for his exquisite, surreal, black & white tableau vivant
Tableau vivant
Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
photography produced from the old pretzel factory he called Zanzibar Studios in Los Angeles. His photography has been exhibited at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
, Paris; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
; among others. Steven Arnold's works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, New York; Frankfurter Kunstverein
Frankfurter Kunstverein
The Frankfurt Art Association is an art museum founded in 1829 by a group of influential citizen of the city of Frankfurt, Germany. The aim of the institution is to support the arts in the city, which was an important center of trade and business...
, Frankfurt, Germany; the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(MoMA), New York; Cinematheque Francaise
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, Paris, France; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
(SF MoMA); the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
; and the Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum
The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.Museum founders debated locating...
. His works are in the private collections of: Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
, Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
, Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
, Yves St. Laurent, Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...
, and many others. Steven published three books of photography during his lifetime: "Reliquaries", with foreword by Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
, "Epiphanies", with afterword by James Leo Herlihy
James Leo Herlihy
James Leo Herlihy was an American novelist, playwright and actor.Born into a working class family in Detroit, Michigan, Herlihy is known for his novels Midnight Cowboy and All Fall Down and his play Blue Denim, all of which were adapted for cinema...
, and "Angels of Night." Details on some of Steven's early film work is to be included in the book Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000 to be released Fall 2010. Tokion
Tokion
Tokion is a New York-based magazine covering art, fashion, music and film. It publishes separate US, UK, and Japanese editions. Tokion also produces the annual Creativity Now Conference, a weekend-long seminar of panel discussions with speakers from across the creative spectrum.- History :Tokion...
and Lurve magazines have also recently printed articles featuring Steven's photography and sections of the upcoming retrospective biographical/autobiographical fine art book and documentary film, Steven Arnold's Heavenly Bodies, by Stephanie Farago and Steven Arnold.