[SIGNED] Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo (with invitation)

Monograph about the building at 80 Wooster Street and its inhabitants, weaving together first-person interviews with archival documents and photographs. The first of 16 artist coops started by Fluxus founder George Maciunas, Fluxhouse Coop II spurred the development of SoHo and provided a blueprint for the spread of loft conversions worldwide. Written by Roslyn Bernstein and Shael Shapiro and published by Jonas Mekas Foundation in 2010, the 300-page softcover book, replete with 133 illustrations (including 47 i n color), tracks the ways that legal formalities and business decisions intersected with art creation and community building in the evolution (or devolution) of the experimental artist live-work cooperative from its inception in 1967 to 2008. Original residents of the building included Jonas Mekas, Trisha Brown, and Robert Watts. Beyond this, the building drew a host of avant-garde figures to Jonas Mekas’s Cinematheque, the ground-floor space that hosted happenings, film screenings, dance and theater performances, and art shows. With an invitation card to a book signing and Maciunas exhibition at the Jonas Mekas Arts Center in Vilnius, Lithuania. Signed not only by the two authors on the half-title page, but also by Jonas Mekas (1922-2019), the Lithuanina/American filmmaker, poet, artist, film critic, and co-founder of Film Culture magazine, who was the Special Guest of Honor at the event. With a fourth, illegible signature. Gentle bumping to extremities. Creasing to invitation.