taylor mead rip

TAYLOR MEAD RIP

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“Taylor Mead is a performance poet, painter underground film star, comedic actor, astral clown, whimsical beatnik, refugee from old money, a true pop prince and the real son of Andy Warhol. Featured in over 100 films including many Warhol films, Mr. Mead is unequaled as the insouciant pop enigma who has seen everything and done it all.” – Penny Arcade

Taylor Mead passes on after a lifetime of art, much of which spent in the absurdist vein. Though his passing ends on a bitter note, the throngs of life/culture/societal clusterfuck having weighed down heavy during his last months. The same old song and dance it seems, gentrification and the trials and tribs of dealing with a system hellbent on getting rid of the old, and making way for the profit, damned the laws, screw the ethics… That story regarding Taylor’s recent struggles is written about here, wherein friend and photographer Clayton Patterson remarks about Taylor’s ongoing housing situation, “It’s going to kill him.”

An agreement apparently was reached in the last few weeks, but…

But it’s a sad tale, more than a few angles to ponder on art, the continual for profit growth paradigm in culture, and the end game to it all.

Put those absurdities aside and instead celebrate the experimental absurdity that was able to make some continual noise while alive, the “astral clown” as quoted above, Taylor Mead.

Taylor Mead, The Lower East Side Biography Project, excerpt from biography from Steve Zehentner on Vimeo.