Take a Deep Dive into the Mysteries of The Blue Dahlia!
One of East Village artist and AIDS activist Richard Hofmann’s signature works, The Blue Dahlia (1988) is a 16-inch circular mixed-media collage featuring ink, watercolor, and layered imagery. Now available at a special price during Artabolic’s Deep Winter Sale—ending soon!
Is that a bouquet of nuns? A Sputnik-era vacuum tube? Ghostly distorted figures suspended like spectral X-rays within the Dahlia? The piece teems with haunting, enigmatic forms—each inviting its own interpretation.
Discover this work and four other rare circular collages, now at: 👉 Artabolic.com/store
One of East Village artist and AIDS activist Richard Hofmann’s signature works, The Blue Dahlia (1988) is a 16-inch circular mixed-media collage featuring ink, watercolor, and layered imagery. Now available at a special price during Artabolic’s Deep Winter Sale—ending soon!
Is that a bouquet of nuns? A Sputnik-era vacuum tube? Ghostly distorted figures suspended like spectral X-rays within the Dahlia? The piece teems with haunting, enigmatic forms—each inviting its own interpretation.
Discover this work and four other rare circular collages, now on sale at our
👉 Artabolic.com/store
richard hofmann PERFORMS “BRENDA the DAMNED” (1985)
MUST SEE! The artist Richard Hofmann performing in drag as BRENDA THE DAMNED, a 1985 16mm film newly digitized by VisualAIDS and presented by Artabolic Arts Management.
** CLICK HERE TO TAKE ME TO THE FILM! **
In a time when LGBTQ+ visibility—and the visibility of other marginalized communities— now faces extreme threat, we must stand against erasure and affirm our full humanity. With that in mind, I present to you some rare footage, stored away in a 16MM film canister for forty years and now newly digitized, thanks to the tireless team at VisualAIDS.
Richard Hofmann (1954–1994), the prodigious East Village painter and AIDS activist, takes on the role of the buxom giant in Brenda the Damned, primping, plumping, and noshing her way through a dramatic reenactment of her legendary ‘mama Cass chokes on a chicken bone' scene. Get your mind blown!
As a special treat at the end, the artist sheds the makeup, offering a demure glimpse of himself as a strapping young man.
Click here or on one of the stills below to view the film!
Richard Hofmann as BRENDA
Richard Hofmann wigless and shirtless!