Goth Nacht: A Night Devoted to Goth Culture
Presented by The Creative Independent x Morbid Anatomy
featuring Propaganda Magazine’s Fred Berger, Andi Harriman, Evan Michelson, Leila Taylor, Rose and Kelly’s famed Propaganda Magazine Photo Booth! Goth Dance Party to follow at nearby Brooklyn Bazaar
Wednesday, October 24
7pm - 9pm
Kickstarter Theater
58 Kent Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Free (w/ RSVP at this link)
The night will feature an interview of Propaganda Magazine founder Fred Berger by Andi Harriman, goth DJ and author of “Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace.” The talk will include visuals and videos to discuss the publication’s history and strong aesthetic as they delve into Berger’s inspiration and motivation, the controversy, and the legacy of Propaganda.
It will also feature two short talks; Black on Black: An Inquiry into AfroGoth by Leila Taylor, Creative Director for Brooklyn Public Library, and You Can’t Kill Me: I’m Already Dead by Oddities star Evan Michelson. You will also the opportunity to have your picture taken in our Propaganda Magazine Cover Photo Booth! Following, please join us for a FREE goth dance party at Brooklyn Bazaar, right around the corner, djed by speaker Andi Harriman and Joe Hart.
Please send us embarrassing youthful goth photos of yourself to morbidanatomylibrary@gmail.com for our slideshow!
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BIOS
Fred Berger was born in New York City in 1957. He studied political science and journalism at St. Johns and Adelphi universities from 1976 to 1979. From 1982 to 2002 he published and edited Propaganda, Americas premier goth magazine. For the next ten years he worked as a freelance writer, editor and photographer for various LGBT, fetish and alternative art publications. In 2013 Berger launched the Propaganda page on Facebook, which is one of its leading goth subculture sites.
Founded in 1982 by New York photographer Fred H. Berger, Propaganda Magazine started as a hardcore punk fanzine but achieved international renown as the leading gothic publication of the 80s and 90s. Covering all aspects of the goth genre including music, fashion, street style and nightlife, it also chronicled the closely related industrial movement, and eventually the fetish and alternative queer scenes. The latter phase of its counterculture evolution would prove to be its most controversial, and led to the magazines decline and fall from the late 90s to its termination in 2002. But no matter what its specific editorial focus at any given time, it remained the black bible of rebellious and alienated youth, and achieved a legendary status that continues to this day.
Andi Harriman is a writer on all things dark and Eighties-centric. She is the author of the book Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s and her writing has appeared in publications such as Red Bull Music Academy, Village Voice, Noisey, Bandcamp Daily, Electronic Beats, and LA Weekly.
Leila Taylor is currently working on a book about Blackness and the gothic and recently gave a talk at the International Gothic Association comparing the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of Strange Fruit to the Billie Holiday original. She recently completed an MA in Liberal Studies with a focus on the gothic at The New School of Social Research and has an MFA in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art. She is currently Creative Director for Brooklyn Public Library.
Evan Michelson is an antiques dealer, essayist, lecturer, curator and collector of strange, rare and beautiful objects. She has been the co-owner of Obscura Antiques and Oddities, a landmark in New York Citys East Village, for more than 20 years. Evan was also the co-star of the hit reality TV series Oddities, which ran for five seasons on Discovery Science, and a founding board member of Brooklyns very own Morbid Anatomy Museum. She has been profiled in the New Yorker and The Financial Times of London, and was recently spotted in a mosh pit in one of New York City’s most venerated independent musical venues.