When I lived in New York, every time I walked by the Chelsea Hotel, I wondered about its histories and residents. Living in the hotel was a badge of honor as it housed artists, writers, and musicians who defined New York City until it closed it’s doors in 2011. Photographer Linda Troeller was there to document the happenings. “There was always something going on – a film shoot by Milos Forman; Andy Warhol shot his movie, “Chelsea Girls,” in and around the El Quixote Restaurant; Christo sawed off his bathroom doorknob and incorporated it into an artwork now in the collection of the Hirshorn Museum- events that just didn’t happen in most other apartment buildings but at the 1884 Gothic landmark. It has 10 floors and about 400 rooms, designed by the firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company. Plaques eulogize luminaries in the front facade.”
Last year Schiffer published a book of her images, Living in the Chelsea Hotel, and on October 21st, Linda will open an exhibition under the same title at the Leica Gallery in Los Angeles. Her original photographs were shot on an M-3 and the show will include new images shot on a Leica Q. The show runs through to Dec. 2, 2019 with an Opening Reception on Thursday, Oct. 24th 6-9pm and lecture/book signing Sunday, Oct. 27 at 10am at 8783 Beverly Blvd, West Hollywood, California.
Linda Troeller is a New York photographer with books that explore health, sexuality and self-portraiture, including Healing Waters, Aperture; Erotic Lives of Women, Scalo. She won 1st place in Pictures of the Year and a book award from International Photo Awards. Her photographs are part of the permanent collections of UC Riverside; George Eastman House; Haverford College; Syracuse University, and are featured in publications as The New York Times, Marie Claire, and European Photography. She taught photography at Otis, LA; Parsons, Stockton University, and lectured at Yale, Griffin Museum, Photo-Nola among other festivals. She has a MFA, School of Art; MS Communication, Newhouse, SU; and BS from Reed College of Media, WVU.
Living in the Chelsea Hotel
I will exhibit my early Leica M-3 and recent update with the Q shot at the Chelsea Hotel at the Leica Gallery, Los Angeles opening on Oct 24 until December 2, 2019. My focus is on the atmosphere and resident’s lives at the1884 landmark where I lived for twenty years until 2013 when I experienced an eviction notice and left due to unmanageable renovation dust.
My approach is to blend color assemblages through processing of the suggested and energizing a sense of place from fragments, signs, things heard, things felt in this cave to excavate suitcases of memories. My activism and history is chronicled in my 2016 book “Living in the Chelsea Hotel,” Schiffer in which the progression of photographs evoke a genesis of apparitions and moods that often seem to ventilate from the skylight into the rooms.
I met fashion designer, Alexander McQueen in the lobby and and he invited me to his Lower East Side fashion show. It changed my photography direction to shoot more vibrant color while Herbert Hunche, the 82 year old beat who lived across the hall read me poems that taught me art making lasts a lifetime.
The Chelsea Hotel has been an international meeting place where artists learned from each other and made contacts. It has 10 floors and about 400 rooms, designed by the firm of Hubert, Pirrson & Company. Plaques eulogize luminaries in the front façade. The Hotel has always had something going on – Andy Warhol shot his movie, “Chelsea Girls,” in and around the El Quixote Restaurant; Christo sawed off his bathroom doorknob and incorporated it into an artwork now in the collection of the Hirshorn Museum- events that just didn’t happen in most other apartment buildings. The creative DNA progresses onward toward a 2020 re-opening. – Linda Troeller
