New York Magazine - USA (2020-03-30)

52 newyork| march30–april12, 2020

McGough found the

taxidermy puffin in

a shop in Iceland when

visiting there for a show.

“i don’t mind being alone. I like it,”

says artist Peter McGough from his West

Village apartment, where he is quaran-

tined along with his dog, Queenie. “I have

my books. I have all sorts of things to keep

me occupied.”

This past fall, he published a memoir, I’ve

Seen the Future and I’m Not Going: The Art

Scene and Downtown New York in the 1980s,

mostly about his years making art—con-

structing and then dogmatically living in an

entirely Victorian-style world—with David

McDermott, his onetime lover and art-

making partner. The two dressed as if they

were in a period film—top hats, detachable

collars—and even puttered around the city

in a Model T. Their work appeared in three

Whitney Biennials and was exhibited by

Cheim & Read in New York, Galerie Jerome

de Noirmont in Paris, and Bruno Bischof-

berger in Zurich, and they made the covers

of Artforum and Art in America. All the

while, they lived in an extraordinary man-

ner, whether it was in their 1840s townhouse

on Avenue C, lit by candles and heated with

wood-burning stoves, or in the 1865 Kings

County Savings Bank at the base of the Wil-

liamsburg Bridge, or in their 1790 house in

the Catskills. It was all grand in a Miss Hav-

isham kind of way. “Even when we lived in a

hovel,” McGough says, “we’d get a can of

paint and paint it. I found 18th-century fur-

niture in the garbage! I found velvet chairs

from the ’40s. People threw out so many

good things.” Nonetheless, they made a great

deal of money, overspent lavishly, then lost

much of what was left to back taxes. McDer-

mott moved to Ireland. McGough joined

him for a spell, then returned.

He moved to this apartment three years

ago from a 1930s building on Christopher

Street. His friend Fernando Santangelo, the

interior designer, had been living here (“It

was all white, and it was spars ished

with beautiful things,” McGo , and

when Santangelo moved out, McGough

moved in. It’s the only apartment in the

Fora show, hehadthe

phallus-leggedconsolemade,

basedona tablehesawin

CatherinetheGreat’s

collection.“I thought,Well,

nooneis goingtobuyit

anyway,sothisis goingtogo

rightinthefrontroom.”

“I bartered for that.

It’s that famous

360-degree 1933

sculpture of

Mussolini’s head

by Renato

Giuseppe Bertelli.”