He made the notorious film Ecstatic Stigmatic. He designed punk jewellery worthy of Westwood. He played in a \u2018perfect\u2019 band with Lydia Lunch. Now a newly discovered archive is casting new light on this star of the New York demimonde<\/p>\n
Gordon Stevenson was a mover and a shaker within late-70s New York, back when the city was, in the words of photographer Julia Gorton, \u201ca nihilistic playground for people with trauma\u201d. Tall, rail-thin, hair cut into a severe widow\u2019s peak, Stevenson was an artist, jewellery designer, musician and the auteur behind one of no wave cinema\u2019s most notorious works, Ecstatic Stigmatic.<\/p>\n
Four decades after his death, however, he\u2019s best remembered as a footnote in other people\u2019s stories. That\u2019s all about to change, however, with the discovery of a storage unit full of his lost work, including jewellery, collaborations with mail-art pioneer Ray Johnson<\/a>, and even clues to the whereabouts of a surviving print of Ecstatic Stigmatic. Meanwhile, his family have recovered hundreds of letters Stevenson wrote to his parents, chronicling life in his downtown demimonde and his experiences as one of New York\u2019s first Aids patients.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/eb42e3af8cfb9f92682914b2b6ec9e964ec5eddc\/566_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d0b67fe6fe35d5cf8724f6c5d6765fb0\" "\\"\u2018Depraved")
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