Alan Vega

ghost rider New York

interview by JÉRÔME SANS
portraits by ARI MARCOPOULOS

Alan Vega in his loft in Fulton Street, New York, 1981

 

An artist, musician, and pioneer of electronic music during the heyday of Cage and Stockhausen, Alan Vega was both the first punk and an alluring rock-a-billy crooner. The cult-like following of his band Suicide — the first to use a drum machine — ultimately defined him as an underground New York icon. Never playing for commerce, he devoted his life to art, music, drawing portraits, and the elaborate wire-infested light sculptures he made from junk and found materials. First represented by the legendary OK Harris Gallery, in the 1980s he showed at the powerful Barbara Gladstone Gallery, and later worked with Jeffrey Deitch. He died in his sleep on July 16, 2016.

JÉRÔME SANS — Before making music in the ’60s, you…