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Letter from the Hotel Chelsea Back of Page 1
Letter from the Hotel Chelsea Back of Page 1
Letter from the Hotel Chelsea Back of Page 1

Letter from the Hotel Chelsea Back of Page 1

Artist (American, born 1940)
Printer (American, 1938 - 2007)
Date1979
Mediumphotoscreenprints
ClassificationsGraphic
Credit LineGift of Betty Hahn, 2015
Object number2015.2.16
DescriptionPrint of handwritten letter on Chelsea Hotel stationery against blue background.
Text Entries

The prints in this portfolio are five-color (blue, grey, black, tan, and orange) printed on Arches 88 paper, bon a tirer, in an edition of seven, each including 7 photo silkscreens, a portfolio case, a T-shirt (unlimited edition), and a print of a blank sheet of Hotel Chelsea stationery (edition of 10). The edition was printed by Jim Kraft at Unified Arts, Albuquerque, New Mexico. See “Betty Hahn, Photography or Maybe Not,” (UNM Press, 1995), p. 188.

 

The text in the images are from a letter written from the Chelsea Hotel in New York City by Diane Luppi, a former student of Betty Hahn’s at the University of New Mexico.

 

This image shows a blue background with an image of a handwritten letter on Hotel Chelsea letterhead, to Betty Hahn from Diane Luppi. Text on this page of the letter reads:

 “and I believe has surrendered/to the Greeks. Hatians have/taken over the cab industry/& Puerto Ricans now control/Port Authority. No one in/the city seems to understand/or speak English. Either/everyone that used to speak/it has fled or else it/hasn’t been spoken for enough years that those/who once spoke it have/forgotten it. That [small crossed-out area] has/been known [small crossed-out area] to/occur in populations that/experience very rapid and/radical cultural change/[small crossed-out area] causing a lapse in/racial memory and a sudden/dissolution [sic] of linguistic symbol/structures. As a result, the/city now relies on screaming/in tongues, wild gesticulating/and monosyllabic [sic] grunts/in Esperanto. It is an/awesome experience to see” in handwriting of Diane Luppi.
Using a letter she received from a former student, Diane Luppi, as a starting point, Betty Hahn created prints that reproduce each handwritten page and the envelope in which the letter was mailed. Each sheet bears the prominent logo of the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, the historic home of many well-known artists, actors, writers, and musicians -- and thus a pilgrimage site for their fans and admirers. The letter offers a vivid verbal snapshot of Luppi’s visit to New York in the late 1970s.
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