Witch’s Kitchen Archive Part 2: From Genius Inc. to Beggar Bar
January 21, 2021
Actress, writer, and director Judith Malina (1926-2015) was co-founder of The Living Theatre, a radical political theater troupe that rose to prominence in New York City and Paris during the 1950s and 60s and lives on in the East Village. Her time as the hat-check girl at Beggar Bar under the wing of Valeska Gert was hugely influential on her work and activism.
Text: Edited excerpt of Judith Malina, “A Memoir of Valeska Gert and Beggar Bar.” Published in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Volume 41, Issue 3, September 2019. MIT Press, p. 1-16.
—Shana Lutker
Page 1, 2, 11, 16, 17, Google Maps. Google.
Page 1: Saxon, Wolfgang. “Leo Shull, 90, Editor and Owner of Show Business.” The New York Times. The New York Times, April 2, 1996.
Page 4: “Elizabeth and Marriage – The Early Rule of Queen Elizabeth I – Edexcel – GCSE History Revision – Edexcel – BBC Bitesize.” BBC News. BBC. Accessed January 13, 2021.
Page 5: Morris, Suzanne Spellen (aka Montrose). “This Greenpoint Church Was Designed by a Well-Known Medieval Gothic Revivalist Architect.” Brownstoner, October 17, 2017.
Page 6: Greenlight 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe New York City Police Department NYPD Vehicle (1:18 Scale)
Page 7, 8: Pollard, James. “Found in a High School Restroom: Cache of 1940s Wallets and Their Contents”. Riverfront Times, June 21, 2019. Accessed January 11, 2021.
Page 10: Advertisement for Valeska Gert’s Beggar Bar in the New York weekly Aufbau, New York, 9 October 1942
Page 12: Apmann, Sarah Bean. “The Women’s House of Detention.” Village Preservation, May 19, 2020.
Blanshard, Julia (January 9, 1932). “Modern skyscraper prison will be ‘school’ for women”. The Meridan Daily Journal. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
Page 13, 14: “Waldorf Cafeteria, Greenwich Village (Getty Museum).” The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Accessed January 13, 2021.
Page 19: Drew. “Looking Up: The Washington Square Arch.” Village Preservation, May 27, 2020.
Page 24: Valeska Gert, c.1940.
Page 27: Norman Rockwell, Hat Check Girl, 1941. Saturday Evening Post cover, May 03, 1941.
Page 28: Maria Collm https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Collm
Page 29: “In Memoriam: Judith Malina.” Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, February 20, 2019. Weber, Bruce.
“Judith Malina, Founder of the Living Theater, Dies at 88.” The New York Times. The New York Times, April 10, 2015.
About the Artist
Shana Lutker
Shana Lutker is a Los Angeles-based artist. Shaped by the archives of psychoanalysis and surrealism, her interdisciplinary work in sculpture, performance, writing, and installation foregrounds an unstable relationship between subjects, memory, and history. Recent exhibitions include Current LA:FOOD, the LA public art triennial; Virginia Woolf: an exhibition inspired by her writings at Tate St. Ives; and An Analphabet at Vielmetter Los Angeles. She was included in the Whitney Biennial in 2014 and Performa in 2013, and she has had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Perez Art Museum Miami.