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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

came out of SDS and was a high priced p.r. guy during the anti- Vietnam thing. He did the rock concert at Diablo Canyon, he knew his way around. The guy working with him was, his second name is, Hinckley -- I forget his first name. He became the head of Amnesty International for awhile, and he's now on the coast in Amnesty International. Very nice guys. They were working with Peter, so Peter's “The Bridge” became part -- Bread and Roses became their, they would do p.r. for this thing. So we began to plan for an opening of the exhibition in the gallery.

Q:

We're talking now about the fall of 1980?

Foner:

We're talking now, probably, about the fall of 1980, yes. They sketched out with a book, you know. As always happens in those cases I find that I'm doing the p.r. They helped a little bit on it -- they helped considerably -- but I was doing the major p.r. But anyway they staged an opening, an opening at the gallery. The opening was a reception with a printed thing. Bella Abzug, Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, Gloria Steinem, Peter Yarrow, Henry Geldzahler -- who's a big name in the museum field. He was a commissioner of cultural affairs in the City. “You are invited to an opening, the opening of Images of Labor.” It became an event. We had 400 people there. All of the artists were there. I call them -- you know the Secaucus Seven? The Images 32. At one point I asked them “Would they all stand?,” because I couldn't introduce them individually. This was in the auditorium.

But as part of the speaking thing -- I chaired it, someone from Pilgrim Press spoke. One of the artists spoke -- I think it was Alice Neel, because she's the dean. Some important people spoke. I remember Gloria Steinem got up from the audience and started to talk. Some of the big names got up from the audience and started to talk. But Peter Yarrow -- and we worked on this with Peter. We did a slide presentation with the quotations, with the art, and with Peter doing songs. That was part of the presentation -- it was very moving. Then the people went downstairs. The next day, the Daily News and a lot of the papers had -- you know like their Broadway -- the gossip columns with pictures of the thing. Before it opened I got through to Edwin Diamond, who at that time was working on the Manhattan section of the Daily News. He's the media guy for New York Magazine. He agreed, and I did an OpEd piece for the Daily News' OpEd page -- “Bread and Roses,” with reproductions of the art. I got like half a page. So it opened, and it did well in New York. A lot of p.r., a lot of media, a lot of reviews. We were now getting commercial reviews as well as art reviews. Art reviewers gave it a great review, really great review.





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