TOM RUBNITZ

WHERE'S THE PICKLE? THAT'S THE SURPRISE!

Celebrating Tom Rubnitz

First Edition

Publ. by Goswell Road, 2020

ISBN 979-10-97061-23-4

Softcover (21cm x 29.7cm)

88 Pages

75 copies

Price: 20 €

I wanted to make things beautiful, funny and positive—escapes that you could just get into and laugh through. That was really important to me. I felt like good could triumph over evil.

Tom Rubnitz

Goswell Road is proud to publish the first book proposition dedicated to the video works of Tom Rubnitz (1956-1992). Rubnitz embodied the ‘80s downtown New York drag and performance scene for over a decade before his untimely AIDS-related death in 1992. Deftly parodying TV culture and fearlessly standing up to homophobic governmental policies, his videos draw us in with their infectious cartoonish sheen before getting under our skin and burrowing deep into our collective psyche.

The book features writing and images from Rubnitz’s collaborators and family, including; Maria Ayala, Jesse Hultberg, Tom Koken, Barbara Lipp and Tom’s sister and siblings, as well as exclusive interviews with Ann Magnuson and Hapi Phace by Vincent Simon. 

Special thanks to the Video Data Bank for allowing us to print the video stills.