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# Matthew Courtney, Downtown Artist Who Platformed Others, Dies at 66
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/matthew-courtney-downtown-artist-who-platformed-others-dies-at-66/
- Published: 2025-05-07T20:12:09.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:07:29.000Z
- Description: From the mid-1980s through early ’90s, he hosted the weekly anything-goes open-mic event Wide Open Cabaret at the historic home of ABC No Rio.
- Author: Maya Pontone
- Tags: News, New York, Obituary, Street Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:41 (2025)

Street artist Matthew Courtney, a founding member of the grassroots Lower East Sidearts nonprofit ABC No Rio and host of its celebrated Wide Open Cabaret series, died last week in his Brooklyn apartment at the age of 66\. A police investigation found that the cause of death was an accidental overdose, a member of the collective told *Hyperallergic*.

Born in 1959, Courtney grew up in Portland, Oregon, before eventually moving to New York City in the early 1980s, where he helped foster the growth of ABC No Rio, then an artists' squat. From the mid-1980s through early 1990s, he hosted the weekly anything-goes open-mic event Wide Open Cabaret at the art collective’s [historic 156 Rivington Street address](https://hyperallergic.com/948362/iconic-nyc-art-squat-turned-nonprofit-abc-no-rio-is-getting-a-new-home/).

The series was an underground hub for New York outsider artists and [dissident voices](https://hyperallergic.com/975729/steven-englander-visionary-director-of-abc-no-rio-dies-at-63/), and known for putting on eccentric, radical, and raw performances spanning ten-minute political ramblings, spoken word poetry, and experimental music and theater. As writer Rebecca Moore [wrote](https://www.abcnorio.org/about/history/mirabella%5F90.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) for *Mirabella Magazine* in 1990, “Sometimes it's horrible, sometimes it's a glimpse of emerging brilliance.” [Courtney had just one stipulation](https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=matthew%20courtney) for those who signed up to participate: “You are on your honor to be amazing!”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/2-mc-soho-stairs2nowhere-2011.jpg)

Courtney making a cardboard sign at his Soho sidewalk gallery Steps to Nowhere (photo by and courtesy Fly Orr)

ABC No Rio member and comic artist ​​Fly Orr told *Hyperallergic* that she was “blown away” by Courtney’s presence the first time she attended one of the Wide Open Cabaret events. 

“The audience was his co-host, but he was always the one in the spotlight,” Orr said, recalling how audience members would frequently chime in to offer words of encouragement, sing alongside performances, or voice their opposition. Amid all the loud chaos, “\[Courtney\] always knew how to rein it all in and get everyone back to a manageable state … with his very commanding, mellifluous baritone.”

Courtney's theatrics were captured in readings of his original poetry, such as “[Car Poem Number 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v20igMP-yk&ref=hyperallergic.com)” and “[Honey, I’m Home!](https://youtu.be/HY7pKQ-Imco?feature=shared&t=181&ref=hyperallergic.com),” the latter of which saw him walk through a yellow doorway and curl up on the floor in imitation of a buttered scone.

“He was beloved and admired by all who met him,” Orr continued. “He shined as much off stage as he did onstage.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/mc-art-2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/mc-art.jpg)

Courtney's visual art repurposed found objects including cardboard and newspapers. (photos by Matthew Courtney, courtesy Fly Orr)

Courtney was also a longtime fixture of Soho’s street community. Beginning in the early 2000s, he erected his makeshift, sidewalk-based Steps to Nowhere Gallery outside storefronts and restaurants on Prince Street, including [metal steps that led into the wall of a now-defunct J.Crew](https://iheartartblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/profile-matthew-courtney-steps-to.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), the [Apple Store](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10150178809051111), and [Fanelli Cafe](https://www.instagram.com/p/CeowkdQuBCG/?ref=hyperallergic.com), showcasing brightly colored Pop Artportraits and humorous poetic meanderings. Many of his artworks were produced on repurposed found materials like cardboard boxes and segments pulled from the *New York Times* (hisfavorite was the weather section, according to a [2008 Blogspot post](https://iheartartblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/profile-matthew-courtney-steps-to.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)).

“I used to draw on the front page of the *New York Times*, but the screaming headlines and dramatic photos used to rattle people and I'd stopped doing that,” Courtney said in a [2013 video interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6js2Q2hnE&ref=hyperallergic.com) filmed at the Steps to Nowhere Gallery. He turned toward other immediately accessible material:A 2021 photo posted to [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CXwhpoUOtz2/?ref=hyperallergic.com) depicts a painting made on a paper subway notice, and other images demonstrate that he frequently used [slabs of wood](https://www.instagram.com/p/CEuxKZaDG9F/?img%5Findex=1&ref=hyperallergic.com) as canvases.

“Matthew, we carry forward the memory of your presence,” ABC No Rio wrote in a [Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EjMtFPSs7/). “You made room for the voices others overlooked, and reminded us that art is not just something we make, but something we live by.”

In commemoration of Courtney, the collective is distributing copies of the self-published zine documenting the Wide Open Cabaret series this week; those interested can acquire these publications from its library at 107 Suffolk Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/wide-open-cabaret.jpg)

Fly Orr's depiction of Courtney as host of the long-running Wide Open Cabaret event series (image by and courtesy the artist)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/matt-courtney-steps-to-nowhere.jpg)

Matthew Courtney's Steps to Nowhere gallery traveled up and down Prince Street, stationed outside storefronts and restaurants. (screenshot Maya Pontone/*Hyperallergic* via @matthew\_courtney\_art on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CeowkdQuBCG/?ref=hyperallergic.com))