“Park Avenue Punk”

“Park Avenue Punk” is a phrase Andy Warhol recalled suggesting to Ultra Violet as the name for a new look. In her account, the idea helped prompt her “Christian Punk” act, making the phrase a small but revealing instance of style turning into performance.

A name for a new look

On Palm Sunday, March 19, 1978, Warhol recorded seeing Ultra Violet at lunch with Salvador Dalí. She reminded him that at their previous meeting he had advised her to start a new look, which he called “Park Avenue Punk.” The phrase joins the polish and social associations of Park Avenue to punk’s deliberate departure from convention; in the diary, it is not an abstract label but advice Ultra Violet remembered and put to use.

From style to performance

Ultra Violet told Warhol that his suggestion gave her the idea for “Christian Punk.” She was developing an act in which she sang the Lord’s Prayer while inserting the word “asshole”—a choice Warhol found disgusting. She planned to perform at the Riverboat, while Warhol urged her to start at CBGB. The contrast between the sacred prayer and the profanity made the act’s provocation explicit, while the two proposed venues placed it between an established performance setting and a punk club.

The look in material detail

The encounter also gives the phrase a visual context. Ultra Violet wore the same pink Chanel miniskirt suit, boots, and hairstyle she had worn when Warhol first met her in the sixties. Her accessories turned everyday materials into conspicuous fashion: one bracelet was a Brillo pad, which she said she would later use to clean her pot; another was made from eight inches of corrugated bottle-wrap cardboard, sprayed gold and glued together. The diary records her inventive styling through Warhol’s gaze, but also preserves her explanation of the objects and her own account of how the suggested look became an act.