If you are going to tell the story of your life, it helps to have had an interesting one. Gerard Malanga has. A poet whose work has appeared in Poetry, Partisan Review, The Paris Review and The New Yorker, the multi-faceted Malanga is remembered by students of art history as the artist who executed Andy Warhol's famous silkscreen portraits. He is currently better known for his superb photographic portraits of artists and musicians. In a 2001 show, The Pop Years, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, an entire wall was devoted to his work. In the exhibition currently on view at the Park Row Gallery in Chatham, he tells the story of his life through the unlikely medium of exquisite photographs of cats he has either owned or known, accompanied by explanatory text. Of "Eban in the golden hour, 1985", for example, Malanga begins, "Eban was William Burroughs' favorite cat. Whenever I'd run into Bill, he'd always ask, 'How's Eban?'" Gerard Malanga, "The Cats in My Life" now through March 29 at the Park Row Gallery, 2 Park Row, Chatham; 518.392.4800
