Get Heroin Gia

“She scared me a little bit,” recalled Harry King. “There was something about her that made me feel uneasy. I used to say it to Way: ‘She has a demon inside of her.’” — Steven Fried, “Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia”

I’ll never forget walking into 303’s room at the first Gramercy Park Hotel art fair and seeing a big Karen Kilimnik drawing with the text GET HEROIN GIA. I laughed in an embarrassed way. It was thrilling, one of my favorite contemporary art moments ever, indelible, kind of mean but rotten glamorous. I can’t find a picture of this but it’s in a book I have. I’ll photograph it.

Gia Carangi photographed by Chris von Wangenheim, 1979.

And this is definitely the gayest thing I’ve posted all day.