Jim Harithas was fearless, and that fearlessness made him the only gallery director in America willing to take the risk of showing Gittoes. His Witness to War was in 2011 and twelve years on, that is still the only time my paintings, installations and drawings have been seen in the US.
I’ll never forget him. I had some good times with him, and I also got to witness some of the more crazy aspects of his personality, like when he dumped all the rotting blood from The Blood Show out the door of the Reese Palley Gallery on Prince Street, stinking up the block for days. I got to see him in rage and in unstoppable laughter.
This was the first time that somebody really took a chance on me in the sense that he’s risking other things and also he’s giving me all the freedom that I can have to set up the show and I’m very thankful. Jim Harithas is a very remarkable guy to do that.