Charlie Ahearn (director)

Charlie Ahearn (born 1951 in Binghamton, New York) is an American film director and creative cultural artist living in New York City. Although predominantly involved in film and video production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, and radio host. He is married to painter Jane Dickson.

Charlie Ahearn came to New York City in 1973 to attend the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (Studio Program). Later he was joined by his twin brother, John, and they became part of the artists' group Colab - short for Collaborative Projects - which was a group determined to go beyond the traditional art world and galleries, and find a way to "be creative in a larger sense".

For several years during the 1970s Ahearn, then living in downtown Manhattan, concentrated on making 16-millimetre art films. In 1977 he went to the Alfred E. Smith Projects in the Lower East Side to film local youths practice martial arts with his Super 8 camera, which exposed him to hip-hop. Whilst there he saw murals by graffiti artist George "Lee" Quiñones and started filming them alongside the local kids who were break-dancing This was something that was to influence his artistic output in the following years.

At this point, Ahearn was approached by some of these local youths who wanted to make a martial arts film, and Ahearn agreed despite never having attended film school and not knowing how to make a feature-length film. Being inspired by some of his favourite kung fu films such as 36 Chambers, Mad Monkey Kung Fu, and Five Deadly Venoms - as well as the films of Bruce Lee - he wrote, directed and produced the film titled The Deadly Art of Survival. The film was made during 1978-1979 in Super 8 format and featured Nathan Ingram, a martial arts instructor who lived in the Lower East Side, and had struggled to teach the local youths discipline and self-respect and establish a martial arts school of the same name as the film.

Ahearn showed the film in an abandoned massage parlour that Colab had taken over on the corner of 7th Avenue and 41st Street in the then rather shady Times Square area (where Ahearn also lived on 43rd Street and 8th Avenue, from 1981 to 1993). CoLab's art show - titled The Times Square Show - had a strong street orientation and included all kinds of street art (including graffiti). The show introduced artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring.

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