Posts from the “1970s” Category

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Urban Projects

Posted on June 19, 2018

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

In 1958, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff moved to Paris and met Jeanne-Claude, a Moroccan-born French woman who had studied philosophy at the University of Tunis. The young Bulgarian artist received a commission to paint a portrait of her mother and fell in love with the vibrant redhead, who serendipitously shared his birthday: the 13th of June, 1935. Fate conspired to unite this extraordinary pair of Geminis, who worked together until Jean-Claude’s death in 2009, transforming the experience of public art into something equal parts powerful and profound.

“I have a real need to appropriate reality,” Christo reveals in the stunning new book Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Urban Projects (D.A.P./Verlag Kettler), the first volume to give a comprehensive account of their work inside cities around the globe.

“The real is the real. The work is not a photograph, a film, or an image. It is the real thing,” Christo says, speaking with passion over the phone from the US. “This is because I have the enormous visceral pleasure of the real thing. I understand many people do not like to be in an uncomfortable place that is windy, hot, boring, because it is demanding of your effort, but if you have a physical pleasure to only do things like that (laughs), you understand. It is something.”

Read the Full Story at Dazed

“The Gates” (2005)

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Exhibitions

Remembrances of Studio 54

Posted on June 13, 2018

Pat Cleveland and Andre Leon Talley. Photo: Copyright Dustin Pittman

Glitz, glam, and glory – Studio 54 had it all. The epicenter of the New York disco scene in the 1970s, the infamous nightclub was a symbol of hedonism – a potent brew of celebrity, sex, drugs, and decadence.

In 1977, co-owners Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, converted an old CBS television studio into a magical space where Hollywood stars, fashion designers, performers, socialites, artists, models, and street legends would dance the night away.

For 33 months, Studio 54 made headlines for its outrageous stunts, becoming the stuff of legend until it all came crashing down when Schrager and Rubell were arrested for tax evasion and ended up serving 13 months in prison. In 1989, Rubell died from complications due to AIDS, while Schrager turned his life around, becoming one of the most significant hoteliers of our time. After being pardoned by President Barack Obama in January 2017, Schrager broke his 40-year silence, finally telling the true story of Studio 54.

On Friday (June 15), Studio 54, the first documentary about the famed nightclub will officially release. In celebration of this film, we spoke to its director Matt Tyrnauer and a host of Studio 54 insiders, who share their memories of the endless nights spent partying, rubbing shoulders with everyone from Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Diana Ross to Michael Jackson, David Bowie, and Karl Lagerfeld.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Palmoa Picasso. Photo: Copyright Dustin Pittman

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Remembering Interview Magazine

Posted on May 29, 2018

Diana Ross on the cover of Interview magazine. Artwork Richard F. Bernstein

Debbie Harry on the cover of Interview magazine. Artwork Richard F. Bernstein

Last week, nearly 50 years after it first launched, Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine announced that it was ceasing publication. The large format periodical, which began as a ‘Monthly Film Journal’ in an effort to entice Hollywood to bankroll and distribute Warhol’s films, evolved over a period of five decades to become ‘The Crystal Ball of Pop’, chronicling the downtown scene.

Interview was the ultimate Warholian project, giving readers insider access to the pop cultural elite through a compelling blend of glamour photography and celebrity-on-celebrity conversations that sprawled decadently across the oversize pages of the magazine. From 1972 to the late 80s, Richard F. Bernstein gave it a stamp of distinction with his exquisitely rendered portraits of everyone from Grace Jones, David Bowie, and Diana Ross to Debbie Harry, Michael Jackson, and Bob Marley, among many others.

Under the auspices of editors like Bob Colacello, Ingrid Sischy, and Glenn O’Brien, Interview constantly reinvented itself, striking the perfect balance between art and celebrity, just like Warhol himself. Here, a handful of editors and contributors share their memories of working alongside Andy, Glenn, and Ingrid over the years.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Grace Jones on the cover of Interview magazine. Artwork Richard F. Bernstein

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther Man, Art, Manhattan

Marina Muhlfriedel & Genevive Schorr: Backstage Pass

Posted on May 22, 2018

L to R: Backstage Pass band members Spock, Marina, Holly, and Genny (1977) © Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers

One night in late 1975, Marina Muhlfriedel went to the Whisky a Go Go on LA’s Sunset Strip to check out the Runaways, a new girl band fronted by Joan Jett. Her excitement quickly faded when she realized their notorious manager Kim Fowley had the band playing into sex kitten stereotypes.

After the show, Muhlfriedel gathered her girlfriends at the Rainbow Bar & Grill and they decided to do better. As fate would have it, Rodney Bingenheimer—a DJ and radio personality famous for breaking bands like Blondie and the Ramones—passed by the table. “Hey Rodney,” Muhlfriedel called out, “I just started a new girl band!” He asked their name, and she blurted out the first thing that came to mind: Backstage Pass.

The band started getting buzz before they even started rehearsing. But by 1976, they were on their way, becoming one of the earliest bands in the LA punk scene and the city’s first mostly-female punk band. (Aside from a male drummer, the four main band members were women.)

In its heyday, Backstage Pass toured California, playing alongside bands like Devo, Elvis Costello, the Screamers, the Weirdos, and the Nuns. They also helped build and launch The Masque, a legendary Hollywood punk club, before the band dissolved in 1979.

VICE recently caught up with two key members of the band, Muhlfriedel (Marina del Rey) and Genny Schorr (Genny Body) about what it’s like being a punk pioneer and a woman in a male-dominated scene.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

L: Tommy Gear (The Screamers) and Genny at Bomp Records (The Damned Instore), April 16, 1977. R: Joey Ramone, Genny, Arturo Vega Backstage at The Whisky, February 1977 © Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers

L: Genny and Marina at Screamers Party Hollywood Hills with Billy Zoom (of the punk band X) and Top Jimmy, 1977. R: Holly Vincent backstage at Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco for a Backstage Pass show with Mumps, June 1977. © Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers

Categories: 1970s, Music, Vice, Women

Susan Meiselas: Mediations

Posted on May 21, 2018

Self-Portrait, from the series 44 Irving Street, 1971. © Susan Meiselas / Magnum Photos

For more than 40 years, American photographer Susan Meiselas has grounded her work in the idea of place. Whether working on the front lines of civil war in Nicaragua or backstage with carnival strippers in New England, Meiselas is fully present in the moment, seeing not just the surface of things but that which lies beneath – the spirit within the flesh and bone that continues to live in her photographs long after they are made.

Mediations, her newest book (Damiani/Jeu de Paume/Fundació Tàpies) traces her singular journey across time and space, exploring the ways in which the photograph works as object, art, and evidence. The book, which accompanies a touring exhibition that will open at SFMoMA on July 21, is not so much a catalogue as it is a meditation on the threads that weave the complex tapestry of Meiselas’ career.

In it, a variety of writers offer their take on the issues that inform the questions at the heart of her work; such the language of the body, the meaning of place, the position of the photographer, and the legacy of documentary work. They also begin to consider the ways in which the photograph works as a book or a print, a scan or a memory.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

BOOM FOR REAL: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Posted on May 18, 2018

(L.) Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1979. Featured in the Zeitgeist art exhibition. (R.) Jean-Michel Basquiat in BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo Credit: © Alexis Adler. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

In the 1970s, the streets of New York were crumbling under the weight of the systemic denial of basic government services under a policy of “benign neglect.” As white flight took effect, landlords hired arsonists to torch their buildings, knowing they could collect more for insurance than from rent checks, while Nixon’s White House criminalized and disrupted the city under the guise of the “War on Drugs.” Then, when all hope seemed lost, President Ford dropped the death knell, refusing to bail the city out of financial crisis.

Yet within the waves of destruction, a new world began to take shape, one created by the youth who understood that necessity is the mother of invention. With nothing left to lose, they began to create grassroots cultures that would take the world by storm in the form of hip-hop, graffiti, punk, and No Wave. During the late 70s and early 80s, these scenes came together, mixing and remixing into original new forms, spawning a new breed of artist best exemplified by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Although he died in 1987 at the age of 27, his legacy looms large, inspiring new generations who recognize that the issues he addressed 30 years ago—like police brutality, erasure of African-American history, and the commodification of art—remain unresolved. Driven by a desire to unearth the roots of Basquiat’s creativity, filmmaker Sara Driver created the documentary BOOM FOR REAL: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which explores the artist’s life and legacy through those who knew him best.

Driver also teamed up with culture critic Carlo McCormick and Mary-Ann Monforton, the associate publisher of BOMB magazine, to curate Zeitgeist: The Art Scene of Teenage Basquiat, a group art exhibition featuring Basquiat’s friends and contemporaries, including Nan Goldin, Kenny Scharf, Al Diaz, and Lee Quiñones at Howl! Happening gallery in New York.

Driver spoke with VICE about Basquiat’s New York, a playground for visionaries from all walks of life that continues to speak truth to power today.

Read the Full Story at VICE

L: Jean-Michel Basquiat R: Jean and friends. Photo Credit: © Alexis Adler. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Manhattan, Vice

LES YES!: Meryl Meisler 1970s & 80s Lower East Side Photos

Posted on May 17, 2018

Mom at Sammy’s Roumanian NY, NY July 1978. © Meryl Meisler / courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

100 years ago, New York’s Lower East Side (LES) was the pre-eminent melting pot – a mixture of old and new immigrants leaving Europe en masse, creating a singular blend of Ashkenazi Jews, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Russians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Poles, and Romanians. With some 400,000 Jews living in the hood, the Ashkenazi made up one of the largest groups in the LES, bringing their unique spin on old-world culture to the city that never sleeps.

A neighbourhood with a leaning towards radical politics, the LES helped foster a new culture rooted in housing reform following the publication of Jacob A. Riis’ 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives, which documented the horrors of people forced to live in slums. The New Law Tenements passed in 1901 resulted in the construction of settlement houses – such as the Henry Street Settlement on Grand Street – which transformed living conditions for the working class, and has continued to serve the community for generations.

In 1976, a young Jewish-American photographer named Meryl Meisler began frequenting art events at the Henry Street Settlement, where her cousin and roommate taught art. Here, she met Mr Morris Katz, the self-proclaimed Mayor of Grand Street. A retired widower who once worked at Coney Island guessing weights, Mr Katz cut a striking figure that could best be described as Yiddish chic. Donning a sports jacket over a zebra-patterned shirt, patterned bow tie and plaid pants, Mr Katz warmly greeted Meisler at the street corner and offered her a lollipop. She was instantly charmed.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Women with gift boxes NY, NY April 1978. © Meryl Meisler / courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Manhattan, Photography

Janette Beckman: The Cool Clique

Posted on May 16, 2018

Salt N’ Pepa, New York. Copyright Janette Beckman

For over 40 years, British photographer Janette Beckman has been a fixture on the underground scene, creating a body of work that is stored deep in the memory banks of music fans everywhere. You may have seen her shots on the covers of seminal albums like the Police’s Outlandos D’Amour and EPMD’s Unfinished Business, or on singles like New Edition’s “Candy Girl,” the B-52s’ “Love Shack,” Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and Run-DMC’s “Mary, Mary.” One thing is for sure: Janette Beckman is everywhere.

Whether shooting music, fashion, portraiture, or documentary work, Beckman’s commitment to celebrating cutting-edge culture has made her one of the most important photographers of our time. But Beckman never rests on the success of her past achievements. Now 57 and living in New York, you can find her most recent work in the pages of Interview magazine, capturing up and coming female rappers. Or in the new Levi’s campaign—creating block party vibes for the new millennium. Whatever the case, Beckman is always in the mix, celebrating the spirit of rebellion, freedom, and self-determination that exemplifies the DIY culture that she has long helped shape.

Read the Full Story at Bust Magazine

The Islington Twins, London, 1979. Copyright Janette Beckman

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Bust, Music, Photography

Marc H. Miller: Punk Art, the Exhibition

Posted on May 15, 2018

Ruth Marten installing at the Punk Art Show

Portrait of Victor Bockris by Marcia Resnick, from her series ‘Bad Boys’

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Punk Art, the first exhibition to showcase the visual artists of a revolutionary new scene. Co-curated by Marc H. Miller and Bettie Ringma, the seminal 1978 show featured a stellar line up of talents from the burgeoning New York scene.

From Blondie’s Chris Stein, Suicide’s Alan Vega, and Ramones’ art director Arturo Vega to photographers Roberta Bayley, Marcia Resnick, and Jimmy DeSana, filmmaker Amos Poe and tattoo artist Ruth Marten, Miller and Ringma invited some of the most innovative and original artists of the time to install their work at Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, DC, an alternative arts space run by Alice Denney, who conceptualised it in the same vein as PS1.

“A whole new generation were making themselves felt and replacing the earlier generation that had emerged in the 60s. We realised that if things were going to happen, we were going to have to do it ourselves and it made perfect sense to say, ‘Okay, we can get a whole new art movement going.’ Feminist art was the model: it was more about an idea and an attitude than a specific style,” Miller explains.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

X Magazine (published by COLAB)

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Exhibitions

Huck Magazine: The Coming of Age Issue

Posted on May 14, 2018

Cover Story: Angela Boatwright X Godlis: Punk Now and Then

If coming of age means realising who you are, then the breakthrough can arrive at any time – no matter what stage you’re at. But wherever life takes us, wherever we end up, we all remain connected to the same point in our rearview mirrors: that wide-eyed teen just trying to figure shit out as best we can.

Join us as we celebrate characters who know that better than anyone – from the teenage activists shaping our future to prodigious creatives who don’t believe in failure – and keep forging their own path regardless.

For more, visit Huck Magazine

Categories: 1970s, Art, Huck, Music, Photography

Teenage Kicks: Angela Boatwright X Godlis on Punk Now and Then

Posted on May 11, 2018

What is it about punk that endlessly endures, uniting kids across space and time? Photographers Godlis and Angela Boatwright may have captured two distinct scenes – 1970s New York and contemporary Los Angeles – but in-between these images, made then and now, lies a single connecting thread.

Read More at Huck Magazine

Categories: 1970s, Huck, Music, Photography