Posts from the “1970s” Category

Matthew Rolston: Hollywood Royale

Posted on March 1, 2018

Cybill Shepherd, Reclining, Los Angeles, 1986Matthew Rolston © MRPI, Courtesy Fahey/Klein Los Angeles

Anitta, Flower Gown, The Surreal Thing, Series, New York, 1987Matthew Rolston © MRPI, Courtesy Fahey/Klein Los Angeles

The magical grandeur of Hollywood glamour first came into vogue when Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich fled their native Germany in the 1930s and brought the aesthetics of the Weimar Republic stateside. Together they made six films at Paramount Studios, and introduced an innovative look using the spotlight on the face to create a luminous mask that stood in sharp contrast to the dark shadows it cast, emulating the aesthetic of 1920s Berlin.

By the early 1960s, the look had run its course and faded away, until Andy Warhol and Helmut Newton resurrected it in the late 1970s. Los Angeles native Matthew Rolston got his start at this time, shooting for Interview before rising to the heights of celebrity photography as a new Golden Age of Hollywood photography took shape. Working for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Esquire, Rolston embraced the aesthetics of George Hurrell and Irving Penn, creating timeless portraits of the era’s greatest icons from Prince, Michael Jackson, and Madonna to Christian Lacroix, Yohji Yamamoto, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

In celebration, Hollywood Royale: Out of the School of Los Angeles opens tomorrow at Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, in conjunction with the recent publication of a magnificent monograph by the same name from teNeues featuring works made between 1977 and 1993. Here, Rolston speaks with us about the timeless allure of the glamour photo.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Don Johnson, Polo Clothes, Miami, 1986Matthew Rolston © MRPI, Courtesy Fahey/Klein Los Angeles

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

Arlene Gottfried: A Lifetime of Wandering

Posted on February 28, 2018

Couple with Glasses. (Arlene Gottfried / Courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art)

American artist Arlene Gottfried was a quiet storm of power, beauty and strength. She traversed the streets of her native New York, photographing the heart and soul of the people who have made the city a wholly original place.

Over her 50-year career, Gottfried saw New York through its ups and downs. Hailing from Brooklyn, she moved to the West Village in her early 20s, hitting the nightclubs during the era of Studio 54 and Plato’s Retreat, hanging out on New York’s Lower East Side and singing in an African American gospel choir. Whether photographing seminal figures like activist Marsha P. Johnson and poet Miguel Piñero or three generations of women in her Ashkenazi Jewish family, Gottfried had the empathetic eye, imbuing understanding, warmth, and humor into every picture she made.

After a long battle with breast cancer, Gottfried died in August, and in celebration of her life and work, Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York is opening “A Lifetime of Wandering” (Feb. 28 to April 28, 2018). The exhibition features a selection of work made throughout her career, including never-before-seen black and white, color, and Polaroid photographs made on the streets, the beaches and in the parks of her beloved New York.

Read the Full Story at The Lily

Woman on Subway. (Arlene Gottfried / Courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art)

Marsha P. Johnson (Arlene Gottfried / Courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art)

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Photography, The Lily

Nathan Farb: The Russians

Posted on February 28, 2018

Mother and Daughter, 1977. © Nathan Farb

In June 1977, during the height of the Cold War, American photographer Nathan Farb travelled to the city of Novosibirisk, Siberia, the third-largest city in Russia nestled deep in the South. Farb was travelling as part of Photography USA, part of the United States Information Agency, established as a cultural exchange program under President Carter’s administration.

Farb brought a four x five Polaroid camera and loads of film to create black and white portraits of visitors throughout the six-week exhibition. “There were as many as five or ten thousand people a day who came to the show,” he remembers. “Everybody wanted to be photographed because they were going to be able to take home a portrait. I could only do 30 or 40 a day as I wanted it to be very precise, like a gold wire that connects one point to another with the least resistance.”

While his subjects left with a print, Farb kept the negatives for himself, sending them back to the United States in a diplomatic pouch. Upon his return, Farb began publishing the photographs in The New York Times Magazine and in publications around Western Europe, before eventually being compiled in a monograph. The works, which were first exhibited in 1979 at the Midtown Y Gallery, New York, are once again on view in The Russians at The Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City, California, now through April 29, 2018.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Twins with cowboy hats. © Nathan Farb

Categories: 1970s, Art, Huck, Photography

Christopher Makos: Warhol at Montauk

Posted on February 28, 2018

Andy Warhol with Pat Cleveland. Photography Christopher Makos

Back in 1971, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey purchased Eothen, a 12-hectare oceanfront estate on the Long Island shore for $225,000. A true East End landmark, Eothen was built in 1931 by American architect Stanford White as a fishing camp for the Church family of Montana, who used it for two weeks in September when the striped bass were running.

Comprised of four individual cottages, a three-bedroom main house, a stable, a three-car garage, and nearly a kilometer of uninterrupted coastline, Eothen boasts a fabled pedigree that continues to the present day. In 2017, Mickey Drexler, the CEO of J. Crew, sold the property to Adam Lindemann, a private investor and influential collector of contemporary art and design.

Eothen is one of the crown jewels of Montauk, a town that has evolved into a destination locale. But back in the 1970s and 80s, during the Warhol era, it was a still tiny fishing town populated by local craftsman, property maintenance people, and a smattering of wealthy people like writer Tennessee Williams and talk-show host Dick Cavett, who sought out sanctuary from the madness of New York City.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Andy Warhol photographing Halston. Photography by Christopher Makos

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Photography

Daido Moriyama and the Aesthetics of Punk

Posted on February 26, 2018

“Pachinko”, 1982. © Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery

Born in 1938 in Osaka, Japan, Daido Moriyama has become one of the pre-eminent fine art photographers of our times. As witness to the changes that transformed Japan after World War II, Moriyama used the camera to expose a side of his native land that few outsiders know, creating a body of work that is gritty and jarring, yet profoundly beautiful.

Moriyama first arrived in Tokyo in 1961 and began working as a freelance photographer in 1964. It was during the ’60s that he developed his distinct style, stripping the photograph down to its bare bones, embodying the pure D.I.Y. ethos of punk in visual form and providing a fresh new way of seeing the world.

He first came to the attention of the world in 1974, when his work was included in the New Japanese Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since then, his profile has continued to grow, with his work influencing generations of artists who can’t help but imitate the iconoclastic master of the form.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Hawaii, 2007/2008 © Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Japan, Photography

Under Cover: A Secret History of Cross-Dressers

Posted on February 22, 2018

Photo: Guilda, [one of a triptych]. New York, United States, circa 1950.

At the tender age of 10, Sébastien Lifshitz began collecting found photographs of men and women who refused to conform to the strictures of gender roles that demanded dressing according to an arbitrary set of rules. Here, in the privacy of their own space, they were free to don whatever clothing they wished and created a picture that stood as evidence to who they knew themselves to be.

Over the years, Lifshitz haunted flea markets, garage sales, junk shops, and eBay, amassing an impressive collection of amateur photographs of mostly anonymous men and women from Europe and the United States that date between 1880 and 1980. A selection of these works is on view in Under Cover: A Secret History of Cross-Dressers at The Photographer’s Gallery (February 23 – June 3, 2018).

“The subject of gender non-conformity and trans identity is something that feels very urgent right now: in our press, our social consciousness,” observes Karen McQuaid, Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery. “We live with socially cultivated assumptions that men are one way and women are another when it comes to our dress, our actions, our accessories, our ambitions even – and historically there hasn’t been a lot of freedom in how we respond to these things. The more these issues are discussed openly, the more we educate each other and see gender as a spectrum.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

René Boivin photographer, Paris, France, circa 1930.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Huck

Philip Trager: New York in the 1970s

Posted on February 16, 2018

West Broadway, 1978. © Philip Trager

In 1970, Daniel Patrick Moynihan convinced the Nixon White House to support a policy of “benign neglect,” wherein basic government services were systemically denied to cities across the United States with large African-American and Latinx populations.

New York City quickly became the nation’s most famous victim of “urban blight” at the hands of the state. The city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy as manufacturers fled en masse, while landlords hired arsonists to torch their buildings knowing they could get more money from insurance than they could from resale. The city fell into desolate and desperate straits. Yet within this horrific landscape, New York maintained its dignity and strength, becoming the site for the most explosive cultural movements of the late 20th century.

The city’s landmark buildings and dramatic vistas were a symbol of the potent energy that lay within, a vision that spoke to American photographer Philip Trager. He and his wife Ina packed a view camera and two tripods into their Jeep Commando and drove into Manhattan from Connecticut, where they lived at the time.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

West 122nd Street, 1979. © Philip Trager

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Huck, Manhattan, Photography

A Portrait of the Legendary Barkley L. Hendricks

Posted on February 15, 2018

“YOCKS”, 1975© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

In October 1968, Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, made it plain in a court of law, when he faced conspiracy charges as part of the Chicago 8, stating: “We’re hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people. You got that?”

Seale gave voice to a fact that was widely understood. So long as black folks are denied the opportunity to share their vision with the world, their lives and stories would be marginalised, misrepresented, or eradicated from the historical record.

Seale’s words were not lost on African American artist Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017), who donned a novelty Superman t-shirt, sunglasses, and nothing else for a self-portrait titled “Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale)” in 1969. The North Philadelphia native embodied the height of cool, a sensibility that dates back to 15th-century Nigerian Empire of Benin and has found its way across the African diaspora for six centuries.

Adopting the “cool pose,” with his arms folded across his chest against a simple grey backdrop framed in red, white, and blue, Hendricks tells it like it is. He is calm, fearless, and aloof, fully in control, poised, and dignified. Such is the strength of the painting that it was chosen as one of the primary images to promote Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, the landmark traveling exhibition which originated at Tate – opening just a couple of months after Hendricks’ death on April 16 at the age of 72.

“If you’re gonna do it, you might as well be memorable,” Hendricks told Thelma Golden, the Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, in the seminal 2008 monograph, Birth of the Cool (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University), which has just been republished to include a memoriam to the artist and a selection of new images from his oeuvre.

The book, edited by Trevor Schoonmaker, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher, brilliantly presents a masterful look at the figurative painting, a selection of which can be seen in the next iteration of Soul of a Nation, which opened earlier this month at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as in the exhibition catalogue, available from the Tate, which features Hendricks’ painting “What’s Going On” (1974) on the cover.

But Hendricks’ genius goes far beyond the known. In his death, a wealth of previously unseen works have been revealed. Today, at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, will present Barkley L. Hendricks, Them Changes, the first ever exhibition of newly discovered works on paper made contemporaneously with his famous portrait paintings.

These works take us inside Hendricks’ process, giving us a look at the way he crafted and mastered a visual language entirely his own. “While best known for his bold life-sized portraits, Hendricks is also an accomplished photographer, landscape painter, watercolourist, draftsman, assemblage artist, carpenter, and jazz musician,” Schoonmaker wrote in the introduction to Birth of the Cool, reminding us that the man behind the easel was just as fascinating as the subjects he painted.

Here Elisabeth Sann, Director of Jack Shainman Gallery, shares insights into Hendricks’ singular career that never fails to surprise and delight people from all walks of life.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Misc. Tyrone (Tyrone Smith)”, 1976© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Dazed, Painting

Mr Chow: 50 Years

Posted on February 15, 2018

“Michael Chow, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat’s mother and friends” (1984). Silver gelatine print; 77/8 x 97/8 inches.Artwork by Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“Portrait of Michael Chow” (1984). Polymer silkscreened on canvas; 80 x 80 inches.Artwork by Andy Warhol. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Restauranteur. Designer. Architect. Art Collector. World Traveler. Icon of style and substance Michael Chow – or M, as he is known – has transformed fine dining into an art at Mr Chow, providing a magical bridge between the East and the West for the past fifty years.

M was born Zhou Yinghua in 1939 in Shanghai to Zhou Xingfang (1895-9175), a leading figure in the Peking Opera who wrote and acted in more than 650 titles during his illustrious career, and Lilian Qui (1905-1968), who hailed from a wealthy family whose fortune was made in tea.

At the age of 13, everything changed when M was sent to boarding school in London. What he didn’t know at the time was that he would never see or communicate with his father again. “Suddenly there was a void within me,” M reveals.

Into that chasm, M plunged – first in despair, then finding himself in art. He studied at St. Martins and went on to paint for a decade before the market forces made it apparent that it was not receptive to a Chinese artist. Once again, M turned to art to guide the way, launching the very first Mr Chow in Knightsbridge in February 1968.

From the very outset, Mr Chow was not just a restaurant – it was theatre: a stage for pleasure, passion, and intrigue, where Italian waiters served fine Chinese cuisine to sophisticated clientele and artworks by Allen Jones, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, and Jim Dine became an integral part of the experience. He established three restaurants in London before setting a course to conquer America.

Over the past half-century, M has opened restaurants in Beverly Hills, New York, Miami, and Las Vegas, always bringing glamour and theatre to the dining experience. Now, on the occasion of Mr Chow’s golden anniversary, M has released, Mr Chow: 50 Years (Prestel/Delmonico), a beautifully illustrated volume that explores a singular life in art, architecture, design, and cuisine, combining the very best of the east and the west.

Featuring works by Helmut Newton, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Kenny Scharf, Francesco Clemente, and Ed Ruscha, just to name a few, the book reveals the significant role Mr Chow has played in the art world over five decades. Here, M speaks with us about a life in art: the past, present, and future vision of a man whose magic has touched countless hearts.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Manhattan, Photography

Meryl Meisler: Self-Portraits Before Cindy Sherman

Posted on February 7, 2018

Growing up in Long Island during the 1950s and 60s, Meryl Meisler had the typical suburban life: Girl Scouts, ballet and tap dance lessons, and prom. But while she loved her family and friends, she didn’t quite fit in. She quickly realized she didn’t want to be a housewife, teacher, nurse, or a secretary—pretty much the only options available to young women at that time.

As Meisler came of age, she began to discover her sexuality as a lesbian as well as her identity as an artist. “Photography is in my genes,” Meisler said. Her paternal grandfather Murray Meisler, her uncle Al, and her father Jack had all been lifelong practitioners of the art.

Meisler got her first camera in second grade, but it wasn’t until she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in Madison during the mid-1970s that she became serious about the form while pursuing an MA in Art. During school breaks, she returned to her childhood home, where she staged a series of self-portraits that examined her past, present, and future. At this point, Meisler hadn’t heard of Cindy Sherman, but she had the same instinct. She sought to examine the construction of the female gender, from its rituals to its poses to its personas.

A selection of these photographs appears in Purgatory & Paradise: SASSY 70s Suburbia & The City (Bizarre), while others have recently come to light as Meisler prepares for her next book. Here, she speaks with us about this seminal period of her life, sharing a self-portrait of the artist as a young woman ready to take flight.

Read the Full Story at Vice

Categories: 1970s, Books, Photography, Vice, Women

Manhattan Transit: The Subway Photographs of Helen Levitt

Posted on February 2, 2018

Helen Levitt was an extremely private person and preferred to let her photographs speak for her – and if you listen very carefully, you might just hear the Bensonhurst accent coming through. “Dawling,” a photograph might intone with intimate familiarity, suggesting we come closer to get the gossip or a bite to eat. “Fuhgeddaboudit,” another might insist, making it clear the window for opportunity is firmly shut.

The Brooklyn soul of Levitt is firmly entrenched in her perfectly composed portraits of daily life in New York. Once upon a time before gentrification took hold, New Yorkers were everything America aspired to be. They came from all walks of life, frequently crossing paths, having the good sense not to gawk or to stare because that would be gauche. They came to expect the unexpected and took it in stride, spouting Cindy Adams catchphrase, “Only in New York, kids,” with pride.

They were characters, in every sense of the word, but rarely were they posers because somebody would pull their card. The New York of Helen Levitt spanned seven decades, from the 1930s through 90s, as she walked it streets, discreetly taking photographs without anyone clocking her. She was as much a part of the scene as everyone else, but she was on a mission: to create a body of work in tribute to this big galoot, this metropolis sitting on a pile of schist that would becoming the most powerful city in the world while Levitt walked its streets.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography