Posts from the “1970s” Category

Gaechter+Clahsen: Fünf Finger Föhn Frisur

Posted on November 20, 2019

Long before the Internet made nearly everything instantly accessible, beauty salons used photography to advertise and promote the styles of the day. Part headshot, part beauty photo, these photographs fell squarely into the realm of commercial photography.

Utilizing studio lighting and a basic backdrop, women became mannequins in the truest sense of the word. Here they modeled hairdos, their faces made up with “natural cosmetics” and their shoulders bare — nothing to distract the viewer from the focus: hair, hair, hair!

The photographs often hung in windows until they discolored from exposure to the sun, or were framed and hung indoors where they could be protected. Customers often tore them from magazines and brought them in to suggest the look they wanted to go for, then brought them home and carefully them to mirrors so that they could painstakingly achieve this look on their own.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Photography

Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall

Posted on November 14, 2019

Johnny Cash off the bus at Folsom State Prison, Folsom, California, 1968 Photography by Jim Marshall, taken from Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019

In March 1984, Michelle Margetts, a 19-year-old journalism student at San Francisco State University, met Jim Marshall (1936-2010) at a bar in downtown San Francisco, to interview him for a ‘Where Are They Now?’ assignment. Marshall, who had famously shot Johnny Cash flipping the bird during his historic 1969 performance at San Quentin State Prison and Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, was, in the words of Annie Leibovitz, “the rock ‘n’ roll photographer”.

But Marshall, then 45, was down on his luck after being arrested on a gun bust in 1983 and doing work release to avoid prison time. “When I met him I found him hideous: a malevolent gnome,” Margetts recalls of the man who would become a short-term boyfriend and lifelong friend. Given the opportunity to talk, Marshall poured out his heart, revealing the deep vulnerabilities that lay beneath his gruff exterior. Then, just before it was to be published, Marshall sabotaged the entire thing and the story disappeared.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Restaurant in Harlem, New York City, 1963 Photography by Jim Marshall, taken from Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Music, Photography

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Posted on November 14, 2019

J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Untitled (Suku Banana Onididi), from the series Hairstyles, 1974 (printed 2009). Courtesy of The Walther Collection and Galerie Magnin-A, Paris

S. J. Moodley, [Two women wearing Western attire], 1981. Courtesy of The Walther Collection

As European imperialists set forth to colonise the globe, they took everything they could – including images of indigenous peoples forced to pose for photographs against their will. They made, sold, and distributed images, often objectifying and fetishising the subjects. This is where our story begins.

A new exhibition, The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, features more than 100 works drawn from The Walther Collection to trace the history of female agency in photographic form. Guest curated by Sandrine Collard, the show features works by Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta, David Goldblatt, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Yto Barrada,Zanele Muholi, and Lebohang Kganye, exploring the role of women as both subject and photographer.

Read the Full Story at Huck

Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko, Nonkululeko, from the series Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, 2003. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

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

Steven Arnold: Heavenly Bodies

Posted on November 5, 2019

Heal-a-zation Swathe a la Glob-Ba, silver gelatin print, 1985. The Steven Arnold Museum and Archives

Artist, photographer, filmmaker, and “queer mystic” Steven F. Arnold (1943–1994) is a quintessential icon of our times, a revolutionary figure whose ideas about gender fluidity, radical acceptance, and non-binary consciousness, first realised in the late 1960s, are just now becoming part of the cultural conversation.

Protégé of Salvador Dalí and shared encounters with Debbie Harry, Anjelica Huston, Antonio Lopez, and Joni Mitchell, Arnold seamlessly weaved celebrity, glamour, and camp theatricality with ancient ritual, two-spirit philosophy, and eastern art into a majestic Baroque-inspired tableaux that will be on view atFahey/Klein Gallery during Paris Photo next week.

“Steven was a prophet,” says Vishnu Dass, director of the Steven Arnold Museum and Archive and director of Steven Arnold: Heavenly Bodies, a documentary about the artist’s life which came out earlier this year. “He visually fused his interests in filmmaking, spiritual traditions, sexuality, and gender to present a new visual mythology crafted for the late 20th century.”

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

The Luxury of Solitude, silver gelatin print, 1984. The Steven Arnold Museum and Archives

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther Man, Art, Exhibitions, Photography

Hugh Holland: Silver. Skate. Seventies.

Posted on October 30, 2019

Silver Skater, Del Mar Racetrack in San Diego county, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

In the summer of 1975, Hugh Holland noticed something – teenage boys on skateboards were cropping up all across Los Angeles. Holland, then in his early thirties, was fascinated by these daring young men, who surfed drainage ditches on new-fangled urethane wheels which allowed them to transform a novelty toy into a tool that combined artistry and athleticism.

Holland took up photography just as the skaters were inventing a brand new sport on the streets of Los Angeles. As fate would have it, a drought hit the city in 1976 and all the backyard pools were drained, beckoning this small band of innovative outcasts to transform the barren landscape into a creative laboratory for their newfound pastime.

Over a period of three years, Holland amassed thousands of images of the emerging scene, documenting the skaters and the atmosphere, crafting a vivid portrait of rebellious youth living their best lives under the Southern Californian sun. Now, in the new exhibition Silver. Skate. Seventies., and accompanying book published by Chronicle Books, Holland presents never-before-seen black and white photographs from his archive. Here, he reflects on the importance of DIY culture, sport and art, and the rewards of doing something you love.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Night Pier Rider, Huntington Beach, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

Solo Scott at Kenter Canyon Elementary in Brentwood, Los Angeles, 1976 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

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

Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies

Posted on October 23, 2019

Between 1977 and 1979, American artist Hal Fischer created Gay Semiotics, a landmark series of photo-text works providing a pioneering analysis of gay historical vernacular as it unfolded on the streets of San Francisco’s Castro and Haight-Asbury districts.

Inspired by the work of August Sander, Fischer made a series of street black and white portraits of gay archetypes accompanied by text that deftly deconstructed the symbols of the era’s quintessential looks such as Natural, Classical, Jock, Hippie, Urbane, Forties Trash, Western, Leather, Dominance, and Submission – along with detailed descriptions of signifiers like keys, earrings, handkerchiefs, leather apparel, gag mask, amyl nitrate, and other bondage devices.

In advance of the publication of The Gay Seventies, Fischer looks back on one of the first conceptual works to bring the structuralism and linguistics to photography and reflects on the nature of gay semiotics today.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

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

Who Is Michael Jang?

Posted on October 15, 2019

DAVID BOWIE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS, 1973 © Michael Jang

Hailing from California, Michael Jang came of age during the 1970s. Over that decade, the photographer would amass several series of work, including The Jangs (1973), Beverly Hilton (1973), San Francisco (1973–1987), College (1972–1973), and Punks & Poets (1978–1980).

However, although he has been working as a portrait photographer ever since, Jang never showed anyone his work from this period until he submitted selections to San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art in 2001.

“The museum had a drop off policy and I remember thinking I had nothing to lose,” Jang says. “The work was already three decades old, so I no longer had any emotional attachment or investment in it. But the lesson is you have to keep trying to get your work out there. You never know who will see it and what might happen.”

Read the Full Story at Huck

RAMONES FREE CONCERT, CIVIC CENTER PLAZA, 1979 © Michael Jang

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

Martha: A Picture Story

Posted on October 15, 2019

Selina Miles’ new documentary film – Martha: A Picture Story

When Martha Cooper quit her job as a New York Post staff photographer to photograph graffiti full time, she did what all true believers must do: she sacrificed financial stability, status, and recognition from the establishment. All to pursue a passion rooted in the love and understanding for that which is universal and transcendent. When her first book, Subway Art (Henry Holt, 1984), co-authored with Henry Chalfant tanked upon release, Cooper was disappointed to discover her gamble did not pay off.

“I was shooting up until Subway Art got published, and I imagined it was going to be — maybe not a bestseller, but I did think there would be more of a reaction, but there was virtually no reaction,” Cooper says. “The trains kind of died off right then. They had cracked down right at that moment. Maybe it had to do with the book? I didn’t think so then.”

Unbeknownst to Cooper, the book took on a life of its own as it found its way into the hands of graffiti writers in every corner of the globe. It had become the “Graffiti Bible,” inspiring generations of artists to pick up a can of spray paint and leave their mark on society. Over the years, countless artists have studied the book with reverence, Cooper’s photographs providing not only a template of style but also a wealth of knowledge about the underground culture that birthed it.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

Martha Cooper’s first book: Subway Art, with Henty Chalfant (Henry Holt, 1984)

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Graffiti, Photography

Stephan Bridgidi: Rome 1970s – A Decade of Turbulent Change

Posted on October 15, 2019

Rome is a cinematic wonderland: a landscape made to be immortalized in photography and film. It’s grandeur lies in the dereliction of empire everywhere you look, the inevitable, inescapable decay of the imperialist impulse. It is pure romance in the nineteenth century sense of the word: the sublime awe-inspiring knowledge that all that remains of the past is fantasy and myth.

By the 1970s, Rome had become a restless place, one of innocence long faded away. In its place, a new spirit emerged, one that evokes the pride of those who are determined to survive at any cost. It is anything but la dolce vita, though a Fellini-esque spirit lurks in the shadows of debauched darkness punctured by quivering beams of shining light.

It is in this city that American photographer Stephan Brigidi took aim, capturing slices of daily life in his new book Rome 1970s: A Decade of Turbulent Change(Daylight). Like many world capitals of the era, Rome had become a harsh, sinister place, the breeding ground for the kidnapping and murder of prominent politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1970s, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography

Martin Parr: Early Works

Posted on October 15, 2019

Martin Parr remembers when, as a young man growing up in the UK, he first realised that it was his destiny to become a photographer. It began when his grandfather lent him a camera, and increased when he discovered Creative Camera magazine in the late 1960s, immersing himself in the work of Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand.

“But what was most exciting for me was seeing the work of Tony Ray-Jones,”Parr tells AnOther. The year was 1971. Parr, a photography student at Manchester Polytechnic, came across Ray-Jones’ photographs made in England in the late 1960s and was transfixed. “This was one of those moments when your life is changed,” he remembers. “You see something and think, ‘Ahh, this is the aspiration I can look to in terms of work.’”

With his compass set, Parr set off to photograph the coast and countryside of north England and Northern Ireland, creating series of black and white works that laid the foundation for the next 50 years of his practice. In the new book,Martin Parr: Early Works(RRB Photobooks/Martin Parr Foundation), the photographer takes us back to those formative years, painting a portrait of Britain that eloquently captures the idiosyncratic character of its people.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

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

Simon Doonan: Drag – The Complete Story

Posted on October 1, 2019

Vaginal Davis, Courtesy of CHEAP

Although drag has existed on the world stage throughout human history, it was only in the early decades of the new millennium—under the care of ‘Supermodel’ singer-turned-reality television sensation RuPaul, no less—that it truly went mainstream.

Aesthete Simon Doonan, author of the richly illustrated history Drag: The Complete Story (Laurence King), gives Ru the nod as the most influential drag in a culture replete with legends. “RuPaul is the one,” Doonan tells Document, speaking on the phone from his home in New York. “Some of the drag kings and queens of the early 19th century, like Julian Eltinge and Vesta Tilley, took it very far and were internationally known, but RuPaul eclipses them. In 100 million years, no one could have ever envisioned the breadth of his impact. He’s on a Madonna-level of impact on the culture.”

Read the Full Story at Document Journal

L/ Drag queens reading Variety. Credit: Author’s own collection R/Wayne County poster. Credit: Courtesy Wayne County

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Document Journal, Photography