Posts from the “1980s” Category

Rough Trade: Art and Sex Work in the Late 20th Century

Posted on August 16, 2018

Untitled (Hustler’s Handshake) from the portfolio Teenage Lust, c. 1981, Vintage gelatin silver print, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City© Larry Clark

In the years between the sexual revolution, Stonewall, and the advent of AIDS, the repressive respectability politics of the 1950s fell away, allowing a generation of men and women to come of age expressing their sexuality with more freedom than ever before. As social attitudes relaxed, many artists explored massage parlours, go-go bars, pornographic theaters, and strip clubs – the spaces where sex work flourished.

Greg Ellis of Ward 5B, has curated Rough Trade: Art and Sex Work in the Late 20th Century, a new group exhibition currently on view at ClampArt, New York, until September 22, 2018. Organised to coincide with David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, this exhibition takes a look at the relationship between artists and sex workers.

Some, like Wojnarowicz and Mark Morrisroe, drew upon their traumatic early histories as hustlers, while others like Larry Clark and Tomata du Plenty documented their friends, lovers, and acquaintances involved in the sex industry. Rough Trade also includes works by John Barrington, Kenny Burgess, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Fred Halsted, John Sex, Jane Sherry, Pedro Slim, Samuel Steward, and Tommy Vallette, as well as related ephemera. Speaking to Another Man, Ellis shares his insights on this fascinating side of art history.

Read the Full Story for AnOther Man

Tattooed Man, 1957, Ink and watercolor on artist board, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City © Sam Steward [Phil Sparrow]

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

Q. Sakamaki: Tompkins Square Park

Posted on August 9, 2018

Keith Thompson, a homeless activist, and his supporters demonstrate for affordable housing on Avenue B, August 1989. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

On Avenue A in front of the park, protesters hurl bottles at police. May 27, 1991. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

New York City’s East Village has been home to artists, anarchists, and activists for generations. But by the summer of 1988, ravaged by the twin plagues of crack and AIDS, the neighborhood’s Tompkins Square Park became an ad-hoc camp for homeless people, squatters, punks, drug dealers, and users. In an effort to assert control, the Parks Department enforced a 1 AM curfew in the previously 24-hour park, sparking outrage.

Thirty years ago this week, on August 6, protesters occupied the park wielding signs that read, “Gentrification Is Class War, Fight Back” and chanting, “It’s our fucking park, you don’t live here!” Bottles were thrown. Police Captain Gerald McNamara called in backup, and 400 NYPD officers showed up in riot gear.

Many officers concealed or removed their badges as they clubbed protesters and bystanders. The riot lasted until 6 AM, and more than 100 police brutality complaints were logged afterwards. Fourteen officers faced charges, but none were convicted. Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward went on record to state that the NYPD was responsible for inciting a riot.

Japanese photographer Q. Sakamaki was living in an apartment near the park at the time, and he began documenting the Tompkins Square Park movement, which went on for years. It came to an end following the 1991 Memorial Day riot, when the park was forcibly closed and the homeless encampments, known as Dinkinsville, were razed.

Sakamaki’s photographs, published in Tompkins Square Park (powerHouse Books) crystallize this turning point in New York City history, as gentrification began to replace benign neglect. VICE caught up with Sakamaki to reflect on the 30th anniversary of the riots and how New York has changed in the intervening decades.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

A homeless man in front of his encampment. June 1991. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Manhattan, Photography, Vice

The 35 Anniversary Wild Style Reunion Concert

Posted on August 8, 2018

Kase 2, Busy Bee, Fab 5 Freddy, and friends at the cheeba spot, 1980. Photo © Charlie Ahearn.

Back in 1978, artist Charlie Ahearn saw a couple of vibrant murals in the handball courts of the Smith Projects in New York’s Lower East Side. The word “LEE” appeared across them in big bold letters. Ahearn was intrigued, and quickly realised it was the work of Lee Quinones, one of graffiti’s greatest writers.

A year later, Ahearn met Lee and Fab 5 Freddy during the historic Times Square Show. The trio immediately started collaborating. At the time, the words “wild style” were on everybody’s lips – it was the name for the colorful, hyper-stylised letterforms dominating graffiti that most people could not read.

Simultaneously, hip hop music was sizzling in the clubs and parks, as the first generation of DJs spun breakbeats while MCs tore up the mic and b-boys rocked the floor. As all of this was happening on his doorstep in New York, Ahearn decided to turn it into Wild Style – the first ever hip hop feature film.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Animation drawing by Zephyr, 1982. Courtesy of Charlie Ahearn.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Graffiti, Huck, Manhattan, Music

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Artrouble

Posted on August 7, 2018

The Motels

Hailing from London, David Allen arrived in Los Angeles in 1976 on what he describes as “an angry whim”. One day while at the newsstand checking for NME, he spotted a magazine with the word Slash written across the front, in a blood-splattered font. Intrigued, he read a story in it before heading to the magazine’s office, where he embarked upon a career in design. Suddenly he was an outsider on the inside of the emerging punk scene.

It was while he was hanging out at the Masque, a nightclub just off Hollywood Boulevard, that Allen was approached by a young photographer named Jules Bates, who had seen a flyer Allen had designed and wanted to collaborate on the cover for Nick Gilders’ album featuring the hit, Hot Child in the City. One thing lead to another, and Bates proposed they start a company with his then-girlfriend Phyllis Cohen, a make-up artist from Vancouver.

Allen named the crew Artrouble, and together they began creating album covers for emerging punk bands like the Dickies and Devo, New Wave bands like Oingo Boingo and the Motels, and pop stars like Shawn Cassidy and Peter Frampton. When Bates died in the early 1980s, Artrouble came to an end. Now, on the 40th anniversary of its launch, Allen looks back at the LA collective that defined an era.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Canterbury Punks

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Art, Music

Bruce W. Talamon: Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982

Posted on August 7, 2018

As staff photographer at SOUL Newspaper during the 1970s, Los Angeles native Bruce W. Talamon knew the score: “always respect the artist and don’t fuck up the vibe. Always be on top of your game, and take any chance you can”. These lessons served him well documenting artists such as the Jackson Five, Parliament-Funkadelic, Donna Summer, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye; the legendary soul, funk, and R&B acts of the 1970s that turned pop music into an unforgettable trip on the Soul Train.

Every Saturday morning, kids and teens across the United States tuned into Don Cornelius’ dance extravaganza. In the decade before video killed the radio star, the sound of Black America hit the high bar as artists like Al Green, Bootsy Collins, and Rick James burned up the stage. After they turned off the TV they hungered for more; more photos and stories about their heroes. So, they read SOUL.

Talamon jumped on the scene, quite literally, when he walked on stage at Wattstax to photograph Isaac Hayes in 1972 – unaccredited. The young photographer had picked up a camera the year before, and decided to forgo his studies as a law student for something entirely different – something no one in the mainstream media was covering in any depth. It is fortunate that he did; as without Talamon, there would be no photograph of Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire walking with a white umbrella towards the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Now, in his new book published by Taschen and titled Bruce W. Talamon. Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982, the artist takes us back to this pivotal era in history, when glamour, grandeur, and grooves reigned supreme.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

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

John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres: The South Bronx Hall of Fame

Posted on July 30, 2018

Luis and Virginia, 1985. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Life on Dawson Street KBA Studio, 1982-3. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

During the ’70s, the South Bronx became the face of urban blight, as the federal government systematically denied basic services to Black and Latinx communities under the Nixon White House policy of “benign neglect.”

As neighbourhoods fell into extreme states of poverty, crime, and disrepair, landlords realised they would make more money torching their buildings and recouping the insurance money than they ever could from rent — leaving the South Bronx with vast swaths of empty lots, burned out buildings, and mounds of rubble.

The stark struggle for survival experienced by regular people in the Bronx inspired artists to create incredible feats, like John Fekner’s epic stencils, Gordon Matta-Clark’s first architectural interventions, and the explosion of graffiti across whole cars. In the late 1970s, Stefan Eins moved his gallery, Fashion MODA to Third Avenue near 147th Street and the Hub in the heart of the South Bronx, where he began exhibiting emerging downtown artists like David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, and Jenny Holzer, as well as graffiti artists such as Richard Hambleton, John Crash Matos, and Chris Daze Ellis.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

South Bronx Hall of Fame Walton Street Sidewalk Studio. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Janelle and Audrey, 1983. Courtesy of John Ahearn

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Bronx, Huck

Malick Sidibé: LOVE POWER PEACE

Posted on July 30, 2018

Untitled, 1979/2004 © Malick Sidibé

Malian photographer Malick Sidibé (1936-2016) bought his first camera, a Brownie Flash, in 1956 while working as an apprentice for Gérard Guillat in the nation’s capital of Bamako. Self-taught, Sidibé hit the scene, taking photographs at African events filled with teenagers coming of age at the same time that the country reached independence in 1960.

Whether photographing at parties or in his studio, Sidibé effortlessly captured the dignity, style, and pride of the first generation of post-colonial Malian men and women. Now, his portraits have become symbols of LOVE POWER PEACE – which just happens to be the title of Malick Sidibé’s seventh solo exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, on view now through August 10, 2018.

LOVE POWER PEACE presents a selection of previously unseen work from Sidibé’s archive that chronicles the creation of a nation liberated from nearly a century of French rule, filled with the hope, optimism, and boundless energy of youth. Photography gave Sidibé a means to mirror and amplify, creating exquisite images that speak to self-representation, to how one sees themselves and wants to be seen.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Au cours d’une soiree © Malick Sidibé

Les copins à Niarela, 1967/2008 © Malick Sidibé

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Africa, Art, Exhibitions, Photography

Food, Sex, Art: the Starving Artists’ Cookbook

Posted on July 26, 2018

Gilbert and George, Untitled, 1988, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Gilbert and George; Courtesy of the artists, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York

Ever since “art for art’s sake” became a symbol of bohemian credibility in the late 19th century, the spectre of the starving artist has haunted the general public. Driven by an unquenchable desire to create, artists are often at the vanguard of the culture, decades ahead of their contemporaries, and largely unrecognised.

Here, the struggle to survive is vividly underscored by the very real challenge of putting three meals on the table, every single day. For those who spend the better part of their lives consuming, the decision to pursue a career in the arts is met with wonder and confusion: Why would anyone want to live like that? But for those who must, there simply is no option at all.

They let the idea marinate for a few days before it began to take shape as The Starving Artists’ Cookbook, a series of recipes, images, and cooking videos made between 1986-1991 featuring more than 160 artists including Peter Beard, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Gilbert and George, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Marilyn Minter, Carolee Schneemann, and Lawrence Weiner.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Luis Frangella, Untitled, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Luis Frangella; Courtesy of the estate of the artist, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

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

Andrea Giunta: Radical Women – Latin American Art, 1960-1985

Posted on July 22, 2018

Paz Errazuriz (Chilean, b. 1944), La Palmera (The palm tree), 1987, from the series La manzana de Adan (Adam’s Apple), 1982-90. Gelatin silver print. 15 9/16 × 23 ½ in. (39.5 × 59.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Galeria AFA, Santiago. ©the artist.

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, the phenomenal survey of Latin American artists, enters its final weekend at the Brooklyn Museum, where it will be on view through July 22, 2018. Accompanied by a catalogue of the same name published by DelMonico|Prestel, the exhibition is a stunning tour de force through a quarter century across the Western hemisphere showcasing an extraordinary group of women who experimented with photography, performance, video, and conceptual art to explore the issues of autonomy, oppression, violence, and the environment.

Photography plays a pivotal role in Radical Women, examining how it is both a work of art and a piece of evidence. Here archetypes and iconography are pushed to the edge as the artists featured here subvert expectations and stereotypes, offering fresh and empowering new perspectives for consideration.

Guest curator Andrea Giunta, who co-curated the exhibition with Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, shares insights into the ways artists used photography to raise awareness, expose, and explore the issues facing Latin American women during a tumultuous and transformative time in history – issues that are as pertinent then as they are today.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Maria Evelia Marmolejo (Colombian, b. 1958), 11 de marzo—ritual a la menstruacion, digno de toda mujer como antecedente del origen de la vida (March 11—ritual in honor of menstruation, worthy of every woman as a precursor to the origin of life), 1981. Photography: Camilo Gomez. Nine black-and-white photographs. Five sheets: 11 3/4 × 8 1/4 in. (29.8 × 21 cm) each; four sheets: 8 1/4 × 11 3/4 in. (21 × 29.8 cm) each. Courtesy of Maria E. Marmolejo and Prometeo Gallery di Ida Pisani, Milan. ©the artist.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Latin America, Photography, Women

Harvey Stein: Artists Observed

Posted on July 19, 2018

After moving to New York in the late 1960s to attend Columbia Graduate School of Business, Harvey Stein grew disenchanted with the corporate world and decided to pursue a career in photography. Entranced by the various art scenes in Soho, the East Village, Midtown, and the Upper East Side, Stein began to develop relationships with various artists, and decided to embark upon a project to learn about how they lived and created, and what inspired them to work, in order to see what lessons he could discern for his own burgeoning practice.

Between 1980 and 1985, Stein made the rounds, photographing and interviewing more than 165 New York artists for his project, Artists Observed, which was published the following year by Abrams. Featuring Christo, John Cage, Lee Krasner, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Bourgeois, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist, and Marisol, Artists Observed is filled with bon mots from some of the most luminous artists of the era. Here, Stein shares his memories of these iconic encounters, along with the wisdom those artists offered him for the book.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Categories: 1980s, AnOther, Art, Photography

Marc H. Miller: Downtown Art Ephemera, 1970s-1990s

Posted on July 10, 2018

Public Art Fund, Spectacolor Lightboard, Robin Winters, Card, 1988. Courtesy online Gallery 98

Before the internet made it quick and easy to share information, artists relied on IRL tactics to promote their work. Posters, flyers, paper invitations, postcards, zines, objets d’art, and other ephemera represented a populist impulse: reach the masses and give them a taste of what was to come—something they could keep and collect without having to spend a dime.

Impermanent art, like graffiti and performance, came to the fore in the Lower East Side in the 1970s and 80s. Art ephemera was often all that remained after a show, and it took on new significance. The materials could be produced cheaply and distributed at will, transforming art in the age of mass reproduction into a marketing tool.

From his studio at 98 Bowery, artist, journalist, curator, and art historian Marc H. Miller amassed an impressive collection of rare ephemera from New York’s storied era of renegade artmaking from the 70s to 90s. His trove contains work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Nan Goldin, Kiki Smith, Cindy Sherman, the Guerilla Girls, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and Gordon Matta-Clark, as well as galleries like FUN, Fashion MODA, P.P.O.W., ABC No Rio, Leo Castelli, and Tony Shafrazzi.

Nearly 200 items from Miller’s collection are on display in New York this month, in Downtown Art Ephemera, 1970s-1990s at James Fuentes Gallery. To celebrate, VICE caught up with Miller to chat about why these relics from the recent past have such power today.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

P.P.O.W, David Wojnarowicz, Early and Recent Work, Card, 1990. Courtesy online Gallery 98

Emily Harvey Gallery, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Henry Flynt, The Samo Graffiti, Card. Courtesy online Gallery 98

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Manhattan, Painting, Photography, Vice