Posts from the “1980s” Category

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

All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party

Posted on May 10, 2018

Endia Beal, Sabrina and Katrina, 2015, from “Am I What You’re Looking For?”, courtesy of the artist, from “All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party,” PCNW 2018.

On October 15, 1966, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton – two students at Laney College in Oakland, California – founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) to protect the citizens of their hometown from abuses of the state.

Under the protection of the Second Amendment, they created armed citizens’ patrols to monitor an almost all white police force that regularly brutalised African Americans citizens with impunity. From their grassroots efforts, a nationwide movement was born – one that radicalised a new generation of youth to fight for their Constitutional rights.

The BPP set up chapters in 68 cities in order to implement the Ten Point Platform and Program, which called for freedom, full employment, reparations, housing, education, military exemption, an end to police brutality and murder, freedom for the incarcerated, Constitutional rights during trial, and full self-determination.

The leaders of the BPP had mastered the law, and knew exactly how to exact the rights granted by the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This – combined with their ability to build coalitions with other political groups including the Young Lords, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Indian Movement, and the Chicano Workers Movement – created a very real threat to the systemic racism that had kept these groups vulnerable, marginalised, and living under constant threat.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Lewis Watts, Graffiti, West Oakland, 1993, courtesy of the photographer, from “All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party,” PCNW 2018

Lewis Watts, Graffiti, West Oakland, 1993, courtesy of the photographer, from “All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party,” PCNW 2018

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

Ryan Weideman: In My Taxi – New York After Hours

Posted on May 8, 2018

Back in 1978, while living in Oakland, photographer Ryan Weideman saw Midnight Express, a nerve-wracking film that tells the true story of Billy Hayes – a young American who, after being caught smuggling hashish, escapes from a Turkish jail and lives to tell the tale.

“I thought, ‘If this guy can go through that, I am ready for New York!” Weideman says with a laugh.

1970s Manhattan was an outlaw town riddled with violence and crime. It became a magnet for fearless spirits who lived life on their own terms. Although Weideman had taken visual cues from film noir throughout his life, it was the work of photographers William Klein, Diane Arbus, Joel Meyerowitz and Robert Frank that made him aware that something spectacular was happening in New York.

Read the Full Story at Huck

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

Rammellzee: Racing for Thunder

Posted on May 2, 2018

RAMMΣLLZΣΣ. Photography Keetja Allard

Hailing from the outer limits of New York City and maybe even the earth itself, Rammellzee (1960-2010) arrived on the downtown scene aged 19, fully realised, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, clad in armour, ready to take on all comers.

A singular figure in the early years of graffiti and hip hop who stood apart in a world filled with charismatic talents and revolutionary pioneers, Rammellzee introduced his philosophies of Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism in his artwork and performances. He donned characters and costumes as extensions of himself, comfortably shrouding himself in mysticism, mythology, and legends.

Did he go to jail in the 70s for robbing a bank? The world may never know – but now a new exhibition titled RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder tells the story of the elusive artist through those who knew him best. Organised by Red Bull Arts New York Chief Curator Max Wolf and cultural critic Carlo McCormick, the artist’s largest survey to date presents an inclusive selection of work from the icon throughout his three-decade career along with oral histories told by those who knew him best. Here, friends and colleagues share memories of Rammellzee, the man behind the mask.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

RAMMΣLLZΣΣ. Photography Brian Williams

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther Man, Art, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Painting

Raquel Cecilia on the Life and Legacy of Ana Mendieta

Posted on May 1, 2018

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), 1972. (estate print 1997). Suite of seven estate color photographs. Four sheets: 13 ¼ × 20 in. (33.7 × 50.8 cm); three sheets: 20 × 13 ¼ in. (50.8 × 33.7 cm). © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

During an era of rebels and revolutionaries, Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) was a singular figure carving her own path, fearlessly speaking truth to power about subjects like campus rape and domestic violence at a time when these conversations were still taboo.

Hailing from a prominent political family in Havana, Mendieta and her older sister Raquelin were sent to America in 1961 after Fidel Castro came to power. At just 12 and 14 years old, the sisters were on their own until their mother and younger brother arrived in the US five years later. Their father, who was jailed for 18 years in the wake of the Bay of Pigs revolt, was finally reunited with his family in 1979.

Through her art, Mendieta transformed fear, pain, and rage into powerful and provocative meditations on gender, identity, assault, death, place, and belonging. Using her body as a vessel of flesh, bone, and blood, she immersed herself in performance art, body art, and land art to create raw, visceral work that channeled the rituals of her native land and questioned society’s treatment of women.

But Mendieta’s groundbreaking career came to a sudden and violent end when she died falling from the 34th floor of her New York apartment at the age of 36. The circumstances of her death are still shrouded in controversy. Her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre, was charged with Mendieta’s murder, but he was ultimately acquitted on the grounds of reasonable doubt.

Because much of Mendieta’s work was ephemeral, her process and the documentation of her art was as significant as the final work itself. It is these photographs and films that remain, reminding the world of her brief but powerful career. During Mendieta’s life, she produced more than 200 works, selections of which are currently on view in Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin.

In a rare interview, Raquel Cecilia, the artist’s niece and the Associate Administrator for the Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, spoke with VICE about Mendieta’s life and legacy.

Read the Full Story at Vice

Ana Mendieta, Silueta Sangrienta, 1975. Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent. Running time: 1:51 minutes. Edition of 8 with 3 APs. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

Ana Mendieta, Sweating Blood, 1973. Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent. Running time: 3:18 minutes. Edition of 6 with 3 APs. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Vice, Women

Malick Sidibé: Mali Twist

Posted on April 25, 2018

Photo: Malick Sidibé. Un jeune gentleman, 1978. © Malick Sidibé. Courtesy of Fondation Cartier pour l’art contempourain and Éditions Xavier Barral.

Malick Sidibé (1935–2016) was a master of the form, a singular visionary whose photographs tell the story of the liberation, self-determination, beauty, dignity, and pride of his native Mali in the heart of West Africa.

Born in the village of Soloba when Mali was still a colony of France, Sidibé hailed from a family of herders who worked the land. His natural propensity for art made him the first member of his family to attend school: the Institut National des Arts de Bamako, in the nation’s capital in 1952.

In 1955, be began an apprenticeship with photographer Gérard Guillat-Guignard; he opened Studio Malick in 1958. His timing could not have been more fortuitous for Sidibé and Mali were coming into their very own at the same time. As a member of the Mali Federation, which included Sengal and the French Sudan, the nations achieved independence from France on June 20, 1060, after a period of negotiations. On September 22, Mali left the Federation and was on its own.

The spirit of freedom is evident throughout Sidibé’s work. Honing in on the youth culture of the times, he captured the joyous energy of the first generation of liberated Malians on the beach, in the clubs, at sporting events, and in his studio. In every photograph he created he found the heart and the soul of his people and the result was nothing short of beautiful.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Malick Sidibé. Regardez-moi!, 1962. © Malick Sidibé. Courtesy of Fondation Cartier pour l’art contempourain and Éditions Xavier Barral.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Africa, Art, Bronx, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot

TOM House: The Work and Life of Tom of Finland

Posted on April 19, 2018

Tom of Finland, Untitled (Portrait of Durk Dehner), 1984. Courtesy of the Tom of Finland Foundation

Even from a young age, Touko Laaksonen (aka Tom of Finland) was having erotic fantasies of grown men in his neighborhood. “I had a very strong fetish for some reason for leather and boots and all of it was combined with masculine professions and image,” Laaksonen said during a guest lecture at CalArts in 1988.

Mike Kelley had invited the Finnish artist to speak about the groundbreaking work he had done living in a nation where homosexuality was illegal until 1971 and laws forbidding the “promotion” of same-sex love were in effect until 1999 – eight years after his death.

Tom of Finland’s distinctive blend of beauty and lust inspired a generation of queer image-makers to openly embrace their identities in their lives and in their work. In honor of his vital legacy, Tom of Finland Foundation, Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Graeme Flegenheimer present TOM House: The Work and Life of Tom of Finland, a new exhibition that recreates his home in Echo Park, Los Angeles, where he spent his final years, showcasing works throughout his career alongside artists he inspired over the years.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Tom of Finland, Untitled (Portrait of Pekka), 1975. Courtesy of the Tom of Finland Foundation

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

Remembering Peggy Cooper Cafritz

Posted on April 18, 2018

Jas Knight, “Summer” (2015). Oil on linen 18 × 22 inches. Photography Jeremy Lawson.

Never let it be said that one person can’t change the world. African-American philanthropist, activist, and collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz (1947–2018) did just this, over and over again. As a doyenne of arts and education in the nation’s capital, Cooper Cafritz was a force of nature.

Hailing from Mobile, Alabama, Ms Cooper Cafritz moved north in 1964 to attend George Washington University, with a mission to fight against segregation at the tail end of Jim Crow. As a senior in 1968, she had a vision of what would become one of her greatest accomplishments: a public high school that served artistically gifted students of colour from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

In 1974, Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Ellington officially opened, providing professional training in music, theatre, paintings, and dance, along with an academic curriculum. Notable alumni include comedian Dave Chapelle, singer-songwriter Me’Shell Ndegéocello, and operatic mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.

Ms Cooper Cafrtiz did not stop there. Her dedication to cultivating talent extended far beyond the school grounds as she took a hands-on approach in developing one of the largest private collections of African-American and African art that includes work by Kehinde Wiley, David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Emory Douglas, Barkley L. Hendricks, and LaToya Ruby Frazier, to name just a few.

Tragically, more than 300 pieces of the collection were destroyed in July 2009 after a fire at her home. It was a loss that would have devastated many, but Ms Cooper Cafritz, in her inimitable grace and determination, soldiered on. Working with co-editor Charmaine Picard, Ms Cooper Cafritz created Fired Up! Ready to Go!; Finding Beauty, Demanding Equality: An African American Life in Art (Rizzoli), a stunning volume that showcases 200 of the lost works.

On February 18, just five days before the book’s official release, Ms Cooper Cafritz died at the age of 70. Her death came as a shock to the artists whose careers she helped to nurture and cultivate. Two months on, Ms Picard and a host of leading artists remember the life and legacy of Peggy Cooper Cafritz.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Lorraine O’Grady, “Art Is… (Girlfriends Times Two)” (1983/2009). C-print in 40 parts 16 × 20 inchesCourtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © 2017 Lorraine O’Grady/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Peggy Cooper Cafritz. Copyright Marquéo

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

David Humphries Presents Hair Wars

Posted on April 13, 2018

Courtesy of David Humphries and Hair Wars

In the nightclubs of Detroit, way back in 1985, a DJ known as David “Hump the Grinder” Humphries started throwing a weekly party known as the “Exotic Hair Night.” Here, hairstylists sent models onto the stage sporting the latest looks that drove the crowd wild – and subsequently ushered business into their salons every weekend.

Word got out and the party quickly took off. Realising he had a good thing going, Humphries re-conceptualised the show and created Hair Wars: a platform for hair education and entertainment that has taken the United States by storm for more than 30 years.

Whether featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, on “America’s Next Top Model,” in the book Hair Wars by David Yellen, or most recently as part of an event hosted at New York’s MoMA P.S.1, Hair Wars has become the synonymous with style, fashion, and art – it is the place to break new looks, set the trends, and create works of fantasy so spectacular you’ll barely be able to believe your eyes.

Returning to Detroit on April 15, this year’s edition of Hair Wars is dedicated to “The Musical” – and it’s likely that it will feature plenty of looks worthy of the biggest divas you can imagine. Ahead of the show, we caught up with David Humphries, as he talks us through what it takes to transform weaves and wigs into bonafide works of art.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Courtesy of David Humphries and Hair Wars

Courtesy of David Humphries and Hair Wars

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Dazed, Fashion