Posts from the “1980s” Category

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985

Posted on September 28, 2017

Photo: Sandra Eleta (Panamanian, b. 1942), Edita (la del plumero), Panamá (Edita (the one with the duster), Panama), 1978-1979. Black and white photograph. 30 × 30 in. (76.2 × 76.2 cm)Courtesy of the artist. Artwork © the artist

“I don’t give a shit what the world thinks. I was born a bitch, I was born a painter, I was born fucked. But I was happy in my way. You did not understand what I am. I am love. I am pleasure, I am essence, I am an idiot, I am an alcoholic, I am tenacious. I am; simply I am,” Frida Kahlo wrote in a letter to her husband, artist Diego Rivera.

The Mexican artist, who faithfully painted self-portraits throughout the course of her life, has become not only one the most famous artists in the world, but is very often the only Latin American women artist most people know by name. The invisibility of her comrades can be attributed to the power structures within the art world that disregarded the major contributions that women from 20 countries have been making to the art world throughout the twentieth century.

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, a new exhibition on view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, is a major step towards setting the record straight with more than 260 works by 116 women artists now on view through December 31, 2017. Curated by Dr. Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and Dr. Andrea Giunta, Radical Women is a watershed moment in the art world, illustrating the power of intersectionality in the new millennium.

Six years in the making, Radical Women brings together women from across Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States, showcasing the works of pioneers making art on their own terms, including Brazilian art star Lygia Pape, who had a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year; visionary Venezuelan Pop artist Marisol, who died at the age of 83 in 2016; and the gender-bending self-portraiture of Cuban American performance artist Ana Mendieta, whose husband was found not guilty of her murder in 1985.

The exhibition, which is accompanied by a catalogue of the same name, published by Prestel, is a brilliant introduction to both the artists and the issues they face as women in the Latin American diaspora, providing their own take on feminism, patriarchy, gender, sexuality, identity, and art history. We spotlight six artists you should know, who have inherited the mantle from the indomitable Frida Kahlo.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Photo: “Marcha gay (Gay pride march)”, 1984. Gelatin silver print. 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm) Courtesy of Yolanda Andrade.

Photo: Paz Errázuriz (Chilean, b. 1944), La Palmera, from the series La manzana de Adán (Adam’s Apple), 1987. Digital archival pigment print on Canson platinum paper. 19 5/8 × 23 1/2 in. (49.8 × 59.7 cm)Courtesy of the artist and Galeria AFA, Santiago. Artwork © the artist.

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

Remembering Jean-Michel Basquiat

Posted on September 21, 2017

Photo:Jean-Michel Basquiat on set of Downtown 81, written by Glenn O’Brien, Directed by Edo Bertoglio, Produced by Maripol Photo By Edo Bertoglio© New York Beat Films LLC, by permission of the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat all rights reserved

Jean-Michel Basquiat joined the 27 Club on August 12, 1988. He died young, at the height of his success, breaking through boundaries that had marginalised countless African-American artists from establishing their rightful place in museums, galleries, and history books. With the $110.5 million sale of his painting at auction earlier this year, Basquiat once again was established at the pinnacle of American art, with his work setting records and putting him in the company of Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon.

But who was the man behind the work, the Brooklyn native of Puerto Rican and Haitian lineage whose singular style set him apart and has influenced generations of artists worldwide since his death? As the Barbican opens Boom for Real – the first large-scale exhibition in the UK about the American artist – we speak with those who knew and worked with him over a period of ten years, to paint a portrait of the artist as a young man.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. A frame from the ART/new york video “Young Expressionists.”Credit Paul Tschinkel.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Brooklyn, Dazed, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Painting, Photography

Kerry James Marshall

Posted on September 19, 2017

Untitled (Curtain Girl), 2016, acrylic on PVC panel, 76 x 61 cm. Picture credit: © Kerry James Marshall, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

“Extreme blackness plus grace equals power,” Kerry James Marshall observed, revealing an essential truth of the nature of the world. From a purely aesthetic sense, black is a color and it is something more. It is both the complete absence or absorption of light. It takes in all colors of the visible spectrum becoming the amalgamation all that we know, becoming the alpha and the omega: from where we begin and to where we return.

In this way, Africa as the birthplace of humanity makes perfect sense: from blackness all colors of wo/mankind have been birthed. Black is one of the first colors used by artists painting in the caves of Europe, those prehistoric beings who intuitively understood that essential power of the hue rested in both its immediate impact and its longevity.

With homo sapiens dating back nearly 200,000 years in Africa, in the grand scheme of history it is only in recent times that some have chosen to vilify blackness. Europeans became obsessed with framing it in a negative light, crafting the idea of race as a justification for a campaign of global imperialism that systematically pillaged, enslaved, and decimated peoples of a darker hue across Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

From this we have inherited trauma rooted in profound psychosis that posits us in a position to spread truth to power. Giving voice to that which has been silenced, giving sight to that which has been distorted or erases, giving sanctuary to that which has been targeted for destruction: this is our shared responsibility. Each of us brings talents and gifts, wisdom and understanding, experiences and insights that fill in the blanks, fitting together like a puzzle of billions of pieces that reveal the image of God.

But… such a picture may never appear but that’s no reason to do what we must, for it is in our individual efforts that we light the spark of inspiration and fuel the flames of action. American artist Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama) leads by example, dedicating his life to the creation of a body of work that restores black to its rightful place.

His recent touring exhibition Mastry has claimed the space that it deserves, in the highest echelons of wealth, power, and history: the realm of fine art. In conjunction with the exhibitions, Phaidon has just released Kerry James Marshall, the most comprehensive book published on the artist.

The book is a tour-de-force, providing a comprehensive look at Marshall’s singular career and the ways in which he has used painting as a site for the writing of history. Marshall’s life itself traces the course of America over the second half of the twentieth century, beginning with the artist’s formative years deep in the heart of Dixie under the apartheid system of Jim Crow.

In 1963, his family joined the final wave of the Great Migration, moving to South Central Los Angeles, just in time to experience the horrors of the Watts riots in 1965. “By the time the riots got to where we were, it was like a carnival,” Marshall tells Charles Gaines in the book. “The violence that took place was confusing to me.… I started to see that the responsibility for my needs shifted to me as opposed to a collective. I try never to approach a thing as if I’m one hundred percent certain about what it is or what the proper response to it is supposed to be.”

Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self, 1980, egg tempera on paper, 20 x 16 cm. Picture credit: © Kerry James Marshall, photo: Matthew Fried, © MCA Chicago

With a perspective rooted in openness and self-reliance, Marshall set forth on a journey rooted in discovery. His purpose began to take shape in 1980, when he painted A Portrait of the Artists as a Shadow of His Former Self, a work that recalls the influence of the great African American painter Horace Pippin (1888–1946). But here, Marshall began his exploration of the power of black, of the color that would come to be a signature element in his work.

He told Gaines, “This was when it started to look like there was something that could be done with the black figure, that it could be used to explore ideas that are not only relevant to picture making by itself but also to convey some of those ideas that I’d been developing about where black people fit in. Before then, apart from the self-portraits, which I’d do as an exercise, I was still doing still lifes and paintings of inanimate objects in order to figure out how to paint…. [The issue of race] really came into focus with that one painting.”

With his focus honed and his skills at the ready Marshall set forth to create a body of work depicting the African American experience in all of its complexities, a profound portrait of a people that embraces the heroism of daily life, while also underscoring the culture and its relationship to the individual.

“To recognize the diversity of Blackness (to use Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s militantly colloquial spelling) would be to recognize that there is such a place as the interzone that poet Elizabeth Alexander once termed The Black Interior – primarily a psychic space where flocks of self-actualized black subjectivites freely roam about, walkabout and roust about, “Greg Tate writes in the book.

“If you happen to own the Black Interior that belongs to Kerry James Marshall and you dare to take up the ambitious mission of rendering the interiors of the Black Whole – that loud, proud, obsidian realm saturated with oscillating frequencies, swooping modalities, spiky plateaus, swampy valleys, funky declensions, cosmic ascents, elaborate head rooms, and wickedly salty tall-tales – you have already reckoned with apprehending the liminality of American Blackness: the half hidden/half revealed qualities of that Free Bloack Thang that Duke Ellignotn believed imbued all truly black expression with a lofty and iridescent aura of transluesency, “Tate explained.

And, indeed, that one magnificent sentence is as much as masterpiece as the paintings it describes, so perfectly modulated in its nuances that the complexities of its content simply dissolve before your very eyes. It is what it is, as the classic African-American proverb recognizes.

And what it is restores balance to the earth, the soul and the spirit, the present moment and the history books. The mastry of Kerry James Marshall is a vision to behold, a marvel of necessity, desire, and self determination that leads by example and keeps the promise that possibility, when realized, is God made manifest on earth.

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

The 5 Art Shows You Need to See This Fall

Posted on September 19, 2017

Photo; Dawoud Bey. A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theater 1976, Printed by 1979. Gelatin Silver print 230 x 150. Featured in “States of America: Photography from the Civil Rights Movement to the Reagan Era“

Philippe Halsman, A Paragon of Beauty, Dalí’s Moustache, 1953-54.
Vintage photomontage print. 35.3 x 23.5 cm. Philippe Halsman Archive, New York © Philippe Halsman Archive. From “Dali/Duchamp”

Fall is when everything begins, as the new season kicks into gear and people get in the swing of things. As your calendar fills up, there’s no better time to get away from it all and dip into a museum to catch an exhibition that will inspire the soul and inflame the mind. Crave spotlights five of the best new shows opening this season, each one a phenomenal collection of art and ideas.

States of America: Photography from the Civil Rights Movement to the Reagan Era

The history of the United States is a multifaceted mosaic of experiences, tiled together around a fragile center that exploded in civil war in the nation’s first hundred years. In its second century, it was rocked over and over again by peoples determined to live into the rights guaranteed under the Constitution against those who would deny them. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the nation faced some of its greatest challenges, from the Civil Rights Movement, which spawned the Women’s and Gay Liberation Movements, to the devastation of COINTELPRO and a government that willfully used illegal measures to destroy its people from within.

Looking back at what was and the promises of what might have been, Nottingham Contemporary, UK, presents States of America: Photography from the Civil Rights Movement to the Reagan Era, a collections of 250 photographs by 16 American masters, now on view through November 26, 2017. Among the artists featured are Crave faves Diane Arbus, Dawoud Bey, Mark Cohen, Bruce Davidson, Louis Draper, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Jim Goldberg, Danny Lyon, Mary Ellen Mark, Stephen Shore, and Garry Winogrand.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

From Martin Wong: Human Instamatic

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography

Richard Boch: The Mudd Club

Posted on September 15, 2017

Photo: Mudd Club Fashion Show, 1980. Photography Nick Taylor.

Photo: Jackie Curtis and Bowie. Photography Bobby Grossman.

The Mudd Club: the name alone embodies the mystical, mythical essence of Old York – a city where you could reinvent yourself from the ground up. All it took was ingenuity, desire, and nerve to do-it-yourself, take it to the streets and show out on the world stage.

In the fall of 1978, the Mudd Club opened its doors at 77 White Street, long before anyone referred to the triangle below Canal as “Tribeca.” Back then it was an outpost on the frontier of downtown. As manufacturing shops packed up and left town, huge industrial buildings stood bare, attracting artists who transformed these commercial spaces into studios and homes. When they needed a break, they hit the Mudd, a tiny spot that became the ultimate nightclub, bringing together people from all walks of life.

Here the No Wave rubbed shoulders with Hip Hop, while graffiti writers and post punk musicians filled the joint. Everyone from Halston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and David Bowie to Nan Goldin, Lydia Lunch, and Dee Dee Ramone could be found in the mix. This is the place where Fab 5 Freddy taught Debbie Harry to rap and no one thought twice about a white woman dropping rhymes on the mic.

From 1979 to 1983, the Mudd Club was the place to be, the ultimate scene for insiders and outsiders alike, a place where art, music, fashion, and culture completely reinvented itself with luminaries like trans model Teri Toye, drag legend Joey Arias, and performance artist Klaus Nomi sharpening the cutting edge. On any given night, something wild and wonderful was going down, whether it was a theme party like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Funeral Ball,” a reading by William S. Burroughs, or a live performance by Nico.

For two years, at the Mudd Club’s height, Richard Boch manned the door, deciding who would make it past the legendary ropes and enter the delirious den of iniquity that embodied the downtown scene at its height. As a doorman, Boch played a critical role in casting the characters you would see inside, a glorious mélange of celebrities, local legends, and underground superstars. He has just released his memoir The Mudd Club (Feral House) and speaks with us about how to throw the hottest party in New York.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Photo: Ivy crash out at Mudd Club on the second floor, 1979. Photography Alan Kleinberg

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Dazed, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Stephen Barker: The ACT UP Portraits – Activists & Avatars, 1991–1994

Posted on September 15, 2017

Photo: Mark Harrington, copyright Stephen Barker

Halston. Robert Mapplethorpe. Keith Haring. Freddie Mercury. Eazy E. Antonio Lopez. Martin Wong. David Wojnarowicz. Herb Ritts. The list goes on – and on. More than 675,000 people have died of Aids-related illnesses since the epidemic first hit in 1981, devastating a generation coming-of-age in the wake of the gay, civil rights, and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s.

Where it was once an all-consuming force decimating lives, survivors of the terror and trauma rarely revisit those horrific times. It is difficult to express the scale and scope of the agony of illness and the pain of death that happened day after day, year after year, for decades. Imagine a funeral for friends and family every week. Envision the fear spread by misinformation and ignorance, in the wake of a government that turned its back on the victims of the virus.

During the first four years of the crisis, President Ronald Reagan never said a word about the disease, which had infected nearly 60,000 people – 28,000 of whom had died. In 1987, Senator Jesse Helms amended a federal bill to prohibit Aids education, saying such efforts “encourage or promote homosexual activity.”

The battle lines were drawn: it was the people vs. the government.

In 1987, ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) was formed in response. Organised as a leaderless network of committees working with affinity groups, members of ACT UP took it upon themselves to battle the disease and the government firsthand. Their slogan, “Silence = Death,” became the rallying cry for activists, who, to paraphrase poet Dylan Thomas, refused to go gently into the night. They raged until their actions turned the tide.

ACT UP took on every aspect of the crisis, coming up with grassroots solutions to clearly defined problems. Photographer Stephen Barker worked as part of ACT UP’s Needle Exchange Program on New York’s Lower East Side. He also participated in the first “Funeral March,” one of the most powerful public protests against the regime, wherein Mark Fisher’s body was carried in an open coffin from Judson Memorial Church to the steps of the Republican National Committee on the eve of the 1992 presidential election.

Barker’s photographs made during these actions, along with a selection from the “Nightswimming” series made in places where men regularly went for trysts, will be on view in the exhibition Stephen Barker: The ACT UP Portraits – Activists & Avatars, 1991–1994, at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York (September 14 – October 28, 2017). Below, he speaks with us about the lessons he learned in the fight for life and the war against death.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Photo; Funeral March, copyright Stephen Barker

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

Marvin E. Newman: The XXL Collector’s Edition

Posted on September 4, 2017

Photo: Coney Island, 1953. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Photo: Wall Street, 1958. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Now in his 89th year, American photographer Marvin E. Newman is receiving his due as one of the finest street photographers of the twentieth century. His self-titled monograph, just released as a XXL Collector’s Edition from Taschen showcases his vibrant collection of cityscapes made in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles—as well as in the Heartland of the nation and the outskirts of Alaska between the years 1950 and 1983.

Born in the Bronx in 1927, Newman studied photography and sculpture at Brooklyn College with Walter Rosenblum. He joined the Photo League in 1948 before moving to Chicago the following year to study with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design. “They taught you to keep your mind open and go further, and always respond to what you are making,” Newman remembered.

It was here in Chicago that Newman began to shoot in color film, doing so at a time long before the medium was recognized. His comfort with color is evident throughout his work, as it becomes a harmonizing force and a whirlwind of energy and emotion as much as light itself.

After obtaining his degree in 1952, Newman returned to New York, which was undergoing a major change in the years immediately following the war. At the same time, the artist’s eye as developing and transforming his experience of life. He observed, “I was beginning to see the world in photographic terms. You start to see everything as a rectangle of some sort and see things that you feel are just made to be photographed.”

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Photo: Broadway, 1954. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

Photo: Broadway, 1954. © Marvin. E Newman 2017 Howard Greenberg Gallery / Courtesy of TASCHEN.

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

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965–85, A Sourcebook

Posted on August 31, 2017

Faith Ringgold (American, born 1930). For the Women’s House, 1971. Oil on canvas, 96 x 96 in. (243.8 x 243.8 cm). Courtesy of Rose M. Singer Center, Rikers Island Correctional Center. © 2017 Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

If you say “97%,” folks that know will nod their heads. Numbers don’t lie, even when politicians are hard at work to dismantle the Voting Rights Act, systematically disenfranchising powerful voting blocks across the country.

97% is no lie. It is the truthiest truth. It is the word of African-American women made good. Perhaps better than just about any other group nationwide, black women know the nature of the status quo. Ever since Thomas Jefferson and his ilk raped children and adults alike, keeping and selling their own offspring as slaves, black women have born witness to horror and trauma that few dare name.

But the days of silencing and marginalizing have come to the end, as we enter a new age. No longer will we tolerate the whitewashing of history in the service of oppression, exploitation, and blood money. We wanted a revolution: today and tomorrow – until justice is served.

The Brooklyn Museum brings the heat, delving into a transformative period in American history. We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, now on view through September 17, will be traveling around the country over the coming year,

You can see it for yourself at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (October 13, 2017 through January 14, 2018); the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (February 17 – May 27, 2018); and at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (June 26 – September 30, 2018).

Should you be unable to see the show, or simply want more, something to have at home, you must pick up a copy of the Sourcebook, published by Duke University Press, as it goes beyond the traditional exhibition catalogue, becoming a singular artifact.

In this day of Google-this and Tweet-that, we tend to lose touch with the power of the printed object, of the way it can be held in the hand, perused in peace, without the jangling interruption of technology. It emits no blue light; it does not track your movements and record you activities; it does not interrupt you with push notifications, telephone calls, or text messages. It allows you to be with the writer’s voice alone, a singular audience of one, silent but for their words inside the sanctity of your mind.

The Sourcebook rounds up and republishes rare documents be iconic figures of the time, including Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, bell hooks, Lucy R. Lippard, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Lowery Stokes Sims, Alice Walker, and Michelle Wallace. Many of the documents are reproduced in facsimile form, recreating the spirit of the period and its style.

Suddenly, it all comes rushing back — whether you were there or not. The printed page becomes a repository of soul and here you can finally be set free. Liberated from the endless scroll that is designed to zap you of the force required to organize, a Sourcebook restores to you the power you need to keep the revolution going, 360 degrees.

The lessons of the past are all the more poignant today; it’s not that we forgot, it’s that PTSD is real. The counterattack was as brutal as it was gloved, hidden in plain sight through the genocidal practices of benign neglect, crack, AIDS, and the prison industrial complex. The counterrevolutionaries stay organized, working against Nature and Truth, trying to roll back the clock as though such a thing were possible.

The Sourcebook is an exquisite tool: it is a necessity. It is art weaponized and an act of love to the self. Far be it for me to say more than Get yours today.

Jan van Raay (American, born 1942). Faith Ringgold (right) and Michele Wallace (middle) at Art Workers Coalition Protest, Whitney Museum, 1971. Digital C-print. Courtesy of Jan van Raay, Portland, OR, 305-37. © Jan van Raay

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s

An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections From the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017

Posted on August 21, 2017

Carol Summers (1925-2016), Kill for Peace, 1967, from ARTISTS AND WRITERS PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR IN VIET NAM, 1967. Screenprint and photo-screenprint with punctures on board, 23 3/8 × 19 1/4 in. (59.4 × 48.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee 2006.50.14 © Alexander Ethan Summers

“Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy,” Plato observed in Republic, revealing the underlying paradox of humanity: the will of the masses will eventually lead to oppression in one form or another.

The Founding Fathers of the United States knew this better than most, perhaps knowing themselves well enough to understand that he corrupt seek power and will do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand, whether that means scripting blatant hypocrisies into The Declaration of Independence or advocating for armed rebellion in the Second Amendment.

Perhaps most telling above all was their insistence on protest, of “the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” which closes out the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Undoubtedly, they understood that the nation, founded on stolen land using stolen people, was a ticking time bomb, one that could easily blow up lest any group gain advantage over the other. The will of the people, such as it were, is not inherently “good”—nor moral. It is merely self-serving and invested in appearance politics above all.

Within this space, the act of protest is designed to call attention to that which it perceives as wrong, using the power of the people to make its point in the most public manner possible. As we have seen from recent events in Charlottesville, protest is not intrinsically honest or honorable; it is simply the will of the masses to stand in their beliefs, however valid or flawed.

Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap of Birds. Relocate Destroy, In Memory of Native Americans, In Memory of Jews, 1987 Pastel on paper Sheet: 22 × 29 13/16in. (55.9 × 75.7 cm). Gift of Dorothee Peiper-Riegraf and Hinrich Peiper 2007.91

But what protest does is let us know: those who will not be silenced and are compelled to have their words heard and their faces shown; that which we celebrate and that which we vilify are simply extensions of our own principles, character, and moral fiber.

In times of strife, artists often take to the frontlines, eager to use their skills in the service of the cause. As 2017 slogs along relentlessly, more and more artists, curators, galleries, museums, and organizations find themselves compelled to make a stand. To find a way to look to the lessons of the past to figure out solutions to the present day; to consider why we are doomed to repeat the wars of the past with new technological possibilities more horrific than ever before.

And, perhaps, inspired to energize and activate those who are simply overwhelmed, disinformed, or have lost their way. History recurs simply because the solutions we sought did not hold; they were simply tenuous measures used to placate the crisis at hand, and over the ensuing years easily wore thin. The solutions require a paradigm change, one that goes beyond shadowboxing with lies and debating disinformation. Solutions require truth, however gruesome it may be, about the corporate project that is the United States of America.

But first, before we ravage the deeply held dreams of the delusional, a little reflection on the past and the ways in which protest can be used to stand against legalized tyranny. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presents An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections From the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017.

Guerrilla Girls (est. 1985), Guerrilla Girls Review the Whitney, 1987. Offset lithograph, 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm). Purchase 2000.91 © Guerrilla Girls

The exhibition looks at the ways in which people have organized in resistance and refusal, strikes and boycotts, anti-war movements, equal rights actions, and to fight the AIDS crisis. The artworks selected span the gamut from posters, flyers, and photographs to ad campaigns, paintings, and screenprints.

Featuring works by artists including Richard Avedon, Larry Clark, Lous H. Draper, Larry Fink, Theaster Gates, Gran Fury, Guerilla Girls, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Toyo Miyatake, Gordon Parks, Ad Reinhardt, Faith Ringgold, Dread Scott, and Gary Simmons, among others—the exhibition is as much a study in politics as it is contemporary American art.

The more you look, the more you see how iconography informs our belief system and the ways in which propaganda can be used in the fight against exploitation. Simply put, it’s not enough to tell the truth. Reality is simply to terrifying, and most people would prefer to bury their heads in the sand than face the stark prospect of a revolution that is without beginning or end.

“All art is propaganda,” George Orwell deftly observed, leading by example with his novels, critical essays, and insights into the nature of wo/man as political animal. When taken as a whole, An Incomplete History of Protest offers more than just a look back at the past: it also shows us how to activate people by appealing to their emotions.

For above all, people react; action simply requires more effort than most are willing to put forth, but reaction—whew! Try to stop the avalanche once it starts. Art, in as much as it is perceived by the senses before it is understood by the mind, is one of the most primal, visceral paths to stir the heart. And so An Incomplete History of Protest reminds us: if you want to move the people, how you say it may be even more important than what you say—and there’s no use fighting it.

Toyo Miyatake (1895–1979), Untitled (Opening Image from Valediction), 1944. Gelatin silver print mounted on board, 9 7/16 × 7 5/16 in. (24 × 18.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2014.243 © Toyo Miyatake Studio

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

Dissecting the Political Impact of Acid House

Posted on August 10, 2017

Norman Jay MBW. Photographer unknown.

Back in 1979, in a Chicago nightclub called The Warehouse, DJ Frankie Knuckles helped incubate the nascent genre of house music. Taking its name from The Warehouse, house music spread through the US underground and around the globe, and in London, it transformed into something entirely new. The acid house movement combined the hippie spirit found on the island of Ibiza with the sensation of taking a trip, be an ecstasy pill, a hit of acid, or a plane ticket to a faraway land.

By 1987, acid house had taken UK by storm with an irrepressible, revolutionary energy that evoked the utopian vibes of the Summer of Love. Peace, love, respect, and unity were the order of the day, albeit within the confines of illegal parties that were cropping up across the country, drawing thousands of revelers from all walks of life who wanted nothing more than to dance through the dawn. But the acid house scene was more than a cosmic display of hedonism. It was a movement that subverted the racial and class boundaries of Margaret Thatcher’s seemingly endless premiership. Although its political impact is often overlooked, acid house united a deeply segregated society, and what’s more, it empowered those who have been written out of history to rise and come to the fore.

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of acid house, Sky Arts are broadcasting The Agony & The Ecstasy, a three-party documentary series that tells the story of the rave revolution through 40 seminal figures on the scene including superstar DJs Norman Jay MBE, Goldie MBE, Paul Oakenfold, and Dave Pearce, as well as producers, promoters, club owners, former police officers, and the unsung heroes of the scene.

Norman Jay MBE, one of the original godfathers of warehouse parties, first got his start at the tender age of eight, when he DJed a tenth birthday party. The Notting Hill, London native was born to Grenadian parents and came of age during the 1970s when collaborating with his brother with a reggae sound system they called Great Tribulation. A visit to New York City changed everything and they renamed the system Good Times, with a nod to Nile Rodgers’ disco band Chic. Good Times led the way as acid house came up, helping to spread the culture through the creation of London pirate radio station Kiss FM in 1985.

Norman Jay MBE spoke to Dazed about the political implications of acid house, and how the music forever changed the British landscape.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Dazed, Music

Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism

Posted on August 9, 2017

David Wojnarowicz, Democracy, 1990, Black-and-white silkscreen print, 23 x 20 inches, inches, Sold

Looking back at the AIDS crisis through the prism of history, the scale is so vast, the scope is broad, and the trauma is so real. They say time heals all wounds, but they were wrong. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” William Faulkner understood.

Two decades after the epidemic hit its zenith, we can now begin to look back, to reflect, to consider, discuss, and reflect on what happened, what it meant, and the lessons we can take as we enter a brave new world.

ClampArt and Ward5B present Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism, a new group show curated by Greg Ellis, currently on view at the gallery through September 23, 2017. The exhibition presents the work of artists including Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, Reinaldo Arenas, Jimmy De Sana, and many more, who are no longer with us—but their art lives on.

The exhibition also looks at radical spaces like the Pyramid Club, Boy Bar, Danceteria, The Club Baths, and other venues that became safe spaces for the community, but also grounds where intimate contact could propel the spread of the disease.

“There is a tendency for people affected by this epidemic to police each other or pre- scribe what the most important gestures would be for dealing with this experience of loss. I resent that. At the same time, I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death, of their lovers, friends and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets,” David Wojnarowiz observed, recognizing they many ways AIDS destroyed lives.

Yet, all was not lost for amid the horror, a beacon of hope that came about as AIDS activists took on the United States government and did not back down until they won. We speak with curator Greg Ellis about his vision for the show, the ways that art is used as a tool of agitation and community alike, and the lessons we can take forward.

Nan Goldin, Suzanne and Phillippe on the train, Long Island, NY, 1985, Cibachrome print
(Edition of 100), 16 x 20 inches.

I’m so pleased you are doing this show, as the AIDS crisis has been on my mind for the past few years, in part because I feel that so much time has passed, there’s a new generation that has grown up without any real knowledge or understanding of the past.

The other reason it’s been on my mind is upon reflection of how successful ACT UP was in forcing the government’s hand—lessons we can all benefit from as much today as back then. I wanted to begin by asking what was the inspiration or impetus for this show?

Greg Ellis: The inspiration for this show has always been the friends we lost during the epidemic; creative, talented, and fiercely independent people that helped shape our politics and love of the arts. We were also interested in illuminating the interpersonal relationships that link the many artists and queer spaces to the microbiological disaster that was unfolding.

Boy/Girl With Arms Akimbo and ACT UP were intentionally the jumping off point in this exhibition. What was important for us was illustrating the downtown art community’s activism that eventually resulted in these larger collectives. Wheatpasting, graffiti/stencil work, Xerography and film all were mediums that lent themselves to disseminating political messages in a way that was previously unavailable.

This heritage of radical NYC politics was already in place in groups like Colab and their historic Times Square Show. Many of the artists represented in this show also had pieces in the 1980 exhibition, including Cara Perlman, Keith Haring and Jack Smith. Downtown artists were already collaborating on political and social issues as the first cases of seroconversion began to be reported.

While AIDS affected so many people in the arts community, there has been a distinct absence of addressing the crisis since it occurred. May I ask, how do you account for the silence, as well as the resurgence of interest?

Greg Ellis: We’ve included as the theoretical framework for the show Laura Cottingham’s essay, Notes on Lesbian. She speaks about the many ways the broader culture “erases” sexual minorities and other marginalized communities from the public record – whether through the exclusion in cultural histories or familial erasure in the disposal of material/memories related to homosexual family members and their partners.

And while I believe this erasure did occur in many ways during the epidemic, I think it is a bit more complex with the AIDS crisis, primarily because it was such an emotionally and psychologically disfiguring trauma for those that survived.

Time is a great healer, but the reality has been that addressing the overwhelming emptiness takes decades, as is common with those that have lived through wartime. What was so disquieting is that it hit a small, targeted minority so heavily, resulting in the deaths of so many lovers and friends. Some silence though is preferred. After the initial attacks on our civil liberties through hotly contested ballot measures and the homophobia of immoral nuts like Jesse Helms, their prejudice was quieted.

Crisco Disco, c. 1970s-80s, Bar sign from original club on 11th Avenue in Manhattan (Silkscreen), 22 x 25 inches.

The subject is so vast and profound, having affected tens of thousands of people from all walks of life in a wide number of ways. How did you conceptualize the exhibition in terms of what you wanted to cover as well as which artists and works you wanted to showcase?

Greg Ellis: It is a very personal show. I believe if the show affects people, that is the reason why. Everybody loses loved ones, and they create personal shrines for them. That is what the exhibition attempts to do, as well.

Every piece in the show can be linked to another work with very few degrees of separation due to the collaborative working relationships of the downtown arts community, along with the limited options available to those pushed into the margins. Ethyl Eichelberger, Ken Tisa, Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, and the others all shared close relationships within this tight knit circle. In fact much of the collection comes either directly from the artists or from their lovers and friends. And many of the pieces were gifts from the artists to fellow PWAs.

We included memorial ephemera to punctuate the show with the ultimate indignity of what transpired. The title of the exhibit comes from a passage in David Wojnarowicz’s memoirs that highlight the importance of eulogizing the dead through direct action. David was right. As he became sicker I think the sense was that his artwork and AIDS activism became more intertwined.

The work in the show conveys this sense of uniting activism with art. Mark Morrisroe was creating work from his hospital bed, documenting his physical decline while also using x-rays and his waning medical condition as a muse. They are powerful images of the disease, and bold statements of an artist using their own body as an agent of activism. This was taken a step further with the political funerals, and ashes actions of ACT UP.

I’m particularly interested in the focus on radical spaces, as this is something that powerfully speaks to the times in which we live. Could you speak about the importance of having an actual space where the community can meet to connect to deal with the crisis? Could you also address the double-edged nature of these spaces—it seems so surreal to imagine that added layer, the very real threat of contagion, existing at the same time.

Greg Ellis: Fundraising during the height of the epidemic often took place in nightclubs, sex positive spaces and galleries. Art was utilized to provide awareness about the deadly new contagion and to raise funds for combating it as the official response was anemic. Bathhouses served as sites where progressive politics, social constructs and both private and professional contacts were made. It was at gallery openings, club performances and while cruising for sex where these relationships were often formed.

The trauma of course was that we were also risking exposure to the virus if we hadn’t embraced safe sex guidelines. And while the advent of harm reduction existed as early as 1983, when Joe Sonnabend, Michael Callen, and Richard Berkowitz penned How to Have Sex in an Epidemic, resistance to that message was strong.

People were scared and often compulsively returned to those places for sex and community. This occurred in backrooms, at the baths, and in nightclubs where people commingled, entertained and met one another. They were both highly sexual as well as creative spaces that allowed for personal expression – an unknown for most queer people prior to relocating to urban centers.

Keith Haring, Humiliation Victim, 1980, Xerox print, 8 x 10 inches.

Lastly, I’d love your insights on the relationship between art and activism, and the lessons we can learn from the past. What are the most critical aspects of this crisis that can benefit our communities today?

Greg Ellis: If we learned anything from the AIDS epidemic it was that we shouldn’t turn to the people that have oppressed us to save our lives. Audre Lorde addressed this idea in her 1984 essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Turning to the government to save us while they still criminalized homosexuality proved to be a larger battle than anyone could have foreseen.

Artists tend to be activists by nature. Whether breaking new aesthetic ground or fighting against societal ills, they are our guiding lights in the darkest of times. That dynamism was especially clear when AIDS came to wreak havoc on their own. That we lost so many immensely talented voices in the heart of the major American urban centers, particularly NYC, unquestionably relates to the intellectual and cultural drought that has been felt for the past three decades.

Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism
Curated by Greg Ellis
On view at ClampArt, New York, now through September 23 2017

Ethyl Eichelberger/Peter Hujar | s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Minnie the Maid). s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Minnie the Maid). May/June 1987. Xerox copy (Photograph by Peter Hujar), 11 x 8.5 inches.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art