Posts from the “1980s” Category

~~ A Tribute to Arlene Gottfried ~~

Posted on August 9, 2017

Portrait of Arlene Gottfried: © Kevin C. Down

“Only in New York, kids, only in New York.”

American columnist Cindy Adams’ famed bon mot could easily caption any number of photographs in the archive of Arlene Gottfried. Whether partying in legendary 1970s sex club Plato’s Retreat, hanging out at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café with Miguel Piñero, or singing gospel with the Eternal Light Community Singers on the Lower East Side, Arlene was there and has the pictures to prove it.

“Arlene was a real New Yorker who thrived on the energy of the city, roaming the streets and recording everything she felt through a deeply empathetic and loving lens,” Paul Moakley, Deputy Director of Photography at TIME observes.

It was in her beloved city that Arlene Gottfried drew her final breath. She died the morning of August 8, after a long illness that may have taken from her body but never from her heart. In the final years of her life, she experienced a renaissance with the publication of her fifth final book Mommie (powerHouse, 2015), sell-out exhibitions at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, and the 2016 Alice Austen Award for the Advancement of Photography – all of which she attended to with a style all her own.

I put together a tribute to the legendary lady who has always felt like family to me for today’s Dazed.

Photo: © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of powerHouse Books

Photo: © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art.

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

The Jim Henson Exhibition

Posted on July 31, 2017

Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog in 1978 on the set of THE MUPPET MOVIE. Photo courtesy of The Jim Henson Company/MoMI. Kermit the Frog © Disney/Muppets.

My very first crush was on Animal, the wild-eyed drummer for Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, the house band on The Muppet Show. I might have been somewhere around three or four, and Animal was the most relatable guy I had ever seen. He spoke no words and was a creature of pure id. That he was a rock star added to his allure, as his flying mane and choke chain.

You might think to yourself, perhaps this is a bit extreme for a children’s television show. But that’s the joy of The Muppet Show—it spoke to people of all ages at the same time, reaching different audiences without offending anyone. Jim Henson, the mastermind who created the show, skillfully weaved subversive humor into the classic vaudeville format, and then added the perfect twist: all the characters were puppets, and yet they were drawn from life.

Kermit the Frog, the soulful leader, was inspired by jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins; his girlfriend Miss Piggy was the perfect incarnation of the chauvinist pig, whose appearance during the 1970s exemplified the good, the bad, ad the ugly sides of the gender wars that had been raging for years. Fozzie the Bear was a classic Yiddish comedian who played the Borscht Belt and was woefully out of sync with the times yet as lovable as any wacky uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.

Children might miss all of the cultural clues and still appreciate The Muppets for the sheer joy that a madcap troupe of performers promises. Plus there’s a slight twinge of utopian ideal at play: no matter what walk of life you come from, you are welcome here, so long as you put your heart and soul above all.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Crave, Exhibitions

Karlheinz Weinberger: Swiss Rebels

Posted on July 27, 2017

Photo: © Swiss Rebels by Karlheinz Weinberger, published by Steidl, Steidl.de

“My life started on Friday events and ended on Monday mornings,” Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006) said in 2000, on the occasion of his first major exhibition at the Museum of Design Zurich. This was the time when he could leave the daily grind behind, forgetting about his work as a warehouse manager at a factory day in and out from 1955 through 1986. It was on the weekends when he picked up his camera and came into himself.

His business card said it all: “My favorite hobbies: the individual portrait and The Extraordinary. Always reachable by telephone after 7 PM.” He refused to photograph people who did not pique his interest, throwing them the ultimate curve with lines like, “It’s easy to snap the shutter, but I’m so busy you’ll have to wait for maybe three to six months to get the photo.”

It takes nerve—and nerve is where Weinberger excelled. He dedicated himself to the raw sexuality of rebels, construction workers, athletes, and Sicilian youths, as well as men who regularly came to his home, undressed, and gave the camera a show.

As an outsider working in a milieu he created exclusively for his own pleasure and delight, Weinberger amassed a body of work is much a portrait of the artist as the subjects he photographed. Weinberger’s love of the human form was not limited to the bare flesh; he captured the raw sensuality in the very spirit of youth, fully dressed and perfectly coiffed, striking an exquisite balance between teenage lust and campy poseurdom.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Fashion, Photography

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

Posted on July 26, 2017

On June 16, 1966, Stokely Carmichael stood before a crowd of 3,000 in a park in Greenwood, Mississippi, who had gathered to march in place of James Meredith, who had been wounded during his solitary “Walk Against Fear” in an effort to integrate the University of Mississippi.

Carmichael, who had been arrested after setting up camp, took to the stage with fire in his gut. “We’ve been saying ‘Freedom’ for six years,” the newly appointed chairman of the SNCC announced, “What we are going to start saying now is ‘Black Power!’”

With those words, Carmichael did more than change the paradigm for Civil Rights, he transformed the language of race itself. Up until that time, Americans had been using the word “Negro,” taken from the Spanish slave trade. It’s linguistic resemblance to the “N” word was all-too evident; the Spanish word for “Black” that was commonly used had been corrupted by English speakers and infested with pathological hatred, fear, and rage.

Carmichael embraced the word “Black” while simultaneously making the case that “Negro” was the oppressor’s term of diminution and disrespect. Malcolm X, who had had been killed a year earlier, was also a proponent for the word “Black.” By the decade’s end, Ebony was using it exclusively, helping to guide the group towards a self-chosen identity that the rest of the nation came to use.

Why does this matter? Because we think in words; the very terms we use to describe the world, and the connotations they hold, inform our beliefs and perceptions, whether we realize it or not. “Black Power” began in the very naming of the act. It was a means of transforming identity from one that was given to that which was claimed.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Artwork: Betye Saar, Rainbow Mojo, 1972. Paul Michael diMeglio, New York.

Artwork: Emma Amos, Eva the Babysitter, 1973. Courtesy of the artist and Ryan Lee Gallery, NY.

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

Keith Haring: Posters

Posted on July 20, 2017

Artwork: Keith Haring (1958-1990). Ignorance = Fear, Silence = Death, Fight Aids Act Up, New York, USA, 1989. Offset lithograph, 61,1 x 109,5 cm. © Keith Haring Foundation.

Keith Haring (1958-1990) was more than a Pop artist—he was a populist. He made his name in 1980 when he went underground, descending to the subterranean level that New Yorkers know all too well: the subway platform. It was here that Haring set to work, creating a series of white chalk drawings on black paper that had been placed over unrented advertising spaces.

These works, known collectively as Subway Drawings, were an instant hit among people from all walks of life. Because they were made in chalk, rather than marker and spray paint, and depicted recognizable figures rather than hard-to-read graffiti tags, they instantly caught on with people who found the Wild Style of the times simply too taxing to their nervous system.

He softened the punch that graffiti aimed at one and all, and in doing so he was well-received by the art world and the mainstream. But Haring was no punk; he had a message and a style all his one, one that he quickly honed into an industry. In 1982, he began producing posters, one of the most democratic forms of visual culture at the time with its ability to use the systems of mechanical reproduction to distribute reproductions at an affordable price.

Haring seized these opportunities to spread the word, to use the highly popular mode of poster art to reach the broadest audience possible. Of the approximately 100 posters he made during his life, less than 20% were for his shows; instead he focused his efforts on collaborating with like-minded organizations and companies to bring their message to life in a way that was emblematic of the 1980s: bold graphics, bright colors, and good vibes.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Artwork: Keith Haring (1958-1990). Montreux 1983, 17ème Festival du Jazz, Juillet 8-24, 1983. Silk-screen print, 100 x 70 cm © Keith Haring Foundation.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions

Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Paid in Full”

Posted on July 7, 2017

On July 7, 1987, Eric B. & Rakim dropped Paid in Full, their debut album in 4th & B’way Records, and forever changed the game with a style of rhyme so fly Rakim still stands as Top 5 today.

As was the tradition of Hip Hop acts back in the days, Eric B. (Eric Barrier) was the DJ, so he got top billing. A native of Queens, Eric B. was DJing on WBLS-FM, the inky black-owned radio station in New York City at the time. He started a search for “New York’s top MC” and hooked up with Rakim (William Griffin), who hailed from Suffolk County, Long Island.

Rakim took his name after joining The Nation of Gods and Earths, bringing the Five-Percent nation to Hip Hop. The first cut they made was “Eric B. is President,” which was released as a single in 1986 with “My Melody” on the B side. The moment Rakim started rhyming, it was a wrap. Hip hop had never seen anything like it before—and it sure hasn’t since.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1980s

Peter Cain at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles

Posted on July 5, 2017

Artwork: Peter Cain. Sean Number Two, 1996. Oil on linen, 60 x 84 inches, 152 x 213 cm. © Peter Cain, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.

When painter Peter Cain died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 37 at in 1997, he left the art world in a state of shock. His career, which he been on the rise for over a decade, had begun to transform into new realms. What remained was a body of work that comprised 63 paintings that reveal a life interrupted, full of promise and potency, an ability to transform the archetypes of the era into something equally compelling and curious.

Matthew Marks, which represented him during his life, now presents Peter Cain, a new exhibition of works at their Los Angeles galleries, currently on view through September 1, 2017. Featuring paintings, drawings, and collages made between the late 1980s and 1997, this is Cain’s first solo show in LA since 1990.

The breadth of the collection reveals Cain’s development and the directions he had been heading at the time of his death. His earlier works, which brought him to game, are sumptuous paintings of automobiles that combine aspects of Surrealism and Photorealism to stunning effect, luring us into a strange realm where nothing is quite what it seems, yet you’re apt to believe in its truth, just as you would in a dream.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting

David Gwinnutt: Before We Were Men

Posted on June 21, 2017

Photo: Duggie Fields b.1945. © David Gwinnutt

When Swinging London collapsed, the Pop-optics faded away. The bright cheerful colors of promise became muted, grubby, and grey as the city fell into created desperate times. The rising tide of unemployment, set against an on-going recession, brought the conservatives to fore, and through them a new leader was.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to assume the mantle and she went hard: deregulating the financial sector, privatizing state-owned companies, and reducing the power of trade unions. She spoke for the elite and was largely unpopular until victory in the 1982 Falklands War.

During those intervening years, a new generation was coming of age, embracing the D.I.Y. ethos of punk and taking it far beyond the reaches of the known. The scene, which came to be known as the New Romantics, was centered at the Blitz, a nightclub in the Covent Garden section of London.

If ever there was a fitting name, it was this. At the Blitz, a fantastical coterie of artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, and performers came dressed to kill, wearing handmade pieces that could best be described as Ziggy Stardust on acid. The Blitz Kids, as they were known, took that art of the poseur to the next level. The donned costumes and makeup that blurred gender lines, sometimes going so far as to erase the human element in the search for an identity that spoke to the moment.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1980s, Art, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography

Henry Horenstein: Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music

Posted on June 13, 2017

The late songwriter Harland Howard, who penned Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” and Ray Charles’ “Busted,” was once asked what makes a great country song. “Three chords and the truth,” Howard said, as succinct as the music he wrote. Like all things country, the very best doesn’t overly complicate itself: simplicity is the heart and soul of the people, and their music reflects this through and through.

But it’s not mere simplicity, in the sense of “Less is more.” Rather, it is the precise ability to speak to the people on their own terms. Nothing fancy or sophisticated, no need for the trappings of bourgeois aspirations of elitist status or wealth. Country is, in the truest sense, the culture of the folk.

Country music in America comes from the heartland, from the great fly over states that people on both coasts are quick to disregard. But deep in this landscape, the funky twang is set free, and it travels beyond the region, from sea to shining sea. This sensibility can be seen in the new exhibition, Henry Horenstein: Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music on view at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, RI, now through September 10, 2017.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, 1980s

Charlie Ahearn Ft. Grand Wizzard Theodore: Scratch Ecstasy

Posted on June 1, 2017

Hip Hop came of age inside the cinderblock walls of the Ecstasy Garage Disco in the Boogie Down Bronx. By 1980, it was the place to be as the flyest DJs and MCs honed their skills among their peers. In tribute, filmmaker Charlie Ahearn has teamed up with Grand Wizzard Theodore, inventor of the scratch, to recreate their weekly slide show as the centerpiece of Ahearn’s exhibition Scratch Ecstasy, currently on view at P.P.O.W. Gallery. Miss Rosen, who worked with Ahearn on his 2007 book, Wild Style: The Sampler, speaks with Ahearn and Theodore about the interplay between sight and sound in the development of Hip-Hop culture during its formative years.

Read the Full Story at Aperture Online

Photo: Charlie Ahearn, Funky Four in their Bronx neighborhood from the series Scratch Ecstasy, 1980. © the artist and courtesy P.P.O.W.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Aperture, Art, Bronx, Exhibitions, Music, Photography

Irving Penn: Centennial

Posted on May 30, 2017

Photo: Irving Penn, American, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1917–2009, New York. Three Asaro Mud Men, New Guinea, 1970, printed 1976 Platinum-palladium print. Image: 20 1/8 x 19 1/2 in. (51.1 x 49.6 cm.) Sheet: 24 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (63.3 x 56 cm.) Mount: 26 1/16 x 22 1/16 in. (66.2 x 56 cm.) Overall: 26 1/16 x 22 1/16 in. (66.2 x 56 cm.) Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation IP .154

“Photography is just the present stage of man’s visual history,” Irving Penn (1917-2009) sagely observed, recognizing the infinite possibilities of the human animal to create technology that would advance our ability to document, represent, and re-envision the world. As a master of the form, Penn understood that the only thing that limits us is imagination.

For seven decades he worked, becoming a master of studio photography with the ability to craft pictures of anything he wished. Here was a man who could transform his very first commission for Jell-o pudding into a resounding success, even though, as Penn realized, it was, “a abstract nothing, it’s just a blob of ectoplasm.”

Yet with that formless glob of goop crafted in a laboratory, Penn was able to entice consumers to buy and serve the product en masse. It’s precisely this ability to transcend the particulars that made Penn a master of whatever form he chose to shoot, be in portraits, fashion, still life, food, nudes, or flowers. He understood that the photograph was an invitation to engage, to gaze upon the world without actually having to interact with it.

Through the safety of distance in time and space, Penn asked us to look at the complex and extraordinary beauty of existence in its many forms, whether Miles Davis’ hand, the Asaro Mud Men of New Guinea, or the curious silhouettes of Japanese designer Issey Miyake.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Irving Penn, American, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1917–2009, New York. Two Miyake Warriors, New York. June 3, 1998, printed January-February, 1999. Platinum-palladium print. Image: 21 x 19 5/8 in. (53.4 x 49.8 cm.) Sheet: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Mount: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Overall: 23 1/4 x 21 9/16 in. (59 x 54.7 cm.) Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation IP .166

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