Posts from the “1980s” Category

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

Posted on February 13, 2017

Artwork: Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, 2013. Wood, metal, glass mirrors, plastic, acrylic panel, rubber, LED lighting system, acrylic balls, and water, 113 ¼ x 163 ½ x 163 ½ in. Courtesy of David Zwirner, N.Y. © Yayoi Kusama

“Art is like an endless ocean. I can feel a sense of infinity, the heaven and sky—all a sense of infinity that I can feel through the ocean,” Yayoi Kusama tells Melissa Chiu in a conversation in Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, the exhibition catalogue published by DelMonico Books/Prestel that accompanies an exhibition by the same name at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. this February. The Hirschhorn is the first stop on a two-year, five-city tour; a full list of venues and dates appears at the end of this story.

Infinity Mirrors is one of the most anticipated exhibitions of 2017, as it includes six of Kusama’s mindblowing Infinity Mirror Rooms. By now you’ve seen them in countless selfies taken by museum attendees around the world. Kusama has constructed magical spaces that capture the captivating expanse of vast, unknowable universe in rooms filled with multi-colored LED lights. All the surfaces are mirrors so that the result is a gloriously expansive sense of being launched into outer space.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Japan

Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks

Posted on February 9, 2017

Artwork: Untitled Notebook (front cover), 1980–81. Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988). Mixed media on board; 9 5/8 x 7 5/8 x ¼ in. Collection of Larry Warsh. Copyright © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, all rights reserved. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo: Sarah DeSantis, Brooklyn Museum

Like a prophet, Jean-Michel Basquiat was ahead of his time, alternately embraced and exploited by the art world. The artist, who first became known in the late 1970s, produced more than 2,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed-media works before his death in 1988. He also kept an unknown number of notebooks, where he recorded his private thoughts and ideas, some of which would later be realized in his finished works.

It is into these notebooks that we can glimpse the artist’s mind at work, the process of working through ideas in images and words, of things that pass through the mind like “Higher Monkeys” “Spring Onions” and “The History Of The World” at the end of a list that began as “Rubber Monkey At A Buffet.” The pages of Basquiat’s notebooks string together like memories of a dream. Reading through these notebooks is like reading a diary of sorts. It’s a deeply private space that exists between the brain and the eyes. It is being inside and outside of your self at the exact same time.

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Artwork: Al Jolson, 1981. Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988). Oilstick on paper; 24 x 18 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Estelle Schwartz, 87.47. Copyright © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, all rights reserved. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo: Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum

Artwork: Jean Michel Basquiat in his Great Jones Street studio, New York, 1987. Tseng Kwong Chi (Chinese-Canadian-American, born Hong Kong, 1950–1990). Chromogenic print; 50 x 50 in. Muna Tseng Dance Projects, New York & Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, New York. © 1987 Muna Tseng Dance Projects, Inc. New York. www.tsengkwongchi.com

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

Signs of Our Times

Posted on January 28, 2017

Farah Behbehani, Love rests on no foundation II. Courtesy of Merrell Publishers

We are witnessing acts of ignorance and arrogance so epic they are nothing short of crimes against humanity. When I wrote a review of Signs of Our Times: Calligraphy to Calligraffiti (Merrell) just a couple of days ago for Crave Online, I didn’t foresee the Muslim Ban figuring into things. I just wrote a few words about the beauty of a people that honored the Second Commandment to the letter of the law, one that was born of a grace and beauty that elegantly combines with the subversive eloquence of questioning the status quo–for it is the realm of artists to subvert assumptions that have grown stale and old. But here we are on the precipice, pushed to the edge by a psychopath who speaks for the descendants of Columbus. I don’t have answers but I am inclined to break free of the paradigm built on ignorance, arrogance, and the privilege that suggests the crimes of this country do not fall on my shoulders.

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

Whose Streets? Our Streets!

Posted on January 20, 2017

Photo: Squatters attempt to defend their building by blocking the street with overturned cars and trash before an expected attack by the police on East 13th Street. 1995 © Andrew Lichtenstein

As we enter a brave new world filled with threats unfolding against the citizens of this nation by the very hand of the government it purports to serve, we can look to the recent past to find inspiration in the power of the people and their will to speak truth to power by any means necessary.

From race relations, policy brutality, and war to gay rights, abortion, and housing, ever issue facing the common man and woman was addressed by organizers who understood the power of mass protests. Civil disobedience, a term coined by no less that Henry David Thoreau in an essay of the same name penned in 1849, takes the high road of political activism. Grounded in the moral welfare of the people, it is a practice that is American at its core, for this country was founded upon the refusal to accept state-sanctioned abuse that openly violated human rights.

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography

Ming Smith

Posted on January 18, 2017

Photo: Ming Smith, Sun Ra space II, New York City, New York, 1978 Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 2000 28 3/16 x 39 7/8 in. © Ming Smith, courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery

Ming Smith is the quiet storm, her photographs evoking the soul of Billie Holiday’s music in photographic form. She has lived as an artist all her life, creating a body of work that captures the mysterious beauty of eternal truth. “Images outlive us,” Smith observes, and at the same time, without them, things disappear and the moment is gone. In this way, photographs become not only a work of art or an artifact—they become part of the collective consciousness that defines human experience.

“Something flows through you,” Smith explains. The photographer becomes a channel open to the world, transforming three dimensions into two then delivering them so that we may feel and understand their point of view. Smith’s perspective is as singular as she is. The first African-American woman to have her work collected by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Smith is a pioneer, an innovator, and a rebel imbued with ineffable elegance.

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography

Witness at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Posted on January 6, 2017

Photo: Larry Clark, American, b. 1943 Untitled 1963 Gelatin silver print Sheet: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm); image: 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm) Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Gift of Herbert and Lenore Schorr 2002.85.2 Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

Although the photographer usually stands behind the camera, they are present in every shot they make, from the choice of subject matter and the framing to the moment of release and the selection of the print from hundreds, if not thousands, of others that remain unseen in the archive. Every photo taken and shown bears the eye of the photographer, just as every painting and sculpture bears the hand of the artist. We can consider the photographer many things: provocateur, mastermind, or more “objectively,” witness to scene they are recording for posterity.

The photographer as witness is a popular conceit celebrated in Western art as it embraces the impossible ideals of detachment, neutrality, and independence from the subject and the creation of the image. It carries the noble, even heroic, connotations that elevate the photographer to a status all their own. This response was most recently seen after Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici took a picture of Turkish police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas moments after he assassinated Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov. While the world lay agog at the perfectly orchestrated act of a cold-blooded killer, many in the photography and art worlds took the opportunity to disassociate, waxing rhapsodic about the aesthetics of the image and the valor of Ozbilici.

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Photo: Dawoud Bey, American, b. 1953 The Birmingham Project: Mathes Manafee and Cassandra Griffin 2012 Archival pigment prints mounted on Dibond Diptych, each sheet: 40 × 32 in. (101.6 × 81.3 cm) Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Restricted gift of Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida, and Mary and Earle Ludgin by exchange 2014.8.a-b Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

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

CONTACT at Fahey/Klein Gallery

Posted on January 2, 2017

MONTGOMERY- MARCH 25: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seen close from rear, speaking in front of 25,000 civil rights marchers, at conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on March 25, 1965. In Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Stephen Somerstein/Getty Images)

For a photography aficionado, there is nothing quite so thrilling as looking at contact sheets. It is like reading a diary, delving into private realms that were not meant for public consumption. Like the old drafts of a novel or the prior recordings before the master tape, the contact sheet tells the story of how it happened—how we got to this place. It is a narrative all its own, one that few will ever know, unless the photographer blesses us with a view.

Then, what we see is magical: that heart-stopping, breathtaking moment like in the theater when an actor breaks the fourth wall. It is an acknowledgement of the very construction of it all: the recognition that everything we see has a history and a reality that we rarely ever know. The contact sheet seduces with what it reveals—all that has been hidden from our sight now appears.

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Contact Sheet featuring MONTGOMERY- MARCH 25: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seen close from rear, speaking in front of 25,000 civil rights marchers, at conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on March 25, 1965. In Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Stephen Somerstein/Getty Images)

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

Hollywood Royalty | Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher

Posted on January 1, 2017

Carrie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds, 1973

One of the greatest love stories of our time, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher will be laid to rest together, as they were never meant to be apart. Together, they defined the changing image of women for over 60 years, fiercely self reliant, in varying states of grace.

But it was Postcards from the Edge that hit the high water mark, most likely because books are my first true love. The fact that Carrie, who “hid in books” while growing up could then use them to reveal herself to the world with a wry, tender humor to process the pain she felt, and then turn around and write the screenplay so that no less than Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine could bring this story to life….

Whew. Aspirational, inspirational, pure liberation through art, beauty, and truth. I wrote a few words for CraveOnline for two women who bring tears of love and happiness to my eyes.

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

“Hip-Hop Evolution” Is One for the History Books

Posted on December 29, 2016

Photo: Still from “Hip-Hop Evolution”

On August 11, 1973, Hip Hop was born when DJ Kool Herc spun a back-to-school jam in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. Entrance was 25 cents for the ladies, 50 cents for the fellas, and the spot could only hold 40 or 50 people—but from the footage shot, you could tell they put the Boogie Down in the Bronx.

So what made this Hip Hop and not a regular jam? Well, Herc was the first person to spin just the breaks, the drum (or drum and bass) solo on classic soul and funk records. He brought two copies of each record so he could set them up on the turntables and extend the break just as long as he wanted to. Herc not only created a style and a sound: he turned the turntable into an instrument all its own.

The thing about Hip Hop was, it was the sound of the streets. It was created, innovated, and updated by cats who had music in their blood and a need to dominate. Hip Hop’s formative years were an underground phenomenon; back in the days most stations wouldn’t play it on the radio let alone on MTV. But its isolation gave it strength and integrity—there was no selling out inside the community.

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Bronx, Crave, Manhattan, Music

Teller on Mapplethorpe

Posted on December 26, 2016

Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe Madeline Stowe, 1982 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London

American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe would have celebrated his seventieth birthday this year. It’s impossible to fathom the loss that his premature death had cost not only the genre of photography but the entire world of art. Like the great iconoclasts of yore, Mapplethorpe deftly employed the classical traditions of the medium and applied it to subjects that caused even the most sophisticated among us to bat an eye. His brilliance with lighting and composition set the stage for contemplation of more provocative ideas, subverting the way in which beauty dazzled the mind to make us reconsider our beliefs and prejudices.

Like Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, Mapplethorpe is a photographer’s photographer, pushing the formal elements to the furthest reaches of beyond. In doing so, he was able to transcend the boundaries between commercial and fine art. In the same vein, Juergen Teller has built a body of work and a reputation for operating in both worlds without corrupting either side of the equation. There exists a natural affinity between both photographers: the drive to excel.

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Categories: 1970s, 1980s

Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art

Posted on December 22, 2016

Artwork: Amy Sherald, High Yella Masterpiece: We Ain’t No Cotton Pickin’ Negroes, 2011. Oil on canvas; 59 x 69 inches (149.86 x 175.26 cm). Collection of Keith Timmons, ESQ, CPA. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. © Amy Sherald.

The American South: a land shrouded with myth and mystery, wrapped in layers of illusions and untold history. Novelist William Faulkner suggested that the South is not so much a “geographical place” as an “emotional idea,” furthering the disjunction between the reality and illusion that has permeated the South throughout its existence.

Place is the foundation upon which culture is built and from this culture comes ten thousand things that shape and influence the human experience, from the physical and the spiritual to the intellectual and the emotional realms. To understand the multifaceted nature of the South, it behooves us to take a more nuanced view, taking in the many elements that make the South its own complex and fascinating world.

Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, currently on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, through January 8, 2017, does just this, approaching the subject from the perspective of its aesthetic progeny. The exhibition presents the work of 60 contemporary artists including Romare Bearden, Sanford Biggers, William Christenberry, Thornton Dial, Sam Durant, William Eggleston, Jessica Ingram, Kerry James Marshall, Richard Misrach Gordon Parks, Ebony G. Patterson, Fahmu Pecou, Burk Uzzle, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others.

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Rachel Boillot, 38765 Panther Burn, MS from the series Post Script, 2014. Archival pigment print, edition 2/12; 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist. © Rachel Boillot.

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