Posts from the “1990s” Category

Frieze A to Z of Contemporary Art

Posted on April 25, 2017

Photo: Wolfgang Tillmans, Lutz and Alex, sitting in the trees, 1992, photograph. © the artist, courtesy Maureen Paley, London.

In June 1991, frieze magazine appeared on the scene. A slim 32 pages, the pilot issue gave a taste of things to come. Inspired by the great British style magazines like Arena, The Face, and i-D, editors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover decided to bring the same sensibility to the world of art. In doing so, the revolutionized the art world on two fronts, with publishing leading the way for art fairs on both sides of the pond.

With the sixth edition of Frieze New York coming up for May 5-7, 2017, we’re celebrating a look back at the magazine’s first 25 years in print with the publication of the handy new guide, Frieze A to Z of Contemporary Art (Phaidon). Drawing on the magazine’s incredible back catalogue of work, the book is organized in a simple to follow collection of essays that take you from Avant-garde to Zeitgeist, with stops along the way in a marvelous potpourri of topics that run the gamut, from Critics, Economics, and Jargon to Nostalgia, Taste, and Visionaries.

With essays like Glenn O’Brien on Andy Warhol for the chapter on Fame, Christian Haye on Kara Walker for History, and Jim Lewis on “Ren & Stimpy” for Television, there is something for everyone. Because that’s what frieze does best of all: it takes the obscure and the sublime and makes them accessible.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Ryan McGinley: The Kids Were Alright

Posted on April 24, 2017

Photo: “Red Mirror”, 1999. Courtesy Ryan McGinley and team (gallery, inc.) © Ryan McGinley.

On a chilly night back in February 2003, Ryan McGinley: The Kids Are Alright opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ryan McGinley, then just 25-years-old, was the youngest artist to have a solo show in the museum’s seven decades on Madison Avenue.

I’m not entirely sure the Whitney knew what to expect, as the denizens of downtown piled into the tiny gallery. I overheard a security guard say, “Excuse me, ma’am. Do not lean against the art,” to blonde in a faux-fur coat with slurry eyes. Moments later a security guard said, The blonde shoved on, disappearing into the throngs that jostled their way in and out of the exhibition. The lurid, glamorous and grizzled characters in McGinley’s photographs were there in the flesh, celebrating the artist’s quicksilver rise to the top. In a period of just five years, McGinley documented the luminous tail of the bohemian comet that swept New York throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

McGinley hung with a squadron of graffiti writers, artists, and personalities that made their own rules – and what remains of those days and nights are the photos. Some 1,600 pictures made between 1998 and 2003, most never-before-seen, have just been released in the new book, The Kids Were Alright, (Rizzoli) to time with an exhibition of the same name now at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver through August 17, 2017.

The documentary-style photographs and Polaroids are raw, sexy images of intense intimacy. Whether partying, having sex, or just hanging out, McGinley’s photos present a portrait of his generation at their most uninhibited peak. McGinley spoke with Dazed about coming of age in True York.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Photo: “Fireworks”, 2002. Courtesy Ryan McGinley and team (gallery, inc.) © Ryan McGinley.

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Photography

Art Pioneer Carolee Schneemann Looks Back at 50 Years of Work

Posted on April 21, 2017

Photo: Still from performance of “Up to and Including Her Limits” (June 1976). Photo: Henrick Gaard

Artist. Feminist. Revolutionary. Carolee Schneemann, now 77 years old, has been traversing the sacred spaces of female sexuality and gender in the name of truth, liberation, and freedom from the patriarchy for more than half a century. Raised on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, Schneemann learned not to fear viscera, injury, or death. Instead, she embraced the creative and destructive forces of Mother Nature and fused them into work that challenged every assumption about women in the art world.

A multidisciplinary artist, Schneemann has created groundbreaking paintings, photographs, performance-art pieces, and installations that expose deep female secrets, pleasures, fears, and taboos. Using her body as a starting point, Schneemann also challenges cultural norms that discourage female artists from using their own nude bodies as the subjects of their work. Most memorably, in her landmark piece, Interior Scroll (1975), Schneemann stood on a table, assumed “action poses,” then slowly extracted and read from a scroll tucked neatly inside her vagina.

Her work shocked the establishment, but over the past 50 years, it has also become the foundation upon which generations of artists and pop-culture figures stand. From Matthew Barney to Lady Gaga, Schneemann’s influence is vast, yet she remains a solitary figure in the world of art, constantly reinventing her methodologies to examine the beauty and horrors of life in equal measure. On the cusp of her first United States retrospective, “Kinetic Painting,” at MoMA PS1 (running from October 22, 2017 to February 1, 2018), Schneemann spoke with BUST about her iconoclastic life in art.

Read the Full Story at BUST Magazine

Photo: Still from performance of “Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions for Camera” (1963), photo: Erró

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Women

Jamel Shabazz: Sights in the City

Posted on April 18, 2017

Photo: Courtesy of Jamel Shabazz / Jamel Shabazz: Sights in the City, New York Street Photographs

When Jamel Shabazz took up photography back in the 1980s, he gave voice to a new generation of young black men who were redefining the look of street-level New York City with their colorful Kangol caps, Adidas shell-toe sneakers, and graphic Cazal glasses. A former corrections officer, Shabazz would wander neighborhoods like Harlem, Brownsville, and the Lower East Side with his camera, approaching strangers who caught his eye, engaging them in conversation, and concluding with a portrait.

For Shabazz, style is more than self-expression; it is an act of resistance, a refusal to be invisible, erased, or diminished. The strength of that vision can be traced throughout his new book, Sights in the City: New York Street Photographs (Damiani), selections of which will be on view at United Photo Industries in Brooklyn, starting May 4. Shabazz, who has worn custom-tailored clothing for 30 years, is just as sharp as his subjects. From his gold-rimmed glasses and butter-leather coats to his two-piece suits and cashmere sweaters, Shabazz has a commanding presence that is counterbalanced by a genuine and gracious smile. Here, the Brooklyn-born photographer reflects on the personal memories that shaped his idea of street style in the city.

Read the Full Story at Vogue Online

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Brooklyn, Fashion, Photography, Vogue

Rest in Peace Charlie Murphy (1959-2017)

Posted on April 12, 2017

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – NOVEMBER 14: Charlie Murphy performs at The Stress Factory Comedy Club on November 14, 2014 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage)

Charlie Murphy died today from leukemia. He was just 57 years old. As Eddie Murphy’s older brother, Charlie Murphy was privy to the shenanigans of the demi-monde during the 1980s, and he ain’t forget a thing. The actor and comedian, who made his silver screen debut in Harlem Nights (1989), became a household name when he began making appearances on Chapelle’s Show, starring in the legendary skits, “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.”

It simply must be said: “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories” changed lives. His sketches about the behind-the-scenes antics of Rick James and Prince inspired countless quotables that have become classics today. Murphy’s deadpan delivery set against a green backdrop, his voice unwavering as he recounts misadventures run amok, created a brilliant foil to Dave Chapelle’s glorious characterizations.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Brooklyn, Crave

Bruce Gilden: Go

Posted on April 12, 2017

JAPAN. Asakusa. 1998. Two members of the Yakuza, Japan’s mafia. The Yakuza’s 23 gangs are Japan’s top corporate earners. They model themselves on American gangster fashion from the 1950s. © Bruce Gilden.

Daido Moriyama, Kikiuji Kawada, and Eikoh Hosoe: these are just a few of the Japanese photographers born in the 1930s, mere children when the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on their country. Growing up in the shadows of war, these men took to photography to mediate this brave new world. Caught between the strong traditions of the past, the vestiges of trauma and carnage, and the push towards modernization that had begun under the Meiji period, each of these artists pictured Japan as it had never been seen before—a raw, radical place of free thought that comes from the avant garde.

In 1974, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented New Japanese Photography, the first major survey of work outside the island nation. Curated by John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi, the exhibition presented 187 photographs made between 1940 and 1973 by 15 photographers that traced the evolution of Japanese life through the war to the then-present day.

Brooklyn-native Bruce Gilden went to see the show. The hours he spent as a child looking out of the second-story window of his home, watching the local toughs so their thing shaped his attraction to the characters he would come to photograph. In 1968, while studying sociology at Penn State, he saw Michelangelo Antonini’s film Blow-Up. The die was cast, so to speak.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

JAPAN. Tokyo. Kaeda. Business man at lunchtime outside JR station. 1996. © Bruce Gilden.

Categories: 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Japan, Photography

Motown: The Sound of Young America

Posted on April 10, 2017

Photo; Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson and Diana Ross in London’s Manchester Square, outside the headquarters of EMI Records, in October 1964. Courtesy of EMI Group Archive Trust

Motown: The sound of young America, coming straight out of Motor City/Detroit was the perfect blend of soul and pop. It was the home of legends from Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder to the Jackson 5, the Supremes, and Diana Ross. And it was all the brainchild of Berry Gordy, Jr., a local songwriter who quickly realized that producing records and owning the publishing was the best way to make bank.

After launching Tamla and Motown labels, Gordy purchased the property that would become the legendary Hitsville U.S.A., in 1959. The multi-purpose building served as a recording studio, administrative offices, tape library, control room, and living quarters for Gordy in those early formative years. He put several family members in key roles, and made Smoke Robinson VP. Then, on April 14, 1960, Berry Gordy, Jr. incorporated the Motown Record Corporation, and that same year the company had its first number 1 R&B hit, the Miracles, “Shop Around.”

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Photo: Seen at a Detroit nightclub in 1964 are, from L to R, Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops, Motown songwriter/producer Ivy Jo Hunter, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, with musicians Dan Turner on sax and James Jamerson on bass. Private Collection.

Photo: With The Supremes, Berry Gordy hails members of the Motown house band, at left, and his Holland/Dozier/Holland hitmakers, in December 1965. LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-L901A- 65-26- 16-VVV, no. 10]

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

#AiWeiwei at the Museum of Contemporary Photography

Posted on April 7, 2017

Photo: Ai Weiwei, Study of Perspective, 1995-2011, White House, Washington D.C., USA, 1995, color photograph.

“Art is not an end but a beginning,” Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei observes, giving voice to the visual world that, at its very best best, sparks new ideas, experiences, emotions, and above all—dialogue. Art is a firestarter. It provides new perspectives and fresh ways of seeing the world, transcending the limitations of time, space, language, and borders. Art is not content with the status quo; it will upend all expectation in search of the unknown.

This has been Ai Weiwei’s journey his entire life—a process that began when his father, Ai Qing, was determined to be an enemy of the state for speaking out against the government in 1957. The family was exiled to a labor camp in the remote province of Xinjang when Ai Weiwei was just one year old, and his earliest years were spent bearing witness to the consequences of speaking truth to power. Rather than cower in the face of state-sponsored oppression, the experience emboldened Ai Weiwei, who has since committed his life and his practice to speaking out against the abuses of the government.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

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

Steve Parke: Picturing Prince

Posted on April 7, 2017

Photo: Copyright Steve Parke

Photo: Copyright Steve Parke

When Prince died on April 21, 2016, the world would never be the same. More than an artist, Prince was the living embodiment of the American Dream. One part innovator, one part iconoclast, Prince took pleasure in subverting expectations and trouncing them with a mastery that belied a singular genius and an incomparable soul.

In 1988, Steve Parke joined the team at Paisley Park after he seized hold of an opportunity and ran with it – for 13 years! Parke collaborated with Prince, helping to create the look of the man whose style and sound was ever-evolving. As art director, Parke was responsible for designing everything from album covers and set design to music videos and merchandise.

In a world where nothing was impossible, Parke found himself in the unexpected position of in-house photographer. In late 1997, as digital photography came to the fore, Parke taught himself everything he needed to know in order to meet the high standards for which Prince was known.

Over the next four years, they produced a stunning body of work, most of it never seen until now, with the publication of Picturing Prince (published by Octopus). Accompanying the images is a series of 50 remarkable vignettes written by Parke that pull back the curtain to reveal Prince: the man, the artist, the legend. Parke gives Dazed Digital a look at life inside the fabled halls of Paisley Park.\

Read the Story at Dazed Digital

Categories: 1990s, Art, Books, Dazed, Music, Photography

Word on the Street: The History of Globe Poster

Posted on March 25, 2017

For more than eighty years, you could see Globe Poster standing tall, hanging out on street corners, posted up on telephone palls, or chilling ‘round the way inside the union halls. They were bright, bold, fabulous affairs that understood that one must demand attention if you want to be seen and heard in this noisy world.

Using DayGlo colors and big black letters etched out of wood type and letter press, if Globe Poster a theme song it would be Nas, talking about “Made You Look.” Because they had to—they needed t let you know the 2Pac, Luke, Snoop Doggy Dogg and That Dog Pound were performing at the Miami Arena on Saturday, August 24. Better get your tickets now, before they sell out, because trust and believe and event like this only comes once in a lifetime.

Globe Poster knew what the people wanted and they delivered the goods. Established in Philadelphia in 1929, Globe Poster promoted everything from carnivals to concerts up and down the East Coast. Like so many in old Hollywood, they started out in vaudeville, moving their way up to burlesque and film, then finally hitting their stride and finding their groove with R&B acts during the 1960s.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

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

#FridayReads: David Bowie’s Favorite Books

Posted on March 24, 2017

In the August 1998 issue of Vanity Fair, David Bowie took the famous Proust Questionnaire. The first question asked was the most telling: “What is your idea of perfect happiness?” to which Bowie answered, “Reading.”

In celebration of Bowie the bibliophile, Open Culture put together a list of the artist’s top 100 books. The list is as diverse as it is revealing; perhaps there is no better way to get inside the mind of a person than through their library. Crave spotlights ten Bowie faves that make for great Friday Reads.

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