Posts from the “Art” Category

Simon Doonan: Drag – The Complete Story

Posted on October 1, 2019

Vaginal Davis, Courtesy of CHEAP

Although drag has existed on the world stage throughout human history, it was only in the early decades of the new millennium—under the care of ‘Supermodel’ singer-turned-reality television sensation RuPaul, no less—that it truly went mainstream.

Aesthete Simon Doonan, author of the richly illustrated history Drag: The Complete Story (Laurence King), gives Ru the nod as the most influential drag in a culture replete with legends. “RuPaul is the one,” Doonan tells Document, speaking on the phone from his home in New York. “Some of the drag kings and queens of the early 19th century, like Julian Eltinge and Vesta Tilley, took it very far and were internationally known, but RuPaul eclipses them. In 100 million years, no one could have ever envisioned the breadth of his impact. He’s on a Madonna-level of impact on the culture.”

Read the Full Story at Document Journal

L/ Drag queens reading Variety. Credit: Author’s own collection R/Wayne County poster. Credit: Courtesy Wayne County

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Document Journal, Photography

Hunter Barnes: Outside of Life – Lowriders, Coolers, Bikers and Bloods

Posted on October 1, 2019

Booty Man, East St. Louis, Missouri, 2003 Photography Hunter Barnes

In 2003, Hunter Barnes travelled across the United States, photographing the outsider cultures he encountered along the way. The North Carolina native went to New York to photograph bikers, East St. Louis to shoot Bloods, the New Mexican deserts to capture lowriders, and California State Prison, where he was the first person to be permitted to photograph coolers, inmates often serving 25 years to life.

“When I travelled to take pictures, I would go on the road with nothing – I don’t even know how I did it,” Barnes tells Another Man. “I was 23 years old. I slept wherever, ate whatever, I was in it. It was the first time I developed patrons who gave me money to make editions of prints. I only do editions of four and two artist proofs.”

Now, a selection of those rare vintage prints is on view for the first time in over 15 years in Outside of Life: Lowriders, Coolers, Bikers and Bloods. The series began at the outset of Barnes’ career through bikers named Mike and Joey, who were old family friends. “It was a new world to me. I was invited in and I appreciated their trust,” he recalls.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Leroy, Espanola, Chimayo, New Mexico, 2003 Photography Hunter Barnes

OG Nub, East St. Louis, Missouri, 2003 Photography Hunter Barnes

Categories: AnOther Man, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Antoinette “Tony” Sales on Designing Costumes for Rock Stars

Posted on September 27, 2019

Antoinette “Tony” Sales at Norman Seeff’s studio on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, 1977 © Phil Fewsmith.

Over the past 50 years, American artist Antoinette “Tony” Sales has traveled through the rarefied world of rock royalty, designing and making stage clothes for icons including Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Stephen Tyler, and Exene Cervenka. The mastermind behind Freddie Mercury’s iconic rhinestone fingernail gloves and Nick Lowe’s legendary Riddler suit has always believed that, “Each of us inherently has within us the ability to create the life of our dreams.”

Though shy and demure, the willowy blonde Texan has always been possessed by a fearless streak. “If I wanted to do something, I would,” Tony tells Document Journal from her home in Los Angeles, where she continues to create stage clothes for film, television, and music videos. It was a lesson gleaned as a child when her father, science-fiction writer and US military personnel Keith Laumer received an assignment to move to London in the early 1960s, and brought his family along.

“My older brother, Tom Wright, was Mr. Cool American with real Levis and all the good records. He went to Ealing Tech Art College, where he met Pete Townsend and they became lifelong friends,” Tony says. “Tom had walked into the lunchroom and this real shy guy was sitting alone, strumming his guitar, and all of a sudden, he went, ‘schwaaang!’ Tom said, ‘Oh my God. Do that again!’ Pete has said, ‘If it wasn’t for Tom coming into my life, there would never have been a Who.’”

Read the Full Story at Document Journal

Drawing of Dolly Parton © Antoinette “Tony” Sales.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Document Journal, Fashion, Music

Marc H. Miller & Barry Blinderman on the Explosive Rise and Inevitable Fall of the East Village Art Scene

Posted on September 26, 2019

Raymond Pettibon, A&P Gallery Closing Party, Announcement Card, 1986 – Courtesy online Gallery 98.

The late 1970s through mid-1980s in New York marked a major turning point in both the city’s political history and the art world. Fueled by the policies of the Reagan White House, money began to flood the nearly bankrupt city, heightening the stratification between the haves and have-nots, while the specter of gentrification began to sink its teeth into the downtown firmament.

In this brief window, the last vestiges of bohemian life staked their claim in the outposts of the East Village and the Lower East Side, where a new anti-authoritarian art scene emerged. With the launch of galleries like FUN, Gracie Mansion, ABC No Rio, and Civilian Warfare, the downtown scene was primed for new talents like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and David Wojnarowicz that would take the world by storm.

In an exclusive conversation with Document Journal, journalist and archivist Marc H. Miller and art historian and Semaphore gallerist Barry Blinderman discuss this pivotal era of New York City history, spotlighting how artists and galleries used work as a call to action, rather than a commodity for status and profit. Yet the scene’s explosion would ultimately cause its downfall, as efforts to label and package that which defied the system would crash and burn. Today, while countless East Village storefronts sit empty because small businesses cannot afford the rent, we look back at a time when the neighborhood was a playground for anyone who dared to follow their dreams.

Read the Full Story at Document Journal

Tom Warren, Portrait Studio: No Rio Locals, Photo Composite, 1981 – Courtesy online Gallery 98.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Document Journal, Manhattan, Painting, Photography

Women War Photographers: From Lee Miller to Anja Neidringhaus

Posted on September 26, 2019

Photo: © Gerda Taro, “Republican Militiawoman training on the beach outside Barcelona, Spain, August 1936”. © International Center of Photography,

The most famous images of war are largely shot by men: images of stoicism, heroicism, drama, and tragedy often focusing on the male participants. Over the past century, while women war photographers have slowly made their mark, they have not been outwardly recognized for their efforts until now.

In Women War Photographers: From Lee Miller to Anja Neidringhaus (September 2019, Prestel), editors Anne-Marie Beckmann and Felicity Korn showcase the contributions of eight women who have risked their lives to get the picture.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name originating at Kunstpalast in Germany, the book features the work of Gerda Taro, Lee Miller, Catherine Leroy, Susan Meiselas, Carolyn Cole, Françoise Demulder, Christine Spengler, and Anja Niedringhaus.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

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

A Multi-Faceted Portrait of the Genius of Jim Marshall

Posted on September 25, 2019

Man outside a liquor store in Oakland, California, 1962. From Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019 © The Estate of Jim Marshall

When most people think of photographer Jim Marshall (1936-2010), scenes from rock and roll history come crashing to mind: Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire during the Monterey Pop Festival; Johnny Cash flipping the bird at San Quentin State Prison; Janis Joplin lounging like a vixen in a sparkly mini-dress with a bottle of Southern Comfort in hand; the Charlatans playing the Summer of Love concert in Golden Gate Park.

But Marshall’s roots go deeper than rock: they thread through the history of jazz, in the nightclubs and festivals where he honed his skills as self-taught photographer coming of age in Jim Crow America. A perennial outsider, Marshall championed the underdog, the spaces where the oppressed and exploited transformed their pain and sorrow into beauty and art.

As a man of the streets, Marshall understood the power of the activist to transform the way we see and think. He used the camera as his instrument, to tell the story of the people and the times — not just the headlining names but the regular folks who fought for the cause that we’re still fighting for more than half a century after he made some of his most indelible photographs.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Thelonious Monk and his family in their apartment’s kitchen, New York City, 1963. This photo was shot for a Saturday Evening Post story. From Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019 © The Estate of Jim Marshall

Jimmy Rushing backstage at the Hunt Club, Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey, California, 1960. From Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture by Amelia Davis, published by Chronicle Books 2019 © The Estate of Jim Marshall

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

Paolo Roversi: Intangible Presence

Posted on September 24, 2019

Guinevere in a Nina Ricci Haute Couture dress, Paris, 1996 © Paolo Roversi, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery

When Paolo Roversi steps inside his Paris studio, he is on a quest in search of that which lies beneath the flesh. Whether capturing the glamour of haute couture or the intimacy of a nude, for Roversi, “a photograph is always a portrait, and always autobiographical in a way. Fashion photography is a double portrait: a girl dressed in a certain outfit and this outfit dressed by a certain girl. This is magic to me.”

In celebration of his extraordinary body of work, Roversi’s new exhibition Intangible Presence delves into an archive that includes portraits, nudes, and even still lifes that underscore the artist’s love for that which can be seen with the heart.

“Every show is another story. I try to put together a little new fairytale so I see my work in a different angle,” says the photographer and AnOther contributor. “This time it was about the idea of the intangible presence. For me, photography is always a presence and an absence at the same time. It is a little phantom, a little ghost in the photograph. Even if it is silent photography talks a lot.”

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Anna, Paris, 2015 © Paolo Roversi, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery

Categories: 1990s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Fashion, Photography

Jane Evelyn Atwood: Paris Red Light 1976-1979

Posted on September 18, 2019

Pigalle, Paris (Barbara sur la Voiture), 1978-1979 © Jane Evelyn Atwood, courtesy of L. Parker Stephenson Photographs

Hailing from New York City, Jane Evelyn Atwood travelled to Europe in the summer of 1971 after graduating from Bard College, where she had studied theatre. With no plans for her future and no reason to go back home, she decided to stay in France. While working as an au pair, Atwood realised she was deeply unhappy and found an English-speaking therapist who helped her unlock a wellspring of creativity inside of her, which had previously been blocked.

One evening, while attending Tuesday night gallery openings, Atwood met a woman who told her that she knew a prostitute. “I had seen these women prostitutes on the street whispering at the men who passed in these incredible costumes and fur coats, jewellery, and make-up,” she recalls. “In France, prostitution is not illegal; it is what they call ‘tolerated’. In 1975, they were allowed to stand in the street and solicit.”

That same evening, the woman took Atwood to 19 Rue des Lombards, a brothel located in the centre of Paris, and they ended up drinking champagne with a group of sex workers. “It was very chic to be there,” she says. “I was very excited because I was in this unknown and completely forbidden world – it was right where I wanted to be.”

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Rue des Lombards (Natasha chez le Tunisien), 1976-1977 © Jane Evelyn Atwood, courtesy of L. Parker Stephenson Photographs

Categories: 1970s, AnOther, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Arlene Gottfried: After Dark

Posted on September 15, 2019

Arlene Gottfried. Teatro Puerto Rico, c. 1980.

When Arlene Gottfried passed in 2017, the world took note as The New York Times ran one of her photographs on the front page of the Saturday edition and a full-page obituary inside. After a lifetime of picture making, it was a fitting tribute to the artist who had gone largely unheralded in her own lifetime.

But Gottfired did not travail in obscurity. The author of five monographs, Gottfried’s spent her sunset years basking in the critical glow of two well-received exhibitions, Sometimes Overwhelming (2014) and Bacalaitos and Fireworks (2016), thanks to the work of New York gallerist Daniel Cooney.

On September 13, Cooney will present Arlene Gottfried: After Dark, a selection of black and white photographs made on the streets, in the nightclubs, dive bars, back alleys, and drug dens of New York in the 1980s. Gottfried’s portraits reveal a profound sense of beauty made with exquisite sensitivity and care to the impact of poverty, addiction, and crime on people plagued by the effects of systemic oppression, generation after generation.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Arlene Gottfried. Studio 54, 1979.

Arlene Gottfried. Empire Rollerdrome, c. 1980.

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

Heaven on Earth: FESTAC ’77 and the Dream of a Pan-African Utopia

Posted on September 12, 2019

Calvin Reid, FESTAC ’77, Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.

Calvin Reid, FESTAC ’77, Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.

For the past century, the dream of Pan-Africanism has captivated the global consciousness, inspiring black leaders from Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X to advocate for a collective self-reliance that would restore to Africa and its peoples all that has been usurped through systems of colonialism, slavery, and racism over the past 500 years.

The Pan-African philosophy is an inclusive approach that brings together the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of black cultures on the continent and across the diaspora, aiming to forge new canons of history, spirituality, politics, the arts, and science. It even has its own flag, designed nearly 100 years ago: the red, black, and green symbolizing the bloodshed, the people, and the land for which they fight — a restoration of Africa, the home of original man and woman.

A utopian vision with mass appeal, Pan-Africanism was recently popularized once again with the glittering image of Wakanda in the blockbuster film Black Panther. But one does not need to go to Disney World to discover Pan-Africanism realized on Earth. In January 1977, some 16,000 people from 56 nations across Africa and the diaspora descended upon Lagos, Nigeria, to attend FESTAC ’77: the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture.

Read the Full Story at The Culture Crush

Calvin Reid, The Mighty Sparrows, FESTAC ’77, Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.

Calvin Reid, Sun Ra, FESTAC ’77, Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.

Categories: 1970s, Africa, Art, Music, Photography, The Culture Crush

Godlis: On the Inspiration of Brassaï

Posted on September 10, 2019

In the summer of 1976, two events occurred, forever transforming the course of American photographer Godlis’ life and the history of punk. It began when he purchased a copy of The Secret Paris of the 30s, Brassaï’s evocative memoir from his youth featuring his adventures through the brothels and opium dens of the bas monde.

“During my first years in Paris, beginning in 1924, I lived at night, going to bed at sunrise, getting up at sunset, wandering about the city from Montparnasse to Montmartre,” Brassaï, then in his seventies, wrote. “I was inspired to become a photographer by my desire to translate all the things that enchanted me in the nocturnal Paris I was experiencing.”

On one of these nightly jaunts, Brassaï happened upon the Bals-Musette, a shady dance hall where Paris’s high society mingled with its underground. Here, he made pictures too scandalous to include in Paris by Night, the groundbreaking 1933 monograph that brought the Hungarian photographer to the world stage. But by the 1970s, in the wake of Free Love and the Gay Liberation movement, a new hunger for the lives of sexual libertines was in the air, and Brassaï published these images of the darker side of the French capital in The Secret Paris of the 30s in 1976.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography