Posts from the “Art” Category

Michael Abramson: Light on the Southside

Posted on August 10, 2018

Between 1975 and ’77, Michael Abramson (1948-2011) created an extraordinary body of work documenting Chicago’s Southside nightclubs as the subject of his Masters thesis for the Illinois Institute of Technology. Abramson made the rounds, carrying a camera and strobe light to catch all the action going down at Perv’s House, Pepper’s Hideout, The High Chaparral, The Patio Lounge, and The Showcase Lounge.

The sound was afterhours, featuring the funky, soulful vibes of blues artists like Little Mac Simmons, Bobby Rush, Lady Margo, and Little Ed. But Abramson wasn’t checking for the musicians on stage — he came for the crowd on the dancefloors and the bars, shooting half a dozen rolls every night inside this rarely seen milieu. “It was a living self-contained theater,” Abramson said of those heady nights.

Now a selection of the works will be on view in Michael Abramson: Light on the Southside at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR (August 2 – September 2, 2018), bringing the scene back to life. It is, in the words of British novelist Nick Hornby, an admirer of Abramson’s work, “One tiny corner of the world over a handful of evenings a long time ago; but that tiny corner of the world has, for decades now, meant a great deal to an awful lot of people scattered all over the world.”

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1970s, Art, Feature Shoot, Photography

Q. Sakamaki: Tompkins Square Park

Posted on August 9, 2018

Keith Thompson, a homeless activist, and his supporters demonstrate for affordable housing on Avenue B, August 1989. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

On Avenue A in front of the park, protesters hurl bottles at police. May 27, 1991. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

New York City’s East Village has been home to artists, anarchists, and activists for generations. But by the summer of 1988, ravaged by the twin plagues of crack and AIDS, the neighborhood’s Tompkins Square Park became an ad-hoc camp for homeless people, squatters, punks, drug dealers, and users. In an effort to assert control, the Parks Department enforced a 1 AM curfew in the previously 24-hour park, sparking outrage.

Thirty years ago this week, on August 6, protesters occupied the park wielding signs that read, “Gentrification Is Class War, Fight Back” and chanting, “It’s our fucking park, you don’t live here!” Bottles were thrown. Police Captain Gerald McNamara called in backup, and 400 NYPD officers showed up in riot gear.

Many officers concealed or removed their badges as they clubbed protesters and bystanders. The riot lasted until 6 AM, and more than 100 police brutality complaints were logged afterwards. Fourteen officers faced charges, but none were convicted. Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward went on record to state that the NYPD was responsible for inciting a riot.

Japanese photographer Q. Sakamaki was living in an apartment near the park at the time, and he began documenting the Tompkins Square Park movement, which went on for years. It came to an end following the 1991 Memorial Day riot, when the park was forcibly closed and the homeless encampments, known as Dinkinsville, were razed.

Sakamaki’s photographs, published in Tompkins Square Park (powerHouse Books) crystallize this turning point in New York City history, as gentrification began to replace benign neglect. VICE caught up with Sakamaki to reflect on the 30th anniversary of the riots and how New York has changed in the intervening decades.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

A homeless man in front of his encampment. June 1991. Copyright Q. Sakamaki.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Manhattan, Photography, Vice

The 35 Anniversary Wild Style Reunion Concert

Posted on August 8, 2018

Kase 2, Busy Bee, Fab 5 Freddy, and friends at the cheeba spot, 1980. Photo © Charlie Ahearn.

Back in 1978, artist Charlie Ahearn saw a couple of vibrant murals in the handball courts of the Smith Projects in New York’s Lower East Side. The word “LEE” appeared across them in big bold letters. Ahearn was intrigued, and quickly realised it was the work of Lee Quinones, one of graffiti’s greatest writers.

A year later, Ahearn met Lee and Fab 5 Freddy during the historic Times Square Show. The trio immediately started collaborating. At the time, the words “wild style” were on everybody’s lips – it was the name for the colorful, hyper-stylised letterforms dominating graffiti that most people could not read.

Simultaneously, hip hop music was sizzling in the clubs and parks, as the first generation of DJs spun breakbeats while MCs tore up the mic and b-boys rocked the floor. As all of this was happening on his doorstep in New York, Ahearn decided to turn it into Wild Style – the first ever hip hop feature film.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Animation drawing by Zephyr, 1982. Courtesy of Charlie Ahearn.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Graffiti, Huck, Manhattan, Music

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Artrouble

Posted on August 7, 2018

The Motels

Hailing from London, David Allen arrived in Los Angeles in 1976 on what he describes as “an angry whim”. One day while at the newsstand checking for NME, he spotted a magazine with the word Slash written across the front, in a blood-splattered font. Intrigued, he read a story in it before heading to the magazine’s office, where he embarked upon a career in design. Suddenly he was an outsider on the inside of the emerging punk scene.

It was while he was hanging out at the Masque, a nightclub just off Hollywood Boulevard, that Allen was approached by a young photographer named Jules Bates, who had seen a flyer Allen had designed and wanted to collaborate on the cover for Nick Gilders’ album featuring the hit, Hot Child in the City. One thing lead to another, and Bates proposed they start a company with his then-girlfriend Phyllis Cohen, a make-up artist from Vancouver.

Allen named the crew Artrouble, and together they began creating album covers for emerging punk bands like the Dickies and Devo, New Wave bands like Oingo Boingo and the Motels, and pop stars like Shawn Cassidy and Peter Frampton. When Bates died in the early 1980s, Artrouble came to an end. Now, on the 40th anniversary of its launch, Allen looks back at the LA collective that defined an era.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Canterbury Punks

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Art, Music

Bruce W. Talamon: Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982

Posted on August 7, 2018

As staff photographer at SOUL Newspaper during the 1970s, Los Angeles native Bruce W. Talamon knew the score: “always respect the artist and don’t fuck up the vibe. Always be on top of your game, and take any chance you can”. These lessons served him well documenting artists such as the Jackson Five, Parliament-Funkadelic, Donna Summer, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye; the legendary soul, funk, and R&B acts of the 1970s that turned pop music into an unforgettable trip on the Soul Train.

Every Saturday morning, kids and teens across the United States tuned into Don Cornelius’ dance extravaganza. In the decade before video killed the radio star, the sound of Black America hit the high bar as artists like Al Green, Bootsy Collins, and Rick James burned up the stage. After they turned off the TV they hungered for more; more photos and stories about their heroes. So, they read SOUL.

Talamon jumped on the scene, quite literally, when he walked on stage at Wattstax to photograph Isaac Hayes in 1972 – unaccredited. The young photographer had picked up a camera the year before, and decided to forgo his studies as a law student for something entirely different – something no one in the mainstream media was covering in any depth. It is fortunate that he did; as without Talamon, there would be no photograph of Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire walking with a white umbrella towards the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Now, in his new book published by Taschen and titled Bruce W. Talamon. Soul. R&B. Funk. Photographs 1972–1982, the artist takes us back to this pivotal era in history, when glamour, grandeur, and grooves reigned supreme.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Music, Photography

Lucy Sparrow: Sparrow Mart

Posted on August 3, 2018

Photo courtesy of The Standard.

Growing up under the gray skies of post-recession Britain, Lucy Sparrow was mesmerized by the Technicolor splendors of Los Angeles. She was obsessed with the power of bright colors, catchy logos, and familiar forms. These days, Sparrow’s art installations take a cue from Hollywood’s glossy imitation of reality, but with a twist that infuses the ordinary bits of life with wonder.

What Sparrow is best-known for is building a series of corner stores, pharmacies, and even a sex shop where all the merchandise is meticulously crafted out of felt. She recognized the charm of recasting commonplace items in an unexpected material, and tapped into the persistent cultural identity that comes from consumption (cue Barbara Kruger’s I shop therefore I am ).

Last summer, Sparrow opened a felt bodega in New York City selling plush produce, junk food, and even felt condoms. The installation, 8 ‘Till Late, drew so many visitors that it closed in under a month—a full week early—because the shop sold out. (Everything in the store was for sale, with prices starting at just $1.)

On the heels of that incredible success, Sparrow just opened her fifth fully-felted installation, Sparrow Mart in Downtown Los Angeles, modeled on the city’s ubiquitous convenience stores. It’s four times larger than the New York show and took a year to create, and it’s stocked with more than 31,000 items, all of which are for sale.

I caught up with her as she was putting the finishing touches on Sparrow Mart in LA to chat about her fondness for felt and why she’s obsessed with supermarkets.

Read the Full Story at VICE Online

Photo courtesy of The Standard.

Photo courtesy of The Standard.

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Vice, Women

John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres: The South Bronx Hall of Fame

Posted on July 30, 2018

Luis and Virginia, 1985. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Life on Dawson Street KBA Studio, 1982-3. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

During the ’70s, the South Bronx became the face of urban blight, as the federal government systematically denied basic services to Black and Latinx communities under the Nixon White House policy of “benign neglect.”

As neighbourhoods fell into extreme states of poverty, crime, and disrepair, landlords realised they would make more money torching their buildings and recouping the insurance money than they ever could from rent — leaving the South Bronx with vast swaths of empty lots, burned out buildings, and mounds of rubble.

The stark struggle for survival experienced by regular people in the Bronx inspired artists to create incredible feats, like John Fekner’s epic stencils, Gordon Matta-Clark’s first architectural interventions, and the explosion of graffiti across whole cars. In the late 1970s, Stefan Eins moved his gallery, Fashion MODA to Third Avenue near 147th Street and the Hub in the heart of the South Bronx, where he began exhibiting emerging downtown artists like David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, and Jenny Holzer, as well as graffiti artists such as Richard Hambleton, John Crash Matos, and Chris Daze Ellis.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

South Bronx Hall of Fame Walton Street Sidewalk Studio. Courtesy of John Ahearn.

Janelle and Audrey, 1983. Courtesy of John Ahearn

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Bronx, Huck

Brassaï, The Eye of Paris, Returns

Posted on July 30, 2018

View through the pont Royal toward the pont Solferino 1932-33. © Brassaï

Streetwalker, near place d’Italie 1932. © Brassaï

Born Gyula Halász (1899 – 1984), Brassaï took his famed French pseudonym in honor of his hometown of in Brassó, Transylvania. The young artist moved to Paris where he intended to paint, but took up photography when he recognized the camera’s inimitable ability to capture the light in the dark, and the way it revealed itself n silver gelatin paper.

In 1933, Brassaï published Paris de nuit (Paris by Night) to immediate acclaim – one that has not diminished in the intervening years. Here in the dark maze of lamplit streets, prostitutes and lovers, workers and revelers go about their business in café and bars, in smoked filled dancehalls where anything goes.

These images, which earned him the title of “the eye of Paris” on an essay by Henry Miller, gave Brassaï instant entrée to café society and the haute monde, to the glorious glamour and decadence that was Patis between the wars. In this fleeting moment of history, Brassaï captured it all. Here, the worlds of theater, dance, and art mingle and merge, and glow alongside portraits of his colleagues and friends, people such as Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Genet, and Giacometti.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Malick Sidibé: LOVE POWER PEACE

Posted on July 30, 2018

Malian photographer Malick Sidibé (1936-2016) bought his first camera, a Brownie Flash, in 1956 while working as an apprentice for Gérard Guillat in the nation’s capital of Bamako. Self-taught, Sidibé hit the scene, taking photographs at African events filled with teenagers coming of age at the same time that the country reached independence in 1960.

Whether photographing at parties or in his studio, Sidibé effortlessly captured the dignity, style, and pride of the first generation of post-colonial Malian men and women. Now, his portraits have become symbols of LOVE POWER PEACE – which just happens to be the title of Malick Sidibé’s seventh solo exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, on view now through August 10, 2018.

LOVE POWER PEACE presents a selection of previously unseen work from Sidibé’s archive that chronicles the creation of a nation liberated from nearly a century of French rule, filled with the hope, optimism, and boundless energy of youth. Photography gave Sidibé a means to mirror and amplify, creating exquisite images that speak to self-representation, to how one sees themselves and wants to be seen.

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

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

Food, Sex, Art: the Starving Artists’ Cookbook

Posted on July 26, 2018

Gilbert and George, Untitled, 1988, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Gilbert and George; Courtesy of the artists, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York

Ever since “art for art’s sake” became a symbol of bohemian credibility in the late 19th century, the spectre of the starving artist has haunted the general public. Driven by an unquenchable desire to create, artists are often at the vanguard of the culture, decades ahead of their contemporaries, and largely unrecognised.

Here, the struggle to survive is vividly underscored by the very real challenge of putting three meals on the table, every single day. For those who spend the better part of their lives consuming, the decision to pursue a career in the arts is met with wonder and confusion: Why would anyone want to live like that? But for those who must, there simply is no option at all.

They let the idea marinate for a few days before it began to take shape as The Starving Artists’ Cookbook, a series of recipes, images, and cooking videos made between 1986-1991 featuring more than 160 artists including Peter Beard, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Gilbert and George, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Marilyn Minter, Carolee Schneemann, and Lawrence Weiner.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Online

Luis Frangella, Untitled, published in FOOD SEX ART the Starving Artists’ Cookbook by EIDIA (idea) Books in New York, 1991© Luis Frangella; Courtesy of the estate of the artist, Paul and Melissa EIDIA, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Books, Exhibitions

Antwaun Sargent: The Way We Live Now

Posted on July 22, 2018

In the new millennium, photography has been democratised en masse, inviting all comers to create an image that can speak a thousand words in all languages at the same time. In the new group exhibition, The Way We Live Now, currently on view at Aperture Gallery, New York, 18 artists from around the globe explore how photography has the power to shape how we see the world and ourselves.

The exhibition draws on more than 1,000 submissions to the Aperture Summer Open, in which artists were invited to reflect on how photography informs our beliefs about society, politics, beauty, and self-expression. A jury of four curators – including critic Antwaun Sargent – chose works that reflect on life in Latinx, Native American, African American, and queer communities in the United States, as well as life in Israel, South Africa, South Korea, and China.

“When we think about representation and visibility, what has aided and sped up the process of people being seen, their truth being amplified, and their voices added to our cultural landscape is the photograph,” says Sargent. “People want to show themselves, one of the easiest ways is by taking a picture.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Categories: Art, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography