Downtown NYC
in the 1980s
Ronald Reagan Presidency (1981–1989)
David Wojnarowicz (wō-nə-RŌ-vich, US, 1954 -1992) writer and visual artist in
painting, mixed media, photomontage, performance, and installation
(left) Still from Silence=Death, 1990, video, 60 min
(right) Untitled, 1983 Warning: the content of Wojnarowicz’s art is meant
to disturb you. Feel free to leave for 15 minutes or so if you do not want
to see it.
Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One day this kid . . .), 1990, gelatin-silver print, 30 x 40 in
David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-79
from a series of 24 gelatin-silver prints, 10 x 8 in each
David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-79
Doug Hall, Close to the Knives - David Wojnarowicz, 2001,
Digital C-print, 60 x 48 inches, ed. of 6,
David Wojnarowicz, The Death of American Spirituality, 1987
mixed media on plywood (two panels), 81 x 88 in overall
David Wojnarowicz, Untitled
(Burning Child), Installation
view, Gracie Mansion Gallery,
NYC, 1984
David Wojnarowicz, Untitled, 1985, pig skull
with map and money collage and acrylic paint
"Bottom line, if people don't say what they believe, those ideas and feelings get
lost. If they are lost often enough, those ideas and feelings never return.“
- Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz, The Newspaper as National Voodoo: A Brief History of
the U.S.A., 1986, acrylic, spray paint, and collage on wood, 67 ½ x 79 in
Wojnarowicz, Water, 1987, acrylic, ink, and collage on masonite, 72 x 96 in.
One of series of Four Elements paintings: water, fire, earth, wind, sea of sperm,
‘storyboard’ that juxtaposes explicit sexual imagery with nature iconography
"I have never had what could be described as an ART EDUCATION.
I am not even sure what an ART EDUCATION is."
Wojnarowicz, ITSOFOMO: In the Shadow of Forward Motion, 1989, Multi-media
one-hour performance, collaboration with composer Ben Neill at The Kitchen,
New York. Performed internationally.
Four video screens
7-minute selection from
ITSOFOMO videos:
http://youtu.be/BPf8gHJ13Do
Nan Goldin (US, b. 1953) Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983;
(right) Nan One Month after Being Battered, NYC, 1984
From Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a 700-image slide show
Nan Goldin, Trixie on the Cot, NYC, 1979, cibachrome print, 27 3/8 x 40
'There is a popular notion, that the photographer is by nature a voyeur,
the last one invited to the party. But I'm not crashing; this is my party.
This is my family, my history.'
- Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin, (left) Naomi and Marlene on the balcony, Boston, 1972, gelatinsilver print
(right) Roommate with teacup, Boston, 1973. Gelatin-silver print, 20x16 in
VINCENT VAN GOGH (Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890), The Night
Café, 1888. Oil on canvas, approx. 2’ 4 1/2” x 3’. Yale University Art Gallery, New
Haven. “A place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime”
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901), At the Moulin Rouge,
1892-1895, oil on canvas, approx. 4’ x 4’7” Chicago Art Institute
Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989), Self-Portraits, 1975 and (right)
1989. His work The 1970s until the early ’80s: between the Stonewall riots
(June 28, 1969) and the AIDS epidemic, which began in 1981 in the US.
Robert Mapplethorpe, (left) Apollo, 1988; (right) Ken Moody, 1986
Robert Mapplethorpe, (left) Orchid in White Vase, 1982; and (right) Derrick
Cross, 1982. Is there such a thing as “Gay” aesthetics?
Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, 1982
Mapplethorpe, Warhol, 1986
Robert Mapplethorpe
Lisa Lyon, 1982
Robert Mapplethorpe, Carleton, 1987, gelatin silver print, edition 1/10, image:
19 ¼ x 19 ¼”. The retrospective touring exhibition in 1989-90, the year after
Mapplethorpe's death, was censored by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms and others.
The Corcoran closed it to avoid losing NEA funding. Protests included projections
of Mapplethorpe’s photographs on the Corcoran. For more on the chronology of
Reagan-era censorship: http://www.publiceye.org/theocrat/Mapplethorpe_Chrono.html
Jean-Michel Basquiat (US, 1960 - 1988) in his studio,1985 (25 years old)
1996 movie directed by
Julian Schnabel
In 1977 Basquiat started to spray paint cryptic sayings on walls around lower
Manhattan and signing them SAMO© (pronounced “same oh’, as in “same old
shit”) graffiti tag for Basquait and Al Diaz. This video still is from 1981
“SAMO© as an end to mindwash
religion, nowhere politics, and
bogus philosophy."
"SAMO© saves idiots“
Poster for a 1980 movie
Times Square Show, 2nd floor with paintings by Tom
Otterness announcing types of art inside
June 1980, more than a hundred
artists, including graffiti artist, SAMO,
installed their work in an empty
massage parlor near Times Square.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, 1982, Acrylic, oil
paintstick, and spray paint on canvas, 7ft 10in x 13ft 9in
“Basquiat’s work gives that private anguish artistic expression.” bell hooks
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Charles the First, 1982, acrylic and oilstick on
canvas, triptych, 6ft 6in x 5ft 2in
Basquiat portrait by Warhol, 1984
Basquiat and Warhol, 1984. Warhol dies in 1987.
1985
Keith Haring (US, 1958-1990, 32
years), 1983 drawing in a Manhattan
subway station
Drew over 5,000 between 1981-85
"One day, riding in the subway, I saw this empty black panel where an advertisement
was supposed to go. I immediately realized that this was the perfect place to draw. I
went back above ground to a card shop and bought a box of white chalk, went down
and did a drawing on it.... I kept seeing more and more of these black spaces, and I
drew on them whenever I saw one. Because they were so fragile, people left them
alone and respected them; they didn't rub them out or try to mess them up. It gave
them this other power. It was this chalk-white fragile thing in the middle of all this power
and tension and violence that the subway was. People were completely enthralled."
-- Keith Haring, in Rolling Stone, August 10, 1989
“If I was going to draw, there had to be a reason. That reason, I decided,
was for people. The only way art lives is through the experience of the
observer. The reality of art begins in the eyes of the beholder and gains
power through imagination, invention, and confrontation.”
Keith Haring
Keith Haring, (center) Untitled, 1982, Vinyl paint on vinyl tarpaulin, 144 x 144 in
(left) “radiant baby” and “barking dog,” (below) “TV man.”
Haring’s iconography / semiotics (language of signs)
Jean Dubuffet (French)
“Art Brut,” 1950s urban
Primitivism: a source for
Haring
Keith Haring, Untitled, 1984, acrylic on muslin tarpaulin, 120 x 180 in
Haring, Pop Shop, SoHo, 1986
Keith Haring painting the Berlin Wall, 1986, at the invitation
of the museum at Checkpoint Charlie