US Painting in the Eighties Ronald Reagan Presidency

US Painting in the Eighties Ronald Reagan Presidency (1981– 1989)

David Wojnarowicz (US, 1954 -1992 of AIDS) (left) Still from Silence=Death, 1990, performance/video, 60 min (right) Untitled, 1993

Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One day this kid. . . ), 1990, gelatin-silver print, 30 x 40 in

Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978 -79, from a series of 24 gelatin-silver prints, 10 x 8 in each

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 Wojnarowicz’s essays and diaries are a raw exposé of middle class life in the tradition of the historical avant-garde

Wojnarowicz, The Death of American Spirituality, 1987, acrylic and mixed media on plywood (two panels), 81 x 88 in overall. Ronald Reagan as “nuclear buckaroo, ” spark plugs of collaged dollar bills, gears painted on map of US (see Fineberg)

Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Burning Child), Installation view, Gracie Mansion Gallery, NYC, 1984

Wojnarowicz, Untitled, 1985, pig skull with map and money collage and acrylic paint

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 biology

Wojnarowicz, ITSOFOMO: In the Shadow of Forward Motion, 1989, Multi-media performance with music in collaboration with Ben Neill at The Kitchen, New York

Jean-Michel Basquiat (US, 1960 - 1988) in his studio, 1985 (25 years old) 1996 movie directed by Julian Schnabel

In 1977 (homeless for 2 years) Basquiat started to spray paint cryptic sayings on subway trains and around lower Manhattan, signing them with the name SAMO© (Sambo + Same Old Shit). "SAMO as an end to mindwash religion, nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy" "SAMO© saves idiots“ Basquiat (SAMO)

June 1980 Times Square Show, 2 nd floor with paintings by Tom Otterness announcing types of art inside. Followed by P. S. 1. “New York/New Wave” show in February 1981. Put East Village alternative culture into mainstream and meteoric art world celebrity. June 1980, more than a hundred artists, including graffiti artist, SAMO, installed their work in an empty massage parlor near Times Square.

(By the way): Tom Otterness, The Gold Rush, United States Courthouse, Sacramento, 1999, with text art (tiles) by Jenny Holzer

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, 1982, Acrylic, oil paint stick, and spray paint on canvas, 7 ft 10 in x 13 ft 9 in “Basquiat’s work gives that private anguish artistic expression. ” bell hooks

Basquiat, Charles the First, 1982, acrylic and oil stick on canvas, triptych, 6 ft 6 in x 5 ft 2 in

Basquiat portrait by Warhol, 1984 Basquiat and Warhol, 1984. Warhol dies in 1987; Basquiat, in 1988. Warhol & Basquiat by Michael Halsbad 1985

Keith Haring (US, 1958 -1990), 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

Double-sided mural painted in 1986 on a handball court at 128 th St. and 2 nd Avenue “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

(center) Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982, Vinyl paint on vinyl tarpaulin, 144 x 144 in (left) “radiant baby” and “barking dog, ” (below left) “TV man: Semiotics Jean Dubuffet, “Art Brut, ” 1950 s – a source for Haring For John Lennon, murdered in NYC In 1980, dogs of paparazzi A. R. Penck, Standart, 1971

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1984, acrylic on muslin tarpaulin, 120 x 180 in. production of works on canvas for galleries

Keith Haring’s Pop Shop, So. Ho, 1986

Haring painting the Berlin Wall, 1986, at the invitation of the museum at Checkpoint Charlie

(left) David Salle (US, b. 1952) His Brain, 1984, oil and acrylic on canvas, acrylic on fabric, two panels, 9 ft 9 in x 8 ft 10 in overall (right top) compare James Rosenquist, President Elect, 1960 -1; and (below) Sigmar Polke, Alice in Wonderland, 1971. Disjunctive juxtaposition of images (Surrealism & Dada) from commercial media (Pop Art)

Eric Fischl (US, b. New York, 1948) Bad Boy, 1981, oil on canvas, 5 ft 6 in x 8 ft psychic narratives - subject is “the White tribe” and American suburbia as decadent Educated at Cal Arts L. A. in 1970 s. Figure painting skills were not taught in the US (c. 1960 – 1980) and painting was “dead”

Eric Fischl, Sleepwalker, 1979, oil on canvas “What’s an adolescent boy’s masturbation about anyway if it’s not, in some sense, a separation technique? He’s separating from his parents. He’s becoming aware of himself. ” - Fischl

Eric Fischl, A Visit to, A Visit from The Island, oil on canvas 2 panels, 84" x 168“ overall, 1983

Eric Fischl, Living Room, Scene 3, 2002, oil on linen, 65 x 98 inches From photographic series: “The Krefeld Project, ” (2002) For several days actors posed for artist in Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany, which was designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1928 to be a private home. Furnished for the shoots by the artist.

(left) Fischl, Bedroom Scene #1, 2003, from photographic series: “The Krefeld Project” (2002); (right) compare (above) Edward Hopper (US, 1882 -1967), Hotel Room, 1931, oil on linen, (below) Edgar Degas, Absinthe, 1876 // all Baudelairean painters of modern anomie