Downtown NYC in the 1980s

Ronald Reagan Presidency (1981–1989)

David Wojnarowicz (wō-nə-RŌ-vich, US, 1954 -1992) writer and artist in painting, mixed media, photomontage, performance, and installation (left) Still from Silence=Death, 1990, video, 60 min(right) Untitled, 1983

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

Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-79from 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,

David Wojnarowicz, The Death of American Spirituality, 1987 mixed media on plywood (two panels), 81 x 88 in overall

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

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

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 performance with music in collaboration with Ben Neill at The Kitchen, New York

See 7-minute Wojnarowicz video: 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

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, gelatin-silver 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) 1989The 1970s and early ’80s: between Stonewall (gay rights) and AIDS

Mapplethorpe, Apollo, 1988; (right) Ken Moody, 1986

Mapplethorpe, (left) Orchid in White Vase, 1982; and (right) Derrick Cross, 1982“Gay” aesthetics?

Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, 1982 Mapplethorpe, Warhol, 1986

Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982

Mapplethorpe, Carleton, 1987, gelatin silver print, edition 1/10, image: 19 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches, paper: 23 5/8 x 19 3/4 inches. The retrospective exhibition in 1989-90, the year after Mapplethorpe's death, was censored by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms

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 subway trains and around lower Manhattan and signing them with the name SAMO© (Same Old

Shit). This video still is from 1981

June 1980, more than a hundred artists, including graffiti artist, SAMO,installed their work in an empty massage parlor near Times Square.

Poster for a 1980 movie

Times Square Show, 2nd floor with paintings by TomOtterness announcing types of art inside

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

"SAMO© (Same old shit)as an end to mindwash religion, nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy,"

"SAMO© saves idiots“

Basquait (SAMO)

Basquiat and Warhol, 1984. Warhol dies in 1987. 1985

Basquiat portrait by Warhol, 1984

Keith Haring (US, 1958-1990), 1983 drawing in a Manhattan subway stationDrew 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

Jean Dubuffet (French)“Art Brut,” 1950s urbanPrimitivism: a source for Haring

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1984, acrylic on muslin tarpaulin, 120 x 180 in

Haring, Pop Shop, SoHo, 1986

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