2003.03.05 12:15
Re: The Mourning After: A Roundtable
The "re-examination" is clearly a specific re-examination of the "Artforum" 1980s. Thus, this thread at artforum/talkback might be the perfect place to examine (or at least solipsically display) other (art) aspects of the 1980s. There is not just one time capsule.
Summer 1981: first thoughts about the theory later named chronosomatics occur in a third floor bedroom in a house on 13th Street near Q Street in Washington DC.
September 1982: wearing a Walkman for the first time in LA.
February 1983: Receive CAD training at Intergraph in Huntsville, AL. Visit the "World's First Space Museum." Love the Saturn 5 rocket laying on its side in pieces in the museum's "backyard" next to a farm field.
April 1983: Cooper Pratt Valhonratt Architects are the first architects in Philadelphia to utilize CAD. Bernard Piaia and Stephen Lauf are the CAD operators.
Summer 1983: Jim Williams (of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fame) gives a personal (almost midnight) tour of his entire house (Mercer House, Savannah, GA) to young Philadelphia architect. Said architect sits in the "very same chair that Jackie O. sat in" on the garden terrace. Portion of said tour of the house is uncannily reenacted by Kevin Spacey and John Cusack in the above mentioned mid-1990s movie.
December 21, 1983: completion of Hey Art Picasso How's Your Brother Dick?.
Spring 1984: work on and completion of 2 = Odd, Dick.
Summer 1984: started wearing personally owned (1963, 220S, my car in High School) Mercedes Benz hood ornament before young Black guys are seen doing it. Rumor had it that the hood ornament was really a fake, and that the real one was kept in a vault. AKA the family jewels.
Labor Day Weekend 1985: Art Installation in the "tunnel" at Kurt's Disco, Philadelphia. One wall supported an almost to life-size enlargement of Anonymous Saint In Bikini While Jesus Is Walking On Water. "Sister Bikini" was born among the bartenders.
September 1985: Picked up Jim Williams at Philadelphia International Airport; this is the first stop of his first antique shopping tour after his final release from jail. Checked out the other Napoleon Coronation Coach medallion at the Philadelphia Athenaeum—Williams wanted to make sure the Philadelphia medallion was identical to the one he owned. During dinner, Williams was told about the quartz pyramid within Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover. "Miss Mysterious Pyramid" was born.
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2003.03.05 16:23
Re: The Mourning After: A Roundtable
[1984] Pumpkin Art
The public opening of the Jonathan Borofsky exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was 6 October 1984. A picture of Borofsky with numbers all over his face was on the cover of The Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine the same day. Thus informed I went to the exhibition that afternoon and found it magnificent, and that was before I became a part of it.
After a number of 'standard' galleries displaying Borofsky's works, the exhibition culminated in a very large, double height room within which Borofsky manifest an installation. There were selected works all over the place, photocopies calling for nuclear disarmament all over the floor, and even a ping-pong table with a sign inviting museum visitors to play.
An old woman was sitting on the only chair in the room, a metal folding chair next to a folding work table that looked as though Borofsky had simply left them there after he was finished. I waited for the woman to get up so I could sit there and observe all the reactions of 'shock' exhibited by all the other exhibition visitors.
After sitting there for a few minutes, another older woman came up to me and asked, "You're the artist, aren't you?" I told her I wasn't, but she wasn't convinced. "Well, you're dressed the same as that figure of the artist up there hanging from the ceiling." It is true that both I and the figure of Borofsky "flying" over the room were wearing blue jeans and a red sweater. I was also wearing my beloved John Deere cap, however. Suddenly, I got an idea.
On the table next to me was a pumpkin and a roll of masking tape. I started tearing off pieces of the tape and started giving the pumpkin eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Then I gave the pumpkin crazy hair standing on end with longer pieces of tape. A crowd started to gather around. "Are you part of the exhibit?" "I am now." Other questions were also entertained. Then a big bouncer of a museum guard came up and asked, "Were you told to do that?!?" I crossed my eyes and answered, "He made me do it." Then the guard's look changed from perplexed to angry, so I stood up and whispered to the guard that I did not intent to cause any trouble, and I will gladly leave the exhibit if he escorts me out. The guard obliged and told me I could stay in the rest of the museum, but "Please don't touch anything."
When I returned to the Borofsky exhibit toward the end of its run the pumpkin and the roll of tape were no longer there.
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2003.03.05 17:29
Re: The Mourning After: A Roundtable
from Catalina with love
August 1986: touring Catalina Island in a golf cart looking for buffalos after a couple margaritas.
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