Tag Archives: 1987

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Grand Black Tie Sperm Glut By Robert Rauschenberg

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grand black tie sperm glut photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Robert Rauschenberg  (1925 to 2008) made Grand Black Tie Sperm Glut (1987) in response to the recession in the 1980s in his native Texas when a “glut“ in the oil market threw the state’s economy into a tailspin. Here, and in the artist’s larger series of Gluts to which this work belongs, he assembled metal scraps, often the debris of American car culture. He observed, “I think of the gluts as souvenirs without nostalgia.” This amalgamation of weathered road signs, some of which are riddled with bullet holes, rejects the idea that there’s a single way forward.

Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Arts and Culture

Mike Kelley’s Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites

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deodorized central mass with satellites lead image photo by gail worley
All Photos By Gail 

In 1987, American artist Mike Kelley (1954 –2012), known for his provocative and often unsettling artworks exploring themes of American popular culture, childhood, and trauma, began to make sculptures from stuffed animals.  Kelley described the toys as “the adult’s perfect model of a child”– cute, clean, sexless.” However, Kelley’s plush toys, purchased secondhand from thrift stores and yard sales, were discarded and soiled from use. Seemingly beyond redemption, they are darkly humorous monuments to lost innocence and repressed emotions.
Continue reading Mike Kelley’s Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites →

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: The Death of American Spiritualty by David Wojnarowicz

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death of american spiritualty photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

The Death of American Spiritualty (1987) by David Wojnarowicz (1954 – 1992) contains a number of the artist’s recurring symbols and imagery densely layered in a single composition. With its radically juxtaposed motifs that suggest different temporalities — from geological landforms to emblems of the American West and the Industrial Revolution — the mythical tableau depicts destruction proliferating alongside technological advancement and geographic conquest.

Photographed in The Whitney Museum in NYC.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday: Kathe Burkhart, Prick, From the Liz Taylor Series (Suddenly Last Summer)

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Prick
Photo By Gail

Kathe Burkhart’s Prick: From the Liz Taylor Series (Suddenly Last Summer) (1987) is based on a scene from the 1959 film Suddenly Last Summer, starring Elizabeth Taylor. The artist has amassed an extensive archive of film stills of Taylor, which she uses for an ongoing series based on the actress’s image — works she sees as self-portraits related to her own life through the choice of image and text. For Burkhart, Taylor represents an important and iconic early feminist:

“Liz Taylor as an actress was often gender nonconforming, and unlike Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and other Hollywood victims, she survived.

Photographed as Part of Fast Forward: Painting From The 1980s at the Whitney Museum of Americana Art, on Exhibit Through May 14th, 2017.

Music, Pop Culture

The Smiths Release Strangeways, Here We Come

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Strangeways CD Cover

On this date, September 28th in 1987, The Smiths released their 4th and final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come. The record includes two of my favorite Smiths tracks, “Death of a Disco Dancer” — on which Morrissey plays the piano, making it the only Smiths album to feature Morrissey playing a musical instrument — and “Paint a Vulgar Picture,” both of which are just brilliance distilled.