3/11/2006
Artist of the 80's
Ikon Ltd., Santa Monica
Group show
Group show
The 80�s encapsulated a time where art inhabited the city, both in street and nightclub environments in NY. Basquiat's guerilla public poetry (as SAMO), Haring's subway drawings, and Kenny Scharf's performances - all were both product and influence of that particular time in cultural history: the poetry of the street. Allen Ginsburg called it.
The three artists converged from the time of their arrival in New York, working and playing together. For a time in the early 80's, Scharf and Haring were roommates. The emerging East Village scene was flourishing, and each of the artists created installations for the Palladium in New York - the apex [at that time] of the intersection of music, fashion, popular culture, and art.
By the early 80's in the New York art world, there was a breaking away from the formalist abstract painting of the earlier generation with a return to figuration in a more personalized way. Clemente, Salle, Schnabel, Chia, and others offered a subjective approach to recognizable subject matter. Kruger and Holzer were making socio-political statements about sexism, racism, and other forms of inequality. This fertile breeding ground was ripe for the works of Basquiat, Haring, and Scharf, each who developed a unique style of representation in a context of social commentary that was unique to their time.
Opening: 6-8pm, November 4
Ikon Ltd./ Kay Richards Contemporary Art
Bergamot Station G Building, 2525 Michigan Avenue - Santa Monica
Hours: Tues.- Fri. 11am-5:30pm, Sat. 12 - 6 pm