Devastation and decay never looked so good. (John-Divola's Zuma Beach 1977–'78)
"I know people who say they’re from the ’60s as some people say they’re from Paris or New York. It’s not descriptive, it’s declarative, proudly (or smugly) so, and vaguely definitive of their politics. I don’t know anybody who says they’re from the ’70s. Even if they are, it’s not a city they want to be associated with. In the 1970s, in the nation, and especially in its sunny, sick patient, California, enough was too much already. Jim Jones takes his followers to Jonestown, the Hillside Strangler kills, Elvis dies, Prop. 13 passes, Dan White murders Willie Moscone and Harvey Milk, Patty Hearst becomes Tania, Nixon becomes a crook, Carter lectures on narcissistic malaise, then Reagan rules. While all that was happening, artists were courting their own extremities. Artistic practice, especially in California, blew itself out in more ways than anyone could then account for. Under the Big Black Sun, currently at the Geffen in Los Angeles, offers such an accounting. ..."
San Diego Reader
LAPL
LA Times: 'Under the Big Black Sun' at MOCA
YouTube: Under the Big Black Sun. Art in California 1974-1981
2016 March: W.S. Di Piero, 2016 December: Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008, Josef Koudelka: Nationality Doubtful, 2017 March: March of time: 20th Century icons from an old art museum in Buffalo are at the Museum of Art, May 2017: In from the cold, 2017 July: Turner set free: Nature as roughhouse theater by W.S. Di Piero
No comments:
Post a Comment