Painting to Survive

Painting to Survive: 1985-1995 curated by Jonathan Weinberg Audrey Anastasi Jane Bauman John Bradford Suzan Courtney Jean Foos Joel Handorff Richard Hofmann Stephen Lack Marc Lida Michael Ottersen Jonathan Weinberg Fran Winant

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Mark Lida, The Saint, c 1985

Mark Mark Lida Lida at Bucks at Bucks Rock Rock

“Marc Lida didn’t make it out of the decade, but his art exudes a frank freshness. In the acrylic painting on paper Sex Series (c. 1985) . . . the composition delivers Eros and Thanatos to beat the band.”

—R.C. Baker

The Village Voice

Mark Lida, Art Dealer At Leisure, 1985

Marc Lida late 80s

Marc Lida, Dramatis Personae Gallery 1987

Jonathan Weinberg and Marc Lida 1992

Suzan Courtney on the piers, early 80s.

Suzan Courtney, “Scapegoat” (1993-94)

“. . . the artist’s imaginative forms oscillate between biology and architectonic structures.”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Suzan Courtney’s work at BWAC

Jonathan Weinberg on the piers early 80s.

Photo: Suzan Courtney

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Jonathan Weinberg on the West Side Highway Bridge early 80s.

Photo: Suzan Courtney

“Lushly painted canvases by Jonathan Weinberg combine vistas of crisscrossing girders and staircases with triple-X signs and grappling nudes, conflating the labyrinthine structures of the West Side . . .”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Jonathan Weinberg, Pier 45 Spiral Staircase, 1985

Announcement card for Mark Lida and Jonathan Weinberg at the Pyramid Club

Announcement for a 1983 show at Harm Bouckaert Gallery including Joel Handorff, Stephen Lack, Jonathan Weinberg and others

“The selection of these paintings in this exhibition were made in the aftermath of the East Village Art Scene, when everything seemed to be falling apart,” —Jane Bauman in her artist’s statement.

Civilian Warfare Gallery

Photo: Eric Kroll

Jane Bauman with a photo of one of her stencils projected, 1984.

Photo: Ruby Ray

“More blunt, but equally compelling, are stencils that look, through accumulated layers of spray paint, to have done some serious street duty. One, of a now old-fashioned phone handset hanging from a coiled cord, will make viewers of a certain age laugh, recalling dead pay phones drooping around the city like urban Spanish moss.”

—R.C. Baker

The Village Voice

Jane Bauman, “Green Phone Stencil” (1983-1990)

Jane Bauman in her studio, circa 1984.

Photo: Marion S.

French Mag ICI New York, 1984.

Photos: Marion S.

French Mag ICI New York, 1984

Photos: Marion S.

Jane Bauman, AE, 1990 “Bauman’s surfaces radiate like sunlight through smog, imparting a tarnished loveliness. ” —R.C. Baker, The Village Voice

John Bradford, The Butchering of Agog, 1994

“Bradford’s vibrant compositions exquisitely balance dramatic figures against large swathes of mottled background colors, imbuing his scenes with a downto-earth grandeur.”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

John Bradford, Mordecai at the Gate, 1995

John Bradford demonstrating against the repression of artists in the Soviet Union in NYC.

John Bradford demonstrating against the repression of artists in the Soviet Union in NYC.

Audrey Anastasi, Balthusian, 1991

Audrey Anastasi, Carl with Dove, c1989

Audrey Anastasi, Double Portrait, with Mom as model

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

AIDS Quilt panel: “Our family of friends created a panel to commemorate 8 people, dear to us, lost to AIDS in the early years. We painted portraits, symbols and momentos surrounding our Fire Island Pines summer home. Written in the sand are the words: DRIFTWOOD CHILDREN AND FRIENDS, REMEMBERING” —Audrey Anastasi

“[During] 1975 and 1985 there was this explosion of art,” Winberg explains. Then the AIDS crisis happened, and together with other factors, affected the life and work of so many artists. And yet, “many artists continued to paint because that was their passion,”

—Ellie Winberg, Chairperson of “Painting to Survive” (BWAC Gallery)

Hofmann’s breadth is magnificent and one wonders what he would be working on if he were still among the living.

“Hofmann’s breadth is magnificent and one wonders what he would be working on if he were still among the living.”

—Ron Mwangaguhunga The Corsair

Richard Hofman at Pier 34.

Photo by Andreas Sterzing

Richard Hofmann, Untitled, 1991

“Hofmann’s most interesting work [happened] during that [time], and that’s why the idea of having a show about artwork created [between 1985 and 1995 is so important.]”

—Ellie Winberg, artist, and Director of BWAC

Richard Hofmann at Miami New Leonard Hotel, March 1989

Richard Hofmann— Limbo Gallery show catalog, 1984.

Judy Glantzman and Richard Hofmann Judy Glantzman with Richard Hofmann

“. . . it is the small work Aqua Man (c. 1985)—which features a Polaroid print of a man’s blurry face peering out from a surrounding maelstrom of paint and wax—that crystalizes how an individual soul must always negotiate the hurly-burly of humanity..”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Richard Hofmann, Aqua Man, 1985

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Jean Foos at Pier 34, 1983

“And while, yes, there is a feeling of the-end-of-an-era, a sadness reflecting the politically and existentially charged time, there is also joy.

The abstractions of Jean Foos, playing with grid structure leapfrog the emotional intensities of the time, allowing the viewer meditations on Time and (quite literally) Place.”

—Ron Mwangaguhunga, The Corsair

Jean Foos, Blue Glitter Landlord Desert, 1992

“. . . the mossy flagstone pattern overlaid with a sinuous net of color-shifting strokes conjures the primeval geometries of nature. . .”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Jean Foos, Hudson Street (detail), 1995

Jean Foos with painting, 1985

Photo: Dirk Rowntree

Keith Davis visiting the Union Square studio of Jean Foos in the 80s.

Jean Foos and Dirk Rowntree in the studio on Hudson Street, 1990s

“Stephen Lack is another painter undaunted by the dark side, perhaps not unexpected from an artist who early on exhibited in Gracie Mansion’s first gallery—the bathroom of her East Village apartment.”

Beirut

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Stephen Lack at Pier 34.

Photo by Andreas Sterzing

Stephen Lack, On the Ropes, 1989

“Lack’s ravishing paint handling belies the brutal ambiguities of the scenarios in which his lithe characters find themselves.”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Stephen Lack Capt America Testifies

Stephen Lack Hard Working under the Volcano

Stephen Lack Gold Motif and GT

Stephen Lack Wrestlers

Fran Winant portrait

by Steven F. Dansky for Outspoken-LGBTQ

“Fran Winant’s contrasting colors and fluttery shapes—basically symmetrical, save for the odd waxy drip—might be insects, or maybe flowers.”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Against All Odds (1995)

Fran Winant is front and center in Peter Hujar’s Gay Liberation Front poster image.

Fran Winant

“Fran Winant’s art centers around her creation of a “secret language”—of Greek and mathematical symbols—one that she created pre-Stonewall, to express her “socially inexpressible” feelings . . .”

—Ron Mwangaguhunga The Corsair

Fran Winant, Expansion, 1995

Fran Winant in New Museum show curated by Dan Cameron

Radiant Children: Joel Handorff and Jonathan Weinberg

Joel Handorff, The Family, 1987

“With magenta, yellow, and orange skin tones edged with acid-green highlights, the figures in Mary (1988) might recall German Expressionist works from early last century or a particularly garish MTV video.”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Joel Handorff, Mary, 1988

Joel Handorff with artworks and family.

Joel Handorff in the studio

“Michael Ottersen’s abstractions traverse ambiguous realms—is that an old-school keyhole or a mutant treble clef ?”

—R.C. Baker The Village Voice

Michael Ottersen, Silver (Drool), 1991

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Michael Ottersen, Big Legs No Arms, 1991

Michael Ottersen, Throat (Lake), 1990

Michael Ottersen and David Wojnarowicz at Julie Duquet’s party in the 1980s.

Jean Foos and Michael Ottersen at City Without Walls Gallery in Newark, NJ, a non-profit they showed at in the 80s.

Michael Ottersen painting at Pier 34.

Mark Lida at Bucks Rock

Photo: Dirk Rowntree

Jean Foos painting at Pier 34.

Photo: Dirk Rowntree

Arts Magazine September 1985 Richard Hofmann (front left), Jane Bauman (front center)

Ads from the East Village Eye, 1985 and 1986.

David Wojnarowicz and Brian Butterick, late 70s.

Photo: Dirk Rowntree

David Wojnarowicz late 70s.

Photo: Dirk Rowntree