GAYLETTER

Last Wednesday I went to see the New Museum‘s latest show: “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star.” This phenomenal exhibition sprawls across all five floors, as well as the museum’s Studio 231 space next door. It takes art created and exhibited in New York City in 1993 as a lens through which to view larger cultural themes of difference, globalization, and multiculturalism. This is most strongly evidenced by the many works surrounding sexual identity, ethnicity, and AIDS by artists such as Nan Goldin, Coco Fusco, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and many more.

NYC 1993 is a time capsule of a particular historical moment that has great relevance for today. Our current obsession with 90’s fashion comes through in series of photographs chronicling the work of Art Club 2000. This collective of art students was famous for fucking with consumer brands, especially the Gap,  by buying matching outfits from the retailer, then posing for photos around NYC in them. The group would then take advantage of the Gap’s lenient returns policy and avoid paying for any of it. Also essential viewing is Cheryl Donegan‘s video “Head,” a riff on cliched, MTV-style, super-sexualized 80’s and 90’s music videos in which the artist sucks and spits a milky fluid from a bright green bottle against a pink background accompanied by the song “A Good Idea” by Sugar. Another stand out piece is Glenn Ligon‘s “Red Portfolio,” in which he reproduces Reverend Pat Robertson‘s descriptions of Robert Mapplethorpe‘s “too vulgar to print” photographs, which Robertson was attempting to use as an excuse to pull funding from the National Endowment for the Arts because of their support for queer and other controversial art. 20 years later we see conservative activists succeeding in removing funding for the arts and humanities and renewed attacks on queer culture, making these works from 1993 seem more relevant than ever.

NYC 1993 is both a snapshot of a specific moment, as well as a view into how historical processes extend beyond particular places in time. The show reminds us that the first ‘blog’ was produced in 1993, and Alex Bag‘s lo-fi video “Untitled (Spring 94)” is a hilarious critique of pop culture that feels like it could have been posted on Tumblr yesterday.

Still from Cheryl Donegan, “Head,” 1993

Nan Goldin, “Gilles and Gotscho, Paris,” 1992-93

Art Club 2000, “Untitled (Conran’s 1),” 1992-93

Left: Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett, “In Honor of Allen R. Schindler,” 1993

Right: Alix Lambert, “Wedding Series: Portrait of Robert Nickas and Alix Lambert,” 1993