Art & Film: 1980s

Films of 1982

“But, most of all, I loved the film because how rare to cry as a child says goodbye to an alien one week, and have your philosophical sphere challenged in another. Banner year for films. 1982.”

Grady, Redline Collection

1982 served up a rich, and wide-ranging selection of feature films that established new icons in multiple film genres including horror, sci-fi, drama, action, and fantasy. In Redline Collection, Grady and Evelyn primarily discuss Sophie’s Choice, one of Meryl Streep’s career-launching roles, and The World According to Garp, a film that offered one of the earliest Hollywood representations of a “trans woman” (Roberta) and a woman who could be described as queer and perhaps asexual (Jenny). As it focuses on the lives of the main characters, the story investigates sexuality, identity, and the freedoms and consequences of living against mainstream societal expectations. Grady and Evelyn also mention E.T., Poltergeist ,and Blade Runner, all huge summer hits that arguably helped shape their respective genres.

  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982

Visual Arts in the 1980s

“Landscapes. Abstract. I’m no Basquait though, so you can definitely tell what the shit is. If I was more brilliant maybe you wouldn’t. But I do flirt with the surreal.”

Alma, Redline Collection

As we reach the 1980s, the art world is rich in diversity of techniques and styles coming from artists all over the world. For a contemporary artist at this time, putting a paintbrush to canvas meant understanding anything you created would be compared to, or against, the 20th century artists who defined surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art, and other modernist and emerging styles. There was a big boom of feminist art as well, and later in the decade, political art emerged in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Artists who may have influenced Alma include: Salvador Dalí, David Salle, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Emily Nolde, Jean Michel Basquait, Gerhard Richter, Joan Mitchell, and Andy Warhol – to name just a few!

Feminist Art

  • Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? 1989 Guerrilla Girls

Art in Chicago: Galleries and Museum Exhibits

Activist Art for HIV/AIDS

Activist or political art focused on building awareness and urgency around HIV/AIDS and demanding government action, started popping up in the late 1980s. Gran Fury was a group of artists in New York City affiliated with ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). They are responsible for the iconic SILENCE = DEATH graphic that became an emblem for HIV/AIDS activism, and other works like Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do that was plastered on the sides of city buses and intended to disrupt the misinformation circulating about the illness.

  • Kissing Doesn't Kill: Greed and Indifference Do (1989), Gran Fury
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