Films of 1982
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.
Visual Arts in the 1980s
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
- Feminist art was hugely popular during the 1970s and well beyond. Groups like the Guerilla Girls launched activist campaigns challenging art museums and galleries to feature more female artists and artists of color.
- Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party was on exhibit in Chicago in 1981 thanks to a group of activists who organized and brought this feminist and era-defining work to the city: Activists unite to bring “The Dinner Party” to Chicago.
Art in Chicago: Galleries and Museum Exhibits
- Boom Time for Galleries is a Chicago Tribune article from 1986 that dives into the budding art gallery scene in Chicago. It traces the recent history from 1976 and discusses the successes and challenges of starting and sustaining galleries in Chicago.
- More history on Chicago art galleries starting as early as the 1910s
- Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago did an exhibition in 2012 focused on art from the 1980s (and the follow-up art that influenced it). It is called This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, and it houses many works of art that were created and displayed during that time or emblematic of the era. Check out more of MCA in the 80s exhibit.
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.