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In some ways the activities of Space 1026 are similar to those
of New York's East Village in the early 80s. The "new image"
work of that time sought to separate itself from the cooler and
prescriptive reduction of late modernism. This sea change was
fueled by an infusion of punk rock, graffiti and the intense theoretical
boom of the time. This spread across all the arts internationally.
Just as musicians set about discrediting what came before and
ratcheted up the energy, the artists ignored the status quo and
reached back to an early modernism for their model, commenting
on society et al using a visual language like that of the Weimar
period in Germany. The resulting wacky figuration was the lighter
side of post modern. Individual expression of the hot kind was
key. Reagan's election in 1980 had further served to polarize
the political within art, broadly speaking. The idea was for artists
to be both angry and smart.
But that was then and this is now. Space 1026's mix of skateboard
-hip attitude, comics, and silk screened off the cuff nonchalance
has been steady, the results have been hit or miss. Their stance
could be read as a particular take on art, a reaction to the institutional
nature of high level art these days, or merely an aversion to
growing up. This group lives by their creed and take low-budget
seriously. A mix of trained, half-trained, and untrained artists,
they have a hankering to document their generation for better
or worse. Their success may be one of reversed effort. |
