Screw You at Susan Inglett Gallery
Screw You is the title of a bold summer show at Susan Inglett Gallery in New York. Organized by the well known independent curator of print, ephemera, and material culture, David Platzker of Specific Object. From the curatorial essay, the exhibition, ‘shines a light on the intersection of counterculture publishing, tabloid pornography and the art world which occurred in the creatively fertile years of the late 1960s and early 1970s’. The statement does an excellent job of framing the importance of this cultural material both as iconic ephemera of it’s time, but also for the way this intersection of tabloid and fine art served as an incubator for a range of avant-garde creatives (so do give it a read). To illustrate that point the exhibition includes work by, Brigid Berlin, John Chamberlain, Dan Graham, Peter Hujar, Yayoi Kusama, Mel Ramos, Pablo Picasso, Carolee Schneemann, Robert Stanley Betty Tompkins, and Andy Warhol.
Yayoi Kusama‘s own tabloid from back in the day.
Platzker has a done a marvelous job of presenting the work in the exhibition. I’ve seen a fair amount of shows mixing fine art and visual cultural material and it’s not easy to pull off. Screw You is laid in a compelling if idiosyncratic fashion moving between multiple views of publications mounted on the wall and hanging on string to related photographs and artwork. For me the layout was vaguely reminiscent of the Barnes Foundation‘s system of display as if applied to mid-60′s transgressive publications and it totally works. There is an intuitive sense to moving through the show in this way and it allows you to access the work in multiple ways.
This great show is up for till the end of July, for anyone with a keen interest in 60′s counter culture printed matter and it’s larger impact do check this out. If you can’t get to New York, who knows, maybe there will be a catalogue at some point.
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