Strategy in context: the work and practice of New York's downtown artists in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

摘要

The rise of neo-conservatism defined the critical context of many appraisals of artistic workudproduced in downtown New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Although initial reviews ofudthe scene were largely enthusiastic, subsequent assessments of artistic work from this periodudhave been largely negative. Artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharfudhave been assessed primarily in terms of gentrification, commodification, and politicaludcommitment relying upon various theoretical assumptions about social processes. Theudconclusions reached have primarily centred upon the lack of resistance by these artists to postindustrialudcapitalism in its various manifestations. My investigation engages in a debate withudthese texts by challenging these assumptions by which the downtown artists have beenudunderstood. I address the work of Richard Bolton, Suzi Gablik, Hal Foster and Craig Owens,udamongst others, by critiquing their differing conceptions of structure and agency and introducingudthe analytical dualist approach of sociologist Margaret Archer, one which theorises the agencyudof social actors within social structures in a superior manner. After making my case, I investigateudfive economic and political conditions facing these artists, including corporate expansion,udentrepreneurialism, the entertainment industry, the rise of the neo-conservative political agendaudand the struggle for dominance amongst critics themselves. In each, I investigate the productionudand distribution practices of a wide range of downtown artists in relation to the historical context,udfrom groups such as Colab and PADD to individuals including Ann Magnuson, DavidudMcDermott, Jenny Holzer, Richard Hambleton, John Fekner, Jane Dickson and DavidudWojnarowicz, in order to illuminate the relationship between such practices and the socialudstructures which shaped such activity. In so doing, I conclude that artists were both constrainedudand enabled by these contexts, thus providing a more complex picture of their place in artudhistory.