On the Street: The Years of Outrageous Self-Invention, 1980-1990
source: http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/on-the-street-the-annals-of-outrageous-self-inve...
-
-
- disembedded
- added this
“On the Street” is a collection of photographs by Amy Arbus; the photographs presented here were selected from Arbus’s original photo-column that ran in “The Village Voice” between 1980 and 1990, a page that documented New York City’s downtown area’s most vibrant, creative dressers and personalities.
Now that Manhattan is only habitable for the very rich, many New Yorkers love to reminiscently look back to the truly mad and crazy ‘80s, an era when the Bowery could be quite dangerous and apartments were still fairly affordable. Back in the original 1980s and 1990s, Amy Arbus found the subjects for her extremely unique photographs mostly by just wandering around the Village, looking for people who were wearing visually creative and unusual outfits, a lot of polka dots, or stripes, or everyone wearing hats in the summertime. At the time, there was nothing else like it. Until Arbus's photographic work, there hadn’t been any kind of record of the East Village scene when it was comprised of this particularly promising, hopeful group of talented, interesting people.
Describing her pictures from this 1980s to 1990s collection, Arbus stated, “In terms of the clothes, I think they were fantastic and funny and outrageous and silly….There was no kind of judgment going on at the time. Everyone wanted to be noticed, no matter what it was for. That’s completely gone. Being noticed is irrelevant now. You have to make such waves to be a success at things now that dressing differently may make an impression, but it’s not going to get you a career.”
Included here are a large number of wonderful vintage Arbus photographs, a video from her documentary film “On the Street,” a remarkable full-screen high-resolution slide show and an additional audio-slide show of Amy Arbus’s photography.
Now that Manhattan is only habitable for the very rich, many New Yorkers love to reminiscently look back to the truly mad and crazy ‘80s, an era when the Bowery could be quite dangerous and apartments were still fairly affordable. Back in the original 1980s and 1990s, Amy Arbus found the subjects for her extremely unique photographs mostly by just wandering around the Village, looking for people who were wearing visually creative and unusual outfits, a lot of polka dots, or stripes, or everyone wearing hats in the summertime. At the time, there was nothing else like it. Until Arbus's photographic work, there hadn’t been any kind of record of the East Village scene when it was comprised of this particularly promising, hopeful group of talented, interesting people.
Describing her pictures from this 1980s to 1990s collection, Arbus stated, “In terms of the clothes, I think they were fantastic and funny and outrageous and silly….There was no kind of judgment going on at the time. Everyone wanted to be noticed, no matter what it was for. That’s completely gone. Being noticed is irrelevant now. You have to make such waves to be a success at things now that dressing differently may make an impression, but it’s not going to get you a career.”
Included here are a large number of wonderful vintage Arbus photographs, a video from her documentary film “On the Street,” a remarkable full-screen high-resolution slide show and an additional audio-slide show of Amy Arbus’s photography.
-
- groups:
- Entertainment, Culture, Movies, Current Tonight, 9 more
-
- tags:
- Entertainment, Culture, Art and Style, Art, 35 more
-
- recommended by:
- disembedded
