For those who were part of the New York art world in the 1980s and attended the exhibitions and events featured on the art ephemera sold by Gallery 98, these mementos preserve not only art history but also personal memories. The two cards featured here have particular meaning for Gallery 98’s Marc H Miller, who for four years in the early 80s worked with Paul Tschinkel on ART/new york, a pioneering “video magazine on art” sold to schools and museums.
Many ART/new york tapes are still regularly shown at museums. “Graffiti/Post-Graffiti” was scheduled to play continuously as an introduction to the exhibition Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip Hop Generation at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (now shut down because of Covid-19). The card made to announce the video on the Learning Channel in 1984, was also featured in the exhibition as a component of a timeline made up of announcement cards and posters tracking the rise of graffiti as a gallery movement.
The 1980s was a particularly abundant period for important art exhibitions as evidenced by the ART/new york card below that advertises the six tapes covering the 1982/83 art season. Each tape featured two or more artists and covered a particular theme. With its portraits of prominent artists like Keith Haring, Lee Krasner, and Brice Marden, the card is a vivid reminder of both the range of art available in New York in the 80s, and of the rise of video as an important new technology.
You can learn more about the early years of the ART/new york videotape series and view excerpts of tapes at Miller’s website 98 Bowery. Paul Tschinkel continues to produce videos on art and sells earlier programs at his website ART/new york.
ART/new york, Videotapes of the 1982-83 Art Season, Folded Card, 1983, Interior (Detail.)
