When Art Was Part of the Party, 1970s and ’80s

Gallery 98 is lending works to the The Last Party, an upcoming exhibition curated by Anthony Haden-Guest that will spotlight the “creative ferment” that exploded around the New York club scene in the 1970s and ’80s. The Last Party opens next Wednesday, June 17, at the non-profit art space White Box on Broome Street in Manhattan.

Many of the artists featured on Gallery 98’s inventory page and many of our online exhibitions reflect the synergy that existed between the clubs and the art world in end-of-the-century New York. For those who need a short refresher course, check out Gallery 98’s online exhibition of Nightclub Ephemera.

Clubs provided artists both with subject matter and with venues to show their work. The finger-paint portraits by Cara Perlman, currently featured in an online exhibition at Gallery 98, were made at the nightclub Tin Pan Alley and feature many well-known nightlife personalities of the early 1980s, including legendary doorman Haoui Montaug and photographer Nan Goldin, whose slide show “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” was often screened at the clubs.

M. Henry Jones found a way to participate in the music scene then unfolding at the clubs by making short animated music films that anticipated rock videos. The Last Party will include a selection of the hand-colored, cutout photographs for Jones’ film “Soul City” that were first featured in an online exhibition on Gallery 98. The Last Party will also include Miller and Ringma’s photographic series Bettie Visits CBGB, an early example of how the club scene inspired participatory art and self-portraits.