American Contemporary Art: West Coast/East Village
This is close to our hearts, the late eighties through the nineties explosion of art all over the streets and onto the walls and the subway cars and into the brand new galleries that popped up like daisies wherever the rents were low, brash, fearless, bratty, smart and truly democratic. And each coast had its own distinct flair and flavor. Punk, post-punk, post-pop, post-modern, political or just rock and roll, a whole new generation of American artists ran with it. And we were there, stylin' the scene and our friends were buying their friends' art and one friend in particular accumulated a really fascinating collection and brought it to us: special pieces, mostly in the favored medium of the times, prints! This collector shuns personal publicity but we can say that they were in at the creation of the Portland music scene, Dr Winkie's glorious DV8 Club in SF, and then on to LA at the nexus of art and fashion exemplified by the glory years of Details magazine all through the 80s and 90s.
Friendships naturally followed with artists, Keith Haring, Richard Duardo, and others became their mentors, and, little by little, they found themselves with a collection of works uniquely reflective of those times and places: New York and Los Angeles and Portland and San Francisco, the club world, the music world, the fashion world, and the explosion of upstart galleries that upended the art world. We are very happy that they have entrusted us with some of these seminal works, some are one-of-a-kind exemplars, often gifts from the artists themselves.
