Author Archives: Periodicals/Reference Librarian
Back in the Stacks: 1992
Since it feels like summer was decades ago, we took a look at summer decades ago; a sampling of our periodicals. It was hot. Once upon a time.
Open the The New Yorker, what’s the first thing you see? The New Yorker, June 1992.
Rappers in recovery. Alan Light, “L.A. Rappers Speak Out.” Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.
Still maybe an issue. Mad, June 1992.
Walter De Maria and El Greco in Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, from “All Fives, Sevens, and Nines,” by Lars Nittve. Artforum, Summer 1992.
Mad, June 1992.
Danny Tisdale, Lynching 1930. From “Engendered Species,” by Kobena Mercer. Artforum, Summer 1992
“On the Road to Kassel,” Artforum, Summer 1992.
The hits. Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.
Novum, June 1992.
More car ads featuring cops. Vanity Fair, June 1992.
Before mixology. Rolling Stone, June 25, 1992.
From an interview with George Condo, by Anney Bonney. Bomb, Summer 1992.
Vogue, June 1992.
Be thankful for lasers. Vogue, June 1992.
Checking up on the crooks. Annie Leibovitz, “Watergate.” Vanity Fair, June 1992.
Before Bill did it. Julia Reed, “Clinton on the Brink.” Vogue, June 1992.
“Documenting Documenta.” Interview, June 1992.
Fashion fish. Vogue, June 1992.
It doesn’t stop. Interview, June 1992.
And no one is pretending. Interview, June 1992.
Religion. Vanity Fair, June 1992.
From John Ashbery’s “Baked Alaska.” The New Yorker, June 29, 1992.
Factories
Eventually the assembly line finds a way to make what you need, plus what you never thought to think you might want. In the picture collection folder Factories you might find evidence of the way our world was built.
Advertising – Cigarettes
Instead of a cigarette, enjoy a small sampling from our chronological assortment of 1000’s cigarette ads, from the 1920’s till today, currently on display on the top shelf of the picture collection.
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
2000-2009
2010-2019
Scanlan’s Monthly
Scanlan’s Monthly
Volume One Number One (March 1970)
The tiny American flag and big six-figure check on the first-issue cover proclaim their audacity. No kneeling to sacred cows, least of all advertising.
Warren Hinckle came from Ramparts, which published Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Eldridge Cleaver. Sidney Zion wrote for most of the New York publications you’ve heard of, and was the one who revealed the name of the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Together their monthly ran eight issues.
The first, in our rare periodicals archive, pretends ads don’t exist, favors the extended narrative, and pushes against journalistic hypocrisy. There’s a report offering Altamont as a refutation of Woodstock, an assertion of the normalcy of atrocity in Vietnam, a tale of CBS-CIA collusion in Haiti, the American- and British-made disaster of Biafra, Mark Twain’s radicality, high school activist thought, mobster biography, and a ski champ-turned-salesman profile by Hunter S. Thompson, whose gonzo paradigm, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” debuted in Scanlan’s third issue. Their last was boycotted by U.S. printers for covering domestic guerilla warfare.
“We will make no high-blown promises about how great this magazine is going to be,” Hinckle and Zion wrote on the cover. “Pay the buck and turn the page.”
Hunter S. Thompson, “The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy”
Sol Stern, “Altamont: The Woodstock Nation’s Pearl Harbor”
Richard Severo, “The Lost Tribe of Alabama”
Ben Hecht, “The Unfinished Life of Mickey Cohen”
James D. Henry, “The Men of “B” Company”
Mark Libarle, “Another Generation Gap”
Joseph Kahn, “Dirty Kitchens of New York”
Maxwell Geismar, “Mark Twain and the Robber Barons”
Wedge
We have 2 issues of Wedge, no.1(1982:summer) and no.2(1982:fall). The 10 numbers published between 1982 and 1988 represent the entire run. Some issues were published in combined form; no issues were published for fall 1983, spring 1984-fall 1984, summer 1985-1987. They have the following subject headings in our catalog, the links for which you can follow to other material in our catalog with the same assigned subject heading:
Art, Modern–20th century–Periodicals.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)–History–20th century–Periodicals.
Art, Modern.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
Each issue had a distinct title. You can see the title for number 1 below. Number 2 was called The Spectacle.
The First Issue of Wedge was dedicated to the poet James Laughlin.
Back Cover, n. 2 fall 1982
The content includes interviews with visual artists, writers, and filmmakers, as well as essays on various art forms. They also published poetry and various writings, such as “The Thomas Crown Affair” in which Richard Prince chronicles what he did instead of going to work (which included going to the Orleans Theater to watch porno movies and a Howard Johnson’s for a meal). Below are the table of content pages.
Table of Contents, n. 2.
Table of Contents, n. 1.
And as a last enticement, here is an insert called the License Action by the Guerrilla Art Action Group from issue no. 1. These are business card sized and all came in a tiny envelope.
It is a highly entertaining read/browse that provides a snapshot of the early 1980’s art world.
SVA Library Picture & Periodicals Collections 