Blog Archives
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.
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
Wig Wag
Wig Wag
Summer 1988 – December 1989; June 1990 – February 1991
In an archive almost everything carries the aroma of obituary. A book’s cover resembles a mausoleum door, newspapers evoke autumn leaves, a magazine’s tint becomes a mortician’s makeup. Bylines are empty chairs. In our digital realm, which seems so lively, everything passes before we’ve finished, is made to fade into the next, which is why it all gets saved.
Wig Wag is not online. The magazine lived for three years between the minor New Yorker exodus that staffed it and the first Iraq war’s recession that killed it. Founding editor Alexander Kaplen aimed gently at “A Picture of American Life,” a little literary and not too heartlandish. Wig Wag‘s “Letters From Home” could be set against The New Yorker‘s “Talk of the Town.” Terry McMillan, William Maxwell, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Rush, Sven Birkerts, Sousa Jamba, Luc Sante you’ve maybe heard of; many more you certainly haven’t. But the effort to turn from city-centrism seems more significant for its failure.
A notable tool in Wig Wag‘s kit was their “Indignites: Our monthly listing of who’s beating up on whom.” Critical briefs that don’t always read as anachronistic as we might like.
Wig wag, it was pointed out to us by poet and SVA professor Ray DiPalma, is that thing you do with flags on a runway when you’re trying to keep airplanes from crashing.
February 1991
December 1990
November 1990
November 1990
October 1990
October 1990
June 1990
November 1989
September 1990
August 1990
December 1989
Summer 1988
Nest : a magazine of interiors
Nest
Fall 1998-Fall 2004
In the Winter 1999-2000 issue of Nest, architect and urban theorist Rem Koolhaas wrote in critical appreciation:
“Nest goes for the jugular of the secretive. Sometimes the intimacies revealed are almost voyeuristically painful. It is significant that in the era of celebrity and the relentless confessional, the glimpses of previously hidden lives that Nest reveals are shocking in their acute, slightly obscene quality. They show the extent of editing, pruning and laundering that the professional press of revelation performs before launching its “surprises” for the public. By insisting on the intricacies of private life Nest reveals the complete flattening of the public at the end of the 20th century.”
Founding editor Joseph Holtzman “believed that an igloo, a prison cell or a child’s attic room (adorned with Farrah Fawcett posters) could be as compelling as a room by a famous designer” (NYT). His relentless magazine ran for 26 issues. The SVA Library has all but the first issues (donations encouraged).
These scans don’t do its vibrancy justice.
Igloos, Fall 1998
“This building is my memory,” Fall 1998
A Room of One’s Own, Fall 1998
Philip Apagya’s Portrait Studio, Winter 1999-2000
Final Nest: Death Chambers, Winter 2001-2002
Les Harris, Winter 2001-2002
Object Lesson, Summer 2000 (inside the home of Warhol’s longtime manager Fred Hughes, whose bedridden baldspot is featured in the foreground)
Palace of Living Art, Summer 2000 (Van Gogh in wax)
Divine Providence, Spring 2004 (“recent design trends at Rhode Island School of Design”)
And if beautifully published periodicals on realistic interior design (i.e. not Architectural Digest–which we also have) is your thing, have a look at Spain based Apartemento .
Toys – Dolls
Toys has 9 subcategories, 8 of which are chronological distinctions (pre-1950, and then by decade through the partially futuristic 2010-2019) and one of which is Dolls. Toys – Dolls contains 126 items. Here are just a few:
Kewpie Dolls, first manufactured in 1912.
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo: Angelo Hornak
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo: Angelo Hornak
1855 & 1875 Wax Dolls
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo: Angelo Hornak
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo: Angelo Hornak
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo: Angelo Hornak
November 1943
December 1967
A doll with a doll:
All Color Book of Dolls, 1974 by Kay Desmonde.
Photo by Angelo Hornak.
November 1955
December 15, 1997.
Photo by Richard Mitchell.
The doll that encourages bullying: (“It’s easy to make her cry.”)
The dolls that are gluttons for punishment:
1990
SVA Library Picture & Periodicals Collections 