giving thanks to art of all kinds
Happy Thanksgiving! Today marks what would have been Patrick Nagel‘s 65th birthday. What would we have done in the 1980s without him? Not to mention all the nail salons in America, with the Nagel-esque window illustrations of lovely ladies with lovely nails, often holding roses?
The big shocker is that Nagel died in 1984! How could he define the look of an entire decade without even living through half of it? However, he did die in an uber-80s way — after a celebrity “Aerob-athon”.
My friend Danny D (to whom this post is dedicated) and I have a special spot for Nagel and all the pastel-colored devastation he caused, and continues to cause. I remember visiting a friend’s house in the 90s with Danny, and the place was decorated in a black leather and chrome, low-lighting, bachelor pad kind of way. I can’t remember if it was Danny or I who loudly joked “at least there aren’t any Nagels!” about a split second before we saw the lovingly-framed Nagels on the walls.
I like poking fun at Nagel, but, c’mon, more power to him! And let’s lift a glass and a turkey drumstick to art of all kinds — weird, kitschy, life-altering, silly. Thank you for making my eyes dance!
Nagel, Nagel, Nagel, I made it out of clay…
This post is so timely. I remember that resplendent apartment with it’s track lighting, Nagel gallery and equally cheesy inhabitants. I can trace the start of my neon-envy to that night.
I remember our hands over each others’ mouths in the bathroom to prevent us from loudly laughing our asses off mid party. I hope that apartment looks exactly the same today like an ersatz time capsule. What will future generations think of us when the discover it?
80’s retro chic really confuses me. I was in San Francisco yesterday getting on the BART and this girl had the Sally-Jesse Raphael glasses, the leather pouchy bag, the scrunchy leather kitten heel boots, the terribly unfitted jacket and I was like – why is she dressed like Terri Garr in Tootsie? It’s not just that I think it looks bad, it confuses me. I guess I am old enough to understand it is retro, but maybe my memory is bad enough to realize it’s not the 80’s either.
No lie. There’s a disturbing female bowl cut that’s making the SF rounds, too.
I have been watching Saturday Night Live from the first few seasons (’75-’81) and the audience pans before the breaks are the BEST — you really got to see everyday (dork) style, totally unpolished. There was a woman that got called on stage for some comedian’s bit from 1979 and she looked so much like a city chick 2010 that I got the whimwhams — grey tunic, weird bowl cut, SJR glasses, scrunched boots.
I don’t know which makes me queasier — that or the reinterpretation of grunge that’s all over NY. It’s a very … odd … reinterpretation. But at least I was mature enough when grunge hit that I don’t feel that my youth is being raped for bad fashion (as I did at the height of the early 80s faddism).