My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.
—
Yayoi Kusama
Two Photographs by John Coplans
- Three Poems by Mutsuo Takahashi
- Five Poems by Ryûsei Hasegawa
- A Pathetic Waltz by Gary Indiana
- Two Poems by Gary Lisz
- Four Poems by Gozo Yoshimasu
- New Jersey Days, Nautical Nights by Joan Harvey
- Three Poems by John Giorno
- Naming Names by Klaus Kertess
- Four Poems by Kazuko Shiraishi
First Proof
- Two Photographs by Francesca Woodman
- Artemis II (detail) by Nancy Spero
- Blue Figure/Woman with Clothes Blowing in Wind by Gregory Botts
- Two Sculptures by Jeff Koons
- Two Photographs by Alan Belcher
- Two Works by John Baldessari
- The Land of Pele by Ana Barrado
- Two Photographs by John Coplans
- Three Photographs by Kenro Izu
- Two Prints by Andy Warhol
- From the 1986: Calendar on Travel and Tourism by Martha Hawley & Barbara Bloom
- Two Paintings by Lydia Dona
- Two Photographs by Beth Burstein
- Modus Vivendi by Marina Abramović & Ulay
- Two Photographs by Michael Clegg & Martin Guttman
- Maurice Maeterlinck by Mark Luyten
- Gabriela by Michael Spano
More
John Coplans, Self Portrait, Reclining Torso, Arms Folded, 1985. Courtesy of Pace Magill.
John Coplans, Self Portrait, Reclining Torso, Arms Folded, 1985. Courtesy of Pace Magill.
Related
Their legs are offered to the viewer in a vase of shadow and stone. One kicks like a stem tilts. They are clearly angels’ legs, celestial dancers, moving on an axis of stilled time. So does Venus, emerging from cloth like a snake in a basket, her own snake and her own apple. Stiff dead Egyptians can be sexy, sensuous like a fossil with a heartbeat. The most overtly sexy female in her Empire recliner is more removed. Her chaise, like a vitrine, shows her off but it offers her less.
The landscapes are where the blackness lives in the photographs. The blackness has its own inner density, printed with absoluteness like a mezzotint. How can we get to the light when the darkness and weight are so inviting? The mossy fountain burgeons with life, a vanitas. The waterfall fountain is a thing unto itself like the Venus, its own dais and its own axis, turning almost imperceptibly. It spills to renew itself.
—April Gornik
Two black-and-white self-portraits by Claudia Hart, labeled “The Spirit of Humanism” and “The Spirit of Marxism.”
Originally published in
BOMB 16,
Summer 1986
Linda Hunt by Vincent Caristi & Craig Gholson, Alexander Liberman, art by Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, Barbara Bloom, and more. Cover art by James Nare.
