

The hedonism, drugs and self-destruction one equates with Studio 54 was due to the over-commercialization of the culture.Īnja Van Herle has become well-known for her paintings of women in ambiguous psychological states wearing stylish glasses.
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Gay folks moved from the margins of US society to the center of its popular culture, a feminine energy took over as disco divas openly sang about the pleasures of sex, and the American man was challenged to change with the times, to dress and be more cool, to drop the beer belly and to learn how to dance and look pretty. Disco was one part rejection, perhaps one part denial and one part coming out as the musical culture innovated by the gay community was too vibrant and dynamic to be repressed. Disco culture followed Vietnam and Watergate, when faith in the US government was waning and the country felt enervated by a senseless and cruel war that never could have been won. As we stand at the cusp of possibly eliminating the coronavirus, the 70s may have some resonance and relevance in our lives as we prepare to let loose once again. JoAnne Artman Gallery takes a peek at the effects of disco through That 70s Show: Saturday Night Fever, a group show demonstrating curatorial choices influenced by the disco era that reach over to today. The election of 2016 was, to a great extent, America’s latest disco demolition night. As 1979 showed a last desperate gasp of intolerance, so did 2016 following America’s first black president. But even though disco “died” shortly afterwards, America was altered beyond a scope imaginable by the underbelly. These folks were everything the trash hated – gays, independent women, folks of color.

In 1979, when a Chicago disc jockey blew up numerous disco records at Comiskey Park in Chicago, it was America’s underbelly of white trash declaring that they demanded their culture back from the folks who had inadvertently overshadowed it.
