PAST EXHIBITION
Dennis McNulty: 1981 Pervert
July 2, 2009—August 22, 2009
Press Release
1981. “Morning in America.” Inauguration and attempted assassination of
Ronald Reagan. Worst recession since the 30s. Emergence of AIDS. Launch
of MTV, the IBM PC, Tattoo You , and the De Lorean. Keith Haring sprays subways, Guernica
returns to Madrid, Ali loses his last bout, Sandra Day O'Connor is the
first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Dennis McNulty,
age 6, develops an intense fascination with the patterns, palettes, and
compositions of the pinup illustrations, car ads, and images of
menswear featured in his father's collection of Playboy.
Twenty-eight years later, McNulty re-engages the colors, shapes, and
layouts of early 1980s men's magazine design, zeroing in on the genre's
own re-engagement of the pinup icons of the 1940s and 1950s. Mindful of
the broader definitions of “pervert” as both noun and verb, McNulty
distorts the quasi-underground tradition of pinup art, presenting it
not as nostalgia or historical quotation, but as a subjective, personal
aesthetic interpretation. The results are provocative, infused with a
disquieting sexual force that is by turns amusing and unsettling.
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