Brooklyn New York 80s Fantasyland and Nostalgic Reality

“When it comes to the land of 80’s creativity let’s all be there when we’ve got the touch! Cause with art pictures and projects from that retro decade you’ll love it so much.”

Anel Jr. loves the 80s. He loves the hypnotic personas whose pizzazz embodies the era’s exclamation point energy, not just Madonna and Prince but also “Crazy Eddie” from the frenetic electronics store commercials. He loves lesser-known landmarks like the Getty gas station, bowling alley, and delicatessen that lined the Crown Heights of his youth. Anel even loves the sleek Ex-Lax packages that provided gentle, overnight relief to so many of his heroes.

Born in Brooklyn in 1981, Anel Jr, who works at YAI Arts in Manhattan, is now a multidisciplinary artist and self-described “80s Correspondent” with an encyclopedic and kaleidoscopic appreciation of the era. In his first exhibition, Brooklyn New York 80s Fantasyland and Nostalgic Reality, he presents his favorite decade as it was and as he dreams it could have been. At the start of his Summertime residency, Anel made a list of over 70 intended “art pictures and projects,” including Mr. T. Teaches George Burns That Smoking isn't Cool and Jesus Collaborates with Robert Schuller [...] as a Spiritual Duet. Over the next four months, Anel Jr, industrious and meteoric in his process, checked them off one by one.

In Anel’s drawings, the 80s are divided into reality and fantasy, documenting momentous junctures in pop culture history alongside fantastical mish-mashes and rewrites straight from his imagination. His scratchy, whirring strokes of pencil and paint marker render a buzzing surface reminiscent of TV static, with his beloved rolodex of E-list celebrities appearing instantly recognizable and somewhat shell-shocked for their brief returns to the spotlight. 

In one drawing, an ashen Zohra Lampert peeks out, eyes bulging and vacant, from behind a wall of Goya beans, a reference to a 1984 commercial with a far cheerier tone. In another, child star Emmanuel Lewis flashes a toothy grin as Smurfette bats her eyelashes and pats him on the shoulder; her aqua complexion dazzles against the gritty exterior of the Fulton mall. On a tree-lined Flatbush street, Scooby Doo and Cap'n O. G. Readmore, a puppet cat encouraging literacy, are jolted by an inexplicable flash of light, described by Anel as a “magic laser path to an adventure.”

As he travelled deeper into the past, Anel transformed Summertime into a maximalist retro fantasia. Model magic renderings of subway lines, city stoops, and bygone bowling alleys – painstakingly fabricated with toothpicks and rewired paper clips – engulf the central table, turning it into a city grid. Dioramas adorn the walls like so many television screens, showcasing sculptural universes filled with Smurfs, Rubik’s cubes, bespectacled chipmunks, glib newscasters, and of course the 41 celebrities who came together for the iconic rendition of “We Are the World” benefiting US Aid for Africa. Magnifying glasses are recommended for full viewing; Anel’s sculptures capture every dimple, gas nozzle, window pane, and gold chain. 

With the hungry eyes of an archeologist and the hearty gusto of a sitcom laugh track, Anel unearths the forgotten gems of a bygone Brooklyn and polishes them with a little bit of rainbow magic, until, as Anel put it, they’re “close to solid gold.” 

Join us at Anel Jr.’s opening celebration on September 22, where we’ll snack on Cracker Jacks and cheers Cherry Cokes. Email sophia@summertimegallery.org to schedule a gallery visit.