They were the dandies of Avenue C, swanning about in cutaway suit coats, top hats and detachable starched collars. They made paintings the old-fashioned way, dressed in smocks and using rabbit skin glue primer and lead gesso on linen tacked, rather than stapled, to stretchers they found in the garbage. They backdated their work to the early 1900s, or before.
At a time when appropriation was one of the many art strategies of the moment, David McDermott and Peter McGough took that practice (among others) to its extreme. “Time maps,” they called their work, which tackled themes like sexuality, bigotry and the AIDS crisis.
