As elsewhere in the art world, the work produced at the 1982 Art on the Beach 4 increasingly revealed concerns with figuration and social and political issues. Taking their cue from the election year of 1982, several participating artists addressed militarism in their installations.

Questioning Pentagon policies, Scott Pfaffman’s Why Stop Now transformed southern-style barbecue pits made of empty oil drums into finned and cone-nosed bombs. Steve Wood’s Firedamp, a thickly tarred, spiked expanse of plywood threaded with a narrow path, evoked the barren landscape of a post-nuclear explosion at ground zero.

Multiple Artists

Art on the Beach 4

Manhattan

1982