A Wall Street refugee's art takes an acid look at her old world

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not very far, far away, there existed a breed apart - feral, solipsistic, arrogant, and rich as Croesus. Masters of the Universe, they dubbed themselves, and they ruled Wall Street in the 1980s, buying and selling and liquidating faster than you can say slick.

But it all came down, first with the stock market crash of 1987, then with a skein of criminal charges.

Yes, Wall Street was at the heart of shenanigans in the 1980s, just it is in the 21st century.

Watching it all back then was artist Virginia Maksymowicz, who labored several years as a secretarial temp for some of the Street's most infamous names, notably those at now-defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert, the epicenter of junk bonds ruled by the likes of convicted felon Michael Milken and Jeff Beck, known as "Mad Dog."

Maksymowicz used her experiences to fashion a series of installations about Wall Street, poverty, greed, power, and violence. And now, along with her husband and artistic sidekick, Blaise Tobia, she has brought back those works of a quarter-century ago for a show at Art on the Avenue Gallery, 3808 Lancaster Ave.

"Previously Occupied: Wall Street Works 1984-1988," which opens Friday and runs through Nov. 26, fuses art and politics, past and present, and seals it all with a kiss of sorts for Wall Street.

"Isn't it amazing?" said Maksymowicz, now 59 and an associate professor of art at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. "This work of 30 years ago, and essentially nothing has changed. There's been a slight shift, in terms of Wall Street. Stuff has moved from the mergers and acquisitions end to the banking end. But it's all relevant, 30 years later."

Actually, Maksymowicz was in it back then for the money. Working as a temp on Wall Street paid very well. And her mother had insisted she learn a marketable skill in high school, just in case.

When Milken was pushing junk-bond deals, Maksymowicz occasionally worked for him.

She did time at Kidder Peabody, Standard & Poor's, Goldman Sachs.

Once she found a mistake in a tax return that saved her firm $250,000. Her boss rewarded her with a "good job" and two pieces of bubble gum.

That became the basis of her installation Pennies From Heaven, which features a wall of cast-paper arms and legs, and pennies and little Bazooka boxes raining down.