This Will Have Been
dal 29/6/2012 al 29/9/2012
Segnalato da
29/6/2012
This Will Have Been
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s. A major new survey of art from an era when the political sphere was dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; the music scene was transformed by punk, MTV, and the birth of hip-hop; and our everyday lives were radically altered by a host of technological developments, from the Sony Walkman and the ATM to the first personal computers. Featuring more than 80 artists the show charts an era of political and aesthetic urgency, highlighting moments of contentious debate, raucous dialogue, and joyful expression.
Curator: Helen Molesworth, chief curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Walker coordinating curator: Bartholomew Ryan
Throughout the 1980s, a series of ruptures permanently changed the character of the art world. Art veered between radical and conservative, capricious and political, socially engaged and art-historically aware. Even as Reaganomics dramatically expanded art as a luxury commodity, postmodernism further challenged the very status of representation and shifted artists’ sense of their role in society. This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s surveys these and other developments with more than 100 works, including paintings, sculpture, photography, video, audio, works on paper, and documentary material by some 80 artists.
Four sections bring together competing factions of this transformative decade. “The End Is Near” explores the end of painting, the end of the counterculture, and the end of history. “Democracy” focuses on artists’ work in the street and their burgeoning awareness and exploitation of mass media, as well as a broader commitment to the political and the increased prominence of Central American artists and artists of color. “Gender Trouble” shows work evolving out of 1970s feminism, expanding gender roles and addressing new ideas about sexuality and the human figure in art. “Desire and Longing” presents the art of appropriation in relation to the growing visibility of queer culture sparked by the AIDS crisis.
In deliberately crossing these themes, this contentious exhibition counters the cynicism and irony with which art of this period is sometimes viewed. It presents a vivid portrait of artists struggling with their wants, needs, and desires in an era of political and aesthetic urgency—and situates our contemporary moment within the history of art of the recent past.
’80s Night
August 9, 2012 6 – 10 pm
Wear your neon, shoulder pads, and stirrup pants for an evening that looks back on an oft-maligned decade. Start the night with a special ’80s-themed edition of Conversationalist’s Café (6–8 pm), in which strangers, friends, and guest artists talk face-to-face about a menu of topics crafted around the era.
Then check out the exhibition This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s during a curator-led tour (7–8 pm), and and stick around as Jim Walsh (author of The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History) rounds up fellow musicians and artists who lived through this special time for a round of stories and songs with the Mad Ripple Hootenanny that harks back to a time when CDs were the next big thing (8–10 pm).
June 30, 2012 2 pm
Opening-Day Talk: Helen Molesworth with Artists Lorraine O’Grady and Donald Moffett
Helen Molesworth, guest exhibition curator for the MCA Chicago and chief curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, discusses the political and aesthetic urgency of the 1980s with participating artists Lorraine O’Grady and Donald Moffett. An artist and critic, O’Grady has engaged in performance, installation, and text-based works since 1980 that explore ideas of diaspora, hybridity, and black female subjectivity. A celebrated painter, Moffett was deeply involved in AIDS activism as a member of Act Up and the art collective Gran Fury in the ’80s.
A comprehensive catalogue, featuring essays by exhibition curator Helen Molesworth and art historians Kobena Mercer, Frazer Ward, and Johanna Burton, accompanies the exhibition.
This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Lead support is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris: Caryn and King Harris, Katherine Harris, Toni and Ron Paul, Pam and Joe Szokol, Linda and Bill Friend, and Stephanie and John Harris. Major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Helen and Sam Zell. Additional support is provided by Neil G. Bluhm; Andrea and Jim Gordon, The Edgewater Funds; Dakis and Lietta Joannou; Susan and Lew Manilow; the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation; Agnes Gund; David C. & Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation; Marilyn and Larry Fields; The Broad Art Foundation; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; Glenstone; Luhring Augustine Gallery; and Per Skarstedt.
The Walker Art Center’s presentation is made possible by generous support from Lisa and Pat Denzer and Frances and Frank Wilkinson. Additional support is provided by Susan and Rob White. Media partner Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.
Press contact:
Christopher James - Associate Director, Public Relations 612.375.7651 christopher.james@walkerart.org
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Ave
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