From now until June 3rd the exhibition This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980's will be at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. A look back to the years between 1979 to 1992 when the world was drastically changing, the artists represented in the exhibit were directly influenced during these years by our dramatically changing world. The politics, music, television, major advances in technology and the changing ideas behind social equality in all areas of everyone's life define the artwork that challenged mass media and also asked the question "Where do the visual arts fit into the changing world of mass media images and advertising of Hollywood?" Be sure to check it out if you are in Chicago!
DEMOCRACY:
Gran Fury
Kissing doesn't kill: Greed and indifference do, 1989
This section can be explained simply by the core ideals of democracy: equality, freedom for all citizens and protecting the rights of those we may disagree with. These artists explore public spaces, expressing their artwork as posters, graffiti and everyday language to convey important messages in a raw, and public forum other than in museums and on the television.
GENDER TROUBLE:
Lorna Simpson
Necklines, 1989
Focusing on works that are directly influenced by the significance of the 1970's feminist movement. Understanding gender roles in the 1980's is wholly explored by looking at identity in it's entirety and how such roles should be equally influenced by race, sexuality, class and other distinct forms of difference.
THE END IS NEAR:
Gerhard Richter
Said, 1983
The idea of "the end" rang true in many different ways throughout the 80's. Many artists talked about "the end of painting" in the newly developing mass media world, the Berlin Wall coming down, and the rapid increase of AIDS. These 'ends' made way for the beginning of the term postmodernism, setting the stage for history to be looked at as a narrative for the future where traditional ideas were approached in non-traditional ways.
Jeff Koons
Rabbit, 1986
Artists of the 1980's were very influenced by the strength of the images that were being saturated throughout mass media, these images that are always encouraging the need for more- more belongings, a better lifestyle, money, fame and conformity. Hoping to disprove the strength of these images, artists explored various techniques which included re-photographing the works of others, using everyday objects and mass media images within their works, which ironically brought out the fact that Hollywood-style fame, luxury goods, and things of the like, however they are assembled, are hard to resist.
