Exhibition News: EM headlines paintings from the 80s at Whitney

Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s presents a focused look at painting from this decade with works drawn entirely from the Whitney Museum’s collection. Exhibition on view from January 27-May 14, 2017.

In the 1980s, painting recaptured the imagination of the contemporary art world against a backdrop of expansive change. An unprecedented number of galleries appeared on the scene, particularly in downtown New York. Groundbreaking exhibitions—that blurred distinctions between high and low art—were presented at alternative and artist-run spaces. New mediums, including video and installation art, were on the rise. Yet despite the growing popularity of photography and video, many artists actively embraced painting, freely exploring its bold physicality and unique capacity for expression and innovation.

Elizabeth Murray, Druid (1979), Oil on canvas, 54 1/2 x 56 1/2 in. (138.4 x 143.5 cm). Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Gift of Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz (99.147)

The exhibition includes work by artists often identified with this explosive period—Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sherrie Levine, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel—as well as by several lesser-known painters. These artists explored the traditions of figuration and history painting, and offered new interpretations of abstraction. Many addressed fundamental questions about artmaking in their work, while others took on political issues including AIDS, feminism, gentrification, and war. In the face of a media-saturated environment, artists in the 1980s recommitted to painting. Far from dead, painting came to represent an important intersection between new ways of seeing and a seemingly traditional way of making art. 

Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s is organized by Jane Panetta, associate curator, with Melinda Lang, curatorial assistant.

Installation view: Fast Forward: Painting From the 1980s at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photo: Jason Andrew