Brand new : art & commodity in the 1980s / edited by Gianni Jetzer ; with essays by Gianni Jetzer, Bob Nickas, Leah Pires ; chronology by Patrick Jaojoco.
Publisher:
Rizzoli Electa ;
Copyright Date:
2018
Description:
192 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), photographs ; 28 cm
Catalog of an exhibition held at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., February 14-May 13, 2018. Includes bibliographical references.
Contents:
1987-89: dissemination & contamination. Bob Nickas -- 1979-1982: DIY -- Pleasure/function: aesthetic services circa 1980 / Leah Pires -- 1983-86: the new capital -- Trading in futures / Bob Nickas -- 1987-89: dissemination & contamination.
Summary:
This groundbreaking book, accompanying a major exhibition at the Hirshhorn, tells the story of the evolution of New York's downtown art scene in the 1980s' from a DIY counterculture in the East Village to a legitimate gallery business in SoHo. Coinciding with the rise of modern branding and the onset of the information age, artists' focus on commodities and consumerism began as satire but came to be much more complex: commodities and associated phenomena, such as advertising, now served as vessels for ideas, politics, and personal relationships in 'brand-new' types of painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and performance. In a book full of visual surprises, newly commissioned essays shed new light on this pivotal period: curator Gianni Jetzer provides a comprehensive overview, while Leah Pires illuminates lesser-known conceptual collaborations, and Bob Nickas offers an eyewitness account of the East Village gallery scene. These texts, together with an illustrated chronology, provide a fresh account of the moment at which contemporary artists such as Felix González-Torres, Peter Halley, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman grabbed the ball from Andy Warhol and ran with it, changing the rules of the game forever.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.