Austin Museum of Art presents 'Radical NY !' New York Art Scene, 1974-84

Written by Tabatha Stang Friday, 31 December 2010 18:31

AUSTIN, TEXAS – The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) presents a landmark exhibition illuminating two transformative periods in New York City.  New York is more than just a location, it’s an attitude—and, that attitude forever changed the face of American art and culture.  Radical NY! is a two-part exhibition presenting The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 and Abstract Expressionism: 1940s-1960s opening November 18, 2006 with works by over 200 groundbreaking artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Cindy Sherman, and hundreds of paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and photographs.

Executive Director and Chief Curator Dana Friis-Hansen comments, “Like Austin’s eclectic creative community of today, artists, musicians, writers, performers, and film makers in Soho, Tribecca and the East Village produced work that was experimental and collaborative, utopian and raw, antic and urban.  I believe these exhibitions will reverberate with our community—especially at a time when Austin’s downtown is bursting with activity.”

The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 includes over 300 paintings, sculptures, graffiti, videos, and photographs, as well as journals, manuscripts, and ephemera—all exhibited in a funky salon style—that create a colorful picture of a radically new and boundary-breaking approach to art and life.  Abstract Expressionism: 1940s-1960s displays seventeen abstract painting and works on paper from the time period by artists who saw themselves as pioneers inventing a new pictorial language for contemporary art and New York, the center of an increasingly global art market. While jazz provided the soundtrack for the Abstract Expressionists’ boldly gestural paintings, it was the dance clubs featuring emergent punk, hip hop, and alternative music that propelled the Downtown artists.  Radical NY! is co-organized by the Grey Art Gallery at New York University and the Austin Museum of Art and is generously supported by Michael A. Chesser in memory of Virgil Young.

This exhibition comprises the first substantial retrospective of this important decade, from 1974-84, when a distinctively new, postmodern attitude towards artistic production surfaced in Lower Manhattan.  Emerging in the aftermath of the “Summer of Love” and closing with Ronald Reagan’s re-election, the Downtown New York art scene attracted artists, musicians, performers, filmmakers, writers, and others who could afford the then-low rents of Lower East Side tenements and SoHo lofts.  They adopted an anarchic approach that violated the gap between high art and mass culture, sought to remove the production and reception of avant-garde art from its isolation within elite circles, emphasized speed of execution over technical proficiency, and directly addressed social and political concerns.  The exhibition features approximately 175 groundbreaking artists including Laurie Anderson, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Cindy Sherman, and over 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and photographs, as well as over 100 items of printed material.

AMOA–Downtown Location: 823 Congress Avenue
Reflecting the unconventional spirit of Austin, AMOA-Downtown offers informative and informal art experiences oriented towards the interests of a broad general audience.  The welcoming and centrally located galleries serve as the Museum’s principal exhibition site and present continually changing exhibitions and education programs that showcase an array of twentieth-century and contemporary art.  Visit : www.amoda.org