This Will Have Been: Art, Love, & Politics in the 1980s

The 1980s -- from the election of Ronald Reagan to the fall of the Berlin Wall -- were a transformative decade for art, music, and politics. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago presents an ambitious new exhibition, This Will Have Been: Art, Love, & Politics in the 1980s, with over 150 works that represent the diversity and complexity of art produced during this tumultuous decade when the art world shifted between radical and conservative, lighthearted and political, sincere and irreverent. This Will Have Been offers an overview of the artistic production in the 1980s, divided into thematic sections, while situating the contemporary moment within the history of art of the recent past. Guest curated by Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, for the MCA, this exhibition is on view from February 11 to June 3, 2012.

At the deepest level, This Will Have Been is shaped by two phenomena that frame the 1980s: feminism and the AIDS crisis. Within these larger outlines, the exhibition finds desire - rather than cynicism or irony - to be the real tenor of the decade. Desire is not reserved for only bodies and objects; one also finds the desire for a break with the past, for a principled and just government, and for the greater acceptance of difference. Through it all, the exhibition shows artists striving to articulate their wants, needs, and desires, in an increasingly material world.

The exhibition re-examines this influential decade nearly 30 years later, contending that during this time the art world navigated a series of ruptures that permanently changed its character. For example, Reaganomics led to a dramatic expansion of art as a luxury commodity; while conversely, the rise of postmodernism shifted artists' sense of their role in society and further questioned the very status of representation. People of color, women, and gay artists actively sought an end to cultural hegemony; photography challenged the primacy of painting and sculpture; the toll of the AIDS/HIV crisis politicized a broad cross-section of the art community; and the rise of globalism sounded the death knell of New York's status as the sole "center" of the art world.

This Will Have Been:
Art, Love, & Politics in the 1980s

Künstler: Dotty Attie, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Colescott, Robert Gober, Jack Goldstein, Peter Halley, Mary Heilmann, Candy Jernigan, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, Matt Mullican, Peter Nagy, Raymond Pettibon, Stephen Prina, Martin Puryear, Gerhard Richter, David Salle, Doug & Mike Starn, Tony Tasset, James Welling, Christopher Wool, Charlie Ahearn, John Ahearn, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Black Audio Film Collective , Jennifer Bolande, Gregg Bordowitz, Eugenio Dittborn, General Idea , Leon Golub, Gran Fury , Group Material , Guerrilla Girls , Hans Haacke, David Hammons, Tseng Kwong Chi, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Cildo Meireles, Donald Moffett, Lorraine O´Grady, Paper Tiger Television , Adrian Piper, Lari Pittman, Tim Rollins & KOS, Christy Rupp, Doris Salcedo, Juan Sanchez, Carrie Mae Weems, Christopher Williams, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Charles Atlas, Alex Gerry, Tony Cragg, Jimmy de Sana, Carroll Dunham, Jimmie Durham, Eric Fischl, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Annette Messager, Cady Noland, Albert Oehlen, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Julian Schnabel, Rosemarie Trockel, Jeff Wall, Judith Barry, Ashley Bickerton, Deborah Bright, Sophie Calle, Marlene Dumas, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Peter Hujar, G. B. Jones, Isaac Julien, Mary Kelly, Silvia Kolbowski, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Jac Leirner, Sherrie Levine, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marlon Riggs, David Robbins, Laurie Simmons, Haim Steinbach, David Wojnarowicz.