Tear Down This Wall

MOCA SHOWCASES PAINTINGS FROM THE 1980S Showcasing highlights from the permanent collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Tear Down This Wall: Paintings from the 1980s presents a survey of paintings created in the 1980s, the museum's first decade. Organized by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel, the exhibition features significant paintings of the 1980s made in both Europe and the United States, all from MOCA's permanent collection. Americans in the exhibition include New York–based artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Carroll Dunham, Eric Fischl, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, and Terry Winters, and California-based artists Jonathan Borofsky, Tim Ebner, Manny Farber, Llyn Foulkes, Jack Goldstein, Matt Mullican, and Lari Pittman. Paintings by European artists Tony Cragg, Jorg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, and Imi Knoebel are also included. Painting has seen so many deaths and resurrections since the advent of photography that the debate about its mortality has taken on an almost mythic status. By the end of the 1970s, painting was again declared dead. There was scant American interest in European painting of the postwar period, and critics found the entire genre inappropriate for an age defined by reproduction. There was a resurgence in the early 1980s that changed the direction of art internationally. By the end of the decade, when President Ronald Reagan chided Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," painting was dominant again and the crumbling of the postwar geopolitical model was a fait accompli. The 1980s marked a return to traditions of landscape, figuration, expressionism, neoexpressionism, and a renewed interest in politics and social change. Artists around the world found new and vigorous ways to address their subject matter and to combine abstract and representational techniques with groundbreaking results. In Julian Schnabel's Owl (1980) and Jean-Michel Basquiat's Six Crimee (1982), both New York-based artists use unconventional modes of painting to capture their subjects; Eric Fischl explores middle-class home life in Master Bedroom (Her Master's Voice) (1983); German artist Anselm Kiefer depicts biblical history in Departure from Egypt (1984); and Los Angeles painter Lari Pittman juxtaposes American themes and abstract references to the history of painting in An American Place (1986). Tear Down This Wall: Paintings from the 1980s coincides with MOCA's ongoing effort to showcase works from the permanent collection. MOCA is home to one of the country's finest collections of American and European art created since 1940, and currently holds approximately 5,000 objects in all visual media, ranging from masterpieces of abstract expressionism and pop art to recent works by young and emerging artists.

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Tear Down This Wall: Paintings from the 1980s
Kurator: Paul Schimmel

mit Jean-Michel Basquiat, Carroll Dunham, Eric Fischl, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, Terry Winters, Jonathan Borofsky, Tim Ebner, Manny Farber, Llyn Foulkes, Jack Goldstein, Matt Mullican, Lari Pittman, Tony Cragg, Jörg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Imi Knoebel, u.a.