OCTOBER 2011 feature story LIVING IN THE 1980s


HVCCA Exhibition Looks at an Extraordinary Decade in Art By Jim Ormond


In one scene in the 1987 movie, Wall Street, Charlie Sheen’s character (a young Wall Street trader) asks Daryl Hannah’s character (an interior designer to the rich and famous) how much one of her paintings is worth. “$400,000 dollars,” she replies. “$400,000 dollars?” asks Sheen’s character in amazement. “For that much money, you could buy a beach house!” “Sure,” she says. “In Wildwood, New Jersey.”


"Art Boom" is the first label that is often put on the art of the decade between 1981 and 1991, referring to how prices for art skyrocketed in such a short span. True, some works sold for astronomical prices at that time, and a handful of the young artists (Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat) became pop culture stars. But a new exhibition at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) in Peekskill seeks to present the 1980s as a time when anything was possible and enduring art works were made.


“It wasn’t about the money for these artists,” says HVCCA co-founder Livia Straus. "And out of that freedom some


really remarkable work was created.”


CIRCA 1986, on view at the HVCCA through July 2012, features 65 artworks by 47 international artists who emerged during the era. The exhibition is curated by John Newsom (a New York-based painter), Nicola Trezzi (US Editor of Flash Art


The epicenter of the 1980s art scene was the East Village in Lower Manhattan, where the dozens of galleries that sprouted up overnight lacked the pretentious conventions of galleries in other neighborhoods.


"Some of these artists are so good that they are due for a rediscovery by the art-going public."


International) and Astrid Honold (Director of OFFICE For Contemporary Art, Amsterdam). The curators selected works from six major collectors of 1980s art.


The exhibition includes works by Damien Hirst, who was making cabinets when the decade started, Robert Maplethorpe, who would set off a firestorm for an NEA-sponsored exhibition, and Jeff Koons. The CIRCA 1986 exhibition includes Koons’ 50/50 Tank, which is composed of two basketballs floating in a fish tank of distilled water. “If America loves basketball, that is what I will give them,” Koons is purportedly to have said.


“People would make a gallery out of any abandoned storefront and show the work of their friends,” Livia recalls. “It was a party atmosphere…it was an organic and exciting scene.”


The AIDS epidemic, which was at its apex in the late


1980s, claimed the lives of many of the decade's most well-known artists and was a major factor, along with an art market crash around 1990, closing the curtain on the era.


“Some of these artists are so good that they are due for a rediscovery by the art-going public,” adds Livia Straus. “We believe that the 1980s was an extraordinary decade for contemporary art, and we hope this exhibition will tell at least part of that story.”


For more information, visit www. hvcca.org.


Westchester County Business Journal • ARTSWNEWS


A5


NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS


For 2012 Arts Award Deadline 12.02.11


ARTS PATRON A person who lives or works in Westchester County and has made a sig- nificant contribution to the arts through his/her extraordinary leadership, per- sonal commitment, and philanthropic activities, and has provided consistent support of the arts without direct finan- cial compensation.


ARTIST An artist who lives or works in Westchester County whose achieve- ments in his/her artistic discipline are nationally recognized, whose work has demonstrated a compelling and unique vision, and who has produced a signifi- cant body of work or record of perfor- mance that has had an impact on the cul- tural world and upon the general public.


ARTS ORGANIZATION A Westchester County non-profit arts organization that has made an important contribution to the growth of Westchester’s cultural life over a significant period of time, and has had an impact beyond its immediate community.


COMMUNITY


An artist, individual, group, organiza- tion or agency that has demonstrated extraordinary vision and leadership in using the arts to enhance community life, to increase access to cultural expe- riences, or to enrich the county’s cultural heritage. Candidates have a long-stand- ing involvement in the arts rather than involvement in a one-time initiative.


EDUCATION


An artist or individual, group, school, district or organization who, through extraordinary vision and leadership, has enriched arts education in Westchester.


For instructions and a downloadable ballot, go to www.artsw.org/artsaward


Sponsored by:


Gilbert & George The Long March, 1986 Ink and 48 hand-dyed photographs in metal frame with installation brackets 95 x 198 3/4 inches


Jeff Koons, 50/50 Tank, 1985 Glass, iron, water, basketballs.


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