Existing comment:
New Image, Post Minimalism, and the Legacy of Pop:
Inspired in part by Phillip Guston's abandonment of Abstract Expressionism, the 1970s and 1980s saw a return to figurative painting, which combined the mundane subjects of Pop Art with the simple anti-illustionism of Minimalism. Many artists in this grouping also maintained strong conceptual content -- the painter Neil Jenney, for instance, and the art duo Gilbert and George. The portrait, a favorite subject of Pop artists, returned in a more idiosyncratic and self-deprecating form. There is also a strong British presence in this room, the natural inheritors of Pop Art, which began in England.
The works of several painters represented in this and the adjacent room were included in a 1978 show at the Whitney Museum of American Art titled New Image Painting, a loose term that referred to the simple depictions of everyday objects usually divorced from their environments. The purpose of the exhibition was less to announce the appearance of a unified school than to announce the return of painting as a necessary art form. Moreover, works by New Imagists were considered viable art commodities in a poor economic climate, and the emergence of this school marked the beginning of the 1980s art boom. New Image painting also developed alongside Neo-Expressionism with which it has visual affinities. |