Introduction |
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About the 80s |
Critical Perspectives |
The 80s Scene |
| Artwork made in the 1980s comprises roughly 25% of the collections of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. | ||
| •The
museum’s founders, Armand and Eleanor Castellani, collected largely
contemporary art, and the most active period of their collecting was
during the 1980s. •The 1980s were a vibrant period in recent art history. There were many active collectors and certain young artists—such as Julian Schnabel, Robert Longo, and David Salle—seemed to break into gallery stardom directly from art school. Painting had made a “comeback” after the Conceptual and Minimalist eras. New styles emerging in the 80s include Neo-Geo, Neo-Expressionism, Graffiti, and Appropriation (see styles and movements), while movements with roots in the 60s and 70s, such as public art, feminist art, and artist-run spaces, continued to grow in importance. • The Castellani’s collection activity in some ways reflects the Western New York contemporary art scene, where, led by the example of a contemporary focus at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, other museums and alternative spaces (such as Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and CEPA Gallery) showed the work of emerging artists of the 80s, many of whom became the leading voices of their generation. |
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