Utilizing the technique of “re-photography,”
Richard Prince took elements from existing photo-
graphic advertisements, such as cowboys from ciga-
rette ads, and blew them up or cropped them, reas-
sembling them into grid-like images. These images
in turn highlighted the emptiness at the core of
mass-media representation in America. Sherrie Le-
vine also re-appropriated images for her photogra-
phy by taking classic photographs and re-presenting
them as her own.
The East Village in the 1980’s had its own docu-
mentary photographer, Nan Goldin. Photograph-
ing the Village’s partying drug culture, Goldin
portrayed her subjects—often her friends and ac-
quaintances—with a sense of detachment yet re-
vealed both the emptiness and the pathos of their
lives. Goldin’s pictures of the victims of AIDS, drugs,
and violence reflected a bankruptcy of idealism that
existed in her world.
The 1980’s also saw photography expressing con-
troversial themes and images. This trend was exem-
plified by the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, who
created images of nude homosexual males in sexual
situations. An exhibition of the artist’s work,The Per-
fect Moment, appeared in 1988-1989 and instigated a
culture war led by conservative senator Jesse Helms.
The controversy surrounded the funding of poten-
tially inflammatory art by the National Endowment
for the Arts (NEA). As a result, by the time the
Mapplethorpe exhibition reached the Contempo-
rary Arts Center in Cincinnati, it was closed down,
and the NEA began discussing new standards by
which to judge future applications for art funding.
Another photographer who came under attack by
Helms for creating “obscene imagery” was Andrés
Serrano. Serrano’s black-and-white “Piss Christ” (first
exhibited in 1989) depicted a crucifix submerged in
urine. The photograph was seen as blasphemous by
both Helms and religious groups, but it also has
been read by critics (including the artist himself) to
suggest spiritual enlightenment through its soft fo-
cus and warm light. The image demonstrated the
clashing values of the decade’s pluralism, as Serrano
claimed that his use of bodily fluids was meant to
be sacred, whereas Senator Helms read it as self-
evidently profane. In 1984, Serrano had created
other sensational images, such as his “Heaven and
Hell,” a color photograph showing a Catholic bishop
standing next to a naked torso of a woman tied up
by her hands and covered with blood.
Sculpture and Installation Art Sculpture in the
1980’s saw artists utilizing a wide variety of materials
outside of the traditional realm of sculpture, such as
wax, plastics, ceramics, and papier-mâché. Jeff Koons
was the sculptor who best exemplified the decade’s
coopting of consumer and popular culture into art.
Koons heroicized vacuum cleaners as social icons
by enclosing them inside Plexiglas cases. His work,
which bordered on kitsch, continued the tradition
of Neo-Geo’s appropriation of the theory of the
simulacrum and its denial of originality. This is exem-
plified in his 1988 ceramic sculpture,Michael Jackson
and Bubbles, in which the pop singer and his monkey
are portrayed as slick and shiny yet at the same time
absurd and ridiculous. Heim Steinbach also utilized
objects from consumer culture, juxtaposing objects
as disparate as Nike sneakers and brass candlesticks.
Artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, and
Robert Gober created sculptures that commented
on the body and sexuality. Smith’s sculptures re-
ferred to the interior and the exterior of the body by
emphasizing fluids such as blood, semen, and breast
milk in sculptures made of materials as diverse as
bronze and wax. Bourgeois created sexually charged
imagery of autobiographical origin in biomorphic
forms made of stone, wood, resin, latex, and bronze.
Gober commented on the body politic through his
sculptures of sinks that, through their lack of plumb-
ing, implied the impossibility of cleansing, which in
turn signified the lack of a cure for AIDS.
Two public sculptural projects in the 1980’s
caused controversy and debate. In 1981, Richard
Serra installed hisTilted Arcin Foley Square at Fed-
eral Plaza in New York City. The curving wall of 120-
foot-long and 12-foot-high raw steel cut the plaza in
half. Those who worked in the area found that the
sculpture interfered with their daily navigation of
the plaza and criticized the work as an “ugly rusted
steel wall.” Letters of complaint were written, and in
1985 a public hearing on the work was held, in which
the final vote was for its removal. Serra’s appeal of
the ruling failed, andTilted Arcwas removed on
March 15, 1989. This situation again caused people
to question the role of government funding for the
visual arts, as well as the role of the public in deter-
mining the value of a work of art. Meanwhile, in
1982, Maya Ying Lin won a contest to design the Viet-
nam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Her
winning design, in which the names of 57,692 Amer-
icans killed in Vietnam were inscribed on a massive70 Art movements The Eighties in America