mented identity politics, and those on the peripher-
ies of the art world, including women, gays, blacks,
Hispanics, and Asians, explored issues concerning
their groups and focused on their issues as the cen-
ter of their artworks. Artists engaged in social cri-
tique. Exemplifying this attitude was the 1993 Whit-
ney Biennial, which was criticized as showcasing
weak art. While the themes in the exhibition re-
flected concerns with social issues, it depicted the
problem of how to translate strong moral convic-
tions into compelling art.
Painting Painting in the 1990’s was diverse in scope
and did not follow one movement or style. Both ab-
stract and figurative painting flourished. Abstract
painting turned art away from commodification and
subverted the idea of spectacle through very individ-
ual and personal aesthetics. Working in a pluralistic
mode, many styles of abstraction coexisted and drew
from existing styles of the history of abstraction.
There was also a concern with the materials of paint-
ing and its processes as well as gesture. Louise
Fishman created paintings in the tradition of the
gestural, stroked canvases of the abstract expression-
ists of the 1950’s. Elliott Puckette was also interested
in the calligraphic aspect of painting, with figures
scratched from the color ground. Mary Heilmann
utilized the modernist grid and inserted splashy
color filled in with paint layered upon itself. Jona-
than Lasker created cartoon versions of neoexpres-
sionist styles from Jackson Pollock and Willem de
Kooning. Pat Steir painted canvases that were si-
multaneously abstract and figurative in her “water-
fall” and “expressionist drips.” Philip Taaffe’s works
were more ornamentally abstract, incorporating
Eastern mandalas, Islamic abstract foliage, and
other designs that were not easily readable as sym-
bols. One of the most well-known abstract artists of
the 1990’s was Terry Winters. His art drew from figu-
rative imagery, but he translated it into the abstract,
often deriving his images from architectural draw-
ings, medical photographs, and computer graphics.
Karin Davie brought issues of gender into her ab-
stract paintings by addressing or suggesting the hu-
man body.
Figurative painting in the 1990’s followed a num-
ber of themes. It communicated social or political
content through iconography. Other figurative
works followed a dialogue with a specific aesthetic
style. Lastly, figurative painters in the 1990’s adopted
imagery from technology and the media (fashion,
film, video, photography, and computers). Eliza-
beth Peyton produced portraits of celebrities, rock
stars, and her own personal friends. She created an-
drogynous, dandyish images of people through a
painterly effect of intense glazelike color with
cherry-red lips and luxuriant hair. Karen Kilimnik
appropriated the old masters through contempo-
rary and historical references in a sort of kitschy trib-
ute exemplified in paintings of Princess Diana and
actor Hugh Grant. Painter Richard Phillips also
mined the world of the media in his subject matter,
as he created enormous portraits taken from 1970’s
fashion photography in order to question the idea of
idealized beauty. Carroll Dunham borrowed the
cartoonish imagery utilized by Philip Guston and
added humor by creating ambiguous bulbous forms
that at the same time seemed violent in nature.
Nicole Eisenman also utilized the figuration of
cartoonish forms, through which she critiqued so-
cial and political issues. John Currin dealt with issues
of sexuality and the body as commodity in his dis-
torted, doll-like images of women. Lisa Yuskavage
gave a feminist slant to the obsession with the female
body with the depiction of female figures with exag-
gerated sexual characteristics.
Lari Pittman also incorporated sexual imagery
into his work, although it was hidden under an ab-
stract veneer of decorative pattern. Manual Ocampo,
a Filipino living and working in Los Angeles, created
paintings that included swastikas and Ku Klux Klan
hoods in order to protest prejudice and oppression.
Alexis Rockman’s bizarre depictions of hybrid plant
and animal life explored the destructive interaction
between the human species and the natural world.
Shahzia Sikander incorporated both Hindu and
Muslim iconography into her paintings, which were
stylistically indebted to Indian miniatures. A num-
ber of artists worked in “revival” styles that drew on
the Western painting tradition. Gary Hume, for ex-
ample, appropriated the color-field painters’ inter-
est in bright, flat areas of glossy color. Joan Nelson’s
work relied on old master glazes, and Richard Ryan’s
still lifes recalled the work of Giorgio Morandi.Sculpture and Installation Art Installation art flour-
ished in the 1990’s, with much sculpture overlap-
ping into this category. A wide variety of materials
outside the traditional realm of sculpture was
employed—such as mixed media, including foundThe Nineties in America Art movements 55