lery feared that Congress would object to the exhibi-
tion’s content. Another controversial photographer
of the decade was Andrés Serrano. In “Piss Christ,”
Serrano, an NEA grant recipient, photographed
a plastic crucifix submerged in three gallons of
urine. Many of his other works also featured icons of
Catholicism submerged in bodily fluids, including
blood and semen.
Impact The photography of the 1980’s explored is-
sues of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality that were im-
portant to art and literature of the decade generally.
Because photographs were at once more visceral
and more easily reproducible than some other
forms, however, photographers were often magnets
for more widespread cultural controversy. Both the
photographic interests of the decade and their con-
troversial nature spilled over into the next decade.
In 1990, NEA grant recipients were forced to sign de-
cency pledges, vowing that they would not produce
obscene art.
Further Reading
Cruz, Amanda. “Movies, Monstrosities, and Masks:
Twenty Years of Cindy Sherman.” InCindy Sher-
man: Retrospective. Chicago: Thames and Hudson,
- Provides a concise biography of Sherman,
as well as a thorough overview of the major series
in Sherman’s body of work.
Danto, Arthur. “Playing with the Edge: The Photo-
graphic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe.”
InMapplethorpe. New York: Random House, 1992.
Contextualizes Mapplethorpe’s work within the
history of photography and the art scene of the
1980’s. Provides a close, personalized reading of
Mapplethorpe’s photography and a provocative
interpretation of its more controversial elements.
Doss, Erika. “Culture Wars: The 1980’s.” InTwentieth
Centur y American Art. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press, 2002. In this richly illustrated
chapter, Doss chronicles the major trends and
controversies in the art world of the 1980’s.
Smith, Joshua P.Photography of Invention: American
Pictures of the 1980’s.Boston: MIT Press, 1989.
Covers the work of ninety American artists, many
of whom used appropriation and computer tech-
nology in their experimental photography.
Corinne Andersen
See also Abortion; Advertising; African Americans;
AIDS epidemic; Art movements; Basquiat, Jean-
Michel; Feminism; Homosexuality and gay rights;
Moral Majority; Neoexpressionism in painting;
Performance art; Pornography; Reagan Revolution;
Schnabel, Julian; Shields, Brooke.Plastic surgery
Definition Surgical intervention for
reconstructive or cosmetic purposes
Plastic surger y procedures increased in frequency during
the 1980’s, and the corpus of medical techniques expanded,
as did the invasiveness of surgical intervention. Popular
acceptance and encouragement of plastic surger y for
women accompanied these methodological developments,
although awareness of surgical mishaps associated with
breast augmentation increased during the decade.
Histories of medicine describe the development of
plastic surgery as a response to the horrific injuries
experienced by soldiers during World War I. Sur-
geons attempted to repair these men and to return
them to civilian life without massive disfigurement,
and they invented of necessity new procedures to
accomplish these goals. Broader cultural histories
include the social emphasis in American popular
culture on appearance and specifically ideas about
American beauty that diverged from actual Ameri-
can bodies. These broader historical conceptualiza-
tions assist in understanding the progression of a
medical specialization from its male, military origins
to its 1980’s focus on correcting minor flaws of ap-
pearance in women.
The 1980’s cultural emphasis on the need for
women to be both beautiful and youthful was the re-
sult of several social trends. Many decades of Ameri-
can cultural connections between women and the
pursuit of domestic harmony encouraged an ideal in
which the beautiful home was inhabited by the beau-
tiful woman. Glossy magazines focusing on interior
decoration fostered this linkage, which seldom in-
cluded similarly objectified men. During the same
decade, women’s youthful, unflawed bodies were
displayed in tabloids, in advertisements, on televi-
sion, on highway billboards, and in other media.
The featured women were those deemed beautiful
according to American cultural norms, which did
not include larger women, elderly women, much
ethnic diversity, or, indeed, the majority of women in
the United States. Cultural emphasis was thereforeThe Eighties in America Plastic surgery 759