Urban Theater: New York Art in the 1980s

Set to accompany a groundbreaking exhibition, this volume is the first to focus exclusively on New York’s 1980s art scene, reuniting many of today’s internationally renowned artists in relation to the urban context that shaped and inspired them. Vibrant and vital, discordant and even obscene, the New York art scene of the 1980s gave rise to some of the contemporary art world’s most recognizable features. As the artists who emerged in that decade now set records at auction, the era is ripe to be reexamined. Representing in turns a cool irony, reflections on media culture, consumerism, cartoons, and street art, the work collected here re-creates the tense energy of a grittier New York. This volume is richly illustrated with works by the decade’s most critically acclaimed artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, Nan Goldin, Peter Halley, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Allan McCollum, Richard Prince, David Salle, Kenny Scharf, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Donald Sultan, Philip Taaffe, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Wool.