Legendary exhibitions; “An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture” at MoMA, New York

An exhibition at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) from May 17 to August 19, 1984, which is frequently cited and still discussed today. According to its title, the exhibition aimed to offer “An International Survey of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture. ” It was curated by Kynaston McShine , who, in four decades of work for MoMA, had organized some of the museum's most important exhibitions.

The exhibition, held exclusively at MoMA, also celebrated the expansion of the museum's exhibition space; since no comprehensive overview of contemporary art had been shown in the US for many years, the works of almost two generations of modern artists were presented. These 195 works were all created after 1975 and came from 169 artists in 17 countries.

The exhibition was made possible through support from the telecommunications company AT&T and the “National Endowment for the Arts”, the only federal US cultural funding institution (its continued existence is threatened under the current president).

McShine, the curator responsible for selecting art and artists (who passed away in January 2018), was the recipient of the highest US award given to museum curators: the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence. Born in Trinidad and Tobago and of African descent, he began his career in the art world at a time when museum curators in the US were almost exclusively white Americans.

Because McShine was known for his daring (he is said to have made a significant leap through the American art world), it can be safely assumed that he wanted to offer an overview of the art of his time that was not limited to national borders, but was as broad as possible.

Against this background, the 1984 exhibition represents the narrowness of the art world at that time all the more clearly when one considers the participation from half a century away: The countries represented were Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, the USA and West Germany; among the 169 artists in the exhibition, there were exactly 13 women.

A very small art world, which, however, has not grown much larger in terms of equality (of genders and skin colors)..

The list of participants and a gallery of works to browse can be found here: MoMA Exhibition Spelunker: An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture