Taking AIM!: The Business of Being an Artist Today

Selected Chronology of World and Art Events,1979–2010

Selected Chronology of World and Art Events, 1979–2010 compiled by mónica espinel 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister of the United Kingdom, the first woman to hold that office. She will serve until 1990, making her the longest continuously serving prime minister in 150 years. The taking of sixty-six U.S. hostages by Iranian militants on November 4 triggers a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. Fifty-two hostages are ultimately held for 444 days, until January 20, 1981. The Soviet Union, under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, invades Afghanistan . The conflict lasts until 1989. A Joseph Beuys retrospective opens at the Guggenheim Museum. Ars Electronica, a festival of art, technology, and society, is founded. Within a few years it becomes one of the world’s foremost media art festivals. Artist Sherrie Levine re-photographs images by Walker Evans as a means of making art that questions notions of originality. Over the next decade, Levine, Dara Birnbaum, Barbara Kruger, and others become prominent in the Appropriation Art movement. Larry Gagosian opens his first gallery in Los Angeles. By 2010 he runs nine galleries worldwide, including three in New York, two in London, and one each in Beverly Hills, Rome, Paris, and Athens. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party premieres at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it is seen by 100,000 people. In 2002 it is acquired by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where it remains on view in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Fashion Moda opens in the South Bronx, founded by the artist Stefan Eins. The space celebrates the confluence of street life, urban and vernacular culture, and contemporary art through the work of such artists as John Ahearn, Jenny Holzer, David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf, as well as graffiti artists like Richard Hambleton, Crash, and Spank. 233 234 Mónica Espinel 1980 Former actor and California governor Ronald Reagan is elected the fortieth president of the United States. Former Beatle John Lennon is shot and killed outside his New York City apartment building by Mark David Chapman. Media mogul Ted Turner launches Cable News Network (CNN), the first television channel to provide twenty-four-hour news coverage. A war between Iran and Iraq commences and rages inconclusively for eight years, with many casualties on both sides. Peace is brokered in 1988 after several other countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, become involved in the conflict. IBM launches the personal computer (PC), bringing computing into the home and leading to computers’ widespread use in education, business, art making, and leisure activities. Anthony d’Offay Gallery opens in London. D’Offay represents Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Gerhard Richter, Gilbert and George, Richard Long, and Jeff Koons, and in the 1990s it begins representing the Young British Artists including Rachel Whiteread and Richard Patterson. The gallery operates until 2002. Michigan print dealer John Wilson founds Art Chicago. During the 1990s it is considered the nation’s leading fair of twentieth-century art, second in the world only to Art Basel in Switzerland. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union boycott the Venice Bienniale when its director refuses to cancel an exhibit of eastern European and Soviet dissident art. In the 1980s the term ‘‘postmodernism’’ becomes commonplace. Works that employ new media, stress the importance of communication from artist to audience, and often incorporate performance become prevalent. Metro Pictures Gallery opens in SoHo with a group show including Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, James Welling, and Richard Prince. The first exhibitions of neoexpressionist art are held in New York. The term ‘‘neoexpressionism’’ describes a group of international artists who reject conceptual art and minimalism. Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Eric Fischl, Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, Anselm Kiefer, and Georg Baselitz are associated with the movement. ‘‘The Times Square Show,’’ organized by Collaborative Projects, is held in a former bus depot at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue in New York. Artists included are John Ahearn, Basquiat, Stefan Eins, Joe Fyfe, Jenny Holzer, Chronology of World and Art Events 235 Tom Otterness, and Kiki Smith. It sets the model for the do-it-yourself approach that has shaped many New York City art happenings since. ‘‘Vito Acconci, A Retrospective: 1969–1980’’ is held at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. 1981 MTV, the first music television...