September 18, 2011  - July 22, 2012

65 artworks by 47 artists

Circa 1986 includes works of art made and collected in the exciting period between 1981 and 1991. It attempts to capture a momentous time that started in a rush and ended with the collapse of the art market. The art scene of New York in the ‘80s opened with brash plate paintings by Julian Schnabel, the monumental work of Anselm Kiefer, the Picture Generation and the scene in the East Village which at that time was peppered with young galleries like Pat Hearn, Piezo Electric, and American Fine Arts as well as artist run spaces, the most famous being Peter Nagy’s Nature Morte and Meyer Vaisman’s International With Monument – where artists like Jeff Koons, Peter Halley, Ashley Bickerton, and David Robbins had their breakthrough.

Circa 1986 is seen from the prospective of six New York collections. It is not a comprehensive exhibition but rather the result of discussions between the curators and the collectors based on the work of the artists. The result is a chorale, deeply experiential and phenomenological, and consciously anti-historical. In this exhibition, the signature of the artists, collectors, and ultimately that of the curators are braided together, leaving the viewer with multiple entry points and multilayered levels of interpretations, understanding and hopefully misunderstanding.

Participating Artists:
Gregory Amenoff, Richard Artschwager, Ashley Bickerton, Ross Bleckner, Christian Boltanski, Jonathan Borofsky, James Brown, Sarah Charlesworth, Clegg & Guttmann, Walter Dahn, Jiri Georg Dokoupil, Moira Dwyer, Barbara Ess, R.M.Fischer, Gilbert & George, Robert Gober, Antony Gormley, Dieter Hacker, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Mike Kelley, Anselm Kiefer, Win Knowlton, Jeff Koons, Paul Laster, Sherrie Levine, Robert Mapplethorpe, Allan McCollum, Mark Morrisroe, Elizabeth Murray, Bruce Nauman, Joel Otterson, Rona Pondick, Richard Prince, Rick Prol, David Robbins, Tim Rollins + K.O.S., David Row, Julian Schnabel, Peter Schuyff, Mike and Doug Starn, Jessica Stockholder, John Walker, David Wojnarowicz

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/nyregion/circa-1986-a-decade-of-art-in-peekskill-review.html