080011 SE The Eighties. Case Studies on the Last Decade Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall (2023S)

The 1980s have often been described as the (first) decade of 'post-modernism'. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of 'real existing socialism' in Central and Eastern Europe makes the end of the 80s an incisive caesura. The decade thus seems to occupy a strange buffer position between a 'modernity' that expired slowly in the 70s and the global contemporary art that has developed since the 90s with the corresponding institutional framework (globalization of the art business along with the general sphere of communication and finance). The seminar aims to elaborate the heterogeneity of the art of the 80s. A focus will be on (well-known and less well-known) Austrian positions, which will, however, be situated in an international context. Through the selective examination of paradigmatic phenomena (artists and groups of artists; important exhibitions; important galleries; influential theoretical texts), the seminar will attempt to reconstruct the artistic production and the historical self-understanding of the decade - and to place it in the horizon of the political (e.g. Ronald Reagan's election in 1981, Margeret Thatcher's election, 1978) and social (e.g. AIDS) situation of the time. The seminar is intended for students in the Master's program and advanced Bachelor's students. The amount of reading will not be insignificant as we build a common conceptual foundation in the first sessions.