Exhibitions

The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s

May 12 – August 19 1990

“In an unprecedented collaborative effort, The New Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, and The Studio Museum in Harlem organized a multidisciplinary exhibition of the art and issues of the 1980’s. The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980’s brought together more than 200 works by ninety-four artists of Hispanic, Asian, African-American, Native American, and European heritage. The exhibition was issues oriented, rather than a stylistic overview, focusing on the important concerns of the 1980s as they relate to the idea of identity.

Emerging as a hybrid of fluid notion, identity in The Decade Show was addressed as it related to larger questions of sexuality, race, religion, age, history, myth, politics, and the environment. The show was fully multicultural in each museum. The art extended from painting and sculpture, to photography and video, to site-specific installations and interdisciplinary projects…

A major component of The Decade Show was a six-evening performance series presented at Dance Theatre Workshop, with additional evenings at The Studio Museum The program surveyed the multiplicity of performance genres that emerged during the 1980’s…”

-From The New Museum Annual Report, 1990

May 12 – August 19 1990

Group exhibitions

Main Gallery

The Studio Museum, Harlem

The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art