Collection 1970s–Present

208

True Stories

Fall 2019–Fall 2020

MoMA

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Catherine Opie. Dyke. 1993. Chromogenic color print, 40 × 30" (101.6 × 76.2 cm). Committee on Photography Fund and gift of Agnes Gund. © 2019 Catherine Opie
  • MoMA, Floor 2, 208 The David Geffen Wing

In the 1990s, as the culture wars raged, many artists turned to representing themselves and their communities through alternative modes of portraiture, asserting their identities and presence. Photography and video allowed for a diaristic approach, capturing change over time, and life as an ongoing performance. In painting, artists suffused art-historical images with a sense of their own selfhood, making the past startlingly current. Sculpture became a means of exploring the body under pressure. With the rise of the Internet, cable television, and the 24-hour news cycle, national and international traumas—such as the Los Angeles riots, the rampant global spread of the AIDS epidemic, and the first Iraq war— became public theater. In this context, the self became both a reflection of and a defense against the culture in which it was produced, prompting artists to collage public and private concerns. Epitomizing the spirit of the time, Chris Ofili stated, “I try to bring all that I am to my work.”

53 works online

Artists

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

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