Influential Contemporary Art Exhibitions in the 20th and 21st Century
Only time may tell us about the influence of an exhibition. Each decade has its own viewpoints.
The artist-info selection below is not based on any ‘blockbuster’ criteria. It is our wide range of research from 1880 up to the present which adds exhibitions to this constantly updated list, some are well known and those which shouldn’t be forgotten.
You find for each exhibition in our list below the complete artist list on the venue’s or curator’s artist-info exhibition history page. Its information is cross-linked to all the other related exhibition histories in artist-info and is providing this way a unique source.
Resources for new research and analysis
Documenting the core information of the media ‘Exhibition’ and cross-linking the artist’s, and curator’s names with the exhibition venues is artist-info‘s main focus. This service provides new insight, which wasn’t available before.
The artist-info Visualizing Art Networks service with an interactive network graph may certainly be the most cutting edge one available, besides our Artist Exhibition Statistics and Exhibition History Summaries.
artist-info List of Influential Contemporary Art Exhibitions
Our List below starts 1892 with the
Collektivausstellung Edvard Munch, Nov 5 – Nov 12, 1892, Verein Berliner Künstler, the first exhibition in the renovated Rotunda, the main exhibition space, Wilhelmstraße 92/93, Berlin (building of the ‘Architekten-Verein zu Berlin’).
The exhibition was shut down only seven days later after an extraordinary general members meeting, initiated by Anton von Werner (1843 – 1915), professor at the academy, because the more traditional members of the Verein Berlin Künstler could not agree with the work Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944) was showing.
The selection of more than 50 influential exhibitions below shows how the positions of artists again and again open new perspectives.
Last Update January 12, 2019 - Please check back for new and updated Influential Exhibitions. ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
2015 | International Pop![]() Curator: Darsie Alexander, Bartholomew Ryan Organized by the Walker Art Center and on view through August 29, 2015, ‘International Pop’ is a groundbreaking historical survey that chronicles the global emergence of Pop Art from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. The thematic sections are: New Realisms – The Image Travels & the Archive Shifts – Distribution & Domesticity – Pop & Politics – Love & Despair International Pop asserts that Pop was not a singular artistic style or brand, but a roving spirit and ethos moving with unprecedented force through culture at large in the 1960s through a new abundance of everyday commodities, mass media production, and mainstream advertising. ![]() ![]() ![]() Curator: Flavia Frigeri, Jessica Morgan The exhibition reveals the alternative stories of Pop, highlighting key figures of the era who have often been left out of mainstream art history. It will also reveal how Pop was never just a celebration of Western consumerism, but was often a subversive international language for criticism and public protest across the globe. ![]() See as well below 1962, Mar - May, 4 Amerikanare. Moderna Museet, Stockholm 1962, Sep - Oct, New Painting of Common Objects, Pasadena Art Museum 1962, Nov - Dec, International Exhibition of the New Realists, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York 1964, Feb - Apr, Amerikansk Pop-konst, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, travelling to Louisiana Museum, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 1964, Apr - Jun, Painting and Sculpture of a Decade: 54/64, Tate Gallery, London |
2010 | Hide / Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture![]() Curator: David C. Ward, Jonathan Katz This is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. Hide/Seek considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment. ![]() |
2007 | WACK!: Art and the Female Revolution![]() Curator: Cornelia Butler WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution is the first institutional exhibition to examine comprehensively the international foundations and legacy of art made under the influence of feminism. This groundbreaking and long-awaited historical survey focuses on the crucial period of 1965 to 1980, when the majority of feminist activism and art making took place around the world. Featuring works in a broad range of media—including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, and performance—by approximately 120 artists from 21 countries, the exhibition explores intercontinental connections and themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, and collective aesthetic and political impulses. ![]() and the curator's artist-info pages www.artist-info.com/curator/Cornelia-Butler. |
2006 | China Power Station: I / II / III![]() ![]() ![]() Curator: Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gunnar B. Kvaran The project was created as an evolving, dynamic exhibition in three parts as a result of a long research work, reflecting the surprising developments that the Chinese cultural scene has experienced over the last few decades. ![]() www.artist-info.com/nonprofit/Serpentine-Galleries www.artist-info.com/museum/Astrup-Fearnley-Museum www.artist-info.com/museum/MUDAM-Luxembourg About Chinese contemporary art see as well below, with notes on additional exhibitions 1989, The Stars: 10 Years 1993, China Avantgarde |
2002 | iconoclash - Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art![]() Curator: Peter Galison, Dario Gamboni, Joseph Leo Koerner, Bruno Latour, Adam Lowe, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Peter Weibel This research and exhibition project took place 2 years before Facebook went online. Facebook has in April 2015 reported 1.4 Billion users, not to mention all the other social media and image community websites. iconoclash easily could be called not only groundbreaking but prophetic. It joins for the first time different cultures from West to East, different epochs from Middle Ages to modernism, different practices from science to art, in the search for an understanding of the nature of the image. This question is more relevant than ever, because the question of the image, always answered differently from different political and cultural perspectives, is central in a society built more than ever on visual media for the question: What is reality? ... The quandary of the many artists, saints, scientists, militants who populate this project is that they are taken in between those two contradictory urges: 'If only we could do without images!' - 'We cannot do without images!'. This is what we call an iconoclash, that is, a deep uncertainty on the power, sanctity, and violence of images.; Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel, editors of the 700 pages catalog. |
2000 | Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present![]() Curator: Deborah Willis Deborah Willis, curator of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's Center for African-American History and Culture in Washington, has spent much of her career recovering the work of black photographers and trying to redress widespread ignorance of their accomplishments. ''Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present,'' a historical and biographical survey with nearly 600 reproductions, is her latest effort toward this goal. ![]() |
1997 | CITIES ON THE MOVE![]() Curator: HOU Hanru, Hans-Ulrich Obrist "The urban explosion in Asia is generating a great number of new Global Cities. Apart from classical characteristics of global cities, such as being active elements of the world market and communication, various and multicultural urban culture, "internationalized" modes of life, inter-connectivity, etc. these new, Non-Western global cities also have their own specific characteristics: their own cultural traditions, historical backgrounds, which are mostly connected with the Colonial past and neo-colonial present, and hence new claims for developments. But, the most important is that, with their specific legacies, they become a new and original spaces in which new visions and understandings of Modernity, and new possibilities of "Utopian/dystopian" imaginations, can be elaborated and invented." says HOU Hanru ![]() |
1995 | Brilliant!![]() Curator: Richard Flood The exhibition sought to showcase a burgeoning group of English artists now known as the Young British Artists - YBAs. The Walker's press material, defining the criteria for selection of artists in the exhibition, says: "The artists chosen for the exhibition have become increasingly visible over the past six years in self-promoted, renegade exhibitions and publications that have cropped up throughout London. Their aesthetically diverse and provocative artworks are united by a shared interest in ephemeral materials, unconventional presentation, and an anti-authoritarian stance that lends their objects a youthful, aggressive vitality." The selection included Henry Bond, Glenn Brown, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Adam Chodzko, Mat Collishaw, Tracey Emin, Angus Fairhurst, Anya Gallaccio, Liam Gillick, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Michael Landy, Abigail Lane, Sarah Lucas, Chris Ofili, Steven Pippin, Alessandro Raho, Georgina Starr, Sam Taylor-Wood, Gillian Wearing, Rachel Whiteread ![]() ![]() Please see as well below Freeze, an exhibition curated by Damien Hirst in 1988, Dock Offices, Surrey Docks, London, as another reference for Young British Artists - YBA. |
1994 | Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art![]() Curator: Thelma Golden Black Male investigated the complex aesthetics and politics at work in representations of African American men in the post-Civil Rights era. The Whitney's multimedia exhibition looks at the black male as an icon. Showcasing work by 29 artists of varying race, ethnicity and gender (including David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pat Ward Williams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Andres Serrano, among others), the show, through installation pieces, photography, sculpture, film and video, presents a range of representation--images that "challenge and transform the 'negative' stereotypes," "real and imagined," writes Golden in the exhibition catalogue. |
1993 | China Avantgarde![]() Curator: Hans van Dijk, Jochen Noth, Andreas Schmid The artists in the exhibition are DING Yi, FANG Lijun, GU Dexin, Geng Jianyi, Huang Yong-Ping, LIN Yilin, NI Haifeng, WANG Guangyi, WANG Jinsong, WU Shan Zhuan, YAN Pei-Ming, YU Youhan, ZHANG Peili, ZHAO Bandi, ZHAO Jianren China Avantgarde at HKW, Berlin was another important and globally influential presentation of Chinese contemporary art at nearly the same time as China's New Art, Post-1989 - With A Retrospective From 1979-1989, Jan - Feb 1993, at the Hanart T Z Gallery, as well as their exhibition The Stars: 10 Years, Jan 1989 (see below) The series of important exhibitions of Chinese contemporary art continues with Heart of Darkness![]() Curator: Marianna Brouwer Another Long March - Chinese Conceptual Art 1997![]() Curator: Marianna Brouwer, Chris Dreessen CITIES ON THE MOVE![]() Curator: HOU Hanru, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (see above) Living in Time: 29 Contemporary Artists from China![]() Curator: HOU Hanru, FAN Dian, Gabriele Knapstein It was the first exhibition of cotemporary Chinese art officially supported by the Chinese government. |
1993 | Whitney Biennial 1993![]() Curator: Elizabeth Sussman, and Thelma Golden, John G. Hanhardt, Lisa Phillips Among this Biennial's 82 artists are Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, Kiki Smith, Bill Viola, Nan Goldin, Robert Gober, Jack Pierson, Raymond Pettibon, Jimmie Durham, Matthew Barney "Nonetheless, this Biennial is a watershed. David A. Ross and his curators get credit for breaking the biennial mold and demonstrating that this mainstay of the contemporary art scene can be radically changed, rather than simply adjusted year to year. - Installation art, sculpture and late century Conceptualism claim the front lines here, with painting far to the rear. The presence of George Holliday's tape signals one of the show's basic flaws, which is that it is less about the art of our time than about the times themselves." writes Roberta Smith in the New York Times, March 5, 1993. |
1993 | China's New Art, Post-1989 - With A Retrospective From 1979-1989![]() Curator: LI Xianting, CHANG Tsong-zung Johnson The exhibition had the following 7 themes and was showing artwork of 55 artists: Performance Art - The 1985 New Wave Art Movement / Political Pop - Cynical Realism: Irreverence and malaise - The Wounded Romantic Realism - Emotional Bondage: Fetishism and Sado-Masochism - Ritual and Purgation: Endgame Art - Introspection and Retreat into Formalism: New Abstract Art ![]() This is the second iconic exhibition by Hanart T Z Gallery, after The Stars: 10 Years in Jan 1989 - see below |
1991 | Internal Affairs![]() 'Internal Affairs' was Damien Hirst's first Solo-Exhibition at a public gallery. It included works from Hirst's most autobiographical series. |
1989 | Magiciens de la terre![]() Curator: Jean-Hubert Martin ![]() "What is especially important to recognize is that this will be the first truly international exhibition of worldwide contemporary art." says Jean-Hubert Martin in an interview in 'Art in America', no. 77, New York, May 1989. Although Magiciens de la terre took place more than 25 years ago in Paris it was for many reasons an important moment in time and shows how contemporary art and artists are understood, then and today. The many statements and investigations are an example on how curatorial methods develop. A recent re-positioning was Retour sur 'Magiciens de la terre', Centre Pompidou, Paris, Jul - Sep 2014. Today some call Jean-Hubert Martin with his 1989 exhibition a "'Prophet' of Globalisation" (Hans Belting, ZKM, Karlsruhe) who wasn't welcome, others call him provocateur, or pioneer. Together with Jean-Hubert Martin's Magiciens de la terre in 1989 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, another groundbreaking exhibition, which already took place in Sep 1984 should be mentioned "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern![]() Curator: William Rubin, Kirk Varnedoe The exhibition's four thematic sections are: Concepts, History, Affinities, Contemporary Explorations. ![]() |
1989 | The Stars: 10 Years![]() AI Weiwei, BO Yun, HUANG Rui, LI Shuang, LI Yan, MAO Lizi, MA Desheng, QU Lei Lei, SHAO Fei, WANG Keping, YANG Yiping, YIN Guangzhong, ZHONG Ah Cheng Curator: CHANG Tsong-zung Johnson The exhibition 'The Stars: 10 Years' and its catalogue were produced on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the first exhibition of the Stars which was held in Beijing in October 1979. It serves simultaneously as a documentary review of the tumultuous events the group had experienced, and an appraisal of their new artistic production since the members dispersed to all corners of the world. ![]() The Stars: 10 Years and ![]() Jan - Feb 1993 (see above), are two iconic exhibitions by Hanart T Z Gallery, Hong Kong, serving as a significant link with the international art world. |
1988 | Stationen der ModerneDie bedeutendsten Kunstausstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts in DeutschlandBerlinische Galerie (at Martin-Gropius-Bau), Berlin, Sep 1988 - Jan 1989 Curator: Eberhard Roters, Bernhard Schulz Stationen der Moderne documents in depth 20 exhibitions related to German art scenes from 1910–1969. All artists participating in each of these exhibitions can be found here ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Fluxus ![]() ![]() Neo-Dada in der Musik, Kammerspiele, Düsseldorf, Jun 1962 Fluxus Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik, Museum Wiesbaden, Sep 1962 Festum Fluxorum Fluxus, Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Feb 1963 ![]() Fernsehgalerie Berlin Gerry Schum , Sender Freies Berlin, 1st Program, Apr 1969 |
1988 | Freeze![]() Curator: Damien Hirst Steven Adamson, Angela Bulloch, Mat Collishaw, Ian Davenport, Angus Fairhurst, Anya Gallaccio, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Michael Landy, Abigail Lane, Sarah Lucas, Lala Meredith-Vula, Stephen Park, Richard Patterson, Simon Patterson, and Fiona Rae. During his time at Goldsmiths College of Art Damien Hirst organized in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building at Surrey Docks in London Docklands his first exhibition, entitled Freeze. Many of the participating artists, later known as YBA – Young British Artists, are well known today but not so in July 1988: ![]() Please see as well ![]() |
1981 | A New Spirit in Painting![]() Curator: Norman Rosenthal, Sir Nicolas Serota, Christos M. Joachimides The last important survey in London was the '54-'64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade exhibition at the Tate Gallery, Apr - Jun 1964. The selection of A New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy of Arts leans heavily on figurative painting, and the numbers of represented artists with German painters, 11, United States 9, Great Britain 8, the rest of the world 10 showed as well a shift in attention in comparison to '54-'64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade. |
1974 | Transformer: Aspects of Travesty![]() Curator: Jean-Christophe Ammann Luciano Castelli, Jürgen Klauke, Urs Lüthi, Pierre Molinier, Tony Morgan, Luigi Ontani, Walter Pfeiffer, Andrew Sherwood, Katharina Sieverding, Alex Silber [Werner Alex Meyer], The Cockettes [Hibiscus - George Harris], Andy Warhol. "The exhibition takes its title from the seminal 1972 album by Lou Reed, finding its parallel in the worlds of fashion and glam-rock. Transformer examines the politics and aesthetics of transgressing identity and at the disruptive sexualisation of masculinity by incorporating characters usually labeled as 'feminine'", as Brian Eno reflected with a text written for the original catalogue. Also to be mentioned a re-proposition of Transformer: Aspects of Travesty ![]() |
1970 | Information![]() Curator: Kynaston McShine Information takes a broad look at the new directions of many artists around the world. It will consist of documentation of their ecological work renderings for possible or "impossible" projects (for example, "earthworks" to be executed in the desert), photographic series which record ideas; information transmitted through the various communications systems, and environmental situations. ![]() ![]() |
1969 | Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form![]() Curator: Harald Szeemann Szeemann’s own summary of the show’s content was itself lengthy, but it signaled this shift in the relationship of artist, studio and museum: "the obvious opposition to form; the high degree of personal and emotional engagement; the pronouncement that certain objects are art, although they have not previously been defined as such; the shift of interest away from the result towards the artistic process; the use of mundane objects; the interaction of work and material; Mother Earth as medium, workplace, the desert as concept." ![]() ![]() |
1968 | Christo - Wrapped Kunsthalle Bern![]() In 1968 Harald Szeemann gave as part of the exhibition 12 Environments - 50 Jahre Kunsthalle Bern Christo and Jeanne-Claude their first opportunity to wrap an entire building: the Kunsthalle itself. The other 11 artists: Mark Brusse, Piotr Kowalski, Konrad Lueg [Konrad Fischer], Bernhard Luginbühl, Lutz Mommartz, Martial Raysse, Klaus Rinke, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Jesús Raphaël Soto, Günther Uecker, Andy Warhol. Curator: Harald Szeemann |
1967 | BEUYS![]() First in-depth museum exhibition of Joseph Beuys. All objects of the exhibition were bought by collector Karl Ströher and became the famous 'Beuys Block', now on display at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt. Karl Ströher financed the purchase of 'Beuys Block' and of a renowned Pop-Art collection, including Andy Warhol among other important artists, by selling his collection of Expressionist and Informel artworks. For Joseph Beuys see as well below 1965 and 1963. |
1966 | Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors![]() Curator: Kynaston McShine During a forum on the "New Sculpture" conducted at the museum Mark di Suvero famously remarked, "Primary Structures is the key show of the 1960s...", and also, "...my friend Donald Judd cannot qualify as an artist because he doesn't do the work", to which Judd replied, "...The point is not whether one makes the work or not... I don't see... why one technique is any more essentially art than another...". This show ushered in a radical new way of presenting ideas and space that did not rely on the artist's hand, but rather on the final result. McShine, in an effort to broaden appeal and show a wide variety of artists working in this form, included a West Coast contingent and most of the British artists from the New Generation show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery from 1965. It appeared that Primary Structures was to be formulated around Anthony Caro's former St. Martin's students, and the American group led by a relatively established Tony Smith. ![]() www.artist-info.com/museum/The-Jewish-Museum and www.artist-info.com/curator/Kynaston-McShine |
1966 | Art of Latin America since Independence![]() Curator: Stanton Loomis Catlin At various times, Stanton Loomis Catlin was deemed the “pre-eminent living scholar in the field of Latin American art” and “dean of Latin American art history in the United States.” One of his major contributions to the field was the organization of the landmark exhibit Art of Latin America Since Independence. Sponsored by Yale University and the University of Texas Art at Austin (today Blanton Museum of Art), the exhibition was the first to include only Latin American art in its full historical context since the turn of the century, and the catalog has remained a standard reference for scholars. |
1965 | Joseph Beuys - ... irgend ein Strang ...![]() It is Beuys' first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery. ... irgend ein Strang ... consisted of three parts: - The object itself - The opening of the exhibition ... irgend ein Strang ..., paintings and objects 1951 - 1965 - The performance: How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt) Jun – Oct 1964 Joseph Beuys took part the first time at a documenta show in Kassel. documenta III was the last documenta directed by Arnold Bode and Werner Haftmann together. |
1965 | White On White![]() The rumor Pop Art was provoking in the sixties shouldn't prejudice the view on other movements. The exhibition The Responsive Eye by William Seitz at the MoMA, Feb - Apr 1965 was an important statement for 'Op Art'. Especially during the sixties many exhibitions were focusing on the color white and the many reasons artists were attracted by it. Sep - Oct 1965, Weiss-Weiss, by Joseph Beuys at Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf, May - Jul 1966, Weiss auf Weiss by Harald Szeeman, Kunsthalle Bern are only two among many others you may find by searching artist-info for weiss, white, bianco. The White On White exhibition at the deCordova Museum was chosen for this list because the selection of artists and artwork provides a thoughtful overview, based on George Rickey's (Art Journal, 1964) and Barbara Rose's (Art in America, 1965) texts on constructivist artists. The exhibition provides a view from the outside on what happened in Europe, and in America. It was as well an important statement against the many art critics who disfavored the 'cool art, 'idiot art', 'know-nothing-nihilism'. 46 important museums, galleries, and collectors were lending artwork for White On White. Among them Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; Iris Clert, Paris; Richard Feigen Gallery, New York; Galerie Chalette, New York; Hanover Gallery, London; Internationale Galerij Orez, Den Haag; Martha Jackson Gallery, New York; Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Roma; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Pace Gallery, New York; The Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; Stable Gallery, New York. ![]() www.artist-info.com/exhibition/deCordova-Museum-Id372561 |
1965 | The Responsive Eye![]() Curator: William C. Seitz These works exist less as objects to be examined than as generators of perceptual responses in the eye and mind of the viewer. Using only lines, bands and patterns, flat areas of color, white, gray or black or cleanly cut wood, glass, metal and plastic, perceptual artists establish a new relationship between the observer and a work of art. William C. Seitz, exhibition catalog text. The exhibition was an important statement for 'Op Art'. It avoided overt emotional expression, subject matter altogether, was cool, detached, and almost mechanical in appearance, where as Pop Art, the other important movement of the 60s relied on cartoons, commercial advertisements, celebrities as subjects, and was often a subversive international language for criticism and public protest across the globe. It was the most visited exhibition in MoMA's history since 1929. See above International Pop, Apr - Sep 2015, at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop, Sep 2015 - Jan 2016, Tate Modern, London ![]() www.artist-info.com/museum/MoMA and www.artist-info.com/curator/William-C-Seitz |
1964 | The Shaped Canvas![]() Paul Feeley, Sven Lukin, Richard Smith, Frank Stella, Neil Williams Curator: Lawrence Alloway Also to be mentioned 50 years later The Shaped Canvas, Revisited![]() |
1964 | '54-'64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade![]() Curator: Alan Bowness, Lawrence Gowing, Philip James, nominated by the Calouste Gulbekian Foundation, which initiated the exhibition. ![]() ![]() The exhibition's selection of 169 artists (see all artists on the artist-info page of Tate Gallery, and of the curators) to showcase a decade was applauded as well as criticized, as a stylish experiment. Why was Jackson Pollock present only with one single inadequate work, like Pablo Picasso, while Richard Diebenkorn, Dine, Hockney, Jones, Lichtenstein, and Rauschenberg were celebrated with several works: Rauschenberg's 6 paintings covered 18 times more wall space than Pollock. After 50 years the curator's selection proofs to not have been this wrong. Jackson Pollock was reestablished as well, not only with Bice Curiger's Birth of the Cool![]() |
1964 | Amerikansk Pop-konst![]() With Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann This early European Pop Art exhibition traveled to the Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Apr - May, and to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Jun - Jul 1964, with Pontus Hultén as curator. |
1963 | Marcel Duchamp![]() Curator: Curator: Walter Hopps First U.S. retrospective of Marcel Duchamp |
1963 | Joseph Beuys demolishes one of Nam June Paik's four pianosDuring the exhibition Exposition of Music – Electronic Television of Nam June Paik,![]() Neither the galerist, Rolf Jährling, nor Nam June Paik, nor the audience was informed before about Beuys' performance. Joseph Beuys was since 1961 professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. |
1962 | International Exhibition of the New Realists![]() Arman [Armand Pierre Fernandez], Christo [Christo Javacheff], Öyvind Fahlström, Robert Indiana, Yves Klein (Apr 1928 - Jun 1962), Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol [Maria Sol Escobar], Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Daniel Spoerri, Wayne Thiebaud, Jean Tinguely, Andy Warhol "As the Abstract Expressionist became the world recognized painter of the 50s, the new Factual artist (referred to as the Pop Artist in England, the Polymaterialist in Italy, and here as in France, as the New Realist [Other title applied to artists with this point of view: Commonists; Neo-Dadaists; Factualists; Artists of Pop Culture and Popular Realists.] may already have proved to be the pacemaker of the 60s." (by Sidney Janis, Exhibition Catalogue). "The older artists, particularly Guston, Motherwell, Gottlieb, and Rothko, strongly opposed. They had a protest meeting and decided not to be associated with what they believed to be Johnnys-come-lately, and withdrew from the gallery as a body." said Sidney Janis. ![]() Les Nouveaux Réalistes![]() In the preface to the catalogue of the exhibition Les Nouveaux Réalistes in April 1960 at Galleria Apollinaire, Milano, Pierre Restany used the expression "New Realism" for the first time. The show included work by Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, and Jacques Villeglé. "What do we propose instead? The passionate adventure of the real perceived in itself and not through the prism of conceptual or imaginative transcription. What is its mark? The introduction of a sociological continuation of the essential phase of communication. Sociology comes to the assistance of consciousness and of chance, whether this be at the level of choice or of the tearing up of posters, of the allure of an object, of the household rubbish or scraps of the dining-room, of the unleashing of mechanical susceptibility, of the diffusion of sensibility beyond the limits of its perception… At the stage, most essential in its urgency, of full affective expression and of the externalization of the individual creator, and through the naturally baroque appearance of certain experiences, we are on the way to a new realism of pure sensibility. There, to say the least, is one of the paths of the future." Pierre Restany |
1962 | New Painting of Common Objects![]() Curator: Walter Hopps Jim Dine, Robert Dowd, Joe Goode, Phillip Hefferton, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol. First Pop exhibition in a museum, at the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum). Lynn Foulkes complained: "I had to have the show and I had three rooms [Sep - Oct]. It was a big show. There was one [other] room with only about 15 paintings in this one room, and this was Walter's big hit. He's going to market it, “Pop Art on the West Coast.” So he has his first show and he's making this big poster. I remember at the time he's doing this big poster. It’s gigantic, all in color and they didn't do a lot of color stuff at that time. It was big and in color. It was going to be expensive, and I wanted to see what they’re doing with my poster for the Pasadena Art Museum. Well, he said they couldn't afford to do mine, even though my show was much bigger. He couldn't afford to do mine because he was pushing himself. He was going to do this big, gigantic color poster on Pop Art. " In: Oral history interview with Llyn Foulkes, 1997 June 25-1998 Dec. 2, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art. See also ![]() ![]() Amerikansk Pop-konst![]() |
1962 | 4 Amerikanare![]() This exhibition was shown as well from Jun - Jul at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Jul - Sep, 1962 at Kunsthalle Bern by Harald Szeemann With Jasper Johns, Alfred Leslie, Robert Rauschenberg, Eugeniusz Get-Stankiewicz A groundbreaking change seemed to take place. Jackson Pollock, the major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, had a solo show at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, only one year later, Feb - Apr 1963. The new era was even more obvious one year later in London in the Painting and Sculpture of a Decade: 54/64![]() One small painting by Jackson Pollock was opposed to six large Robert Rauschenbergs. (see above) Painting and Sculpture of a Decade: 54/64 in London was paralleled in Stockholm by Amerikansk Pop-konst![]() |
1962 | Nul 62![]() Nul 62 at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam was the first significant exhibition in a museum for the ZERO network and included 24 participating artists. Nul 65, ![]() ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s, ![]() All participating artists of these 3 exhibitions on ![]() ![]() ![]() |
1961 | The Art of Assemblage![]() Curator: William Seitz The MoMA Press Release of Oct 4, 1961, states about this "new realism": Collage and the method of juxtaposition are relevant to the basic questions raised by 20th century art - the nature of reality, the nature of painting Itself, and the methods by which creative thought is organized. "The term 'assemblage1 has been singled out with this duality in mind, to denote not only a specific technical procedure and form used in the literary and musical as well as the plastic arts, but also a complex of attitudes and ideas.", says Seitz in the catalog. ![]() New Forms - New MediaOne year earlier than The Art of Assemblageand two years earlier than Sidney Janis' New Realists (see above) Martha Jackson, New York, did organize her ground-breaking two part ![]() New Media - New Forms in Painting and Sculpture. Version II from Sep 28 - Oct 22, 1960. "... But an attack on the aristocracy of art by and with art is the main point of the exhibition although 'attack' is too aggressive a noun for the witty, ingratiating social activity to which so many of these works are dedicated.", writes Thomas R. Hess in his review for 'Art News', Summer 1960. |
1961 | Bewogen Beweging![]() Curator: Pontus Hultén, Daniel Spoerri In total, 233 works by 83 artists from eighteen countries were shown, among them Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, Dieter Roth, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Jean Tinguely, Heinz Mack, Niki de Saint Phalle. The exhibition brought together artists working in kinetic art, performance, happenings and film, along with a host of 'static' works - some by artists linked to Neo-Dadaism, such as Robert Rauschenberg. The exhibition was described as the first 'International Exhibition of Art in Motion'. The exhibition was shown as well at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Rörelse i konsten, May - Sep 1961 Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Bevægelse i kunsten, Sep - Oct 1961 ![]() See below Apr 1955, Le Movement, at Galerie Denise René, Paris |
1959 | New Images of Man![]() Curator: Peter Selz Karel Appel, Kenneth Armitage, Francis Bacon, Leonard Baskin, Reginald 'Reg' Butler, Cosmo Campoli, César [César Baldaccini], Richard Diebenkorn, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Leon Golub, Balcomb Greene, Willem de Kooning, Rico Lebrun, James McGarrell, Jan Müller, Nathan Oliveira, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Jackson Pollock, Germaine Richier, Theodore J. Roszak, H.C. [Horace Clifford] Westermann, Fritz Wotruba "The revelations and complexities of mid-twentieth century life have called forth profound feelings of solitude and anxiety. The imagery of man which has emerged from this feeling sometimes shows a new dignity, sometimes despair, but always the uniqueness of man as he confronts his fate. These image-makers take the human situation, indeed the human predicament, rather than formal structure, as their starting point. The existence of man rather than the essence of form is of the greatest concern to them," Dr. Selz says. Although having been included in this important exhibition Leon Golub and his wife Nancy Spero opted to live in Paris from 1959 through 1964, a move occasioned in part by the belief that Europe would be more receptive to their work dealing overtly with issues of power, sexual and political. ![]() and www.artist-info.com/curator/Peter-Selz |
1958 | Jackson Pollock![]() The Gallery presented the first major show in Britain of American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. |
1957 | German Art of the 20th Century![]() Curator: William S. Lieberman, Andrew Carnduff Ritchie The most comprehensive survey ever presented in this country, will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art. More than 170 paintings, sculptures and prints, dating from the beginning of German expressionism in the first decade of this century to a selective representation of recent work will be shown on two gallery floors. Dr. Bruno E. Werner mentioned in his speech accompanying the opening the other important MoMA exhibition German Painting and Sculpture ![]() ![]() ![]() |
1957 | Objects on the New Landscape Demanding of the Eye![]() Curator: Walter Hopps (1932 - 2005), Edward Kienholz (1927 - 1994) Los Angeles artists who had their first solo shows at the gallery included: Sonia Gechtoff 1957 with the gallery's first solo show, Wallace Berman (1957), Billy al Bengston (1958), Ed Moses (1958), Robert Irwin (1959), John Mason (1959), Kenneth Price (1960), Llyn Foulkes (1962), Larry Bell (1962), and Ed Ruscha (1963). Ferus Gallery was the first gallery to show Warhol's Soup Cans in 1962. ![]() ![]() |
1957 | Yves Klein: Proposte monocrome, epoca blu![]() Beginning of the Blue Period. For the first time, Yves Klein presented an entire room of blue monochromes, eleven works of identical format (78 x 56 cm), uniformly painted in ultramarine blue, one of which was purchased by Lucio Fontana. To be mentioned as well for the Blue Period Yves Klein - Propositions Monochromes ![]() and earlier in 1956 Yves Klein - Propositions Monochromes ![]() "... Far beyond the outpourings of other worlds, already so imperceptible to our common sense of the reasonable, somewhat removed, no doubt, from what is called "the art of painting," at the level in any case of the most pure and essential emotional resonances, are these rigorously monochrome propositions: each of them sets off a visual field, a colored space, stripped of all graphic transcription and thus escaping from time’s duration, devoted to the unified expression of a certain tonality. ...", part of Pierre Restany's radical and provocative text for the invitation card. |
1955 | documenta I![]() Curator: Arnold Bode, Werner Haftmann In 1955, the Kassel painter and academy professor Arnold Bode endeavored to bring Germany back into dialogue with the rest of the world after the end of World War II, and to connect the international art scene through a “presentation of twentieth century art.” He founded the “Society of Western Art of the 20th Century” in order to present art that had been deemed by the Nazis as degenerate as well as works from classical modernity that had never been seen in Germany in the destroyed Museum Fridericianum, Kassel. documenta I took place Jul 15 - Sep 18 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultural Show) which took place in Kassel at that time. It featured 144 artists, of whom many are generally considered to have had a significant influence on modern art, such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Marc Sacharovitsch Chagall, Max Beckmann, Max Ernst, Henri Matisse, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Hans (Jean) Arp, Josef Albers, Georges Braque, Emil Nolde, Fernand Léger, Lyonel Feininger, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Otto Dix. ![]() ![]() |
1955 | Le Movement![]() Curator: Pontus Hultén, Denise René Yaacov Agam, Robert Breer, Pol Bury, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Jacobsen, Jesús Raphaël Soto, Jean Tinguely, Victor Vasarely Besides emphasizing movement as an extension of artistic expression in the classical disciplines, the manifesto distributed for the exhibition at the Galerie Denise René focused in particular on cinema. Vasarely's 'Notes pur un Manifeste', the yellow leaflet produced for the exhibition, postulated couleur, lumière, mouvement & temps as the basic principles for the further development of kinetic sculpture. Vision in Motion / Motion in vision![]() and six years later Bewogen Beweging![]() See above. Le Mouvement. From Cinema to Kinetics![]() |
1955 | The Family of Man![]() Curator: Edward Steichen (1879 - 1973) The full title of the exhibition on the invitation reads: "The Family of Man - An Exhibition of creative Photography, dedicated to the dignity of man, conceived and executed by Edward Steichen." The exhibition did show in 42 sections 506 photographs of 260 photographers, according to the checklist. After New York the show toured for 8 years through 37 countries, in different versions, seen by nearly 9 million people. Commenting on the show, Mr. Steichen says: Photographers all over the world have made this exhibition possible. They have photographed the everyday story of man - his aspirations, his hopes, his loves, his foibles, his greatness, his cruelty his compassion, his relations to his fellow man as it is seen in him wherever he happens to live, whatever language he happens to speak, whatever clothes he happens to wear. Edward Steichen was lauded for his show as well as criticized in 1955 as well as in the many years after. Just 10 years after the end of World War II his selection for 'The family of Man' followed a wide scope of images, ranging from artistic to journalistic photography, being a 'universal language' for a universal scheme. ![]() The exhibition was reinstalled 1994 at Chateau Clervaux in Luxembourg. |
1941 | David Octavius Hill - Portrait Photographs 1843-1848![]() Curator: Beaumont Newhall (1908 - 1993) The MoMA press release states: "These photographs, the earliest of which were made only four years after the invention of photography, are remarkable documents of camera work, taking a place in the history of photography comparable to that of the Gutenberg Bible in the history of typography. But it is for their artistic quality rather than for their archaeological significance that these forty prints, chosen from the collection of Heinrich Schwarz of Buffalo, New York, are exhibited. They represent perhaps the first use of photography as a medium of artistic expression, and form a part of its rich tradition." ![]() |
1938 | Pablo Picasso - 'Guernica'![]() Curator: Clement Attlee, Roland Penrose (1900 - 1984) Showing Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica ', commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to be exhibited at the Spanish Pavilion of 1937 World's Fair in Paris, together with 'The Reaper' by Joan Miró and 'Mercury Fountain' by Alexander Calder. After Paris 'Guernica' was shown together with works by Matisse, Braque and Laurens in Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Göteborg, before arriving in London. It is today part of the collection of Museo Nacional. Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. |
1938 | Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme![]() It was organised by the French writer André Breton, the surrealists' brain and theorist, and Paul Éluard, the best known poet of the movement. The catalogue listed, along with the above, Marcel Duchamp as generator and arbitrator (to appease the partly fierce conflicts mainly between Breton and Éluard), Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst as technical advisers, Man Ray as head lighting technician and Wolfgang Paalen as responsible for the design the entrance and main hall with "water and foliage". Galerie Beaux-Arts was run by Georges Wildenstein, at 140, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. ![]() Le Surréalisme: Sources - Histoire - Affinités![]() Curator: Patrick WaldbergPatrick Waldberg 26 years later, the same year Robert Rauschenberg was awarded the Grand Prize of the 32nd Biennale di Venezia amid the sensational arrival of Pop Art, this important Surrealist exhibition took place in Paris. ![]() |
1937 | Entartete Kunst![]() The exhibition presented 650 works of art, confiscated from German museums, and was staged in counterpoint to the concurrent 'Great German Art Exhibition' - 'Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung', at 'Haus der Kunst, which was to showcase art approved by the Nazis. ![]() 'Degenerate Art' - The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany![]() Curator: Stephanie Barron The 'Entartete Kunst' exhibitions in the 30s have been subject to numerous research projects: Not only regarding single works of art by specific artists but as well regarding the impact on the development of Modern Art. The exhibition at the LACMA can be seen as the first in depth survey, based on the show in Munich which opened July 19, 1937, to better understand the 'Entartete Kunst' exhibitions and the related circumstances. The exhibition's architecture by Frank O. Gehry included the following sections: Entry area and corridor, Introductory gallery, Film gallery, Literature gallery, Music gallery, Works from 'Entartete Kunst'. ![]() The exhibition traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian Institution Washington D.C., Altes Museum Berlin. |
1936 | The London International Surrealist Exhibition![]() 64 artists of 14 different nationalities were exhibiting, among them Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Man Ray [Emmanuel Rudinski], Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, Hans (Jean) Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Francis Picabia, André Masson, Constantin Brancusi, Méret Oppenheim. It was the first exhibition to introduce Surrealism in England and a major success. It was opened in the presence of two thousand people by André Breton. The average attendance for the whole of the Exhibition was about a thousand people per day. (in: 'International Surrealist Bulletin, No.4, Sep 1936) ![]() |
1936 | Cubism and Abstract Art![]() Curator: Alfred H. Barr The exhibition was subsequently shown in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Providence, and Grand Rapids. Although Alfred Barr states in the catalog's introduction that he is offering little which is new, his famous timeline on the catalog's jacket with the different movements in art from 1890 – 1935 offered for the first time a synthesis of the complex and interwoven concepts. The exhibition's different sections show his in-depth outreach and new approach: Painting, Sculpture, Constructions, Photography, Architecture, Industrial Art, Theatre, Films, Posters, Typography. Cubism and Abstract Art remains until today one of the most important exhibitions in many concerns. [See: Susan Noyes Platt, 'Modernism, Formalism, and Politics: The »Cubism and Abstract Art« Exhibition of 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art; in: Art Journal, Winter 1988, Vol 47, No. 4, pp. 284-295] ![]() Five Contemporary American Concretionists![]() Curator: Albert Eugene Gallatin Only three blocks away from MoMA's Cubism and Abstract Art at 11 W 53rd St. Albert Eugene Gallatin organized Five Contemporary American Concretionists in the Paul Reinhardt Galleries at 730 Fifth Avenue # 57th (this is the Heckscher Building [today Crown Building], the very same address where the MoMA opened to the public on November 7, 1929, on the twelfth floor), with a defined focus on American artists of the modernist movement: Charles Biederman, Alexander Calder, John Ferren, George L. K. Morris, and Charles Green Shaw. In 1989 Abstraction - Geometry - Painting at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, organized by Michael Auping provides a good survey on abstract painting in America since 1945. In December 2012 Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925 at the MoMA, New York, organized by Masha Chlenova, and Leah Dickerman revisits this important epoch, drawing a cross-media portrait of these watershed years. |
1934 | Pablo Picasso![]() First Picasso exhibition held in an American museum. Solo-Exhibitions before in America: Mar - Apr 1930, Pablo Picasso, The Arts Club Chicago Nov - Dec 1930, Pablo Picasso, The Arts Club Chicago ![]() and www.artist-info.com/museum/MATRIX-Wadsworth-Atheneum |
1929 | Cézanne Gauguin Seurat Van Gogh![]() Curator: Alfred H. Barr The first exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art, comprising one hundred works by Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh and Seurat came to its close December 7th. Over 47,000 people came to the exhibition, numbers increasing rather than diminishing as the four weeks passed. The last day 5,300 people crowded the Gallery. These figures are even more surprising when taking into account the Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, October 29. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries. |
1922 | Erste Russische Kunstausstellung Berlin 1922![]() Curator: David Shterenberg Important exhibition for the Russian avant-garde artists in Western Europe and the non-objective movement. ![]() See as well Sep - Dec 1983 The 1st Russian Show – A commemoration of the Van Diemen Exhibition, Berlin 1922; Annely Juda Fine Art, London; Texts by Andrei Nakov, Krisztina Passuth, Peter Nisbet |
1913 | International Exhibition of Modern Art![]() The exhibition was shown as well in Chicago and Boston. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America. The selection of artists was very much influenced by the Sonderbund Exhibition in 1912 at Cologne. |
1912 | Internationale Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln 1912![]() This fourth Sonderbund exhibition in 1912 supplied a breathtaking review of early modern art: Vincent Van Gogh with 107 paintings, Paul Cézanne with 24 works, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso with 16 works and the neo-impressionists Henri-Edmond Cross with 17 paintings and Paul Signac with 18 works, the first generation was set in context to more recent efforts all around Europe, with a special focus on Edvard Munch, with 31 paintings. The Sonderbund 1912 exhibition was reinstalled 100 years later at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Köln, giving an interesting insight into the reception of this outstanding exhibition during the past 100 years. '1912 - Mission Moderne', Aug 31 - Dec 30, 2012 was accompanied by a most thoughtful edited and exciting to read 646 pages catalog. |
1892 | Collektivausstellung Edvard Munch![]() Edvard Munch's one-person exhibition was shut down only seven days after the opening compelled by an extraordinary general members meeting, initiated by Anton von Werner (1843 - 1915), director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, because the more traditional members of the Verein Berliner Künstler could not agree with the work Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944) was showing. Already on occasion of the Internationale Kunstausstellung Berlin 1891, the fifty years anniversary show, the then art-critic Cornelius Gurlitt (1850 - 1938) could state that the most up-to-date realist Norwegian artists were not included in this important show (Cornelius Gurlitt: Die Internationale Kunstausstellung zu Berlin 1891; Franz Hanfstaengel Kunstverlag, München, 1892, p. 119). With the exhibition Vereinigung der XI at Galerie Eduard Schulte, Berlin in April 1892 the movement of the 'unofficial' artists (Berliner Secession) became more evident to the public than ever before. On June 7, 1905, then since 1893 professor at the 'Königlich Sächsische Technische Hochschule', Dresden, four of Cornelius Gurlitt's architecture students founded the famous artist-group Brücke: Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. |
Please check back for new and updated Influential Exhibitions information. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |