East Village USA revisits the sprawling, renegade art scene that flourished in the East Village during the 1980s. Many prominent artists, including Jeff Koons, Kiki Smith, Peter Halley, and Philip Taaffe began their careers in the occasionally makeshift storefront galleries that prospered for several years as low-priced alternatives to Soho's rapid gentrification. Representing traditional media such as painting, sculpture, and photography, while emphasizing the film, music, and performance art of the period, this lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue contains works by more than 75 artists, as well as documentary photographs of people, galleries, performance spaces, and clubs. It provides a striking contribution to the resurgence of interest in a brief but little documented and even less understood period of art history. Covering the stylistic gamut from graffiti and punk expressionism to Neo-Geo and appropriation through some 200 images, East Village USA examines the key exhibition sites and events that shaped the neighborhood and includes work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah Charlesworth, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Lady Pink, Tom Otterness, Kenny Scharf, Fiona Templeton, Tseng Kwong Chi, David Wojnarowicz, and many others. The catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
