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Postmodernism, Style and Subversion 1970–1990 @ Landesmuseum / Zurich

Postmodernism, Style and Subversion 1970–1990 @ Landesmuseum / Zurich August 12, 2012art & design, events & exhibitions, interior, photography0 Comments

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is the leading museum for art and design worldwide. With the unique «Postmodernism, Style and Subversion 1970–1990» exhibition, the V&A Museum is visiting the Landesmuseum Zurich. Its exhibition shows a bold new interpretation of recent art and design history, postmodernism. Tribute will be paid to this era for the first time in Switzerland in a comprehensive presentation using international objects from the areas of architecture, design, music and graphics. Postmodernism substantially changed the familiar notions of our everyday world. Architects and designers rejected the strict concepts of the modern age and made room for a bright and multifaceted diversity.

The exhibition at the Landesmuseum Zurich shows the development of the post- modern movement. Postmodernism was a reaction and backlash against the or- thodoxies of modernism and its purism, which came to be increasingly seen as to- talitarian. With postmodernism, architects and designers began to enhance the status of subcultures. A new multiplicity of forms, colours, materials, styles and stylization emerged. Seemingly immutable truths upheld by the ‘connaisseurs’ were put into perspective with originality, a sense of freedom and plurality.

The exhibition is arranged in three broadly chronological sections identifying the key aspects of postmodernism. The first part focuses largely on architecture. The second part of the exhibition is devoted to the flourishing and proliferation of postmodernism: Design, graphics, performance and club culture during the 1980s. The final part examines the culture of commercialisation. Postmodernism gives equal weight to the most varied aesthetic criteria, or refrains from setting specific trends. However, one criterion survives, namely that of commercial success. The exhibition ends in the period of economic boom, and leaves the visitor with this paradox of postmodernism. But also with the challenge to consider the contempo- rary relevance of postmodernism – for example in relation to cloud computing or sampling. More that 150 international and national works can be discovered in the 800 m2 of exhibition space, including Aldo Rossi, Ai Weiwei, Vivienne Westwood, Andy Warhol, Talking Heads, Ridley Scott and Laurie Anderson. Exemplary Swiss representatives of postmodernism include Fischli/Weiss, Mario Botta, Yello, Trix and Robert Haussmann, and Pipilotti Rist.

Find the Landesmuseum Zurich in Museumstrasse 2, Zurich. That’s right next to the central station. The exhibition is open until 28 October 2012.