Totally Radical: Designing the 1980s, which draws on all areas of GMD’s permanent collection, looks at design through the fractured lens of postmodernism. Like today, the 1980s were fertile ground for nostalgic consumerism, mixing iconic elements of our collective past with present ideals.
Totally Radical: Designing the 1980s
Exhibition Dates: December 4, 2021 – May 27, 2022
Gallery 241, McNeal Hall
Whether your recollection of the past sides more with luxe styles or dystopic futures, the 1980s was a highly mediated era of extremes. Ironically, this exhibition pushes against the idea that the 1980s are a highly definable decade. After all, there is nothing inherently significant about years that end in zero, yet we have a great tendency to think of decades as discreet stylistic eras. The collective memory of 1980s design might recall big hair, bright colors, Rubik’s Cubes, Atari game consoles, MTV, and Hip Hop. However, this falsely homogenizing approach forces a great diversity of issues and people into a single “zeitgeist,” thereby omitting a great diversity of issues and people. Subcultural styles that grew up during the 1960s and 70s were now commodified, thereby reducing the power of their anti-establishment beginnings. A somewhat naïve embrace of advancing technologies during the 1980s seemed to predict our current love/hate relationship with mediated life. In addition to GMD collection objects, the exhibition will also feature photographs and print material from UMN Archives and the Minnesota Historical Society. Come and see objects ranging from track suits to Hmong embroidery, as we explore the “undefining” of a decade.
