American Art 1961-2001
The Walker Art Center Collections
From Andy Warhol to Kara Walker
28 May 2021- 29 August 2021
From 28 May to 29 August 2021 Palazzo Strozzi will be hosting American Art 1961–2001, a major exhibition taking a completely new look at the history of modern art in the United States between two key moments in US history, the Vietnam War and the attack on the Twin Towers, with a superb selection of works by such celebrated artists as Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Kruger, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney and Kara Walker.
Curated by Vincenzo de Bellis (Curator and Associate Director of Programs, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center) and Arturo Galansino (Director General, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi), the exhibition celebrates great American art over forty years of history, from the 1960s to the 2000s, with an outstanding selection of over eighty works by 55 American artists, including paintings, photographs, video art, sculptures and installations on loan from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, one of the world’s leading museums of contemporary art.
Devised for Palazzo Strozzi as sole venue, the exhibition sets out to illustrate America’s rich and multi-faceted artistic output, exploring its relationship with the changes taking place in contemporary society and helping to define America’s fertile and complex identity in the second half of the 20th century. Successive generations of American artists experimented with styles that opened the doors to a redefinition of the boundaries of art, merging different techniques and media, and that also used the power of art as a tool for addressing such topics as the consumer society, mass production, feminism and gender identity, racial issues and the struggle for civil rights.