Once more with feeling

Abstract

A little more than a decade ago, an artistic sensibility emerged that dared to evoke emotion rather than mask it, revealing rather than concealing such feelings as longing, vulnerability and grief. In an effort to shed light on this cultural turning point, “Once More with Feeling” focuses on the art of the late 1980s and early 90s in North America and Europe. During that brief, tumultuous period, activists confronted conservative governments (Reagan, Thatcher, Mulroney, Bush et al.) determined to wage a culture war against the radical legacy of the 1960s and 70s against the reproductive rights of women, the civil rights of gay men and lesbians, and the multicultural challenges to racist and sexist standards of cultural excellence. When the AIDS activist movement crystallized in 1987, many artists joined with other members of ACT UP to help take direct action to end the AIDS crisis.Those artists worked collectively to advance activist goals, producing innovative representations that demonstrated the strength, resiliency and determination of marginalized communities under siege. Some of the same artists, and many others, also created more reflective works of art that gave poetic shape to the emotional cost of the epidemic, as well as to other longings for a sense of wholeness, for home, for a past one can identify with; for a shared sense of self and identity. It is this art that “Once More with Feeling” surveys.