Why 80s Art Is Vital

In the Guardian Arts blog, the artist Stuart Semple argues that we need to explore what happened in the 80s and understand how the environment, AIDs and the Thatcher years still underpin a lot of our cultural ideology today. He says:

The language of advertising and marketing changed from highlighting the intrinsic value of products to perform their function better than competitors, to associating products with personal empowerment. Rather than washing powders that made our “whites really bright” we got ice creams that made us sexually attractive. Brands were born, and I got bullied because my parents refused to buy me Nikes.

Stylistically, however, and certainly visually, the 80s developed its own language. It was bright and trashy for all the right reasons, rather than a pastiche – there was honest originality, certainly in punk, but also in mainstream pop, within Spielberg’s movies and artists such as Cyndi Lauper and Madonna.

The 90s and the Naughties in comparison become bland branded times. The energy is lost in a homogenised celebrity obsessed culture. The avant-garde characters that graced the front pages have been replaced by manufactured pop. I think it’s due to this lack of substance that the 80s suddenly appear so vital.

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – art: The 80s are vital for our art

[The image is called 'Kurt Lied' by Stuart Semple]