American Art 1961-2001

Major works from the Walker Art Center’s collection, seen in the context of two watershed moments in American history

This diverse survey of American art from the collection of the Walker Art Center uses two of the nation’s most significant events as its chronological boundaries: the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 that escalated the Vietnam War and the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Within the timeframe of these two landmark calamities, the United States saw the emergence of some of its most noteworthy artists.

The publication examines the many themes and techniques developed during those 40 years within the greater context of American history and culture, from modernist abstraction to mass production. These generations of artists probed the very notion of what art is and what it can do using paint, performance, installation, video and photography. This paperback volume features work by artists such as Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Barbara Kruger, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman, Robert Rauschenberg, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol from the Walker Art Center’s acclaimed collection.