1989: THE POSTCOLLAPSE IN ART AND CULTURE

August 29, 2022 - October 6, 2022

The Cerritos College Art Gallery, in collaboration with The MinEastry of Postcollapse Art and Culture (MPAC), is pleased to present 1989: The Postcollapse in Art and Culture, an international group exhibition featuring twenty-four artists and art collectives working across multiple media from all around the globe. The main gallery features an exhibition of physical artworks (i.e. paintings, sculptures, etc), while the adjoining projects space has been transformed into a video screening room featuring eleven short documentaries, animations, and music videos (comfortable seating is provided, so visitors can either linger to watch the full 80 minute loop or just pop in for multiple visits to catch a few different videos each time).

To speak of the year 1989 is to speak of revolutions.

For some, it marks the end of history as the last chapter of a long-winded ideological battle; victors promising flashy freedoms. For others, it marks the beginning of a renewed era of force; control societies marching forward in clanking servitude. To speak of 1989 is to speak of collapse. It is to speak of the many befores and the many afters across multiple centers and peripheries. From the fringes of the former West to the afterworlds of an emergent East and across the global South, 1989 rips through the primacy of borders, speaking instead to the absurd and the absolute, the fantastic and the fragmented, that permeate our ever-shifting contemporary ground.

This exhibition brings together established and emerging artists from Russia, Poland, Czechia, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, Cuba, Suriname, Hong Kong, China, New Zealand, and the USA. Through a diverse collection of painting, drawing, installation art, sculpture, photography, conceptual emptiness, video art, digital art, and textile, each artist engages the aesthetic, political, and psychological aspects of collapse. Taken together, the exhibition designates postcollapse as a critical framework for contextualizing the contemporary practices of artists from these dynamic regions since 1989.

Guest Curators: MPAC (lknur Demirkoparan and Vuslat D. Katsanis)

Participating Artists: Silvia Amancei and Bogdan Armanu; Music X Habitat X Art (Amelie Jiang, Yaoyue Huang, Scott Lowell Sherman; Peter Christenson with Marta Straži?i? and Tea Straži?i?; Fung Yee Lick Eric; Lenka Holíková; Hagen Klennert; Vladan Kuzmanovi?; Naomi Middelmann; Esra Nesipo?ullar?; Frank Lahera O’Callaghan; Stas Orlovski; Kasia Ozga; Nathaniel C. Praska; Rodrigo Prian-García; Hamed Shafie; Monica Sheets; Maciek St?pniewski; Anna Syarova; Valdrin Thaqi; Igor Vaganov; Kate Walker; Charles Edward Williams; Klara Wo?niak; and Keoni K. Wright