"80's IN PRINTS"

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Keith Haring, Robert Indiana, A. R. Penck, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann: it’s the beginning of the 80s, and some of these artists have already reached the pinnacle of their renown; others want to shake up the established order set by these icons of Pop culture, at once revered and questioned for their artistic methods.

It’s the beginning of the 80s, a decade which will witness the adoration of mass media predicted by Warhol and the initial babblings of a globalisation phenomenon for which we had not yet found a name. One must exist everywhere and at all times, and thus, more than ever, one must go forth and multiply: these artists find themselves building a revitalised momentum for serial works and editions on paper. As to guard their personal creative vernacular despite the shared technical constraints, they experiment with new inks, hues that were little used in print until then; they explore unusual scales, creating works in awe-inspiring dimensions…

It’s the beginning of the 80s, and anyone who was lucky enough to speak about it with Enrico Navarra, founder of 75 Faubourg gallery, will remember how he would expound as much about his early career – as a broker and then as a publisher specialising in prints – as he would about the contemporary craze for new electronics from the first Apple Computer to the latest Sony Walkman!

It’s the beginning of the 80s, and from New York to Tokyo this young, self-taught art dealer—not yet thirty years old, and supported by Christine Schreyer and Emmanuel Barth—is reinventing the industry… This audacity would become his hallmark.

It’s the beginning of the 80s, a pivotal period that meant so much to him and that would lay the groundwork for his future, a period of which he will retain: artists, naturally; and his French, American, Japanese peers, who would soon help him cut his teeth on being a gallerist. But he also spoke tirelessly of fashion, design, architecture, music, clubbing, travel, society, technology—progress! All of this, in our memories, remains with us—as does this collection of silkscreens and lithographs, some of which he compiled at the time, some since. Welcome to the 80’s in Prints!