Animation

I have chosen to look into the field of animation during the 1980's. I am going to look at specific animated feature films of the time and TV series that have created some of the most memorable and iconic characters from Saturday cartoons.

Free Figuration

In 1981 in Paris, art critique Bernard Lamarche-Vadel presented the works of a group of young painters in an exhibit called “Finir en Beauté”. Ben, the painter, identified the event as the birth of a new movement, which he named “Free Figuration”. The new style is best described as spontaneously figurative. It is brightly colored, raw, and draws its inspiration from the popular culture, rock music, comics, etc. In the United States, during that same period, graffiti art can be seen as its counterpart. These artists mostly paint on unstretched, unframed canvasses, or they paint directly on sheets, cardboard, in the back of billboards they picked up in the streets or in the subway.
One famous example of the Free Figuration style, can be seen in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Graffiti

The years between 1985 and 1989 became known as the "die hard" era. A last shot for the graffiti artists of this time was in the form of subway cars destined for the scrap yard. With the increased security, the culture had taken a step back. The previous elaborate "burners" on the outside of cars were now marred with simplistic marker tags which often soaked through the paint.
By mid-1986 the MTA and the CTA were winning their "war on graffiti," and the population of active graffiti artists diminished. As the population of artists lowered so did the violence associated with graffiti crews and "bombing." Roof tops also were being the new billboards for some 80's writers. Some notable graffiti artists of this era from New York and Chicago were Ghost, Ket, Bruz, Ja, Yes2, Zuer , Sien5, Cope2, West, Zephyr, Dr. Revolt Cavs, Reas, Wane, Wen, Swatch, DG, Spade & Heart Fox, Quest Kds, Fate, Dart, Niro , Sane, Smith, Seen, and T-kid (New York), and Were One, Sivel, Agent aka Ages, Lone, Koname, Temper, Nyke, Erie, Triple, Page, Scarce, Slang, Orko, OXiD(NBS Crew, Romania) and Trixter (Chicago).

Neo-Pop

Neo-pop is an art movement of the 1980s. Contrary to common belief Neo-Pop (or neo-popart) isn't just an updated version of the pop art movement of the sixties and seventies. Although the basis are very similar in many cases, namely using images out of popular culture and the media Neo-pop goes much further. Because the availability of media images since the pop art movement has grown exponentially, so have the ways to use them. Not only are there more sources, also art in general has changed a lot in the last 30 years, now anything is possible. Not only in new applied materials, but also in combining images of different periods of history.

Some of the more known neo-pop artists are Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Mark Kostabi.

Key Artistic Movements of the 1980's

• Free Figuration (Figuration Libre) - early 1980s-Present
• Neue Wilde - early 1980s-Present
• Neo-Geo - mid-1980s
• Multiculturalism - 1980s-Present
• Graffiti Movement - 1980s-Present
• BritArt / Young British Artists - 1988-Present
• Neo-Pop - late 1980s-Present