Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Visit
  • Exhibitions & Events
  • Art & Design
  • Search

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Introduction

What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present

September 19, 2014 - January 4, 2015

What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present features works that diverge radically from the major art-historical movements of the last 50 years, including the detachment of New York abstraction and Pop art and the polished reserve of Minimalism and Conceptual art. The history of modern and contemporary American art, however, consists of many distinct, coexisting developments, rather than one straightforward progression. The diverse artists on view here are united in their concern with the body as generative force, audacious sexuality, disguise, and prickly politics.

At the heart of What Nerve! are four mini-exhibitions, or hubs, based on important groups, shows, and places: the Hairy Who (Chicago, 1966–1969), Funk (San Francisco Bay Area, 1967), Destroy All Monsters (Ann Arbor, 1973–1977), and Forcefield (Providence, 1996–2003). They are linked by six individual artists—H. C. Westermann, Jack Kirby, William Copley, Christina Ramberg, Gary Panter, and Elizabeth Murray—who were influenced by or were a crucial influence on the artists in the four hubs.

These groups and individual artists seized imagery and ideas from sources as diverse as comics and pottery, reshaping this material to tackle a variety of subjects with equal doses of satireand sincerity. They were not naive or historically unaware—they simply trafficked alternate histories, making work that continues to create profound artistic ripples.

What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present was organized by Dan Nadel, guest curator, and Judith Tannenbaum, former Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art.

Selected Objects

Elizabeth Murray

Spill One, 1981

Ken Price

Red, 1961

Forcefield

Blue Shmoo, 2001

Forcefield

Uncle Joby Joby, 2001

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present

September 19, 2014 - January 4, 2015
View Checklist PDF

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use