Video Killed the Radio Star: The 1980s and their Cultural Echoes

The 1980s was defined by paradoxes made visible through the image: the gleaming surface of pop culture overlapped with the deep fractures of global politics; as new technologies intersected with old ideologies; the birth of MTV and the shadow of Chernobyl, both reached audiences through the same mediated lens. Video Killed the Radio Star, a new exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, explores the transformations of a period when image overtook voice, access replaced ownership and aesthetics began to convey power in new ways, and its legacy to the present.

From the Cold War's final acts to the rise of neoliberalism under Thatcher and Reagan, the 1980s marked a profound reorientation of Western culture, soon reframed by the emergence of other cultural forces, among them cultural critiques, feminist and queer theories, which expanded and contested the dominant narratives of postmodernism. This exhibition invites us to consider what we have inherited from that era, and what we may have lost, particularly in the context of today's landscape of algorithmic influence, mediated intimacy, and post-truth politics. Revisiting this pivotal moment in the West and its global impact, the exhibition portrays the 1980s as a cultural turning point, a decade in which many of today's tools, tensions and desires took form.

Structured in two parts, the exhibition first focuses on the aesthetic revolutions of the early 1980s, driven by post-war generations of artists questioning universal and Western-centric perspectives. The second part turns to the socio-political context of the decade, its ruptures and continuities that still resonate today.

The exhibition includes about fifty works by forty-two artists, many of which are drawn from Mudam Collection: Bernd & Hilla Becher, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Sophie Calle, Mel Chin, Günther Förg, General Idea, Nan Goldin, Jack Goldstein, Andreas Gursky, Peter Halley, Anne Imhof, Joyce Joumaa, Isaac Julien, Martin Margiela, Park McArthur, Albert Oehlen, Grayson Perry, Sondra Perry, Josephine Pryde, Julika Rudelius, Sarkis, Julian Schnabel, Thomas Schütte, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Michael E. Smith, Thomas Struth, Leyla Yenirce. These works will be joined by new loans by artists including 4FSB, Bless, Rhea Dillon, Andrzej Steinbach, Vivienne Westwood, Alvin Baltrop, Harun Farocki, Roman Ondak, Martin Wong, Hélène Yamba-Giumbi, Michel Majerus and Angharad Williams.

The exhibition marks the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.

Curators: Bettina Steinbrügge, assisted by Caroline Honorien and Alexine Taddeï