Photography in the 1980s

With photography you’ve got to say it all in one image.

—Tracey Moffatt

Photography in the 1980s celebrates one of the great moments in photographic history—a period when photography became contemporary art’s dominant form.

The 1980s gave rise to a generation of artists who elevated photography’s place in contemporary art and remain highly influential today, including Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Fiona Hall, Tracey Moffatt and Bill Henson. Their work asks us to think about the nature of photography itself—not as a window onto the world, but as a means of questioning the place of art in a fragile, conflicted and increasingly globalised world.

At this time of tremendous social, political and technological upheaval, photography became the perfect vehicle for navigating the tides of change. As technology made photography more accessible, artists began to greatly expand the scale and visual impact of their photographs—making pictures that seemed to mirror, and at the same time critique, the spectacle and excess of a decade ruled by ideas of ‘greed is good’ and the ‘need for speed’.

The National Gallery holds an outstanding collection of photographs from the decade, and Photography in the 1980s is the first major Australian exhibition on the subject. Bringing together key works by leading Australian, First Nations and international artists from the national collection, the exhibition shows how Australians were among the most innovative and conceptually adventurous artists working globally.