Isn't it too early for the Eighties yet?

Today, the '80s are primarily thought of as the Decade of the Yuppies, which ended in one of the greatest financial crashes of all time. Such is its legacy. Its reputation is largely the result of a comparison with the decades that come before and after, however, using these as a kind of antithesis. While the '70s are represented as politically conscious, the '80s are often depicted as lacking in political consciousness - or even as nihilist. Post-modernism - a child of the '80s - was attacked by the political left as a reactionary movement with its roots in the extreme liberalism of the United States under Reagan and England under Thatcher.

Even though the '80s are thought of as politically naive, it was, nevertheless, this decade that first began to question the idea of an authentic concept of reality as more and more people noticed that reality, as represented by the media, seemed to be a language construction incapable of transmitting a comprehensive view. This splintering and fragmentation produced a dual or ambiguous picture of reality, based on a number of underlying codes. The political consciousness of the '80s may have been different from that of the '70s, but given the ideological critique of the '80s it is hard to dismiss it as totally lacking in political consciousness. The differences between the '80s and the '90s have often been similarly pointed out. The '80s have been described as a freewheeling decade, in terms of both moral and sexual attitudes. A lack of restraint that has often been associated with the spread of AIDS. The '90s, on the other hand, are thought to be moral and restrained. But are the differences really as great as they say?

The '80s contain the embryo of many of the contemporary phenomena that have come to characterize the '90s, not least the emergence of social pluralism. The notion that society contained within it a multiplicity of societies gained gradual recognition during the '80s, leading to the tolerant acceptance of various sub-cultures in which language had become a sign of belonging. The same pluralism permeated the art scene of the '80s to a high degree - manifesting itself in a wide variety of highly divergent artistic expressions such as neo-expressionism, violent painting, trans-avantgarde - just to mention a few.

The focus on issues of identity in the '90s has its origin in the '80s when a growing number of individuals began to experiment with the limits of personality by adopting divergent lifestyles and identities. The existence anything resembling a uniform personality was no longer taken for granted. The problem of identity was not limited to youth culture. Within art, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, and others came to embody a border area between different identities.

At first glance, the '80s may appear to be radically different from the two adjoining decades, but behind the facade and its perfect reflection of the period we find both continuity with the past and several aspects opening on to the '90s. The '80s may not actually be as uninteresting as we have been told. Is it not high time to look at the period with fresh eyes?

The complexity of the post-modernist situation is best reflected in the art of the '80s. In preparing the Rooseum's Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, it therefore seemed natural to return to Fredrik Roos' collection of art from the '80s. His collecting was extremely pluralistic, in the true spirit of the decade. It is hard to imagine a more complete art collection of both breadth and depth representative of the decade. It has not been our ambition to try to reassemble the collection of Fredrik Roos in this exhibition. That would have been an impossible task. Instead, we have tried to recreate the feel of the '80s by reconstructing some important parts of his collection. In this way, we hope to carry the discussion of the art of the '80s over into our own time. Finding works to do justice to the collection has been a complicated puzzle. In some cases we have been successful, in others we have substituted other, every bit as representative, works by the artists included in the collection.The task could never have been accomplished without the help of a number of individuals. We therefore direct our heartfelt thanks to Lill and Axel Roos, Håkan Roos, Tisti Roos, Peter Edström, Stockholms Auktionsverk, Per Skarstedt, Claes Nordenhake, and Lars Bohman for their assistance in our detective work. I would also like to thank the many institutions which have placed their works at our disposal, as well as a number of private individuals who have contributed to making the picture as complete as possible. Our thanks also to the writers whose contributions have helped shed light on the way the '80s are viewed: Laura Cottingham for her essay on the psychological and emotional mood of New York, the epicenter of the '80s, and Staffan Schmidt, whose exhibition texts have contributed to making the exhibition more readily accessible.

Bo Nilsson
Director