On March 8, in a New York Times article titled “33 and Under, Please,” Carol Vogel discussed “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus”:
From left, exhibition curators Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni, and Lauren Cornell (photo: J.B. Reed for the New York Times)
“This is different,” said Lisa Phillips, the New Museum’s director, in an interview at its two-year-old building on the Bowery. “It’s a really focused exhibition about a generation.”
Flippantly titled “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus,” the building-wide show, which runs from April 8 through June 14, will present an international sampling of artists 33 and under who were born and bred in the computer age.
“They constitute the largest demographic since the baby boomers,” said Massimiliano Gioni, director of special exhibitions at the New Museum, who organized the show with Laura Hoptman, the New Museum’s senior curator, and Lauren Cornell, the museum’s adjunct curator.
Mr. Gioni added: “Sociologists and marketing experts have already labeled this generation everything from the Millennials and Generation Y to iGeneration and Generation Me. In China 50 percent of the population is younger than 33. This generation of artists are the most important agents of change in this century.”
The exhibition’s curators also point out that turning points in recent art history have often involved young practitioners. Jasper Johns painted his first flag at 24; Matthew Barney had his first group show at 23; Eva Hesse burst into the scene when she was just 25.
While other ambitious survey exhibitions in New York tend to focus primarily on American artists, or those working in this country, “Younger Than Jesus” is international in scope.
To read the rest of the article, which contains interviews with participating artists Mark Essen, Kerstin Brätsch, and Josh Smith, click here.
