Art after Neoliberalism: Lessons from 1976

When the art world held its breath in January 2025 awaiting a new administration, Artforum published Katy Siegel's essay "The End of Neoliberal Art: Populism, Pluralism, and Lessons from 1976." The piece was a rare moment of reflection on how art is embedded in economic and political systems, and why today's institutional silence is not merely a survival tactic but a symptom of deep crisis. Siegel suggests we look back to the mid-1970s, when art was not yet fully professionalized, and pluralism and populism were not slogans but real mechanisms of participation and access.

The essay opens with an observation: liberal institutions—universities, the Democratic Party—capitulated to the new power, rolling back equality programs and criminalizing protests. The art world, structurally similar to academia and politics, chose silence. But this very pause offers a chance to rethink art's trajectory under neoliberalism. Siegel argues that to understand the present, we must return to the 1970s, when a different cultural model existed—more public, local, and economically supported.

Populism and Pluralism in the 1970s: Not Words but Practice

In the 1970s, class politics often took shape as a conflict between populism and elitism. In culture, this meant a clash between metropolitan and provincial tastes: classical opera and exhibitions of European masterpieces versus folk traditions in art, dance, and music. In more prosperous times, the response was to support both. In San Francisco, where patrons and politicians invested in costly opera and theater productions, protests led to funding for cultural centers in the Mission District and other neighborhoods. Appropriations from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), founded in 1965, supported a growing network of art and community spaces across the country—from The Kitchen in New York to the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Arkansas—as well as individual artist projects, museum restorations, and acquisitions.

The Bicentennial of 1976: A People's Project

Planning for the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution in 1976 became perhaps the largest civic project in U.S. history. Initially conceived as a top-down federal celebration, it transformed into a grassroots initiative: due to social unrest, even Richard Nixon admitted that a single patriotic anthem was impossible. Planning dispersed across a multi-tiered structure of states, cities, and community committees, with only the vaguest themes set from above. The Bicentennial went beyond celebration, encompassing quality-of-life initiatives—from culture to ecology—as well as debates, historical revision, and political organizing. Official channels, such as local town halls and radio broadcasts of the "American Issues Forum," coexisted with programs from counter-organizations like the "Third World" and "Gay Bicentennial" committees.

This populism was inherently pluralistic. At the federal level, special efforts were made to include diverse groups—especially rural Americans, Native peoples, and Black Americans. Typical Bicentennial projects—quilts, oral histories, community cookbooks, folk festivals—allowed Americans to take pride in their immigrant stories, neighborhoods, and genealogies. The Smithsonian's central exhibition "A Nation of Nations" presented immigration as a driving force of America, leading to the acquisition of over three thousand objects—from immigrant trunks and documents to neon signs from dumpling restaurants and Warsaw hot dog stands.

Museums and Art: Revisiting the Canon

All major art institutions participated in the Bicentennial, creating large-scale exhibitions, often uneven but aimed at expanding audiences. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, with public and private funding, planned a wing for American art, as well as a multimedia exhibition of historical material culture designed by Charles and Ray Eames: musical instruments, furniture, clothing, paintings from the collection, botanical specimens, and a stuffed bison. Smaller institutions focused on local histories—for example, the architectural history of Galveston, Texas, or the preservation of Frederick Douglass's home. Outside institutions, public art, murals, and historical markers were installed across all fifty states.

Art history also changed under the influence of pluralism. The younger generation questioned established notions of masterpieces and movements. In 1969, in a letter to the New York Times, art historian Albert Boime wrote: "The current generation... wishes to examine our common assumptions about academic art, just as it wishes to question government and university politics." For the Bicentennial, the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) created the exhibition "America as Art," eschewing famous names in favor of images of everyday life and labor. The new field of American art history took shape then—not as a celebration of national exceptionalism but as a social history opposing dominant stylistic narratives. Curators and scholars, including David Driskell, Linda Nochlin, and Ann Sutherland Harris, organized major exhibitions of forgotten Black and women artists, integrating them into the broader revision of American history.

Contemporary Art: The Core Disintegrates

The populist and pluralist forces of the 1970s could not fail to affect the contemporary art world. The elite then was a small group of artists, mostly from downtown New York, predominantly white and male, recognized by a few magazines and critics. This core had formed in the 1950s and evolved over two decades. As the number of artists, galleries, magazines, and collectors multiplied (according to an NEA survey, the number of professional artists in the U.S. nearly doubled between 1971 and 1980), the core began to disintegrate. In 1974, Lucy Lippard publicly voiced what was being said in studios and bars: "I think pluralism is the only choice right now—many different ideas thrown out... It's a healthy time for art because there's no one thing you have to do." The most immediate consequence was opportunities for artists working outside late modernist orthodoxy—above all, figurative artists. Lippard also saw in this moment an empowerment of art communities; this idea materialized in the works of Carlos Villa, Juan Sánchez, Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith, and members of the Heresies collective. Critic John Perreault noted with satisfaction in 1978: "In terms of art criticism, power is no longer in the hands of two or three star critics as it was in the past."

Reaction: Defending Hierarchies

Not everyone welcomed the new openness. Sometimes the reaction was blunt: at a panel on pluralism at the College Art Association conference in 1978, Robert Pincus-Witten called the situation "open enrollment," rejecting the populism of public education with racial undertones. Artist and art historian Patricia Mainardi anticipated backlash: "Pluralism is what you don't like; what you like is called history. Historical determinism is very attractive to the critic because if only one style is valid, and you're the critic, then you're riding the horse of history." Critics who were supposed to take the helm of the modernist ship, including Rosalind Krauss and Hal Foster, made historical arguments about contemporary art, seeking to restore the critic's special role in disciplining an art scene that felt like a "flood" (Robert Morris) or "a million little puddles" (Mel Bochner). In his essay "Against Pluralism" (1982, Art in America), Foster argued: "In the pluralist state, art and criticism tend to become diffuse and powerless."

To restore authority, critics could not appear to be reviving formalist connoisseurship or grasping for personal power. Instead, pluralism—naturally associated with diversity and popular agency—was recast as the cultural face of capitalism: they branded it as false openness imitating the free market, as a flattening that could strip art and art history of threads of progress and quality. Ironically, this ideological anti-capitalism, in which criticality was opposed to complicity, drew strength by rhyming with the rise of the art market. Artists and critics increasingly came out of elite schools that also trained financial and legal professionals, so the critical stance was in tune with neoliberalism: technocratic, textual, and learnable (though inherently complex). Critical theory, rooted in academia and endowing selected artists with social capital, established a legitimate elite in the competitive field of the art world, eventually crystallizing as a quasi-historical narrative in the textbook "Art Since 1900," which dominated academic education in the early 21st century.

The 1980s Market: Omnivorousness and Cosmopolitanism

The rapidly inflating market of the 1980s accommodated both kinds of art—what might be called critical and what might be called complicit: both Pictures artists and Neo-Expressionists. Dealers and curators brought news, mostly from New York and Germany, to museums across the country. Baltimore Museum curator Brenda Richardson boasted that more New Yorkers and Europeans than Baltimoreans loved—and even simply visited—her numerous exhibitions of minimalist and postminimalist art. If American museums at the turn of the last century taught uncouth Americans good manners, now museums had to teach them cosmopolitanism, or at least metropolitanism. In the 1990s and 2000s, contemporary art took center stage in museums: contemporary art collections expanded in institutions with broad mandates, and biennials and fairs proliferated. By the 2000s, the art world had become a global market where price and status were determined less by artistic merit than by market conditions and critical discourse.

What Collectors Should Consider

1. Study 1970s Provenance: Works created in the pluralist era often have complex histories: they may have been exhibited in non-profit spaces, participated in Bicentennial projects, or been part of community initiatives. Such provenance can enhance value but requires documentary evidence.

2. Pay Attention to Materials and Technique: Artists of the 1970s often used unstable materials (Masonite, cheap paints, found objects). When purchasing, check condition and restoration potential—this affects long-term preservation and value.

3. Distinguish Critical vs. Commercial Reputation: Works considered "critical" in the 1980s (e.g., Pictures artists) may have a different market track than those deemed "complicit" (e.g., Neo-Expressionists). Study exhibition and publication history to understand how prices were formed.

4. Verify Authenticity and Attribution: In the pluralist era, many artists worked in series or collectively, so attribution errors are possible. Demand expert examination and cross-check with catalogue raisonnés if they exist.

5. Consider the Role of Institutions: Museums that actively collected contemporary art in the 1970s (e.g., the Baltimore Museum) may have archives shedding light on a work's history. This can be useful for confirming a work's significance.

6. Watch the Secondary Market: Artists who were part of the pluralist movement but did not enter the mainstream canon may be undervalued. Research their participation in Bicentennial exhibitions and NEA projects—this could be a basis for future appreciation.