"Los Angeles 1955-1985" (Los Angeles 1955-1985, birth of an artistic capital) was exhibited from March 8 to July 17, 2006, in the Grand Exhibition Hall on the sixth floor of the Centre Pompidou. When discussing contemporary American art today, people not only mention the flourishing art scene in New York but also add California's art world, which rivals New York and has become another important hub for postmodernism.
This special exhibition grandly presents a panoramic view of thirty years of contemporary art on the West Coast of the United States. One can observe the formation and development of this metropolitan art, from the construction of new forms and spirits under the critique of hippie counterculture and extreme vitality in the 1950s, to the gathering of talents full of youthful energy and diversity in the 1960s and 1970s exploring new situations: California Pop Art, Light and Space, Conceptual Art, Happenings, and Performance Art, until the brilliant explorations of the new generation in the 1980s. During this period, new museums, galleries, and collectors actively established new art academies, forming a new artistic climate on the West Coast. This constituted California as a new artistic hub, becoming an important link in the current international art scene, with emerging power and influence comparable to New York.
