neo-expressionism
Intense 1980s painting style
Neo-expressionism is an art movement emerging in the late 1970s and 1980s that revived the emotional intensity and bold brushwork of earlier expressionism.
After decades of minimalism and conceptual art, painters like Basquiat, Schnabel, and Kiefer returned to figurative imagery, raw gestures, and vivid color.
The work often appears deliberately crude or aggressive: His neo-expressionist canvases sold for millions at auction.
Heavily applied pigment technique
- brushworkPainter's stroke method
- gesturalRelating to body movements
- large-scaleOf great size
- vivid colorIntensely saturated shade
mixed media · collage · found objects · dripping · scrawling · layering · textural · spontaneous
Late street-art painter
- KieferGerman for jaw
- figurationGiving form to concepts
- 1980sFourth-to-last twentieth-century decade
- postmodernismSkepticism toward universal truths
Boone · art market · gestural · raw · intense · emotional · subjective
Representing through imagery
- representationalDepicting recognizable subjects
- boldCourageous and daring
- intenseExtreme in degree
- provocativeMeant to provoke response
confrontational · primal · emotional · violent · chaotic · colorful · monumental · visceral
Who someone is
- mythologyBody of traditional tales
- urban decayCity infrastructure deterioration
- primitivismIdealization of pre-modern life
- deathCessation of life
sexuality · race · history · violence · consumer culture · power · angst · alienation
impasto
Heavily applied pigment technique
- brushworkPainter's stroke method
- gesturalRelating to body movements
- large-scaleOf great size
vivid color · mixed media · collage · found objects · dripping · scrawling · layering · textural · spontaneous · crude
Basquiat
Late street-art painter
- KieferGerman for jaw
- figurationGiving form to concepts
- 1980sFourth-to-last twentieth-century decade
postmodernism · Boone · art market · gestural · raw · intense · emotional · subjective
figurative
Representing through imagery
- representationalDepicting recognizable subjects
- boldCourageous and daring
- intenseExtreme in degree
provocative · confrontational · primal · emotional · violent · chaotic · colorful · monumental · visceral · raw
identity
Who someone is
- mythologyBody of traditional tales
- urban decayCity infrastructure deterioration
- primitivismIdealization of pre-modern life
death · sexuality · race · history · violence · consumer culture · power · angst · alienation · humanity
neo-expressionismminimalism
Aesthetic of reduction
conceptual art · conceptualism · hard-edge painting · post-minimalism · op art
neo-expressionismconceptualism
Universals as mental constructs
land art · performance art · video art · intermedia · readymades
express, expression, expressive, neo-Darwinism, neologism, expressiveness, neoclassical, neolithic, expressionism