Flashback takes a close and critical look at a period regarded by many as the decade of painting and of the booming art market. Cindy Sherman once called the 1980s the decade of media criticism, referring to the significance of the visual image per se. Drawing from a wide range of different strategies and ideologies, some artists sought new approaches to existing models, while others experimented with entirely new forms in a mode of ecstatic subjectivity. Still others were interested in art as a commodity. Featuring works by some forty artists, Flashback dissects the last decade of the Cold War era. What emerges from the diversity of artistic approaches is a picture of an extraordinarily heterogeneous decade, raising the question of whether it is even appropriate to view art of the 1980s as a category of its own. Exhibition schedule: Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, October 30, 2005-February 12, 2006 Artists featured (selection): John M Armleder, Miriam Cahn, Francesco Clemente, Peter Fischli/David Weiss, Günter Förg, Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Reinhard Mucha, Albert Oehlen, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel