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Press Release: For Younger Than Jesus, the first edition of The Generational, the New Museum’s new signature triennial, fifty artists from twenty-five countries are presented. The only exhibition of its kind in the United States, The Generational offers a rich, intricate, multidisciplinary exploration of the work being produced by a new generation of artists born after 1976. Known to demographers, marketers, sociologists, and pundits variously as the Millennials, Generation Y, iGeneration, and Generation Me, this age group has yet to be described in any way beyond their habits of consumption. … (read more)

Press Release:

For Younger Than Jesus, the first edition of The Generational, the New Museum’s new signature triennial, fifty artists from twenty-five countries are presented. The only exhibition of its kind in the United States, The Generational offers a rich, intricate, multidisciplinary exploration of the work being produced by a new generation of artists born after 1976. Known to demographers, marketers, sociologists, and pundits variously as the Millennials, Generation Y, iGeneration, and Generation Me, this age group has yet to be described in any way beyond their habits of consumption. Younger Than Jesus will begin to examine the visual culture this generation has created to date.

Inspired by the fact that some of the most influential and enduring gestures in art and history have been made by young people in the early stages of their lives, Younger Than Jesus will fill the entire New Museum’s building with approximately 145 works by artists, all of whom are under the age of thirty-three. Hailing from countries including Algeria, China, Colombia, Germany, India, Lebanon, Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela, many are showing in a museum for the first time. The exhibition will span mediums and encompass painting, drawing, photography, film, animation, performance, installation, dance, Internet-based works, and video games.

Consistent with the New Museum’s thirty-year mission to present new art and new ideas, The Generational: Younger Than Jesus is the first major international museum exhibition devoted exclusively to the generation born around 1980, tapping into the different perspectives, shared preoccupations, and experiences of a constituency that is shaping the contemporary art discourse and prescribing the future of global culture. In the United States, this demographic group is the largest generation to emerge since the Baby Boomers, while in India half the population is less than twenty-five years old; the sheer size of this generation ensures its worldwide influence. By bringing together a wide variety of artists and contextualizing their different approaches, the exhibition captures the signals of an imminent change, identifies stylistic trends that are emerging among a diverse group of creators, and provides the general public with a first in-depth look at how the next generation conceives our world. Revealing new languages and attitudes, the exhibition creates a portrait of the agents of change at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Courtesy of the New Museum, condensed and adapted

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