Video Killed the Radio Star

Show & Culture

The 1980s and their cultural echoes From the rise of neoliberalism under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to the final events of the Cold War, the 1980s marked a profound reorientation of Western culture. The decade was influenced by the late 1970s, with the emergence of postcolonial, queer, and feminist discourses challenging the then-dominant cultural paradigm. It was defined by paradoxes increasingly mediated by images: pop culture’s shiny surfaces meeting the deep fractures of global politics, new technologies colliding with old ideologies, and events like MTV’s debut and the Chernobyl disaster reaching the public through the same screens. Drawing from the Mudam Collection, international loans, and archival materials, "Video Killed the Radio Star: The 1980s and Their Cultural Echoes" revisits the ‘long 1980s’—a pivotal period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s when image overtook voice, access replaced ownership, and aesthetics assumed a new political and cultural force. The exhibition examines the shifting perceptions in a world on the verge of hyper-mediation. On the occasion of Mudam’s twentieth anniversary, the exhibition reflects the collection’s ongoing engagement with this era and, by tracing the decade’s reverberations, explores how the transformations of the 1980s still inform the present. In dialogue with contemporary history, it invites viewers to question what is often overlooked in Western art history, incorporating recent artistic practices and archival material to broaden the perspective.