The present day
From graffiti and the art-market boom to questions of identity and history – contemporary art in the United States is many-voiced and global.
In the 1980s painting returned in force just as the art market grew explosively. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring came out of the graffiti on New York's streets and quickly became stars. Jeff Koons made glossy sculptures of kitsch, and Cindy Sherman photographed herself in roles that exposed how women are portrayed in film and the media.
The AIDS epidemic, the culture wars over public funding for the arts and the debate about who gets to be seen shaped the 1990s. Artists such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Wojnarowicz and the group Guerrilla Girls made art with political content. Kara Walker's silhouettes addressed the history of slavery in a way that both shocked and fascinated.
In the 2000s and 2010s contemporary art has become more global and more diverse. Kerry James Marshall paints Black people in the format of grand history painting, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald painted the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, and artists with Indigenous roots have been given a larger place in museums.