O.C. ART REVIEW : ‘Devil on Stairs’ Looks Back at ‘80s : Newport Harbor Art Museum exhibit uses works of 50 artists for a hard look at the greed and glitz of the decade.

We may remember the opulent ‘80s with awe. We are not likely to recall them with affection. It was an epoch of glitz and greed. The future was gained going backward. Post-Modernism was the buzzword. The crowd cheered when communism fumbled, not realizing the whole stadium was crumbling.

“Devil on the Stairs: Looking Back on the Eighties” through June 21 at the Newport Harbor Art Museum is a smart, humane reconnoiter that makes some sense of the decade using nearly 100 works by an international cast of about 50 artists.

Organized by Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art, it was put together by Robert Storr when he was still a critic (he is now curator of contemporary art at New York’s Museum of Modern Art). His catalogue essay is literate and insightful, if occasionally airy. Critic Peter Schjeldahl plays poet in blank verse that evokes longings for authenticity in an ersatz era.

The exhibition’s title refers to those second thoughts, quips and petty profundities that spring to mind after leaving the party. Things we wish we’d said but didn’t. The show might be called “Afterthoughts,” but that’s not as zingy.

Storr’s master stroke was arranging the art into categories that avoid the usual mind-numbing artspeak pigeonholes like Conceptualism, Neo-Expressionism and whatnot. The tactic at least saved him the embarrassment of having to repeatedly use the prefix neo since so much ‘80s art was, at least nominally, a rehash.

That was fine with most people. They liked the mannerist nostalgia of Post-Modernist architecture and the musical-comedy virtues of craft and design objets de luxe . After all everything was about money so if it cost a lot and made the pages of Architectural Digest, it must be the real thing. Americans were relieved. They had at last reduced art to something a sensible person can understand--a commodity.

Storr’s thematic categories reflect what was going on in the minds of artists who could see through the flattering, gold-framed mirror of the day. Beyond cosmetic glamour was the heartless, let-them-eat-dreck collapse of the social network. The rich got richer and everyone else paid the price.

Even though numerous artists here were brought fame by the careless fashion of the times, Storr has clearly selected those he sees as serious about art and life. One leitmotif is a sobering frieze naming art people who have died of AIDS. It was assembled by a group called the Witness Project. Among the victims are such L.A. people as artist Carlos Almaraz, critic Fidel Danieli and collector Barry Lowen. African artist Cheri Samba manages some healthy wryness on the subject.

Storr’s themes are purposefully open-ended and linked, inciting intelligent cross-references. “Social Studies” includes works by artists that first identify evils, then implicate the viewer. Eric Fischl exposes kinks behind the American facade of affluence. Leon Golub points to the sleazy violence of soldiers of fortune. Both make viewers into voyeurs, tweaking conscience. John Ahearn puts empathy first. He makes touching, lifelike busts of minority folk that seem to exist on a shaded border between hope and degradation.

“History Lessons” broadens sociology, saying that time and tide surround us all with crucial moments where we must choose between passive victimization and assertive heroism. The German Jorg Immendorff says we can laugh at chaos. The Russian emigre team of Komar & Melamid pump a ton of affection into an academic-style painting of a schoolgirl leaping into the arms of her boyfriend in front of a portrait of Stalin. At a time when victimization is unfortunately in vogue, remembering we can bust through it is bracing.

All manner of people these days seem to feel trapped in their condition, be it their race, gender, status or sexual bent. Storr looks at artists thinking about this in “Women Looking.” Cindy Sherman’s piece depicts a politely dressed female about to get her Irish up. Barbara Kruger’s poster shows a mannequin-like bust with text that says: “Your Gaze Hits Me in the Side of My Face.” It’s an oblique reminder that the days when men stared women down are over.

This rumination continues in “Ambiguous Bodies.” Francesco Clemente makes a wallpaper pattern of an acrobatic balance of dark-skinned men suffering--rather humorously--under the stereotype that they are all sexually over-endowed.

Storr is so good at evoking thought that it’s possible to become distracted from central issues of artistic quality and originality. As to that, some artists, notably Anselm Kiefer, suffer from poor representation. Others, like David Hammons, are never well served by one or two examples. All tend to find themselves through a mix-and-match of existing styles. Even so, the show is so intellectually alive with pieces so generally solid, it suffers little from its shortfalls.

The ‘80s gave new meaning to anomie. Existential loneliness used to be about isolation, now it’s about fractured perception. That’s addressed in “Disjunctions” and “Split Personalities.” The schizophrenics are Ross Bleckner and Gerhard Richter. Each works in more than one style, sometimes simultaneously. The practice utterly contradicts traditional wisdom that says style is the artist himself. These chaps insist that style is subordinate to willed expression. The tactic is brilliant when it works, flaky when it doesn’t.

The disjunctive lot includes artists like John Baldessari, David Salle and Ida Applebroog. All are involved with the ancient notion of pictorial juxtaposition. The meaning of images changes when you put them together. Baldessari’s “Running Man/Man Carrying Box” does exactly what it says. The box, however, is a coffin, so the running man becomes someone fleeing who winds up dead. Baldessari’s genius may be his knack for seeming to create meaningful juxtapositions while reminding us it ain’t necessarily so. We are aware of the ambiguity of perception. We don’t know what we see, we see what we know.

It’s all about contradictions, like Jonathan Borofsky’s mechanical men who chatter to themselves in front of a symbol of infinity. No wonder. The ‘80s felt great but they were a sham. The ‘90s are a mess but they feel real.

The artists, as usual, felt it coming.

“Devil on the Stairs: Looking Back on the Eighties” continues through June 21 at Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $1 to $3. (714) 759-1122.