Selections from the Permanent Collection, 1975-1991 was the last in a chronological trilogy of exhibitions that highlighted works from MOCA’s permanent collection. This final presentation featured contemporary art collected by the museum in the fifteen years prior. Including approximately one hundred and fifty works by European and American artists, the exhibition surveyed several key artistic movements from this period and reflected on the contemporaneous rise in public popularity of fine art in the US.
Although the artworks in Selections from the Permanent Collection represented a diverse range of themes and styles, the exhibition spotlighted seven broad categories of art from this time: abstract painting; appropriation; assemblage; conceptual art ; installation; post-minimalism; and new image painting, which was also known as neo-expressionism.