Art World
Has Britney Spears Become Art? A New Painting Show Celebrating ’00s Pop Culture Goes There
The Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Museum in Brooklyn is celebrating the biggest celebrity scandals of the aughts.
Caroline Goldstein
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The Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum (a.k.a. THNK1994) began in the apartment of Brooklynites Matt Harkins and Viviana Olen as a passion project dedicated to the infamous figure-skating feuders. The duo has since expanded the museum’s repertoire to mine pop culture history of the 1990s and the 2000s.
In 2016, they gave us “The Olsen Twins Hiding From The Paparazzi,” an exhibition dedicated to the ’90s’ favorite TV twins. Now, they take on the millennium’s first decade with “Popculturediedin2009: The Exhibition (Nicole Richie’s BBQ).”
For the new venture, THNK1994 has partnered with @popculturediedin2009—an archive dedicated to the drama of the aughts—to mine the decade’s pop-culture touchstones: The O.C., Juicy velour sweatsuits, and of course, The Simple Life starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
Artwork from the group show depicts iconic scenes from the era, like the televised lip-lock between Madonna and Britney Spears from the 2003 VMAs, Lindsay Lohan clad in a bikini and ankle monitor, and Winona Ryder’s skirmish with the law after a shoplifting incident.
Harding and Kerrigan have so far declined to attend their namesake institution, but Paris Hilton has no qualms about reliving her glory days, as she posted on Twitter.
Laura Collins, Lindsay Lohan Posing in a Bikini and Ankle Monitor. Image courtesy of THNK 1994 and the artist.
MaVa’s Expecting the Sloppy Second. Image courtesy of THNK 1994 and the artist.
Valerie Petrov’s Winona. Image courtesy of THNK 1994 and the artist.
