Photography out of Conceptual (Pop & Minimal, and performance) Art

1. Photography out of
Conceptual (Pop &
Minimal, and
performance) Art
Why has photography moved
from the margin to the center of
contemporary art in the last 40 years?
Barbara Kruger Untitled
(You are Not Yourself), 1981

2. Installation view of the 1970 Information exhibition, MoMA NYC, which marks the
institutional “success” of text-based Conceptual art documented by photographs.

3. Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965, wooden folding chair, photographic copy
of a chair and photographic enlargement of a dictionary definition of a chair

4. Gilbert and George, The Singing Sculpture, 1970, photograph of performance
(Gilbert Proesch, b.1943, Italy; George Passmore, b. 1942, England). “Banal”
photographic documentation of ephemeral works, like this “living sculpture.”
Gilbert & George with Ginkgo series,
British pavilion Venice Biennale 2005,
included in the 2008 retrospective.

5. Zhang Huan (China, b. 1965), To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond by One Meter,
1997, performance documentation (detail), August 15, 1997, unemployed Beijing
workers, Chromogenic print. Primary artwork is performance, not photograph.

6. Denis Oppenheim, Reading Position for Second Degree Burn, 1970, Stage 1 and Stage
2, book, skin, solar energy, exposure time 5 hours, Jones Beach, New York, color
photography and collage, 216 x 152 cm . Photographs “were there simply to indicate a
radical art that had already vanished….necessary only as a residue for communication.”

7. Bruce Nauman, Eating My Words, and Self-Portrait as a Fountain, from Eleven Color
Photographs, 1966/67-70, chromogenic color print / performed for the camera

8. John Baldessari (United States, b. 1931) (“Father” of Pictures Generation”)
(left) Wrong, 1966-68, acrylic, photo-emulsion on canvas, 59 x 45 in.
(right) Astronauts and Businessmen, 1988 Gelatin Silver photograph with
applied paint, Museum of Fine Art, Houston

9. Ed Ruscha, Flying A, Kingman, Arizona, from Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963,
photographic book

10. Compare Ruscha’s (1963) vision of
the American West (above) with Ansel
Adams’ interpretation based on
Romantic landscape aesthetics, (right)
Moonrise over Hernandez, NM.
October 31, 1941. Adams made “Art”
and did not work in other media.
Through his deliberate lack of
style, Ruscha draws attention
“to the estranged relationship
of people to their rural
environment, but without
staging or dramatizing the
estrangement.”

11. Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, 1863
Adams, Grand Tetons and the Snake River, 1942

12. Ed Ruscha, Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas, 1963, oil on canvas, 5’5” x
10’, Dartmouth

13. Ed Ruscha took the photographs
contained in this folio with a
motorized Nikon camera mounted
to the back of a pick-up truck. This
allowed him to photograph every
house on the Sunset Strip while
driving – first down one side of the
street and then the other. The
pictures were then pasted in order,
and the individual buildings were
labeled with their respective house
numbers.

15. Ed Ruscha, The Old Trade School Building, 2005, synthetic polymer on canvas
54 x 120 in, from The Course of Empire Series, US Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2005
(bottom) Blue Collar Trade School, 1992, Synthetic polymer on canvas, 54 x 120

16. Robert Smithson, “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey,” 1967
from Artforum, vol.6, no.4, December 1967, pp. 48-51.

17. Robert Smithson (American Environmental Artist, 1938-1973), Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great
Salt Lake. Earthwork

18. Anselm Kiefer (German, b. 1945), Heroic Symbol , 1969

19. Hans Haacke, detail of Shapolsky et al, Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real Time
System as of May 1, 1971, 1971, two enlarged photographs, 142 black and white
photographs with typewritten data sheets, six charts and one explanatory panel

20. Bernhard and Hilla Becher
Conceptual (typological) photography
(left) Gas Tanks, 1963
(right) Water Towers, 1980, 9 b/w photographs mounted on board, 62inH overall

21. Thomas Struth (German, b. 1954), Sommerstrasse, Düsseldorf, 1980, Gelatin silver
print, 16 1/2 x 22 1/2 in., Dallas Museum of Art

22. Thomas Struth (Germany, b.1954, student of Bechers)
Shinju-ku (Skyscrapers), Tokyo, 1986
(right) Ferdinand-von-Schill-Strasse, Dessau, 1991

23. Candida Höfer (Germany, 1944, student of Bechers)
(left) Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg III, 2003, C-print, 68 in. H
Ca' Rezzonico Venezia II, 2003, C-print, 74 in. Width

24. Thomas Ruff (German, b.1958), House #9 II, 1991, 72 in. H
one of series taken in early morning, apartment blocks in Eastern Germany

25. Thomas Ruff, (left) Portrait, 1989, 63in. H
(center and right) from Portrait series, 2001, conceptual typologies
“absolute objectivity” like passport photos except for scale
'... Like archetypal passport photos...
young people with dead eyes and
empty faces.' Ruff

26. Martha Rosler, detail of The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, 1974, 45
black and white photographs mounted on 24 mat-board panels, each panel 25 x 56 cm

27. Martha Rosler (US, 1943) Cleaning the
Drapes, from series, Bringing the War
Home: House Beautiful, 1967-72
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/05/arts/rosler-audioss/index.html
2008 New York Times slide show: Rosler talking about her work 1960’s-2008

28. (left) Eduardo Paolozzi Its a Psychological Fact That Pleasure Helps Your
Disposition, 1948, collage. Affirmative or adversarial (avant-garde) posture?
Shown in his influential 1952 “Bunk” slide lecture that marks the beginning of
British Pop. “Bunk” is from Henry Ford: “history is more or less bunk….we want to
live in the present.” British Pop
(right) Hannah Höch, The Beautiful Girl, collage (photomontage), 1919, Berlin
Dada / Adversarial posture toward commercial culture – what was Paolozzi’s
attitude towards it?

29. Allan Sekula, detail of Aerospace Folktales, 1973, 51 black and white photographs in 23
frames, 56 x 72 cm each, three red canvas director’s chairs, three CD players and
speakers, three simultaneous unsynchronized audiotape recordings: duration 17 min, 21
min and 23 min, edition 1 of 2
Produces Berthold Brecht’s “alienation effects” that make viewers continually
aware that they are looking at a representation. Participants are highly
conscious of the camera. Sekula consciously pretends a (fictional) objectivity

30. Eleanor Antin, from The King of Solana Beach, 1974, Eleven black-and-white
photographs, mounted on board with two text panels, 6 x 9 inches each
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antin/index.html
"I took on the [persona of the] King, who was my male self. As a young feminist I was
interested in what would be my male self…he became my political self."
— Eleanor Antin

31. Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1972, grid of 144 photographs of her
naked body during a month of crash-dieting. Spoof (serious humor) on dieting obsession
of post-sixties US women’s culture

32. Eleanor Antin, 100 Boots: (top) 100 Boots Move On; (bottom) Tree Boots
Conceptual series of 51 pictures of black rubber boots photographed in various locations
from coast to coast across the United States from 1971 to 1973.

33. Cindy Sherman (US, b.1954) Untitled Film Still #27, 1979
69 film stills from 1977 (23 years old) to 1980.
She stopped, she has explained, when she ran out of clichés.

34. Cindy Sherman, (left) Untitled Film Still #35, 1979; (right) Untitled Film Still #54. 1980
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 8 x 10” glossies just like “real” film stills.
"She's good enough to be a real actress.“
Andy Warhol

35. Cindy Sherman, (left) Untitled Film Still #37, (right) UFS #13, 1979

36. (left) Cindy Sherman, Untitled #188, Chromogenic color print, 43 ½ x 65 ½,“
1989
(right) Hans Bellmer (German, 1902-1975) 'Poupee' (Doll) in Hayloft, 1935-
1936 (historical source for Sherman)

37. (left) Sherrie Levine (US Postmodern Appropriation artist, b.1947) Untitled (After
Alexander Rodchenko: 9), 1987
(right) Alexander Rodchenko (Russian Constructivist, avant-garde modernist), 1891-
1956), Portrait of Mother, 1924
Postmodern “Appropriation” of “high” art challenged modernism’s key values of
“originality” and “aura.” Key text: Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction”
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

38. Andy Warhol, (left) Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962, acrylic, silkscreen and oil on
canvas; (right) Marilyn, 1962. Series followed Monroe’s (probable) suicide in
August 1962. Appropriated photographic image from mass visual culture.

39. (left) Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans, 1981 – a photograph of reproduction of a
photograph
(right) Walker Evans, Hale County, Alabama, 1936. (Or is it the other way around?)
Key text: Rosalind Krauss: “The Originality of the Avant-garde and other Modernist
Myths” Post-structuralism – postmodern revision of modern theory

40. Richard Prince (American, born 1949), Untitled (four single men with
interchangeable backgrounds looking to the right), 1977, Mixed media
on paper, 23 x 19 in. Metropolitan Museum, NYC

41. Richard Prince, (left) Untitled (cowboy), 1981, Ektacolor photograph, 20 x 24 in
(right) Untitled (cowboy) 1980-84, Ektacolor photograph, 27 x 40 in.
“Pictures Generation” appropriation from mass visual culture: advertising photography

42. Barbara Kruger (U.S. b. 1945), (left) Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face),
1981, gelatin silver print, 72 x 48 in.; (right) Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am), 1987.
Pictures Generation

43. Louise Lawler (American, born 1947), Pollock and Tureen, Arranged by Mr. and Mrs.
Burton Tremaine, Connecticut, 1984, silver dye bleach print, 28 x 39 in.

44. Laurie Simons (U.S, b.1949), First Bathroom/Woman Standing, 1978

45. Laurie Simmons Tourism: Parthenon/First View,1984, Cibachrome, 40 x 60 in.
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/simmons/clip1.html#

46. Jeff Wall (Canadian, 1946), Picture for Women, 1979
transparency in light box, approx. 5 x 7ft

47. (left) Jeff Wall, Picture for Women, transparency in lightbox, 1979, around 5ft x
7ft; compare (right) Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, oil on canvas,
1882

48. Jeff Wall (Canada, b. 1946) Installation view of the exhibition Documenta 8, Kassel,
Germany, 1987, showing The Storyteller, cibachrome transparency, lightbox, 1986

49. Hokusai, Ejiri in Suruga Province
c.1831-3, woodblock print from
series, 36 Views of Fuji, 26 x 38 cm
Jeff Wall, A Sudden
Gust of Wind (After
Hokusai),
transparency in light-box,
1993, 7ft x 12ft.

50. Jeff Wall, After Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, The Preface, 1999-2001, cibachrome
transparency, aluminum light box, 76 x 106 x 10 in. Literary source: Invisible Man (1952)
by African-American novelist, Ralph Ellison (1913-1994)

51. Allan Sekula (US. b. 1951), Panorama. Mid-Atlantic, 1993,
plate 28, from Fish Story, 105 color photographs, 26 text panels, 2 slide
sequences featured in globalist Documenta 11, 2002
“The old myth that photographs tell the truth has succumbed
to the new myth that they don’t.” - Sekula
Return to social engagement of documentary photography

53. Sekula, Detail, Inclinometer: Mid-Atlantic, 1993, from Fish Story, 1987-95, “Middle
Passage,” chapter 3, plate 27
A “detailed account of the general political and economic transformation brought
about by the globalization of late capitalist rule.”
- Benjamin Buchloh

54. Sekula, Third Assistant Engineer Working on the Engine while Underway, 1993, from
Fish Story, “Middle Passage,” chapter 3, plate 31

55. Sekula, Conclusion of the Search for
The Disabled and Drifting Sailboat Happy
Ending, 1993, from Fish Story, “Middle
Passage,” chapter 3, plates 32-4

56. Felix Gonzalez-Torres (American b. Cuba 1957- NYC 1996), Untitled, 1991. As
installed for The Museum of Modern Art, New York "Projects 34: Felix Gonzalez-Torres“
May 16 - June 30, 1992: 2 of 24 locations throughout New York City
"EMERGING WOR(L)DS": June 2007 - October 2008:
http://www.tina-b.com/content.php?akce=section&lang=en&season=2007&id=12
Gonzalez-Torres represented the United States at the 2007 Venice Biennale

57. Christian Boltanski (French, b. 1944) Jewish School of Grosse Hamburgstrasse in
Berlin in 1939, 1991, moving photographs, fans, florescent lamps, dimensions variable
Monument (Odessa),
1989-2003, gelatin silver
prints, tin biscuit boxes,
lights, and wire

58. Christian Boltanski, The Reserve of Dead Swiss, 1990 (two different installations)
We hate to see the dead, yet we love them,
we appreciate them
Boltanski

59. Annette Messager (French, b. 1943) My Vows (Mes Voeux), 1988-91, gelatin-silver
prints under glass and string, dimensions variable
detail

60. Annette Messager, My Vows,
1990. Gelatin silver prints and
string. Dimensions vary with
installation, approx.: 140 x 73
inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, 2007 purchase
Catholic votives

61. Robert Longo (U.S. b. 1953), Men in the Cities - Men Trapped in Ice
1980
Charcoal and graphite on paper
60 x 40 inches/152.4 x 101.6 cm, each panel

62. Robert Longo, Men in the Cities: Final Life, 1982, Documenta 7, 1982, Kassel, Germany
Pictures Generation

63. (left) David Salle (US, b. 1952), His Brain, 1984, oil and acrylic on canvas, acrylic
on fabric, two panels, 9 ft 9 in x 8 ft 10 in overall [PICTURES GENERATION]
(right) compare Salle with James Rosenquist (US, b. 1933), President Elect, 1960-
1 and (right below) Sigmar Polke (German, 1941), Alice in Wonderland, 1971

64. David Salle, Comedy, 1995, oil and acrylic on canvas, two panels: 96 1/4 x
144 1/8 inches overall; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

65. Eric Fischl (US, b.
1948) Bad Boy, 1981,
oil on canvas, 5ft 6in x
8ft
decadent suburbia
Edgar Degas, Interior,1868-9
Secret brutalities of middle class
lives

66. Eric Fischl, Sleepwalker, 1979, oil on canvas
“What’s an adolescent boy’s masturbation about anyway if it’s not, in some
sense, a separation technique? He’s separating from his parents. He’s
becoming aware of himself.”
- Fischl

67. Eric Fischl, A Visit to / A Visit from / The Island, 1983

68. (left) Eric Fischl, Bedroom Scene #7 (After the Tantrum, Unholy News)
2004, oil on linen, 65 x 98 in. From photographic series: “The Krefeld
Project,” (2002) For several days two actors posed for artist in Museum Haus
Esters in Krefeld, Germany, which was designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1928
to be a private home. Furnished for the shoots by the artist.
(right) compare “Painter of Modern Life,” Edouard Manet (French,1832-
1883):
In the Garden, 1879, oil on canvas, 115 x 150 cm

69. Eric Fischl, Krefeld Project: Dining Room Scene 2, 2003, oil on Linen, 89 x 124
inches.

70. Fischl, Bedroom Scene #1, 2003, from photographic series: “The Krefeld
Project” (2002)
(right) compare Edward Hopper (US, 1882-1967), Hotel Room, 1931, oil on
linen