The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography
%2C%201979.jpg)
Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Der Brand von Uster (The Fire of Uster), 1979. Color photograph. Walker Art Center Collection. Courtesy Walker Art Center.
The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982
Miami Art Central, March 11 - June 12, 2005
A comet sculpted from a series of photos, an absurd fashion show constructed entirely of sausages, pictures of other famous pictures, a whip made out of passport photos of an artist making faces — what makes these photographic presentations works of art? How is the unique gesture of the artist communicated through the mechanical practice of photography? How have artists transformed our understanding of photography through their experimental uses of the medium? These are some of the questions explored in the exhibition The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982.
While artists today feel just as comfortable picking up a camera as they do a paintbrush, this has not always been the case. How did photography become an increasingly popular medium of choice by artists of all generations regardless of their primary form of expression? Focusing on a roughly 20-year period of history, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography attempts to answer this question by bringing together more than 200 photographic works by 57 international artists. Each artist took up the camera as a tool in pursuit of a diverse range of artistic experiments that provocatively intersected with the realms of sculpture, painting, and performance.
Cutting a historical path across a wide range of art practices and movements such as Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Arte Povera, and strategies of image appropriation, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography traces the development of conceptual uses of this medium. The exhibition encompasses photography’s first glimmerings in the 1960s in the work of artists such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Bruce Nauman, and Edward Ruscha, to its rise to art-world prominence in the work of the photo-based artists of the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman.
The scope of their subjects is diverse and each of the artists in the exhibition has used the camera to frame critical explorations of a range of issues. These include the tradition of self-portraiture, the body, landscape, the architecture of the built environment, photography’s relationship to painting and sculpture, the intersection of language and vision, and the impact of advertising and mass media.
The artists featured in The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography are Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Giovanni Anselmo, Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Victor Burgin, Sarah Charlesworth, Bruce Conner, Jan Dibbets, Valie Export, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Gilbert and George, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Douglas Huebler, Yves Klein, Imi Knoebel, Silvia Kolbowski, Barbara Kruger, David Lamelas, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ana Mendieta, Nasreen Mohamedi, Bruce Nauman, Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida, Dennis Oppenheim, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Adrian Piper, Sigmar Polke, Richard Prince, Charles Ray, Martha Rosler, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Robert Smithson, Ger Van Elk, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, James Welling, and Hannah Wilke.
Photo Credits
Charles Ray. Plank Piece II, 1973. Black and white photograph. Collection Kiki Smith, New York. Courtesy Walker Art Center.
Dan Graham. Homes for America, 1966-1967. Slide projection. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.
Barbara Kruger. Untitled (You are not yourself), 1982. Color photograph. Daros Collection, Switzerland. Courtesy of the artist and the Daros Collection.
Louise Lawler. Why Pictures Now, 1981. Black and white photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Picture.
Bruce Nauman. Bound to Fail, 1966-1967/70. Portfolio of 11 color photographs. The Heithoff Family Collection, Minneapolis. Courtesy of the artist and the Heithoff Family Collection.
Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #34, 1979. Black and white photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.
The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982 was organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where it was curated by Walker associate curator Douglas Fogle, and later travelled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Funding is made possible by generous support from Karen and Ken Heithoff, La Colección Jumex, Carol and Judson Bemis, Jr., and Harry M. Drake. Miami Art Central’s presentation of this exhibition is sponsored by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, and the Cowles Charitable Trust.