80s photography
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This document is a list of artworks by various artists including Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, John Baldessari, Christian Boltanski, David Hockney, Mike and Doug Starn, Andy Warhol, and Harry Callahan. It provides details on each work such as the artist, title, date, materials, and dimensions. The artworks incorporate techniques like photography, prints, collage, and installation. Subjects include self-portraits, appropriated images, signs, portraits, and landscapes.
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80s photography
- 1. Pictures with Signs William V. Ganis
- 2. Cindy Sherman Untitled #35 1979 gelatin-silver print 10 x 8 in.
- 3. Cindy Sherman Untitled #43 1979 gelatin-silver print 8 x 10 in.
- 4. Cindy Sherman Untitled #54 1980 gelatin-silver print 8 x 10 in.
- 5. Cindy Sherman Untitled #92 1981 type-C print 24 x 48 in.
- 6. Cindy Sherman Untitled #209 1989 type-C print 57 x 41 in.
- 7. Laurie Simmons Pink Bathroom 1984 Cibachrome print 20 x 16 in.
- 8. Richard Prince Untitled (Three Women Looking in the Same Direction) 1980 3 Ektacolor prints 40 x 60 in. each
- 9. Richard Prince Bitches and Bastards 1985-86 Ektacolor print 86 x 48 in.
- 10. Richard Prince Bitches and Bastards 1985-86 Ektacolor print 86 x 48 in.
- 11. Barbara Kruger We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture 1983 gelatin-silver print 73 x 49 in.
- 12. Barbara Kruger You Rule By Pathetic Display 1982 gelatin-silver print 73 x 49 in.
- 13. Sherrie Levine Untitled (After Walker Evans) 1981 gelatin-silver print 10 x 8 in.
- 14. Sherrie Levine Untitled (After Alexsandr Rodchenko: 11) 1987 gelatin-silver print 20 x 16 in.
- 15. John Baldessari Horizontal Men 1984 gelatin-silver prints 97 1/4 x 48 5/8 in.
- 16. John Baldessari Some Rooms 1986 gelatin-silver prints and gouache 96 1/2 x 109 1/2 in.
- 17. Christian Boltanski Les Suisses morts (The Dead Swiss) 1990 mixed media installation
- 18. David Hockney Ian Washing His Hair 1983 collage of chromogenic-development prints 30 x 33 in.
- 19. Mike and Doug Starn Blue Hands 1987 toned silver prints and tape 64 x 76 in.
- 20. Mike and Doug Starn Horses (detail of installation) 1985-86 toned silver prints and tape 10 x 15 ft. overall
- 21. Mike and Doug Starn Horses (detail of installation) 1985-86 toned silver prints and tape 10 x 15 ft. overall
- 22. Andy Warhol Grace Jones 1984-86 9 gelatin-silver prints and thread 40 x 33 in.
- 23. Andy Warhol World Trade Center ca. 1986-87 6 gelatin-silver prints and thread 31 1/2 x 27 1/4 in.
- 24. Harry Callahan New York 1974 gelatin-silver print 8 9/16 x 8 7/16 in.
- 25. Harry Callahan New York 1974 gelatin-silver print 8 9/16 x 8 7/16 in. Andy Warhol World Trade Center ca. 1986-87 6 gelatin-silver prints and thread 31 1/2 x 27 1/4 in.
- 26. Andy Warhol Palm & Tarot ca. 1976-86 6 gelatin-silver prints and thread 27 x 32 in.
- 27. Andy Warhol Palm & Tarot c. 1976-86 6 gelatin-silver prints and thread 27 x 32 in. Walker Evans Madam Adele Palmistry Sign c. 1936 gelatin-silver print 5 1/2 x 3 15/32 in.
- 28. Andy Warhol Brick Wall ca. 1976-86 6 gelatin-silver prints and thread 32 x 27 in.
- 29. Andy Warhol Mao 1982-86 4 gelatin-silver prints and thread 21 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.
- 30. Andy Warhol Picture with Signs ca. 1983-86 4 gelatin-silver prints and thread 21 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.
Editor's Notes
- In the eighties there is a marked shift in the reception of photography that deghettoizes the practice from being a practice parallel to painting and sculpture to one that is today on parwith these expressions. This change is grounded in conceptual art, where photography was used to document actions and ideas, and thus became part of the artist’s expression, rather than the photographer’s expression. In the works were about to look at we think today of these practitioners as artists who use photography rather than as photographers. We will see that the conceptual thread wound in the seventies continues through all of these eighties works. It is also important to consider that these artists we are about to look at have less interest in making photographic images, than in showing the construction and betraying our conventions for looking at those images. These works become constructed pictures full of legible signs that the artists call to our attention.
- Sherman creates photographs that she calls film stills to evoke a film-like narrative. We can usually identify her roles, or project our experience with movies onto her role. Sherman is the model in all of her photographs and her range is amazing. Her works depend on the existence of the film media and conventions in order for us to derive meaning. These roles are often stereotypical and are often negative portrayals of women as victims or seductresses. In this housewife role, Sherman announces the construction of the photographic scene by giving us a clue--the remote shutter cord (here on the floor) that can often be seen in her works.
- Here Sherman assumes the role of vulnerable woman in the desolate location or model in sublime locale.
- In this urban scene, Sherman looks a bit like Kim Novak. She turns her collar up against the cold, a sign of self-protection. Her weariness of her nocturnal urban surroundings is suggested by her expression and body language.
- In the ‘80s, Sherman started making color prints on a much larger scale. These works have much more presence in a gallery than the intimate black and white works. Notice that Sherman still assumes stereotypical roles, but these are no longer grounded in those from movies.
- Later in the decade, Sherman drew her roles from art history. Here, she reconstructs the conventions of Italian Renaissance portraits, evoking the Mona Lisa among other famous works by RenaissanceBaroque artists. In these works, Sherman makes the constructions obvious, especially as she tries to make photography obey the rules of painting. Her costumes are often stiff and tactile, her make-up obvious and her colors heightened. These works are often the scale of portrait paintings to heighten the evocation.
- Simmons also created rolesfor her figure. She does not cast herself, bit models and dolls in her worlds. Her works derive their power from a certain uncanniness, as the model is shown in a familiar domestic setting that is somehow wrong. When we realize this is a doll’s house, we immediately understand that the space is constructed by the artist, and the model becomes instantly recognized as a composed person as well. The strident lighting and the glossy printing heighten the artificiality.
- Richard Prince’s conceptual strategy for art making was to rephotograph images he found in popular print media, especially ads. He call to our attention the established practices of portrayal, showing how a similar pose is used among fashion models. These women not only face the same direction but in doing so allow us to observe them without their eyes meeting ours.
- In this work, Prince reshoots images of heavy metal or hair bands from the eighties to expose similarities that when shown in multiple seem to be nothing more than packaging. These similarities are all the more powerful since these bands often covey the idea of nonconformity.
- The best paradox of conformity to an image within the guise of non-conformity is embodied in the anarchy symbol tatoo.
- Barbara Kruger also borrowed photographic images that she recast with her own text to make powerful political imagery. She uses the methods of advertising that she learned by working at Vogue to create anti-establishment, anti-hegemonic messages. She said her work was about breaking myths, not creating them. Pronouns are ambiguous, but gain meaning through the artitst’s feminist cultural critique. We usually is read as women and you as males fitting in the dominant system of Western capitalist cultural beliefs. We women refuse to assume the natural role imposed on us through the culture constructed by the male-dominant paradigm.
- Another Kruger implicating that the hegemony enforces its dominance through violence and the threat of violence.
- Perhaps the most notorious artist of the ‘80s is Sherie Levine. She is well-know for her conceptual appropriation of the work of other artists, not just in quoting, but in re-presenting their works as her own. In this work, she simply rephotographs the work of the famous photographer Walker Evans. In doing this, she interrupts the idea of photographic originality and recasts her authorship onto the image, to reposition the creation of the work from a male photographer of the ‘30s who documented the living conditions of poor and migrant workers, to that of a female appropriator from the ‘80s.
- Levine’s work is especially important given that vintage photographs became recognized in the art market place at about his time and prices began to take off.
- Baldessari also makes constructions of found photographic images that he recuts and composes to make his own. His works are often quite large and have a sculptural presence. His works are not intended to create singular meaning, but allow the viewer to make free associations. He often groups imperfect types of views or formal elements.
- Just as often Baldessari makes it difficult for us to figure out why he juxtaposes certain elements in a work. Though, the artist says that he added the painted circles simply because he liked the way they looked, there is no doubt, that these shapes interrupt our vision into the photograph’s space. Like his juxtapositions, the paint thwarts interpretation.
- Boltanski is yet another re-photographer who is most famous for re-shooting and blowing up images of probable holocaust victims. In The Dead Swiss, he removes this notion of the violence of WWII and focuses on images from obituaries to give us the simultinetity of knowledge that someone is dead but an enduring image of these people as alive. In this installation, hundreds of such photographs were mounted in a hallway at the Carnegie museum, giving the work an architectural context and presence.
- In an investigation of photographic looking informed by cubist painting, David Hockney exposes temporal simultineities. We see the same image over time, from slightly different perspectives and color balances. In this way, we become intensely aware of how a camera sees, as the image does not necessarily add up to the single perspective we are used to. Again, the larger size of these works made up of small photographic prints give us the presence of painting in a gallery, museum, or even art collection.
- The Starn twins were among those artists who achived gallery presence by scaling artistic photography to the size of a gallery installation. Mike and Doug Starn called attention to the photographic medium by disrupting the traditionally pure display of prints. The Starn Twins allowed their prints to curl, tear, buckle and fade. Mike Starn pointed out, "there were 150 years of saying, ’the paper is sacred;’ and the Starns gained theoretical cachet by destroying this transcendent surface.
- Often they mounted multiples (either of the same image or prints making up a larger singular subject) with non-archival materials including cellophane tape. With these works the Starns displaced the association of photographic "truth" from the illusionistic window and revelation of descriptive information, to the facticity of materials.
- In this detail it becomes obvious how the prints are cut, taped, reassembled, curled, and tacked to the wall to emphasize the physical nature of the work.
- Stitched photographs derived from Warhols own photos taken from 1976-87. He shot about a roll a day. Prints are very tactile, like Starns, these prints buckle and have worn edges. Box framing emphasized their haptic quality. Threads were sewn on a sewing machine by Warhol’s assistants. Grace Jones was former performance artist, pop singer, model and actress. Though she is recognizable, her image becomes a pattern--wallpaper when multipled.
- In other Warhol works the formal pattern becomes compelling when multiplied. We are aware of looking at a photograph with the perspectival distortions of the parallel lines. Warhol, too, appropriates in his photography. Many of his images seem derived from photographic history, especially from 20th C. modern photographers.
- Callahan is one of these modern photographers. His New York photographs are of the XYZ buildings on 6th Avenue. These buildings have a similar external expression to the world trade center. For Callahan, the interest was in making images simultaneously abstract and recognizable, but in a singular transcendent window. His photographic vision through the ‘70s was to present images untouched under the rubric of objectivity.
- When we compare the two works, we immediately understand the difference in presentational strategies. Callahan’s work was meant to be seen as an intimate object. Warhol’s much larger work visually assaults us with its optical pattern, made all the more effective through its size, insofar as the work envelops more of our vision and the piece has real presence in the gallery. Callahan’s work is a window to another world. Warhol’s work we have difficulty penetrating the surface since we are aware of the threads, buckling print, repetitive pattern.
- Warhol’sstitched-photo subject matter covered many genres and styles, but were mostly objective photographs, that is, photographs without retouching or manipulation beyond attaining contrast; objective since he used little consumer auto-flash, auto-focus cameras. He was interested in getting the in-focus, well-lit picture every shot-an automatic extension of his body and eye. As a collector of photography, Warhol had an intimate understanding of photographic history and appropriates the objective eye and subject of one of 20th C. photography’s greats.
- Walker Evans is also well remembered for shooting billboards, store signs and other advertisements.
- As we saw with the WTC piece, Warhol was often interested in creating a graphic pattern that is nearly seamless. Again, the photographic distortions of parallel lines betray the repetition here.
- Warhol even quoted himself from his famous ‘60s and ‘70s works. Warhol shot the b&w Mao pictures on a trip to China. In stitching this image together his photographic works complete the links to the repetition of his past celebrities and consumer goods. His Mao prints from ‘72, for instance were produced in portfolios of ten in an edition of 250.
- Photographs of written language are a dichotomous representation, at once an index (an imprint) of something existing in space, time and light and a legible interpreted (and interpretive) collection of letters. The repetition of words in the sewn photographs makes one aware of the indexical nature of the writing, since, after one reads the text in one photograph, the letters become abstract patterns in their multiplicity. This work for me is uncanny insofar as it seems to illustrate the problems I’ve just outlined--how photography in the eighties is about examining and interpreting the idea of photographing and reading a photograph through creating artificial constructions that read as transparent and by calling attention to the photograph as a physical object.
- Slide concept by William V. Ganis, PhD FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY For publication, reproduction or transmission of images, please contact individual artists, estates, photographers and exhibiting institutions for permissions and rights.