Truthiness:Truthiness: Photography Photography as as Sculpture exploresexplores how how a newa new generation generation of artists of artists in California in California are using are photographicusing photographic prints as prints the basic as themedium basic in medium STALLINGS in thethe creation creation of of sculptural sculptural works, works, in an in effort an effort to expand to expand the use the of theuse media of the and media to examine and to the examine nature ofthe the nature photographic of the photographic image. Through image. these Through theseworks, works, the artists the artists shake shakethe foundations the foundations of the photograph’s of the photograph’s traditional traditional function as function a reliable as record a reliable of a visual record perception. of a visual The perception. exhibition followsThe exhibition followsin the footstepsin the footsteps of earlier of generationsearlier generations of artists of working artists workingin California in California who, in the who, 1960’s in the through 1960’s the through late 1980s, the latebegan 1980s, to use began the photograph to use the photo- T in radically new art contexts, such as John Baldessari, Wallace Berman, Robert Heinecken, Susan Rankaitis, Edward Ruscha, Ilene Segalove, graph in radically new art contexts, such as John Baldessari, Wallace Berman, Robert Heinecken, Susan Rankaitis, Edward Ruscha, Ilene Sega- TRUTHINESS: PHOTOGRAPHY AS SCULPTURE R love,and and Alexis Alexis Smith. Smith. Artists Artists in the inexhibition the exhibition include include Elizabeth Elizabeth Bryant, ToddBryant, Gray, Todd Katie Gray, Grinnan, Katie Brandon Grinnan, Lattu, Brandon Srdjan Lattu, Loncar, Srdjan Dana Loncar, Maiden, Dana Tom Maiden, PHOTOGRAPHY TomMcGovern, McGovern, David David Meanix, Meanix, Gina Gina Osterloh, Osterloh, Anthony Anthony Pearson, Pearson, Carter Carter Potter, Potter, Christopher Christopher Taggart, Taggart, Mary Younakof, Mary Younakof, Amir Zaki Amir and Zaki Bari and Ziperstein. Bari Ziperstein. U AS SCULPTURE TH N I E S S UCRARTSblock UCRARTSblock 173010 7809329 ISBN 978-0-932173-01-0 This book is published and organized by UCR ARTSblock on the occasion of the exhibition ELIZABETH BRYAN DAVID Truthiness: Photography as Sculpture, on view from July 26 to October 4, 2008 at the UCR/California Museum of Photography Editor: Tyler Stallings Design and copyeditor: Lisa Tucker MEANIX GINA OS ERLOH UCR ARTSblock ISBN 978-0-932173-01-0 © 2008, UCR ARTSblock. All rights reserved. T UCR ARTSblock University of California, Riverside 3824 Main Street Riverside, CA 92501 CARTER POTTE TODD GR www.artsblock.ucr.edu R www.sweeney.ucr.edu www.cmp.ucr.edu Printed and bound in Riverside, California. AY BRANDONPHOTOGRAPHY LATTU DANA MAIDEN ASAMIR SCULPTURE ZAKI THOM AS MCGOVERN CHRISTOP HER TAGGART ANOTHONY PEARSON BARI ZIPERSTEIN MARY YOUNAKOF SRDJAN LONCAR KATIE GRINNAN Truthiness: Photography as Sculp- organized by former UCR/CMP di- Dr. Shane Shukis, Sweeney assistant ture explores a new generation of rector Charles Desmarais for Laguna director, created a marketing plan artists in California who are using Art Museum, and exhibitions I have that has brought even more attention photographic prints as the basic curated including Adam Baer: Dis- to ARTSblock. Jason Chakravarty, medium for the creation of sculp- placed Perspectives (2001), and Mel exhibition designer, has very ably tural works. Their efforts expand the Edelman: Things Undone (2002). Ad- handled the works in the exhibition use of the media and examine the ditionally, Truthiness curator, Tyler and contributed to an excellent in- nature of the photographic image. Stallings, has organized several ex- stallation. Georg Burwick, director of As they manipulate and cut-up pho- hibitions in the past that have looked digital media, has created a superb tographs, their work becomes less at photography in an expansive man- website for the exhibition. Emily Pa- about the picture and more about its ner. They include em/bedded: a multi- pavero, ARTSblock administrative nature as a medium. Through these media installation by Alan Sondheim director, has organized several asso- works, the artists question the pho- with Leslie Thornton (2006), Concep- ciated events that help to expand its tograph’s traditional function as a re- tual Photography from the Collection reach. liable record of a visual perception, (2002), Simon Leung: Surf Vietnam hence the title’s incorporation of one (1998), and Desmothernismo: Ruben Finally, I would like to thank BANK of Steve Colbert’s infamous new vo- Ortiz Torres, A Survey (1998). gallery in Los Angeles for their sup- cabulary terms for the present day, port, and the continued support of “truthiness.” Although the exhibition is presented Stephen Cullenberg, Dean of UC at UCR/California Museum of Pho- Riverside’s College of Humanities, The exhibition follows in the path of tography, it has been curated by the Arts, and Social Sciences. an earlier generation of artists work- director of UCR Sweeney Art Gallery. FOREWORD ing in California who, in the 1960’s It is this kind of cross-fertilization be- Jonathan Green through the late 1970s, began to tween independent venues that UCR Executive Director use the photograph in radically new ARTSblock hopes to inspire. I look UCR ARTSblock art contexts. Some of these artists forward to a third sibling opening in include John Baldessari, Wallace early 2010, the Barbara and Art Cul- Berman, Robert Heinecken, Susan ver Center of the Arts. Rankaitis, Edward Ruscha, Ilene Segalove, and Alexis Smith, among The staff at UCR ARTSblock has others. done a remarkable job working on this book and the exhibition that it Truthiness also follows in the steps accompanies. Sweeney Art Gallery of past exhibitions at UCR/CMP that organized a complex and all-encom- have explored the boundaries be- passing exhibition. Lisa Tucker, UCR/ tween photography and a sculptural CMP assistant curator of exhibitions, sensibility. Some of these exhibitions wore several hats acting as the reg- include Proof: Los Angeles Art and istrar, public relations officer, and the the Photograph, 1960-1980 (1992) designer for this wonderful catalog. image in a photograph, the artifice of its manipulation, story for artists when any new technology becomes in the way experience is mediated by the performance of the photographer, and the sculptural available and affordable. Consider the innovations photography and text per se—a condition nature of the final object. By emphasizing the materiality that occurred with the introduction of portable video that is now taken for granted from the of the photograph, the artists show us in a nearly literal equipment in the 1970s, desktop video editing in the start. Instead, photography and sculpture fashion how our perceptions are structured in large part 1990s, and web authoring applications in the 2000s. have entered a more complex phase of by a world saturated with images. There has been an ongoing dialog between their relationship, folding over each other, In Art and Photography David Campany writes, “In photography and sculpture throughout the twentieth and reversing positions, flipping back and the mid 1960s many artists were looking to expand their twenty-first centuries. In a 2005 Artforum article, writer forth, the one becoming the other.3 horizons to engage with the rapidly changing world and Mark Godfrey surveys a slate of younger international its representations. It was in the photographic that they artists who are exploring the relationship to photography Other reference points in the past 100 years include glimpsed the means to do it. Every significant moment in and sculpture. It functions as an update on the 1998 Eugène Atget (1857-1927), who photographed statues in art since the 1960s has asked, implicitly or explicitly: ‘What anthology Sculpture and Photography: Envisioning the Paris with an aestheticized point of view; German Karl is the relation of art to everyday life?’ And so often that Third Dimension, edited by Geraldine Johnson.2 Blossfeldt’s (1865-1932) photographs of plants that re- question has taken photographic form. Why? Because it Both Godfrey and Johnson describe how many presented them as sculpture-like objects, functioning is an everyday medium. The photographic has achieved twentieth-century sculptors have worked in dialog with both as taxonomy and as decorative inspirations; the 1 INTRODUCTION its greatest significance for art in its adaptability.” photographs. Sometimes they aide in the formulation of photomontages of László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) and The artists in Truthiness share the common idea the sculpture, other times photographs becomes both El Lissitzky (1890-1941); and Surrealist artists’ fascination that they are not photographers, but artists who use documents and work in of themselves. In Johnson’s 1998 with extreme close-ups and other cropping techniques photography. This is a concept that has evolved from book, she cites artists such as Auguste Rodin, Constantin for transforming the everyday into the unreal, as in the artists treating the camera as an extension of the eye Brancusi, David Smith, Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, Robert collaboration between Brassaï and Salvador Dalí with in the 1920s and 30s; then away from an emphasis on Mapplethorpe, Richard Serra, and Jeff Wall. Seven years their Sculptures Involontaires (1933). After World War Truthiness: Photography as Sculpture follows in the formal and technical issues such as surface, volume, later, Godfrey cites