Light Years

1.     Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph is a powerful and innovative collection of the conceptual photographers of the 1960s and 1970s. Photographers, who pushed boundaries and carved a new road for future generations photography.

·      Photography found a firm footing with sculpture and avant-garde painting during this time thanks to these artists and their explorations

·      The photographic image found itself slides, films, books, on canvas, and installations.

·      Conceptual photographers cranked out photographs as evident as one walks in to the exhibit.

·      Towering in the center of the room are Emilo Prini’s larger than life images “9 films” in an overwhelming setup that consumes the first room.

2.     Overwhelming is a good adjective. The show is a who’s who of conceptual photographers.

·      In many cases, the artists have more than one even more than two pieces in the show perhaps adding to the overwhelming nature of the show.

·      Particular rooms as a whole are more digestible than others for example Eleanor Antin’s “100 Boots” and Giuseppe Penone “Thorax”.

·      On the flip side in one particularly overwhelming room there were two pieces that stood out, Bas Jan Ader film and Ger Van Elk’s “A Rose More Beautiful than Art, but Difficult therefore Art is Splendid”.

·      In the rooms so cluttered with works made it difficult to stay focused and not get drawn on to something else.

3.     The artists in Light Years created work during a time when the world and art was changing. These artists challenged what had been and looked to what they could do differently in making fine art.

·      Photography and text, photography and canvas or mirrors.

·      John Baldessari’s, “Extended Corner”