The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

In 1985 the group exhibition A Second Talent: Painters and Sculptors Who Are Also Photographers was presented at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Direct in scope, as the title suggests, yet decidedly challenging the perceptions regarding the medium, the exhibition’s premise is based on taking stock of the photographic work of major artists who were predominantly known as sculptors and painters. While the majority of the exhibition featured photography, a few of the artists exhibited an accompanying sculpture or painting, such as Ellsworth Kelly’s Black Curve I (1970) and Sol LeWitt’s The Brick Cube (1984). (1)

The catalog, which presents work by the artists from both their chosen mediums side-by-side, offers connections between the artist’s bodies of work. For example, Richard Pousette-Dart’s engagement with spirituality can be appreciated in both his painting Celebration, Birth (1975-76) and photograph Mark Rothko (c. 1943), titled after the artist. (2) The photograph shows a hazy close-up shot of Rothko that seems to hover, transparently, over a second shot of the artist situated further away. In this second shot, the artist’s presence is more solid in definition but with a shadow that covers most of his face. Pousette-Dart’s use of the double exposure paired with varying degrees of definition of the subject offers a photographic rendition of the entanglement between the body and spirit.

There are many such connections which are rich for study: Nancy Holt’s focus on balance and perspective in her sculpture Sole Source, Marley Park, Dublin (model) (1983) and her photo Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings, Bellingham, Washington (1978); the layers in Robert Rauschenburg’s painting Cumulus (1984) and his photograph Untitled (from In and Out City Limits: Los Angeles) (1981); Sol LeWitt’s interest in the form of the brick in his sculpture The Brick Cube (1984) and an earlier photo series titled Walls of the Lower East Side (1977).

In the curatorial essay for the accompanying catalog, Robert Metzger, Director of the Museum at the time, states that the exhibition was not concerned with presenting these photographs as mere sources of inspiration or preparatory material for the artists’ more well-known or mainstream work. Nor was the exhibition necessarily concerned with the aesthetic or conceptual similarities between the two bodies of their work, of which there are many. Metzger sets these connections aside temporarily, not to diminish their importance but rather to emphasize the need to offer the artists’ photographs as independent bodies of work that, in his words, “stand firmly on their own considerable merits.” (3)

Such a focus may be further contextualized by the transition the medium of photography experienced between the 1970s-1980s. While this history can be told in many ways, one might start with the increased funding opportunities for artists working in the medium in New York City. Lida Moser, a writer and photographer herself, details this rise in an article for The New York Times in 1977 by profiling the work of three main sources actively funding photographers: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Program (NEA), and The Creative Arts Public Service Program (CAPS).

While the Guggenheim awarded their first grant to a photographer in 1937, with a total of 144 in the same category by 1977, the NEA and CAPS had only just begun to do so six years prior in 1971. A fourth, The Rockefeller Foundation for the Humanities, had just entered the arena awarding their first few grants to photographers that same year. Furthermore, Moser attributes the general reach of photography to the many organizations, such as The National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, that were providing general funding for exhibitions, publications, research, schools, and museums. As such, Moser claimed that as more photographic projects were developed and presented to the public the more the medium was positively perceived, raising it to an “elevated status.” (4)

This grant history is intertwined with the rise of the Pictures Generation in the 1970s. These photographers came of age in the U.S. immersed in the media’s mass dissemination of images while grappling with socio-political unrest such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movements. The group was named after their historic 1977 exhibition at Artists Space titled Pictures showcasing work by Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Philip Smith. (5) Summarizing the state of media culture in the accompanying essay, the curator Douglas Crimp calls for the need to interrogate images:

“While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems that they have usurped it. It therefore becomes imperative to understand the picture itself, not in order to uncover a lost reality, but to determine how a picture becomes a signifying structure of its own accord.” (6)

As such, the group’s photographic work engaged with the tension between an “original” and the “copy,” grappling with the notion of authenticity as informed by cultural critic Roland Barthes’ seminal essay “The Death of The Author.” (7) This history resonates today where the onslaught of images has only increased given the accessibility of iPhone technology and advent of social media platforms.

Overall, 1977 was a monumental year for this broader New York City-based photography funding and movement, which had direct resonance at The Aldrich. That same year, 18 Photographers, the earliest known photography exhibition at the Museum was presented. (8) This exhibition might not have been possible considering all eighteen photographers had received funding from CAPS at some point in the years between 1971 and 1977. (9) The Museum would continue to have various photography exhibitions at a rate which ebbed and flowed. For example, the Museum’s first solo exhibitions of photography were presented consistently in the 1980s: Christian Boltanski in 1982, Philip Tragar in 1984, Cindy Sherman in 1986, Chuck Close in 1987, John Baldessari and Renate Ponsold in 1988, and Robert Bianchi in 1989. (10)

In 1985, then, A Second Talent stands out as an exhibition that is making a particular claim on the value of photography. Of the 34 artists exhibited, 14 were primarily identified as sculptors and 20 as painters during the planning of the exhibition. Tracking the careers of these artists, some of these original medium markers might not come as a surprise as the artists continue to be remembered as such. Names such as Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, and Sol LeWitt jump out for their contributions in sculpture and painting.

On the other hand, William Christenberry may have been identified for his sculptural work at the time of the exhibit but he is now most known for his Hale County, Alabama photo series. Despite these mainstream perceptions, Christenberry’s oeuvre is marked by his generous movement between the mediums of drawing, sculpture, and photography. (11) Nancy Holt is another such artist whose work in sculpture was just as important as her work in photography, film, and video. (12) While this type of movement between media has always occurred, Metzger was more responsive, for his time, in identifying these artists by and subsequently organizing a show of their work across mediums. In the curatorial essay accompanying the exhibition, Metzger is invested in highlighting and advocating for the value of such an engagement.

Situated in the late twentieth century, Metzger was attuned to how scientific and technological advances made the world “figuratively” smaller, as access to different parts of the world increased, while the individual had “become more and more isolated and his role more specialized.” (13) This specialization also applied to the artist. Obsessed with having their own artistic signature, Metzger reflected on how artists of the time, “staked out very singular, distinct and esoteric areas in which to work” only to make art that, in his opinion, were “more idiosyncratic than original.” (14) This criticism grapples with the notion of medium specificity in Modernism as formalized by Clement Greenberg in his 1961 essay “Modernist Painting.” For Greenberg, such specificity means that the medium is uncontaminated by another, providing a state of purity wherein the artist is ideally working with the properties that make that medium unique. This standard is then used to assess the work’s perceived success.

For Metzger, although he praises photography’s unique capabilities, the idealism of medium specificity is rather in conflict with the purpose of art. He argues that these “self-imposed perimeters limit the artists’ vision” and is not conducive for an “art which breaks down barriers and makes meaningful connections to shared experiences.” (15) This was quite an incisive statement to make in the 1980s when connecting across differences seemed imperative. Eklund writes that the art of 1980s New York embraced fluidity, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary practices and “can now be seen in retrospect as a powerful synthesis of the personal and political, as well as an implicit rebuke to the hollow conformity and historical amnesia that characterized the Reagan era.” (16)

Photography in particular, with its ability to technically capture a moment in time, offered alternative perspectives which confronted the status quo. However, as Crimp posited in 1977, this technical capacity should not obscure how the medium was and continues to be employed in the service of an interpretation of reality. As Metzger states, in the same way that sculptors and painters make decisions about the subject matter, lighting and shadows, angle and perspective, and overall composition—so too do photographers.

As such, A Second Talent not only offers the medium of photography on the same playing field as sculpture and painting, but also critically advocates for the value of artistic play and exchange between mediums. The cross-medium artistic practices featured in A Second Talent ruptures the aesthetic idealism and perceived success of medium specificity. While the photography displayed for the exhibition did not have particular themes that united them, what was undeniably clear was how each artist's vision came through.

1. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. “A Second Talent: Painters and Sculptors Who Are Also Photographers,” February 6, 1985. https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/a-second-talent-painters-and-sculptors-who-are-also-photographers.

2. Metzger, Robert. A Second Talent: Painters and Sculptors Who Are Also Photographers. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 1985.

3. Ibid.

4. Moser, Lida. “CAMERA VIEW: Grants Available for Serious Photographers.” The New York Times, May 15, 1977. 35, 37.

5. The announcement of the exhibition remarked, “ These artists represent a larger trend that marks the first significant shift in current art since the demise of conceptual art and the pervasive media involvements of the seventies.”
   “Pictures,” September 24, 1997. https://artistsspace.org/exhibitions/pictures.

6. Pictures Exhibition Catalogue accessible at the following webpage under subheading titled “Documents.” “Pictures,” September 24, 1997. https://artistsspace.org/exhibitions/pictures.

7. Eklund, Douglas. “The Pictures Generation.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, October 2004. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pcgn/hd_pcgn.htm.

8. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. “18 Photographers,” August 13, 1977. https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/18-photographers.

9. The New York Times. “Connecticut/This Week: Miscellaneous.” August 21, 1977.

10. See the following page for The Aldrich’s Exhibition History for the 1980s:
    The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. “Past Exhibitions,” 1980. https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/past?year=1980.

11. Bengal, Rebecca. “Two American Artists and the Crucible of Hale County, Alabama,” February 16, 2023. https://aperture.org/editorial/william-christenberry-ramell-ross-and-the-american-crucible-of-hale-county-alabama/.

12. Holt/Smithson Foundation. “Biography.” Accessed July 27, 2024. https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/biography-nancy-holt.

13. Metzger, Robert. A Second Talent: Painters and Sculptors Who Are Also Photographers. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 1985.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Eklund, Douglas. “Art and Photography: The 1980s.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, October 2004. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ap80/hd_ap80.htm.

Zuhra Amini is a writer, researcher, and curator based in New York. Zuhra received her B.A. in Race and Ethnic Studies with a concentration in cultural production from Whitman College in 2018. Her senior thesis interrogated trans-cultural place-making in Ana Lily Amirpour’s feature film debut A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. After graduating, she executed a year-long, international and independently-driven research project on artists who engage with the concept of diaspora and the spatial relations of international art institutions through the Thomas J. Watson Foundation (2018-2019). She is currently completing an M.A. in Curatorial Studies at The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.