Jeff Wall But, forthe sities generation, art- ‘photography remained too comfortably “Marks of Indifference”: seat an tees sean seal Aspects of Photography —_cxistence, away of holding itself at a dis- i tance from the intellectual drama of avant- in, or as, Conceptual Art fitaamumiecamingapronnent cen (1995) Daste paceyitin's: heroes tris vated od ht, fo uprotand taal the medi and they dso wth tet me sapere a ‘Originally published in Ann Gold Rorimer, Reconsidering the Object ofA hand a the time, the auto-ritique of art 1965-1975, exh. ca. (Los Angslas: Museum identified withthe tradition of the avant- ‘of Contemporary Av, 1008), 247-267, tarde. Theie approach implied that photog- raphy had not yet become “avant-garde” in 1960 or 1965, despite the epithets being casually applied tit. Ithad not yet accom Preface plished the preliminary autodethronement, fr deconstruction, which the other ats had ‘Thisessay isa sketch, an attempt tostudy established as fundamental to their devel- the ways that photography occupied ‘opment and their amour-propre Conceptual artists, the ways that photogra- phy decisively realized itself sa modernist Through that auto-ritique, painting and fart in the experiments of the 1960sand sculpture had moved away from the prac- 1970s, Conceptual art played an important tice of depiction, which had historically role in the transformation of the terms and been the foundation oftheir social and conditions within which established photog- aesthetic value. Although we may no raphy defined itself and its relationships longer aecept the claim that abstract art. With other arts, transformation which had gone “beyond” representation or established photography asaninstittional- depiction, itis certain that such develop- ined modernist form evolving explicitly __ ments added something new tothe corpus through the dynamics ofits auto-ritique. of possible artistic forms in Western culture. In the first hal of the 1960, Photography's implication with modernist Minimalism was decisive in bringing back painting and sculpture was not, of course, into sharp focus, forthe first time since developed inthe 1960s; itwas central to the the 1930s, the general problem of how work and discourse of the at of the 1920s. a work of art could validate itselfas an dear Ruscha 1688 Aro Bh, and 4808 Funan Ave rom Sane Lz Angaes Aprons 1085 oto pted bot Mn Sonim (rot 103 em) War An Cone se HELAST ATURE SrOW ‘object among all other objects in the world. Under the regime of depiction, that is, in the history of Western art before 1910, a work of at was an object whose validity as art was constituted by its being, or bearing, depiction. In the process of developing alternative proposals for att “beyond” depiction, art had to reply to the suspicion that, without their depictive, or representa tional function, art objects were art in ‘name only, not in body, form, or function! Art projected itself forward bearing ony its slamorous traditional name, thereby ener {nga troubled phase of restless searching for an alternative ground of validity. This, [Phase continues, and must continue. Photography cannot find alternatives to depiction, as could the other fine arts. 1 isin the physical nature ofthe medium todepict things. In order to participate inthe kind of reflexivity made mandatory for modernist art, photography can put into play only its own necessary condition ‘of being a depiction-which-constitutes- an-object Inits attempts to make visible this condi- tion, Conceptual art hoped to reconnect the medium tothe world ina new, fresh way, beyond the worn-out criteria for pho- tography as sheer pieture-making. Several important directions emerged in this process. In this essay Iwill examine only two. The first involves the rethinking and “refunctioning” of reportage, the dominant typeof art: photography as it existed atthe beginning of the 1960s. The second is related to the ist and toa certain extent emerges from it. This isthe issue ofthe de- skilling and re-killing of the artist in @con- text defined by the culture industry, and ‘made controversial by aspects of Pop ar. 1. From Reportage to Photodocumentation Photography entered its post-Pctoralist phase (one might say its “post tieglivzian” Phase) in an exploration ofthe border territories of the utilitarian picture. In this ‘phase, which began around 1920, important work was made by those who rejected the Pictorials enterprise and turned toward {immediacy instantaneity, and the evanes- cent moment ofthe emergence of pictorial value out of a practice of reportage of one kind or another. Anew version of what could be called the “Western Piture,” for the “Western Concept ofthe Picture,” ‘appears in this proces,‘The Western Picture is, of course, that tableau, that independently beautiful Aepiction and composition that derives from the instiutionalization of perspective and dramatic figuration at the origins of, ‘madera Western art, with Raphael, Durer, Bellini and the othe familiar aes. I is known asa product of divine gift high skill, {deep emotion, and crafty planning. Ie plays withthe notion ofthe spontaneous, the Uunanticipated. The master picturesmaker prepares everything in advance, yet trusts that all che planning inthe world wil lead ‘only to something fresh, mobi fascinating. The soft body of the brush, the way itconstantly changes shape asi is used, was the primary means by which the genius of composition was placed at risk ateach moment, and recovered, transcen- dent, in the shimmering surfaces of magical feats of figuration, Pictorials photography was dazzled by the spectacle of Western painting and attempted, to some extent, to imitate it inacts of pure composition. Lacking the ‘means to make the surface ofits pictures ‘unpredictable and important, the frst phase of Pictorials, Stiegl’ phase, ‘mulated the fine graphic aes, reinvented the beautiful book, set standards for orpeousness of composition, and faded, Without a dialectical conception ofits ‘own surface, itcould not achieve the kind ‘of planned spontaneity painting had put before the eyes ofthe world asa univers ‘orm of art. By 1920, photographers inter- ested in art had begun to look away from, Painting, even from modern painting, toward the vernacular of their own ‘medium, and toward the cinema, to dis- toner their own principle of spontaneity, to discover once again, for themselves, that unanticipated appearance of the Picture demanded by modern aesthetics, Atthis moment the art-concept of photo- journalism appears, the notion that aetcan be created by imitating photojournalism, ‘This imitation was made necessary by the lislectics of avant-garde experimentation [Non-autonomous ar-forms, like architec- ture, and new phenomena sich as mass ‘communications became paradigmatic inthe 1920sand 1930s because the avant- tgardes were so involved ina critique ofthe autonomous work of at, so intrigued by the possibilty of going beyond it into a utopian revision of society and conscious: ness, Photojournalism was created inthe framework ofthe new publishing and com- ‘munications industries, and it elaborated ‘anew kind of picture, utilitarian in its determination by editorial assignment and ‘novel in its seizure ofthe instantaneous, of the “news event” asit happened. For both these reasons, it seems to have occurred to numberof photographers (Paul Strand, ‘Walker Evans, Brassa, Hensi Cartier: Bresson) that a new art could be made bby means of a mimesis of these aims and aspects of photography as it really existed in the world ofthe new culture industries, ‘This mimesis ted to teansformations in the concept ofthe Picture that had conse- {quences forthe whole notion of modern art and that therefore stand as precondi ‘ions forthe kind of critique proposed by the Conceptual artists after 1965, Post Pictorialist photography i elaborated in the working out of a demand thatthe Picture make an appearance ina practice hich, having already largely relinquished the sensuousness of the surface, must also relinquish any explicit preparatory process ‘of composition. Acts of composition are the property of the tableau In reportage, the sovereign place of eomposition is retained only as a sort of dynamic of anti patory framing, a “bunter' the nervous looking of. 1s Lee Friedlander put it. Every picture constructing advantage accumulated over centuries given up tothe jittery flow of events. they unfold, The rectangle ofthe Viewfinder and the speed of the shutter, Photography's “window of equipment,” is all that remains of the great eraft-complex ‘of composition. The at-concept of photo- journalism began to force photography into ‘what appears to be a modernistic dialectic. By divesting itself ofthe encumbrances and advantages inherited from older art forms, reportage pushes toward a discovery of ‘qualities apparently intrinsic tothe ‘medium, qualities that must necessarily distinguish the medium from others, and through the self-examination of which ican emerge as a modernist art on a plane with the others. ‘This force, or pressure, is not simply socal Reportage is not a photographic type brought into existence by the requirements ‘of social institutions as sueh, even though institutions like the press played a central part in defining photojournalism. The press hhad some role in shaping the new equip ‘ment of the 1920s and 1930s, particularly the smaller, faster cameras and film stock, ‘But reportage i inherent in the nature of the medium, and the evolution of equip: ment reflects thi. Reportage, or the spon taneous fleeting sspect ofthe photographic image, appears simultancously with the pi- {torial tableaulike aspect atthe origins of photography: its traces can be seen inthe blurred elements of Daguerre' first street scenes. Reportage evolves inthe pursuit of the blurred parts of pietures In this process, photography elaborates its version ofthe Picture, and isthe frst ‘new version since the onset of modern Painting inthe 1864, or, possibly, since the ‘emergence of abstract at, if one considers abstract paintings tobe, i fat, pictures anymore. Anew version ofthe Picture implies necessarily a turning-point inthe development of modernist ar, Problems are raised which will constitute the intellee tual content of Conceptual art, or at least Significant aspeetsof that content, {gelatin svar print B"he x 30% (074 83 emb ‘he Pa ety aseum Lo Anus ~s WARKSOFINDEFERENCE 3(One ofthe most important critiques ‘opened up in Conceptual art was that of achieved or perceived in the radical theories and methods ofthe politicized and objectvistc avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s has long heen recog nized as one of the most significant conti- butions ofthe art ofthe 1960s, particularly in America. Productvism, “factography,” tnd Bauhaus concepts were turned against the apparently “depolitcized” and resub- jectivized art ofthe 1940sand 1950s. Thus, ‘ve have seen thatthe kind of formalistc and “re-subjetivized” art-photography that ‘developed around Edward Weston and ‘Ansel Adamson the West Coast, or Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind in Chicago in those years (to use only American exam- ples) attempted to leave behind not only any link with agit-prop, but even any con nection with the nervous surfaces of social life, and to resume a stately modernist pic- torialism, This work has been greeted with ‘oppeobrium from radical eis since the beginnings of the new debates inthe 1960s ‘The orthodox view is that Cold War pres- sures compelled socialy-conscious photog: raphers away fom the borderline forms of art-photojourmalism toward the more sub- jestvistic versions of ar informel. In this proses, the more explosive and problem Mie forms andl concepts of radical avant gardism were driven from view, until they ‘made a return in the activistie neo-avant- gardism ofthe 1960s, There is much truth inthisconstruction, but it is awed in that itdraws too sharp alline between the meth- ‘ds and approaches of politicized avant- sgatdism and those of the more subject ‘and formalistic trends in ar- photography, “Thesituation is more complex because the possibilities for autonomous formal compo- Sion in photography were themselves refined and brought onto the historical ‘ad socal agenda by the mediums evolu- tion i the context of vanguarist art. The art-concept of photojournalism isa theoret- ical formalization of the ambiguous condi- tion ofthe most problematic kind of photograph. That photograph emerges on {he wing, ot of a photographer's complex social engagement (his or her assignment) itreoords something significant in the ‘event inthe engagement, and gains some ‘ality from that. But this validity alone is ‘only socal vaidity—the picture's success asreportage per se. The entire avant-garde ‘ofthe 1920s and 1930s was aware that validity as reportage per se was insufficient forthe most radical of purposes. What was necessary was thatthe picture not only sucoeed as reportage and be socially effec tive, but that it succeed in putting forward 4 new proposition or model ofthe Picture. ‘Only in doing both these things simultane ‘ously could photography realize itself as ‘a modernist artform, and participate in the radical and revolutionary cultural projects ‘of that era, In this context, ajection of a ‘lassiizing aesthetic ofthe picture—in the hname of proletarian amateurism, for exam ple—must be seen asa claim toa new level ‘of pictorial consciousness. ‘Thus, art-photography was compelled to bbe both ant-aestheticist and aesthetically significant albeit in new “negative” sense, atthe same moment. Here, tis important to recognize that it was the content ofthe avant-garde dialogue itself that was central in creating the demand for an aestheticism ‘which was the object of eitique by that ‘same avant-garde. In Theor ofthe Avant- Gante (1974) Peter Burger argued that the avantgarde emerged historically na cri- tigue ofthe completed aesthetcism of nineteenth-century modern ar? He sug- gests that, around 1900, the avant-garde generation, confronted with the socal and Institutional fet ofthe separation between art and the other autonomous domains of life felt compelled to attempt t leap over ‘that separation and reconnect high art and the conduct of afairsin the world in order tosave the aesthetic dimension by tran- scending it. Burger's emphasis on this drive to transcend Aestheticism and autonomous art neglects the fact tha the obsession with the aesthetic, now transformed into a sort of taboo, was caried over into the center ‘of every possible artistic thought or eitcal dea developed by vanguardism. Thus, 0 ‘certain extent, one can invert Burger's thesis and say that avant-garde art not only constituted a crtique of Aestheticsm, but also re-established Aestheticism asa per- manent issue through its intense proble- matization of it, Ths thesis corresponds especialy closely tothe situation of photo- ‘graphy within vanguardism, Photography had no history of autonomous status per- fected overtime into an imposing institu- tion, Ttemerged too late for that. Is aestheticizing thus was not, and could not be, simply an object for an avant-gardist critique, since it was brought into existence by that same ertiqu. Inthissense, there cannot be a clear demarcation between aesthetcist formal ism and various modes of engaged photog raphy. Subjectivism could become the foundation for radical practices in photog- raphy just as easly as neo-factography, and both are often present in much ofthe work ofthe 1960s “The peculiar, ye familiar, political ambi: ity as at ofthe experimental forms in and round Conceptuaism, particularly in the Context of 1968, isthe result ofthe fusion, ‘or even confusion, of tropes of art-photog raphy with aspects of its eritique. Far from ‘being anomalous ths fusion reflects pre- «sel the inner structure of photography as potentially avant-garde or even neo: svantgarde art, This implies thatthe new forms of photographic practice and experi ‘ment in the sixties and seventies did not Serive exclusively from a revival of anti subjectivist and ant-formalist tendencies. Rather, the works of figures like Douglas Hiucbler, Robert Smithson, Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, or Joseph Kosuth emerge {rom aspace constituted by the already- matured transformations of both types of ‘approach—factographic and subjctivisti, activist and formalist, "Marsian” and “Kantian” —present inthe work oftheir precursors in the 1940s and 1950s, in the {intricacies ofthe dialectic of "reportage as art-photography,” as art photography par excellence. The tadica critiques of art-photography inaugurated and occasionally realized in Conceptual art can be seen asboth an overturning of academicized approaches to these issues, and as an extrapolation of existing tensions inside that academicism, a new critical phase of scademicism and not simply a renunciation ‘oft, Photoconceptualism was ale to bring new energies from the other fine arts into the problematic of art-photojournalism, and this had tended to obscure the ways inwhich it was rooted inthe unresolved but well-established aesthetic issues of the photography of the 1940s and 1950s Intellectual, the stage was thus set for revival of the whole drama of reportage within avant-gardsm. The peculiar situa- tion of ar-photography in the art market atthe beginning of te 1960s is another precondition, whose consequences are not simply sociological Iris almost aston- hing to remember that important art-pho- tographs cold be purchased for under $100 not only in 1980 but in 1960, This suggests that, despite the internal complexity of the aesthetic structure of art-photography, its moment of recognition as art in capitalist societies had not yet occurred. All the aes- thetic preconditions for is emergence as 8 major form of modernist art had come into boeing, uti took the new critiques and transformations of the sities and seventies toactualize these socially It could be said thatthe very absence of market in pho- {ography atthe moment ofa rapidly boom- ing one for painting drew two kinds of energy toward the medium. “The first isa speculative and inquisitive ‘energy, one which circulates everywhere things appear to be “undervalued.” ‘Undervaluation implies the future, oppor- tunity, and the sudden appearance of something forgotten. The undervalued is category akin to Benjaminian ones like the “ust pas,” or the “recently forgotten.” The second is a sort of negative version ofthe frst. In the light of the new critical, skepticism toward “high art that began to surface inthe intellectual glimmerings around Pop art and its mythologies, the lack of interest of art marketers and collectors zmarked photography with a utopian poten- til, Thus, the thought occurred that a pho- tograpa might be the Picture which could not be integrated into “the regime,” the commercial-bureaucrati-iscursive onder hich was rapidly becoming the abject of criticisms animated by the attitudes of the Student Movement and the New Left. [Naive as such thoughts might seem today, they were valuable in turning serious attention toward the ways in which art- photography had not yet become Art Until it became Art witha big A, photo- graphs could not be experienced in terms ofthe dialectic of validity which marks all modernist aesthetic enterprises Paradoxically this could only happen in reverse. Photography could emerge socially asart only at the moment when is aesthetic presuppositions seemed tobe undergoing withering radical eritique, a eitique apparently aimed at foreclosing any further aestheticization or “artfication” of the medium. Photoconceptualism led the way toward the complete acceptance of photog- yas art—autonomous, bourgeois, collectible art—by virtue of insisting that ‘his medium might be privileged tobe the negation ofthat whole idea. In being that negation, the last barriers were broken, Inscribed in a new avant-gardism, and blended with elements of text, sculpture, painting, or drawing, photography became the quintessential “anti-object." As the neo-avant-gardes re-examined and luneaveled the orthodoies ofthe 1920 ‘and 1930s, the boundaries of the domain ‘of autonomous art were unexpectedly ‘widened, not narrowed. In the explosion of ppostautonomous models of practice which characterized the discourse ofthe seventies, ‘we can detect, maybe only with hindsight, the extension of avant-garde aestheticsm, swith the ist avant-garde, post- autonomous, “post studio" art required is ‘double legitimation—first, is legitimation ashaving transcended—or at least having authentically tested—the boundaries of ‘autonomous at and having become func tional in some real way; and then, secondly, ‘that thistest, this new utility result in works ‘oF forms which proposed compelling mod: els of art as such, a the same time that they seemed to dissolve, abandon, oF nogate it. I propose the following characterization of this process: autonomous art had reached state where it appeared that it ould only validly be made by means of the strictest imitation of the non-autonomous. This het «eronomy might take the form of direct eiti- cal commentary, as with Art & Language; with the production of politial propa- fgnda, so common inthe 19708 oF with the ‘many varieties of “intervention” or appro prition practiced more recently. But, in all these procedures, an autonomous work ‘of artis still necessarily created. The inno- vation is thatthe content of the work is the validity of the model or hypothesis of non- autonomy itereates. ‘Thiscomplex game of mimesis has been, ‘of course, the foundation for all the “endgame” strategies within avant-gardism, ‘The profusion of new forms, processes, :materials and subjets which characterizes the art ofthe 1970s was to great extent, stimulated by mimetic relationships ‘with other social production processes: Foctors Lon: Enon 198, 1068; Hack ad-ite potgagh manos varie, coin the aindustrial, commercial, cinematic, cte.Art-_ problematics ofthe staged, or posed, pic Photography as we have seen, had already ture, through new concepts of performance volved an intricate mimetiestructure, Second, the inscription of photography into inwhich artists imitated photojournalists a nexus of experimental practices led to 8 ie Pictures. Thiselaborate, direct but distantiated and parodic relation: ship with the at-concept of photojournl: ism. Although the work of many artists could be discussed in this context, forthe sake of brevity L will discus the photo- ‘graphic work of Richard Long and Bruce [Nauman as representative of the first issue, that of Dan Graham, Douglas Huebler, and Robert Smithson of the second, ‘mature mimetic order of production brought photography tothe forefront of the new pscudo-heteronomy, and permit «ditto become a paradigm forall aestheti- cally-critical, model-consiructing thought about art Photoconceptualism worked out any ofthe implications ofthis, so much so that it may begin to seem that many of Conceptual art's essential achievements are either created inthe form of photographs ‘or are otherwise mediated by them. Long's and Nauman’s photographs docu: ment already conceived artiste gestures, actions or "studio-cvents"—things that stand self-consciously as conceptual, aesthetic models for states of affairs in the world, whic, as such, need no longer appear dectly inthe picture. Long's England 1968 (1968) documents an action ‘or gesture, made by the artist alone, ‘ut in the countryside, away from the nor. ‘mal environs of at or performance. Generically his pictures ate landscapes, sand their mood is rather diferent from the typologies and intentions of reportage, ‘Conventional artistic landscape photogra phy might feature a foreground motif, such ‘asa curious heap of tones ora ‘wee, and counterpoint it tothe rst ofthe scene, showing itt be singular, ‘ated from its surroundings, and yet existing ‘by means of those surroundings. In such ways, landscape picture can be thought tobe a report ona state of firs, and therefore be consistent with an art-concept ‘of reportage, Long's walked line inthe grass substitutes itself for the foreground ‘motif. Ita gesture akin to Barnett [Newman's notion of the establishment of Reportage i introverted and parodied, ‘mannerstcall, in aspects of photoconcep- twalism, The notion that an artistically significant photograph can any longer be ‘male in a direct imitation of photojournal ism is rejected as having been historically completed by the earlier avant-garde land by the Iria! subjectvism of 1950 art photography. The gesture of reportage ‘withdrawn from the social field and attached to a putative theatrical event. The socal ield tends tobe abandoned to pro- fessional photojournalism proper, as ifthe aesthetic problems associated with depict ing it were no longer of any consequence, and photojournalism had entered not so much a postmodernist phase asa “post- aesthetic” one in which itwas excluded from ‘aesthetic evolution for atime. Ths, by the ‘vay, suited the sensibilities of those politcal Activists who attempted a new version of, proletarian photography in the perio. “Thisinteoversion, or subjectvization, of reportage was manifested in two important directions, Fist, itbought photography into a new relationship withthe Ge vaeT/sé70 odor ea e108) a “Here” in the void of a primeval trea, tissimultancousy agriculture, religion, urbanism, and theater, an intervention in ‘lonely, picturesque spot which becomes a setting Completed artistically by the gesture tnd the photograph for which the gesture ‘was enacted, Long does not photograph events inthe process oftheir occurrence, but tages an event forthe benefit of a pre conceived photographic rendering. The picture is presented asthe subsidiary form fof an act, as “photo-documentation.” It has become that, however, by means of a new kind of photographie mise-en-scéne. That i, itexsts and is egtimated as continuous with the project of reportage by moving in precisely the opposite direction, toward a ‘completely designed pictorial method, an introverted masquerade that pays games with the inherited aesthetic proclivities of art-photography-as- reportage. Many of the ‘sume elements, moved indoors, character ize Nauman’s studio photographs, such as Fling to Levitan the Studio (1966) ‘or Self-Portrait asa Fountain (1966-6777), The photographer's studio, and the generic complex of "studio photography,” was the Pictorialst antithesis against which the aesthetis of reportage were elaborated. [Nauman changes the terms. Working within the experimental framework of what was, beginning atthe time tobe called “per- formance at," he carries out photographic acts of reportage whose subject-matter is the self-conscious, self-centered “play” tak {ng place inthe studios of artists who have woved “beyond” the modern fine arts into the new hybriditie, Studio photography ‘sno longer isolated from reportage: itis reduced analytically to coverage of what ever is happening in the studi, that place ‘once so rigorously controlled by precedent and formula, but which was in the process ‘of being reinvented once more as theater, factory, reading room, meeting place, ery, museum, and many other things. Nauman's photographs, films, and videos ofthis period are done in two modes or styles. The frst, that of Failing to Levitate, is*direot,” tough, and shot in black and. white, The other i based on studio lighting effects—multiple sources, colored gels, ‘emphatic contrasts—and is of course done in color. The two styles, reduced toa set ‘of basic formulae and effects, are signifers for the new co-existence of species of photography which had seemed ontologi cally separated and even opposed in the art history of photography upto that time. It isasif the reportage works goback to Muybridge and the sources ofall tradicional concepts of photographic docu- ‘mentary, and the color pictures tothe early “rips” and jokes, to Man Ray and Moholy- ‘Nagy, tothe birthplace of effects used fortheir own sake, The two reigning myths of photography—the one that claims that photographs are “true” and the one that claims they are not—are shown to be grounded inthe same prans, available inthe sume place, the studio, at that place's ‘moment of historical transformation ‘These practices, or strategies, are extremely ‘common by about 1969, so common as tobe de rigueur across the horizon of formance at, earth art, Atte Povera, and CConceptualism, and it can be said that these now methodologies of photographic prac tie are the strongest factor linking together the experimental forms ofthe period, which «an seem so disparate and ireconcilable This integration or fusion of reportage and performance, its manneristi introver: sion can be seen as an implicitly parodic stitique ofthe concepts of art-photography. ‘Smithson and Graham, in part because they were active as writers, were able to provide amore explicit parody of photojournalism than Nauman or Long. Photojournalism asa social institution can be defined most simply a collaboration between a writer and a photographer. Conceptual art's intllectualism was engen- deted by young, aspiring artists for whom ctitial writing was an important practice of self-definition, The example of Donald Jude’ criticism for Arts Magazine was dec: sive here, and essays lke “Specific Objects” (1964) had the impact, almost, of iterary ‘works of art. The interplay between a vet ran itérateur, Clement Greenberg: young academic art riti, Michael Fried and Judd, a talented stylist, is one ofthe richest episodes in the history of American iticism, and had much to do with igniting the idea ofa written critique standing asa work of art. Smithson’s "The Crystal Land,” published in Harpers Bazaar in 1965, isan homage to Judd asa creator of both visual and literary forms. Smithson’s innovation, however, isto avoid the genre of art criticism, writing a mock-travelogue instead. He plays the pat ofthe inquisitive, belletrstic journalist, accompanying 2 interpreting hs subject, He naratvizes his account of Judas art, moves from critical ‘commentary to storytelling and re-invents the relationships between visual ar and literature, Smithson's most important pub- lished works, such as “The Monuments of Passtic,” and “Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan” are “auto-accompaniments.” ‘Smithson the journalis-photographer accompanies Smithson the artist-experi- renter and is able to produce a sophisti- ‘cated apologia fr his sculptural work inthe {guise of popular entertainment, His esays ‘do not make the Conceptuslist claim to be works of visual art, but appear to remain content with being works of literature. The photographs included in them purport to illustrate the narrative or commentary. The narratives, in turn, describe the event of ‘making the photographs. "One never knew ‘what side ofthe mirror one was on,” he mused in “Passaic,” asf reflecting on the parody of photojournalism he was in the process of enacting, Smithson’ parody ws away of dissolving, or softening, the objec- tivstc and positivist tone of Minimalism, of subjectvizng i by associating its reduc- tive formal language with intricate, drifting, ‘even delirious moods oF states of mind, ‘The Minimalist sculptural forms to hich Smithson’s texts constantly allude appeared to erase the associative chain ‘of experience, the interior monologue of ‘creativity, insisting on the pure immediacy ‘of the produet itself, the work as such, as “specific object.” Smithson's exposure fof what he saw as Minimalism’s emotional imerior depends on the return of ideas of time and process, of narrative and enactment, of experience, memory, and allusion, tothe artistic forefront, against the chetoric of both Greenberg and Jud. eye ot rar no. (Spl 1960), His photojournalism sat once sel portraiture—that is, performance—and reportage about what was hidden and even repressed in the atthe most admired. It located the impulse toward slf-suicent and non-objectve forms of atin concrete, personal responses to rel life, social experiences, thereby contributing to the new critiques of formalism which were so central to Conceptual ant’ project. Dan Graham's involvement with the classical traditions of reportage is unique among the artists usually identified with Conceptual art, and his architectural photo sraphs continue some aspects of Walker [Evan's project. In this, Graham locates nals, participating init, while atthe ‘same time placing it atthe service of other aspects of his oeuvre. His architectural photographs provide a socal groundi for the structural models of intersubjective experience he elaborated in text, video, performance and seulptural environmental Pieces. His works do not simply make reference to the larger social world inthe ‘manner of photojournalism; rather they refer to Graham's own other projects, which, true to Conceptual form, ae models of the social, not depietions oft Graham's Homes for America (1966-67) Jha taken on canonical status in this regard Here the photo-esay format so familiar tothe history of photography has been meticulously replicated as a model ofthe institution of photojournalism. Like Walker Evans at Fortune, Graham writes the text and supplies the pictures to go along with it “Homes was actually planned as an essay onsuburban architecture for an art magazine, and could certainly stand unproblematically ‘on ts own as such, By chanee, it was never Actually published as Graham had intended it Thereby, it migrated tothe form ofa Ith ‘ographic print of an apocryphal two-page spread. The print, and the original photos included init, do not constitute an act or practice of reportage so much asa model of it. This model isa parody, meticulous and detached imitation whose aim isto intert0- {gate the legitimacy (andthe processes of legitimation ofits original, and thereby (and only thereby) to legitimate itself as art. “The photographs included inthe work ate among Graham's most well-known and have established important precedents for his subsequent photographic work, In iit: tng his project n photography’in terms ‘of a parodic model of the photo-ess, ‘Graham positions all his picture-making asart ina very precise yet very conditional sense, Each photograph may be—or, must be considered as possibly being-—no more than an illustration to an essay, and ther fore not an autonomous work of art. Thus, they appear to satisfy, as do Smithson's Photographs, the demand for an imitation ‘of the non autonomous. Homes for America, in being both really just an essay ‘onthe suburbs and, aswell, an artist's print, constituted itself explicitly asa canonical instance of the new kind of anti- autonomous yet autonomous work of art. The photographs in it oseillate at the ‘threshold ofthe autonomous work, rossing land recrosing it, refusing to depart from the artistic dilemma of reportage and thereby establishing anaesthetic model ‘of just that threshold condition, Huebler’s work is also engaged with ereat- ing and examining the effect photographs have when they masquerade us part of ‘some extraneous project, in which they ‘appear to be means and not ends. Unlike ‘Smithson of Graham, though, Huebler makes no literary claims forthe textual part of his works, the “programs” in which his photographs are utilized, His works ‘approach Conceptual art per sein that they ‘eschew literary status and make claims only as visual art object. Nevertheless his renunciation ofthe literary isa language ‘act, an act enunciated asa manoeuvre ‘of writing. Huebler’s “pieces” involve the ‘appropriation, utilization and mimesis ‘of various “systems of documentation,” ‘of which photography is only one. Ibis Positioned within the works by a group ‘of generically related protocols, defined in writing, and itis strictly within these parameters tha the images have meaning and artistic status, Where Graham and ‘Smithson make their works through mime sis and parody of the forms of photojour- nalism, its published product, Hucbler parodies the assignment, the “project” ‘or enterprise that sets the whole process into motion to begin with. The seemingly pointless and even trivial procedures that Dan Gran “Homes for Ameren” Ate Magus (December 1988-Jnuny 1867) 21-22 ‘constitute works like Duration Piece #5, Amsterdam, Holland (1970) oF Duration Piece #7, Rome (1973) function as models for that verbal or written construction, ‘which, inthe working world, causes photo- _araphs tobe made. The more the assign- ‘ment is emptied of what could normatvely ‘considered to be compelling social subject, ‘matter, the more visible its simply as an instance of structure, an order, and the ‘more cleaty it can be experienced asa ‘model of relationships between writing and photography. By emptying subject matter from his practice of photography, Huebler recapitulate important aspects of the development of modernist painting. Mondrian, for example, moved away from depictions of the landscape, to experimen- tal patterns with only a residual depictive value, to abstract works which analyze and ode relationships but do not depict oF represent them, The idea ofan art which provides a direct experience of situations fr relationships, nota secondary, represen tational one, is one of abstract ar's most powerful creations. The viewer does not experience the “re-representation” of absent things, but the presence ofa thing, the work of ar itself, with all ofits indwelling dynamism, tension and com: plexity. The experience is more like an fencounter with an entity than with a mere picture. The entity does not beara dep tion of another entity, more important than itz rather, it appears and is experienced inthe way objects and entities are exper {enced in the emotionally-charged contexts of social lie. Hluebler’s mimesis ofthe model-construc- tive aspects of modernist abstract art con tradicts, of course, the natural depictive {gualties of photography. This contradic- tion is the necessary center of these works. By making photography's inescapable sepictive character continue even where ithas been decreed that there is nothing of significance to depiet, Huebler aims to ‘make visible something essential about the medium's nature. The artistic, creative part of this work is obviously not the pho- tography, the pieture-making, This dis plays al the limited qualities identified with photoconceptualism’s de-skilled, Aamateurist sense of itself, What i eeative in these works are the written assignments, or programs. Every element that could make the pictures “interesting” or “good” in terms derived from att-photography is systematically and rigorously excluded.At the same time, Hucbler eliminates all conventional “literary” characteristics from his written statements. The work Iscomprised of these two simultancous negotiations, which produce a “reportage” without event, and a writing without narra- tive, commentary, or opinion. This double negation imitates the criteria for radical astract painting and sculpture, and pushes thinking about photography toward ‘an awareness ofthe dialectics of its inher ‘ent depictive qualities, Hucbler’s works allow us to contemplate the condition of “depictivit” itself and imply that itis this contradiction between the unavoidable process of depieting appearances, and the equally unavoidable process of making objets, that permits photography to become a model of an art whose subject matter is the idea of at M.Amateurization Photography, like all the arts that preceded iisfounded on the skill, cra, and imagi- nation ofits practitioners, It wis, however, the fate of al the arts to become modernist, through a rtique of their own legitimacy, inwhich the techniques and abilities ‘most intimately idemttied with them were placed in question. The wave of reduc tivism that broke inthe 1960 had, of «course, been gathering during the preced> ing half-century, and itwas the maturing {one could almost say, the totalizing) ‘ofthat idea that brought into focus the explicit possiblity of a “conceptual ar,” ‘anart whose content was none other than its own idea of itself, and the history of such an ideas becoming respectable, Painters and sculptors worked their way into this problem by serutinizing and rep Aiating—i only experimentall—their ‘oan abilities, the special capacities that had historically distinguished them from other pooplo—non-atists, unskilled or untal- ented people. This aet of renunciation had ‘moral and utopian implications, For the Painter radical repudiation of complicity vith Wester traditions was a powerful new mark of distinction in a new era of what Nietasche called “a revaluation ofall ‘alies”" Moreover, the significance of the ‘repudiation was almost immediately appa cent ta people with even a passing awareness ‘of at, though apparent in negative way. "What! You dont want things to look ‘he-imensional? Ridiculous!” I is easy twexperience the fet that something us ally considered essential to art hasbeen Its commonplace to note that it was the removed from it. Whatever the thing the appearance of photography which, as the artistas thereby created might appear to representative of the Industral Revolution brit sist and foremost that which results in the realm ofthe image, set the historical from the absence of elements which have process of modernism in motion. Yet hitherto always been there. The reception, photography’s own historical evolution ifmot the production, of modernist art has into modernist discourse has been deter- been consistently formed by this phenome- mined by the fact that, unlike the older non, and the idea of modernism assuch is arts itcannot dispense with depiction inseparable from it.The historical process and So, apparently, cannot participate ‘of critical reflexivity derives its structure in the adventure it might bo said to have tnd identity from the movements possible suggested inthe first place, in, and characteristic of, the older fine ars like painting. The drama of modern- The dilemma, then in the process of legit ization, in which artist cast off the anti- mating photography asa modernist artis ‘quated characteristics of theirméters, is thatthe medium has virally no dispens a compelling one, and has become the con- _ ble charaetersties, the way painting, For ‘eptual model for modernism asa whole. example, does, and therefote cannot con- ‘Clement Greenberg wrote: “Certain factors form to the ethos of reductivism, so suc ‘we used fo think essential othe making cinctly formulated by Greenberg in these and experiencing of art are shown not to lines, also from "Modernist Painting” be soby the fact that Modernist painting “What had to be exhibited was not only that sheen able to dispense with them and) which was unique and irreducible in art in yet continue 1 offer the experience of at general, but also that which was unique and inall is essentials. "* Jrreducile in each particular art, Each art. hhad to determine, through its own opera- “Abstract and experimental art begins tions and works, the effects exclusive to its revolution and continues its evolution itself. By doing soit would, to be sure, nar- with the rejection of depiction, ofits ‘ow its area of eompetence, but atthe same ‘vn history as limning and picturing, _time it would make its possession ofthat land then with the deconseeration of the area ll the more certain institution whieh came 1 be known as Representation, Punting finds a new tes, The esenceof the modernist decoastruc- anew identity and a new glory inbeing tion of painting as picture-making was not the site upon which this transformation realized in abstract art as such it was real- works itself out. ined in emphasizing the distinction berween in ahr Hones Aner 108107, pe ot nin into A Monithe institution ofthe Picture and the neces- ture of the depiction ite. Iwas physically possible to separate the actions ‘ofthe painter—those touches ofthe brush which had historically aways, in the West atleast led toa depition—from depiction, land abstract art was the most conclusive evidence for this, Photography constitutes a depiction not by the accumulation of individual marks, but by the instantaneous operation of an integrated mechanism. All the rays per ted to passthrough the lens form an image immediately, and the lens, by definition, creates a focused image at its correct focal length, Depiction isthe only possible result of the eamera system, and the kind ‘of image formed by a lens i the only image possible in photography. Thus, no ‘matter how impressed photographers may have been by the analytical rigor of mod- crist critical discourse, they could not participate in it directly in their practice ‘because the specificities oftheir medium sid not peemit it. This physical barrier has ‘lotto do with the distanced relationship ‘between painting and photography in the era of art-photography, the first sixty ‘so years ofthis century, Despite the barrier, around the middle ofthe 1960s, numerous young artists and art students appropriated photography, turned their attention away from auteurist versions ofits practice, and forcibly sub- jected the medium to full-scale immmer- sion inthe logic of reductvism. The essen. Ul reduetion eame on the level of skill Photography could be integrated into the ‘new radical logiesby eliminating all the pictorial suavity and technical sophistica fion it had accumulated inthe process of its own imitation of the Great Picture. It was possible, therefore, to test the medium Tor itsindispensable elements, without abandoning depiction, by finding ways to legitimate pictures that demonstrated the absence ofthe conventional marks of pic- torial distinction developed by the great auteurs, from Atget to Arbus, Already by around 1955, the revalorization and reassessment of vernacular idioms of popular culture had emerged as part of a new “new objectivity,” an abjectvism bred by the limitations of Irieal ar informel the introverted and sel-righteously lofty art forms of the 1940s and 1950s. This new ‘tical trend had sources in high art and high academe, as the names Jasper Johns and Piero Manzoni, Roland Barthes and Leslie Fiedler, indicate 1 continues a fundamental project ofthe earlier avant- arde—the transgression of the boundaries between “high” and “low” art, between artist and the rest of the people, between “art” and “life.” Although Pop atin the late fifties and early sisties seemed to con- centrate on bringing massculture elements into high-culture forms alrcady by the 1920s the situation had become far more ‘complex and reciprocal than that, and motifs and styles from avant-garde and high-culture sources were circulating extensively in the various new Culture Industries in Europe, the United States, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. This transit between “high” and “low” had ‘become the central problematic or the avant-garde because it reflected so deci- sively the process of modernization ofall cultures. The great question was whether fr not art as it had emerged from the past would be “modernized” by being dissolved inc the new mass-cltural structures. Hovering behind all tendencies toward redluctiviam was the shadow of this great “reduction.” The experimentation with the “anaesthetic” with “the look of non- art “the condition of no-art,” or with ‘the Joss ofthe visual,” is inthis ight ‘kind of tempting of fate. Behind the Greenbergian formulae, frst elaborated {nthe late 1930s, les the fear that there ‘may be, finally, no indispensable charac- teristics that distinguish the arts, and that art asit has come down to us is very dis pensable indeed. Gaming withthe anaes- thet was both an intellectual necessity in the context of modernism, and atthe same time the release of social and psychic energies which had a stake in the “Tiquida- on’ of bourgeois “high ur.” By 1960 there was pleasure tobe had inthis exper ‘mentation, a pleasure, moreover, which hhad been fully sanctioned by the aggress vity ofthe first avant-garde or, at least, important parts of it (Gore cn) amed:counary Bary FueterRadical deconstructions therefore took the form of searches for models ofthe anaesthetic.” Duchamp had charted this teritory before 1920, and his influence was the decisive one for the new critical bjec tvs surfacing forty years later with Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Manzoni, John Cage, and the rest. The anaesthetic found itsemblem in the Readymade, the commodity in all its guises, forms, and traces. Working-class, lowersmidale class, ‘burbanite, and underclass miliewx were expertly scoured forthe relevant utilitarian mages, depictions, figurations, and objects at violated al the criteria of canonical modernist taste, style, and technique. ‘Sometimes the early years of Pop art seem lke race tind the most perfet, meta- physically banal image, tha cipher that demonstrates the ability of culture to con- tinue when every aspect of what had been known in modern art as seriousness, exper- tse, and reflexiveness had been dropped. ‘The empty, the counterfeit, the functional, andthe brutal themselves were of course nothing new as art in 1960, having all become tropes ofthe avantgarde via Surrealism. From the viewpoint created byPopar, though, earlier treatments of this problem seem emphatic in their adhe- rene tothe Romantic idea ofthe tran: formative power of authentic art. The anaesthetic is transformed as art but along the frature-line of shock, The shock caused by the appearance of the anaes: theticina serious work i calmed by the aura of seriousness itself. Is this aura which becomes the target of the new wave of ritcal play, Avant-garde art had held the anesthetic ina place by a web of sophis- ticated manoeuvres, calculated transgres- Sve gestures, which always paused on the threshold of real abandonment, Remember Bellmer’s pornography, Heartfield’s propa ganda, Mayakowskys advertising. Except forthe Readymade, there was no complete ‘mimesis or appropriation ofthe anaes thetic, and it may be that the Readymade, that thing that had indeed crossed th provided a sor of fulerum upon whieh, between 1920 and 1960, everything else could remain balanced, The unprecedented mimesis of “the eondi- tion of no art” on the part of the artists ‘of the early sates seems tobe a instinctive reflection of these lines from Theodor ‘Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, which was being ‘composed in that same period: “Aesthetics, lor what is left of it seems to assume tacitly atthe survival of artis unproblematic Central fr this kind of aesthetics therefore isthe question of how aet survives, not ‘whether it will survive at all. This view has litle credibility today. Aesthetics can no longer rely on at asa fact fart sto remain faithful tots concep, it must pass ‘over into anti-art, or it must develop a sense ‘of self-doubt which is born ofthe moral _gap between its continued existence and mankind's catastrophes, past and future,” and “At the present time significant modern artisentirely unimportant in a society that ‘only tolerates it. This situation afeets art itself causing it to bear the marks ofindif- ference: there i the disturbing sense that thisart might just aswell be diferent not exis at all? ‘The pure appropriation ofthe anaesthetic, the imagined completion ofthe gesture ‘of passing over into anti-art or non-art, i the act of internalization of society's indi: ference to the happiness and seriousness ‘fart. Its also, therefore, an expression ofthe artis’ own identification with bale ful social forees, This identification may be, ‘as always in modernism, experimental, but, the experiment must be eartied out inet ality, withthe risk that an “identification with the aggressor” wll really occur and be so successful sei nescapable and permanent. Duchamp igerly seemed to avoid this; Warhol perhaps didnot. In not doing so, he helped make explicit some ofthe hidden energies ‘of reductvism. Warhol made his taboo breaking work by subjecting photography to eduetivst methodology, both in his silkscreen paintings and in his films. The paintings reiterated or appropriated photo- journalism and glamour photography and ‘claimed that picture-making skills were of minor importance in making significant pictorial art. The films extended the argu- ‘ment directly into the regime ofthe photo- sraphic, and established an aesthetic of the amateurish which tapped into New ‘York traditions going back va the Beats and independents tothe late 19308 and the film experiments of James Agee and Helen Levit. To the tradition of independ- nt, intimate, and naturalistic filmmaking, as practiced by Robert Frank, John Cassavetes, or Frederick Wiseman, Warhol added (perhaps “subtracted” would be the better word) the agony of reductivism, Cassavetes fused the documentary tradition with method aeting in films like Faces (1968), with the intention of getting close to people. The rough photography and light- ing drew attention to itself, but the style signified a moral decision to forego techni- cal finish in the name of emotional truth. Warhol reversed this in lms like Ba, Kis, ‘or Seep (all 1963, separating the picture- style from its radical humanist content- {types in effect using itt place people at « peculiar distance, ina new relationship vith the spectator. Thus a methodological ‘model is constructed the non-professional ‘or amateurist camera technique, conven-tionally associated with anticommercial naturalism and existential if not political ‘commitment, is separated from those asso Cations and tuned toward new psycho- ‘social subjects, including a new version of, amour it wanted to leave behind. In this process, amateurism as such becomes visible as the photographic modality or style ‘which, in itself, signifies the detachment of photography from three great norms of the ‘Western pictorial tradition —the formal, the technical, and the one relating tothe range ‘of subject-matter. Warhol violates all these norms simultaneously, as Duchamp had done before him with the Readymade. Duchamp managed to separate his work ‘asa object from the dominant tradition, taut not until Warhol had the picture been ‘corded the sme treatment Washol's replacement ofthe notion ofthe artist as ‘skilled producer with that ofthe artist 3s ‘consumer of new picture-making gadgets ‘was ony the most obvious and striking {enactment of what could be called anew amateurism, which marks so much ofthe artof the 19606 and earlier 1970s. Amateurish film and photographic images ‘and siyles of course related tothe docu: ‘mentary tradition, but their deepest resonance is with the work of actual ama teurs—the general population, the “peo ple.” To begin wit, we must recognize a ‘conscious utopianism inthis turn toward the technological vernacular: Joseph Beuys's slogan “every man isan artist, or Lawrence Weiner’sifident conditions forthe realization and possession of is works reflect with particular charity the idealistic side ofthe claim thatthe making ‘of artworks needs tobe, and infact has ‘necome, slot easier than it was in the past. ‘These artists argued that the great mass of the people had been excluded from art by social barriers and had internalized an identity as “untalented,” and “inartisic™ fn so were resentful ofthe high ar that the dominant institutions unsuccessully compelled them to venerate. This resent- ‘ment was the moving force of pilistine ‘mass culture and kitsch, a8 well as of rep- ressive social and legislative attitudes toward the arts, Continuation of the regime ‘of specialized high art intensified the alien ation of both the people and the special ized, talented artists who, asthe objects of resentment, developed elitist antipathy toward “the rabble” and identified withthe clases as their only possible patrons ‘This vicious circle of “avant-garde and kitsch” could be broken only by a radical transformation and negation of high ar. ‘These arguments repeat those ofthe earlier Constructivists, Dadaists, and Surrealist: almost word for word, nowhere more con- sciously than in Guy Debord's The Society ofthe Spectacle (1967): "Artin the period ofits dissolution, 2 movement of nega- tion in pursuit ofits own transcendence ina historial society where history is not iret lived, is at once an art of change and a pure expression ofthe impossibility ff change. The more grandiose is ‘demands, the further from its grasp i rue self-ealization This san at that neces- satily avantgarde; and itis an art that snot Tis vanguardisits own dsappearance."™ “The practical transformation of art (as ‘opposed to the idea of it) implies the trans- formation ofthe practices of both artists and their audiences, the aim being o obi erate or disable both categories into a kind ‘of dialectal synthesis of them, a Sehiller- like category of emancipated humanity which needs neither Representation nor Specatorship. These ideals were an impor: tant aspect of the movement forthe trans formation of antstry, which opened up ‘the question of skill. The utopian project. ‘of rediscovering the roots of ereativityin ‘spontaneity and intersubjctivity feed from al specialization and speetacularized ‘expertise combined with the actual profu- sion of light consumer technologies to legitimate a widespread "de-skllng” and “re-skiling” of art and art education. The slogan “paintings dead” had been heard from the avant-garde sinc 1920; it meant that twas no longer necessary to separate ‘oneself rom the people through the acqui sition of skills and sensibilities rooted in a craft-guild exclusivity and secrecy; in fact, itwas absolutely necessary not w do so, bt rather to animate with radical imagins- tion those common techniques and abilities ‘made available by modernity itself. Fist ‘mong these was photography, The radicals’ problem with photography was, a we have seen, its evolution into an art-photography, Unable to imagine any thing better, photography lapsed into an imitation of high art and uncrtically rere ated its esoteric worlds of technique and quality.” The instability ofthe concept of art-photography, its tendency to become reflexive nd to exist atthe boundaryline of the utilitarian, was muffled in the process of its “atiication.” The criteria of deconstrucive radicalism —expressed in ideas like “the conditions of no at,” and ‘every man isan artist"—could be applied to photography primarily, if not exc: sively through the imitation of amateur picture-making. This was no arbitrary decision, A popular system of photography ‘based on a minimal level of skill was insti- tuted by George Eastman in 1888, with the Kodak slogan, "you push the button; we do the rest.” Inthe 1960s, Jean-Luc ‘Godard debunked his own ereativity wth the comment that "Kodak does 98 per cent.” The means by which photography ‘could join and contribute to the movement ‘of the modernist autocitique was the user-friendly mass-market gadget-camera The Brownie, with its small gauge rollfilm and quick shutter was aso, of course, the prototype for the equipment of the photojournalist, and therefore is present, as historical shadow, inthe evolution of art-photography as it emerged in its ialectic with photojournalism. But the process of professionalization of photogra- phy Ted to technical transformations of small-scale cameras, which, until the more recent proliferation of mass-produced SLRs, reinsituted an economie barrier for the amateur that became a socal and cul tural one as well. Not until the 19605 did we see tourists and picnickers sporting Pentaxes and Nikons; before then they ‘used the various Kodak or Kodah products, such asthe Hawkeye, oF the Instamati, which were litle different from a 1925-model Brownie)Iissigniicant, then, that the mimesis of amateurism began around 1966; that i, atthe last moment of the “Eastman era ‘of amateur photography, at the moment when Nikon and Polaroid were revolation- izing it. The mimesis takes place atthe threshold of a new technological situation, fone in which the image-procucing capacity ofthe average citizen was about to make ‘a quantum leap. Is thus, historically speaking, really the last moment of “ama ‘eur photography” as such, asa social cate- {017 established and maintained by custom and technique. Conceptualsm turns toward the past just as the past dats by into the future; it elegizes something atthe same instant that i points toward the glimmering. actualization of avant-garde utopianism through technological progress. every man isan artist,” and that artist isa photographer, he wll become so also inthe process in which high-resolution photographic equipment is released from itscultsh posession by specialist and is ‘ade avallable to all ina eresting wave of consumerism. The worlds of Beuys and MeLuhan mingle as average citizens come into possession of ‘profesional-lass” ‘equipment. At this moment, then, ama- turism ceases tobe a technical eategory: itistevealed asa mobile social category inwhich limited competence becomes an open field for investigation, “Great ant” established the idea (or ideal) ‘of unbounded competence, the wizardry of contnually-evolving talent. This ideal ‘became negative, ora leas seriously uni teresting, inthe context of reductvism, and the notion of limits to competence, imposed by oppressive social relationships, ‘became charged with exciting implications. became a subversive creative act fora tal- ented an skilled arts to imitate a person oflimited abilities. twas a new experience, ‘one which ran counter o all accepted ideas and standards of art and was one ofthe lst gestures which could produce avant-gardist shock. The mimesis signified, or expressed, the vanishing of great traditions of Western art into the new cultural structures estab lished bythe mass medi, credit financing, suburbanization, and reflexive bureaucracy ‘The act of renunciation required fora skilled artist to enact this mimeses, and construct works as models o ts conse {quences isa scandal typical of avant-garde ese, the desire to occupy the threshold ofthe aesthetic, its vanishing point. Many examples of such amateurist, ‘mimesis can be drawn from the corpus of photoconceptualism, and it could probably be said that almost all photoc- ‘onceptualist indulged in it to some degree, But one ofthe purest and most exemplary instances isthe group of books published by Edward Ruscha between 1963 and 1970, For all the familiar reasons, Los Angeles was pethaps the bes setting forthe com- plex of reflections and crossovers between Pop art, reductivism, and their mediating middle term, mass culture, and Ruscha for biographical reasons may inhabit the per- son of the American Everymian particu larly easly. The photographs in Same Las Angeles Aparments (1965), for example, synthesize the brutalism of Pop art with the low-contrast monochromatic ofthe ‘most utilitarian and perfunctory photo- traps (which could be imputed to have been taken by the owners, managers, or residents of the buildings in question). Although one or two pictures suggest some ecognition of the criteria of art- photog Phy. or even architectural photography (e “2014 S. Beverly Glen Blt”) the majority seem to take pleasure ina rigorous display ‘of generic lapses: improper relation of lenses to subject distances, insensitivity to time of day and quality of light, excessively functional eropping, with abrupt excisions ‘of peripheral objects, ack of attention to the specifi character of the moment heing ‘epicted—al in alla hilarious perform tance, an almost sinister mimicry of the way ‘people” make images ofthe dwellings in which they are involved. Ruscha’simper: sonation of such an Everyperson obviously «draws attention tothe alienated relation- ships people have with their built environ- ‘ment, but his pictures do not in any way stage or dramatize tha alienation the way that Walker Evans di, o tht Lee Friedlander was doing at that moment. Nor do they offer a transcendent exper- ‘ence ofa building that pierces the aien- ation usually felt in ie, as with Atget, for example. The pictures are, as reductvist ‘works, models of our actual relations with their subjects, rather than dramatized "representations that transigure those rela- tions by making it impossible for us to have such relations with them, Ruscha’s books ruin the genre ofthe “book of photographs,” that classical form in which art-photography declares its independence. wenn Gasoline Stations (1962) may depict the service stations slong Ruscha’ route bewoen Los Angeles and his family home in Oklahoma, butit derives artistic significance from the fact that at !a moment when “The Road” and roadside lie ha already become an auteurist cliché inthe hands of Robert Frank's epigones, it resolutely denies any representation of is, theme, seeing the road asa system and an {economy mirrored inthe structure ofboth the pictures he took and the publication inwhich they appear. Onlyan idiot would take pictures of nothing but the filing Edna Ruscha. Union Nees Calera, om Tarts sce Satna, 1968 et wa 120) onestations, and the existence ofa hook of just those pictures is kind of proof of the «existence of sch a person. But the person, the asocial cipher who cannot connect with the others around him, i an abstraction, phantom conjured up by the construction, the structure of the product said to be by his hand. The anaesthetic, the edge or bound ary ofthe artistic, emerges through the con- struction of his phantom producer, who is ‘unable to avoid bringing into visibility the “marks of inference” with which moder nityexpresses itself in or asa “ree society. Amateurism isa radical reduetivist meth ‘logy insofar as its the form of an impersonation, n photoconceptualism, photography posts its eseape from the er teria of art-photography through the artist's performance asa non-artist who, despite being a non-artst, is nevertheless con pelled to make photographs. These photo: graphs lose ther status as Representations before the eyes oftheir audience: they are “dull,” “boring,” and “insignificant.” Only by being so could they accomplish the inte Jectual mandate of reductivism atthe heart ofthe enterprise of Conceptual art. The reduction of art tothe condition ofan intel- leetual concept of itself was an aim which cast doubt upon any given notion ofthe sensuous experience of art, Yet the loss ofthe sensuous was a state which sel had tobe experienced. Replicing a work with Aatheoretial essay which could hang in its place was the most direct means toward thisend; itwas Coneeptualism’s most cele- brated action, a gesture of usurpation of the predominant position ofall he intellectual ‘organizers who controlled and defined the Institution of An. Bul, more importantly, itwas the proposal ofthe final and defini tive negation of art as depiction, a negation which, as we've seen, isthe feos of exper ‘mental, reduetvist modernism. And itean still be elaimed that Conceptual art actually accomplished this negation. In consenting, to read the essay that takes a work of ant’ place, spectators are presumed 10 continue the process oftheir own redefii tion, and thus to participate ina utopian project of transformative, speculative set Feinvention: an avant-garde project. Linguistic conceptualism takes art as close to the boundary ofits own slf-overcoming, ‘or self-dissolution, as itis ikely to get, leaving its audience with ony the task of rediscovering legitimations for works of fart as they had existed, and might continue toexist, This was, and remains, a revo tionary way of thinking about art in which its ight to exists rethought in the place ‘or moment tational reserved forthe enjoyment of at's actual existence in the encounter with a work of ar, In true mod terist fashion it establishes the dynamic in which the intellectual legitimation of art ‘assuch—that i the philosophical content of aesthetics—is experienced as the content fof any particular moment of enjoyment, But, dragging its heavy burden of depiction, [Photography could not follow pure, o in guise, Conceptualism all the way to the frontier. 1 eannot provide the experience ‘ofthe negation of experience, but must continue to provide the experience of ‘depiction, of the Picture, It possible that the fundamental shock that photography caused was to have provided a depiction ‘hich could be experienced more the way the visible world is experienced than had ever been possible previously. A photo: {graph therefore shows its subject by means ‘ofshowing what experience i ike; in that sense it provides “an experience of expe tenee,” and it defines this asthe significance of depiction In this light, it could be sad that it was pho- tography’s ole und task to turn vay from Conceptual art, away from reduetvism and is aggressions. Photoconceptualism was then the last moment of the pre-history ‘of photography as art, the end ofthe Old Regime, the most sustained and sophisti: cated attempt to free the medium from its peculiar distanced relationship with artistic radicalism and from its tiesto the Western Picture, In its failure to oso, it revolution: ized ovr concept ofthe Picture and c the conditions forthe restoration ofthat ‘concept a a central category of contempo- rary art by around 1974, 1.C4. Thierry de Dues discussion of nominal, in Pict Nomination: On Marcel chan Passage rom Pango the Readymade, ans Dana Polan with she author (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Pres, 1991) 2. Peter Birger, Theo of the Art Garde trans, Michael Sha (Minneapolis Univesity ‘of Minnesota Pres, 198), 3. Avaran, made as collage, inthe Daled Collectio, Brussels 4, Friedrich Nietzsche, “Esco Homo,” in On the Holling (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 5. Clement Greenberg, Modest Pintng” ment Grocer: The Collected Essays and Cet, vol A: Moderne wth a Vengeance, Universi of Chicago Press, 1955). 92. Tid, 8. T.Thedor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory rans (C. Lenhart (London: Routledge & Kegan Poul 1984) 464 «70, .Cf-de Duve's argument thatthe Readymade éanishoald be nominated pining. 9. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, rans Donald Nicholson Sith (New York Zone Books, 190,135 (thesis 190), 10. Robert A. Soiesek discuss Ro Smithson's ve ofthe Instamatecamera ia his Robert Smithson: Pho Werks exe (Los ‘Angeles Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Albuqueraue: Universi of New Mexico Pres 1993), 16,17 (note 2.25 (note 6).