Action/Performance and the Photograph
Curated by Craig Krull
Founder and Owner of Craig Krull Gallery in Los Angeles
“This photographic perspective considers the inherent technical qualities of the camera, its ability to stop or manipulate time, the question of truth vs. fiction, the symbolic or abstract quality of the still image, the act of photography as an action itself, and the myriad conceptual differences between catching action and orchestrating it for the camera.”
— Craig Krull
Yves Klein, Leap into the Void, 1960. Photograph by Harry Shunk, gelatin silver print.
Joseph Beuys, Coyote: I Like America and america Likes Me, May, 1974. Photograph by Caroline Tisdall, gelatin silver print.
Gilbert and George, Bad Thoughts and Broken Hearts, 1975, color photograph.
The Happenings of the 1950s began a movement of staged activities in art in which the photograph played an integral role. Performance and conceptual artists in the 1960s and 1970s often orchestrated events specifically for the camera, events as art intended to occur only once at a given moment in time. The resulting images then became both a documentary record of the event and art objects themselves.
Action/Performance and the Photograph, is an ambitious attempt to follow the evolving role of the photograph in these movements. Seen together in the first exhibition of its kind, the work of these artists— whose attitudes toward the photograph are as varied as their artistic approaches— represent yet another example of the pivotal role of photography in the development of modern art in all of its many forms, and provides a fascinating sketch of the evolution of the Happening, Performance, Conceptual, and related movements.
WORKS
68
DIMENSIONS
11 x 14 (inches)
27,94 x 35,56 (cm)
SPACE REQUIREMENTS
350 linear feet (106,68 linear meters)
INQUIRIES
exhibitions@curatorial.org
626.577.0044
FEE
$8,500
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Yves Klein, Julian Wasser, Jean Tinguely, Christo, Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneemann, Eleanor Antin, Chris Burden, Lynda Benglis, Hanna Wilke, Anselm Kiefer, John Baldessari and the Viennese Actionists (Gunther Brus, Herman Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler), among many others.
PUBLICATION
ACTION / PERFORMANCE AND THE PHOTOGRAPH
Jan Turner / Turner - Krull Galleries, 1993