Historicizing (2009

The Pictures Generation

DOUGLAS EKLUND They were part of the first generation to be born into the swarm of images spawned by the rapidly expanding post-war consumer culture—movies, magazines, and music—which was, seen from our perspective today, still in its infancy. It was precisely this transformation of the American economy—from one based on need to one of desire—that shaped their outlook of the world.14

SARAH I guess our generation is now being called “the pictures generation” ever since Doug Eklund’s show at the Met. We’ve officially become the pictures generation, which is sort of derived from Metro Pictures and the whole postmodern shtick about representation and all the things that it was about.

LAURIE SIMMONS For any period of time there are 100 different stories, depending on who you speak to. I can assure you that every single artist in that show had their own story about that show.

It was just another museum show that was bringing together a story that we knew that was being told from a different vantage point. If it was our story, we would have told it from our vantage point, not from the pictures generation’s story. We would have started from the point where the women met, not from the guys in grad school in CalArts.

CINDY SHERMAN It was a lot of people to be thrown into one time period of our history … crossing LA, and New York, and also film and visual art and performance and theater. That’s what that time was about. You weren’t just painting or being a photographer. You also happened to be in a band or did stand-up comedy—everybody was experimenting and nobody thought they were going to make any money from their work, so they might as well try other stuff…

JAY GORNEY Generally artists make their work, and then critics, writers, gallerists, and curators package it into movements. There are cultural “Big Bang” moments when diverse artists make work with strong relationships—Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, for example. Sometimes it’s actually a manifesto, as with Dada, but generally it’s a zeitgeist moment. Then critics spin it one way and curators spin it another way and dealers spin it another way. In terms of the Pictures group, it became clear that there was a diverse group of artists working with popular photographic imagery. But when you look at more carefully at artists as different as Cindy Sherman or Sarah Charlesworth or Richard Prince or Jim Welling, the differences become far more pronounced. Sarah looked so good in the Pictures show. But Doug Eklund, who did a great job on the exhibition, also acquired the work for the Met. That was really meaningful for Sarah.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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