HRImIjB!

OF THE

Museui

II

The Whitney Museum of American Art,

Downtown at Federal Reserve Plaza, is
funded by a partnership of Park Tower
Realty and IBM, the developers of
Federal Reserve Plaza.

This exhibition was organized by the

following Helena Rubinstein Fellows in

the Whitney

Museum Independent

Study Program: Timothy Landers,

Jackie McAllister, Catsou Roberts,

Benjamin Weil, and Marek Wieczorek.

Front cover:
Installation views of the

Whitney Museum of American

Downtown

at

Art,

Federal Reserve Plaza

Back cover:
Scratch

made by

Scralcher,

Liz Larner's Wall

1988

1989 Whitney

Museum

of American Art

945 Madison Avenue

New

York,

New York

10021

7 ^4
The Desire of the Museum
Introduction
CATSOU ROBERTS AND TIMOTHY LANDERS

1 he museum

and exhibition of

collection, preservation, interpretation,

and

status as art

largely determines.

it

of art

Conceived

museum

cyclopedic spirit of the Enlightenment, the

is

devoted to the

objects

in the

humanist and en-

was created from the trans-

formation of private, often royal, treasuries into national resources.

in

whose value

It

developed

the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, along with parks and other

spaces for leisure, as part of the emergent public sphere. By providing access to
art objects for the cultural

assumed

a stance of disinterested altruism since

But the
historically,

museum
it

does not

strictly

its

has

inception.

serve the needs of the general public;

late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

American museums were formed from the

trialists,

museum

has advanced the special interests of specific social groups. For

example, during the

great

enlightenment of the general public, the

many

of the

collections of wealthy indus-

whose values these museums often upheld and whose names they

sometimes bore. More

postwar period, the

recently, in response to the

museum

consumer economy of the

has evolved, in part, into a recreational center

department store offering blockbuster spectacles and

to bolster

attendance and revenue.

Finally,

museums

art

cum

souvenirs all in order

today can serve as public

relations vehicles for corporate supporters or as sites of public amenities for

which urban developers can obtain zoning variances.

M
Market

aD

ST*

humanist ideals upon which

forces, corporate sponsorship, the

founded, the personal histories and objectives of

"The Desire
intentions;

it

Museum," suggests more than

of the

and contradictory

This

is

aware of its own

own

its

it

museum. However,

want from the

museum?"

For

museum which determines

examine the desires

that

it

is

the plav

desires between the viewer

ol

ol

as a

ol

you

and the

These

art.

motivate the primary functions

where

and

not entirely

"What do

seum-collection, preservation, and display; and they consider the

place of sublimation, a place

where

museum-goer

also be asked,

the institutional experience

that

as a site

Anthropomorphizing the museum

desires.

is

it

and conscious

not only offers a historically

museum-goer must

the

stall all

and needs come

desiring subject shifts the princ ipal focus of examination from the
to the

was

it

of this show,

title

special interests

way of producing knowledge, hut also

interests,

the

desires, beliefs,

museum

to suggest that the

culturally specific

and

curators, artists,

museum conceives

imputes an unconscious to the

different, often disruptive

into play.

its

museum. But

these play a role in the construction of the

essays

the

museum

mu.is

libidinal energies are directed into the socially

acceptable activity of "art appreciation."

This "psychoanalysis" of the

sented by

Marcel

artists.

Such

Duchamp and

a critical
his

museum

Duchamp

readymades.

absorbs the individual work of art so that

an

institutional context. In the 1960s

Duchamp, focused

first

then on the greater

social,

is

located.

More

itself

(
l

.)7()s,

political

must he traced

suggested that the

meaning

and

recently, artists

museum, we hope

its

economic and

tempts to reflect and engage

both the work

museum

is

in

to

museum

constructed only within

artists,

on the physical environment

often influenced by

which

network

in

art

is

viewed, and

which the

museum

have employed psychoanalysis as a way to compli-

cate this critique of the institution,

the

inspired by different critiques pre-

is

examination of the

and "The Desire of the Museum"

this theoretical position.

to highlight

our role

in

also at-

As curators working within

the institutional process.

Through

and exhibition design, we explore museological components

such as the security system (Julia Scher, Security

(Andrea Fraser and Louise Lawler, The

by Julia V),

docent instruction

Public Life of Act: The Museum), gallery

atmosphere (with dramatic lighting and the proliferation of gallery sounds), and
spatial organization.

lor the critical

and

and

By

this intervention,

artistic

work

that has

to signal the diversity of interests

in the

we mean

to offer a provocative setting

informed "The Desire of the Museum"

and desires including our own operating

process of organizing the exhibition.

LAURIE SIMMONS,

Untitled

(Women Looking at

Art),

1984

&
4

Paradox and Perversion:

The Unconscious of the Museum

I

MO

II

Y I.ANDl kS

museum

1 he
tion:

it

determines what

forms of knowledge,

culturally worthy and what

specific kinds of pleasures,

and "value" through

"truth," "reality,"

depend on

a desire that has

is

is

normalizing

not;

it

institu-

allows particular

and disallows others;

it

produces

primary functions of the

its

and preservation of artworks.

collection,

tions

is

display,

Paradoxically, these normalizing func-

been rechanneled, reconfigured, and

is

ex-

pressed through what Freud called "perversions" exhibitionism, voyeurism,

and

fetishism. In the

museum,

these functions, these manifestations of desire,

comprise a methodology of looking which

in

museum depends on

Indeed, the epistemological value of the

structure

around the supremacy

itself

of

turn constitutes a way of knowing.

this exhibition

Aimee

ability to

sight the privileged sense through

which knowledge has been formed since the Renaissance.

knowledge the nexus of desire and

its

vision, subject

at this site

of

and space that the works

in

It

is

can be located.

Rankin's boxes from the series Renaissance (1983-84) have grid-

covered windows through which one sees postcard reproductions of Renaissance

paintings as well as miniature versions of scientific apparatuses such as a tele-

scope or a microscope. By creating a microcosm of the museum, one

act of looking
eyes, adjust

scrutinizes

even as

it

in

which

tfie

cannot be taken for granted (we must look into the box, squint our

our focus, distinguish figure and ground),

this

work both

solicits

and

our gaze. The process thus plays upon the voyeurism of the viewer

simultaneously declares the exhibitionism of the museum-its function

as a house of display. As Rankin suggests, the conjunction

rise to cataloguing, collecting,

method and the

In Rankin's

1987),

indulged and then disrupted.

and

is

now

states gives

from the

The

threatened.

series Ecstasy, the pleasure of looking

viewer

The

scientific

museum.

is

by the discovery of daggerlike nails aimed

anticipated

two

and observation, the hallmarks of the

principal activities of the

box Fear

of these

is

shocked out of voyeuristic pleasure

at

the eyeballs our gaze has been

stark minimalism of the box's exterior

does not prepare us for the lush, textured, curio-cabinet interior that offers a

carnivalesque catalogue of objects of mass culture and representations from

museum

culture.

Julia Seller's installation Security by Julia

V (1989)

consists of eight video

cameras placed opposite one another along the length of the

positioned at eye

others above. The images produced by the typical security

level,

camera, which guards the

art

and records the museum-goer, are played back on

ten monitors, disrupting the centered position of the viewers gaze

the narrative

museum-goer to look at art (in

this case

an

spaces, to police

the

borders, to protect

its

museum-goer are looking

at the

its

work,

museum to monitor

possessions. Both the

museum-goer and

this

installation of security

images of that museum-goer) coincides with the desire of the

its

and displacing

and perspectival elements of the viewing experience. In

the desire of the

some are

gallery;

museum and

the desires of the two

become mutually dependent.

In Enlarged from the Catalogue, "The United States of America" (1989), Silvia

Kolbowski imposes the plan of the American wing of The Metropolitan

of Art into the space of the Whitney
Federal Reserve Plaza. This

mapping

Museum
is

of American Art,

Museum

Downtown

at

effected through the configuration of a

bench, nine display cases with silkscreened images, and catalogues in a wall
display. All these

elements are positioned

significant sites in the Metropolitans

seum

galleries.

This ordering

in

such a way as to locate certain

American Wing within the Whitney Mu-

shifts the epistemological prerequisites for display

onto new, unfamiliar terrain by substituting the logic of museum display for the
logic of the installation, revealing both as

hermetic systems that permit knowl-

edge only once certain precepts have been given. The catalogue
installation

the

ing,

On

Kolbowskis

reproduces excerpts from the Metropolitan's catalogue of works

American Wing. These excerpts are seen through

paper.

in

this tracing

and other

paper are

texts omitted

Kolbowskis own

a thin sheet of tracing

text, subjective

from the Metropolitan's

and question-

American

history of

culture such as selections from an autobiographical account of a slave

from a recent anthology

texts, in

dominant

museum

to

girl

taken

The Classic Slave Narratives. This juxtaposition of

which the histories glossed over by the

desire of the

The

titled

in

museum

present American culture and

speak out, reveals the

history as only that of the

class.

Guerrilla Girls use a different

cultural production

and the

method

to address the diversity of

multiplicity of voices that the

museum

denies in

its

representation of culture and history. Their posters, usually pasted around

SoHo, take the form of an explicit/acnw. "What's fashionable,

tax-deductible?" asks one poster. "Discriminating against

prestigious,

women and

and

non-white

(K
artists"

is

the reply, followed by

i m
statistics

and whites who have shown work

which

list

is

the large percentages of

in recent exhibitions

corporations and foundations. This information

racism and sexism that

ill

a matter of course

is

men

sponsored by major

powerful comment on the

in the art world.

Like Kolbowski and the Guerrilla Girls, Andrea Fraser and Louise Lawler

explore the precariousness of the normalizing operations of the museum. Their

videotape The Public

documentary of

The

Life of Art:

a docent's tour

Museum (1988-89)

It

of a

PBS

begins like

distractions, slips of the tongue,

associations of the docent reveal her desires

and

free

and how they both support and

museum. Her stream-of-consciousness ramblings imply

subvert those of the

desire that cannot be normalized,

and

form

through an unnamed museum.

most docent tours, but gradually the

subjectivities" of the

takes the

and the consequent recognition of the

museum and the docent

marks the point of entry

to the public

into the

"split

suggests points of critical resistance

possible change. Fraser's installation Amuse(um) (1989), with

corded announcements ("Open

,"

its

tape-re-

"No spitting," "Have a nice day!"),

museum. Her aluminum,

smiley-face disks

whimsically trace a path throughout the exhibition installation, calling attention

AIMEE rankin, De

Pictum, from the series Renaissance, 1983

to various idiosyncratic aspects of the gallery space, as if locating points of interest

within a hypothetical docent tour.

Laurie Simmons' 1984 Tourism photographs focus on the involvement of the

museum

non-art activities and environments. Simmons' two photographs,

in

Tourism: Parthenon

and Tourism:

culture across the globe

suggest the extension of

Eiffel Tower,

and equate tourism with consumption. The figures

her photos are plastic dolls awkwardly positioned

famous
the

museum begin and where does it end?

museums

The way
general

in

me

history.

desire spills past

borders.

its

rely

on consumption

change your

Til

is

the subject of Barbara Kruger's 1984

The maniacal

life).

look of the photographed

puppet conveys an eerie desperation which, combined with the

contradiction in the ideology of the

humanist ideal of art

acknowledges
placelike a

museum: on

commodity

to

text, points to a

the one hand,

"change your

as transcendental, able to

art as a material

toy.

Where does

In contemporary culture, the lines are

which the desires of the museum, the museum-goer, and the

economy

Untitled (Buy

and

in

of stock photos of

in front

tourist sites, creating a simulacra of culture, art,

blurred, and the

museum

it

life";

be bought and sold

clings to the

on the other,
in the

it

market-

Kruger's work, like most of the works in this exhibition, points to

a conflict between the

museum's self-image as an

marketplace or other external forces and

its

institution aloof

from the

actual behavior.

Sublimating the Viewer

MAREK WIECZO.REK

/according

to

Freud, civilization de-

pends on the channeling of sexual drives into desexualized and

activities.

ates in

all

He

called this process "sublimation"

forms of

civilized behavior,

it is

most

contemplation. Although sublimated activity

repression,
art

it

and argued

that,

socially

though

valued
it

oper-

active in aesthetic creation

satisfies

unconscious drives without

tends to dissolve the original component of bodily pleasure.

museum, inasmuch

contemplative mind

in

as

it

and

The

posits an ideal viewer a nonsexual, purely

devout communion with art is an important

site

of

sublimation.
In modernist art, this desexualization of the viewer

is

primarily effected

through the pursuit of a "pure"

object

is

art, a

"pure"

detached from the other senses

mode

contemplation. This

The experience of the

vision.

purpose

to serve the

of aesthetic experience governs modernist painting

from Kasimir Malevich and

Mondrian

Piet

Kenneth Noland and Larry Poons.

to

The modern museum supports this essentialization

where the paradigm of "pure"

vision

is

of vision:

it

is

the temple

celebrated. All objects that enter the

must succumb to its desexualizing, dematei ializing gaze. The viewer

institution

become

forced to

only a spectator "Do not

touch" and

not only tends to abstract vision from the body, but

this

on perception. Recent

desires

and the construction of

that vision

oi vision

also obscures the effect oi

and theories have questioned

critical art practices

model of perception and shown

it

is

deny other bodily

to

sensations "No smoking, eating, or drinking." This institutionalization

desire

art

disembodied

oi

corporeal and

is

sexuality. In el led,

bound up with

such work makes one see

oneself seeing.

Richard Artschwager and Liz

activity

of the

berized hair,
ers,

museum. Artschwager's

set in

museums

Larner's The Desire

filled petti

directly challenge the sublimative

Blps (1989) are small, gray ovals of rub-

the marginal areas of the exhibition space. As "dirty" intrud-

they challenge the

visibility.

Lamer

of (he

dishes to which are

desire to be a clean,

Museum

well-lit

place of neutral

Cultures (1989) consists of live agar-

added various substances chosen by the individual

curators of this exhibition. In a playful

pun on

Larner aestheticizes these materials with

the double

brilliant

meaning of "culture,"

dyes (the colors change and

fade during the course of the exhibition). These infusions reflect the desires of
the curators to address issues such as

nationalism, paternity

and reproductive technology, museum

psychic ramifications of

machine

AIDS and testing as a form of social control,

loss.

that cuts into the

Another Larner

museums

walls.

practice,

and the

piece, Wall Scratcher (1988),

Moved

to a

new

is

location each day,

it

produces more and more gashes, eventually leaving a scarred ring around the
gallery. Larner's clinically precise

controlled climate,
tion of dirt

and

works intrude on the museums pristine

and quiet hum. They question

decay, desire

its

typical rejection or sublima-

and the body.

Aimee Rankin's dioramic boxes not only stress the carnal aspect of
also

engage senses usually suppressed

in the

museum. One

movement, and taped music

headphones accompany the

from the 1987

that the viewer activates by

They contain

plugging

in

historical

images and gift-shop curios as well as mirrors, fake body

disembodied

eyes, all

arranged

to

vision, but

gazes through aus-

tere exteriors into elaborate interiors via peepholes. In the boxes

Ecstasy series, light,

walls,

interior tableaux.

tissues,

art

and

both seduce and shock the viewer. Sound and

ALLAN McCOLLUM,

Plaster Surrogates,

1982-89

yj

flfl

movement connect

the body and the box in a way that denies any "pure" vision or

aesthetic distance. Rankin's

work makes us aware that the pleasures of looking are

directly linked to the

body and

side of these desires,

which are rechanneled by the museum.

unconscious desires;

its

it

reveals the "perverse"

Allan McCollum's Plaster Surrogates (19S2-H9) constitute an indefinite series

monochrome

of almost identical

paintings in the form of plaster casts, with the

frame, the mat, and the "picture" painted on the plaster. They metaphorically

reduce painting to a convention,

to a

simple token of exchange.

repeatable image dislocates content, for there

painting,

viewer

nothing

single but

"see" no original

to

no unique work, nothing "pure" about the work or the visual form. The
caught

is

is

The

in

the act of seeking out an emotional connection,

ol

looking for

distinctive features for contemplation, but the sheer proliferation of the surro-

gates

makes us

realize that art traditionally has

sublimative activity controlling

Plaster Surrogates threaten to

all

As

Larner, Rankin, and

to essentialize vision or to posit

depend on museological,

and

substitutes lor any

in relation to

all art

the

objects, the

exceed the control of the museum.

The works of Artsch wager,

no longer possible

it.

meaning only

McCollum

suggest that

it

is

an ideal viewer. Although they

aesthetic, or art historical conventions, they seek to

subvert the "pure" contemplation which these conventions usually support.

Moreover, the works investigate the consequences of the

activity as they affect the desires

group, the works

stand

and

its

own

of both viewer and

in this exhibition offer the

presuppositions,

its

own

museums

sublimated

museum. Considered

museum

way

to begin to

as a

under-

unconscious, and the relation of its desires

beliefs to cultural production.

The Museum Under Analysis

JACKIE MCALLISTER AND BENJAMIN WEIL

Any
sire

of the

critical

museum

of the

of Marcel

contemporary analysis of the de-

assumes, as one of its preconditions, a varied tradition of art

museum

Duchamp

as

an institution a tradition which ranges from the works

to those of

such contemporary figures as Hans Haacke,

Joseph Kosuth, Louise Lawler, Ashley Bickerton, Peter Nagy, Mark Dion, and
Jason Simon.

Two

objectives of the

museum

10

are often singled out in these

I
need

critiques: the

to celebrate the individual

work

of

art

and the need

to

construct the perfect i.e., the most representative and completecollection.

However, these objectives can be contradictory, for once a work

museum

effectively disappears as

it

an entity

in

its

own

right to

of art

enters a

become

part of

the larger entity of the collection.

This institutional operation was

investigated by

first

From or by Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Selavy (The Box

Duchamp; indeed,

in a Valise)

is

paradigmatic. As a

compilation in miniature of most of Duchamp's earlier works, The Box

version, 1941) creates a

(first

comprehensive mini-collection. In

and thereby questions the context

the

museum. As

enclosed space for displaying

archival activity of the

aesthetic.

art.

museum.

By thus assuming the

meaning of art

established by

is

In the late 1950s,

as

a repository of documents,

role of curator,
its

as

provoked

nomic, and

artists

political

art world, these

Duchamp, began

in the

In the early 1960s,

to investigate the per-

museum.

commercial

interests

opened up

and corporate ideologies

is

enmeshed. In

this way, a

status of

its

Haacke brings

wider

for critical artistic practice.

18881975

(1975),

Haacke provides

traces the

provenance of Les Poseuses by the

French Neo-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat. By relating

and economic

constitute the

This work, which consists of fourteen panels

and one color photograph,

it,

This, in

social, eco-

determinants of art. Often unseen within the confines of the

specific case history of patronage.

each paid for

that the

United States

such as Hans Haacke to attend to the wider

of subject matter has

social

an

mocks the

it

Duchamp demonstrates

John Cage and Jasper Johns.

In Seurat's "Les Poseuses" (small version),

with text

as

institutional context.

system in which the work of art, as commodity,

field

occurs in

promotional as they are

ceptual conditions and physical spaces of the gallery and the

turn,

doubles

In addition, the valise satirically suggests that the

often influenced by

artists,

it

art usually

Duchamp's work became better known

through such admirers

Minimalist

As

effect,

in a Valise

box parodies the museum

whose concerns are

traveling salesman

artist is a

which the viewing of

in

a presentation device, the

his

successive owners

facts

about the

and highlighting the price

information usually hidden behind the

to light

The

abstractions of wall labels

and catalogue

journey from the

studio to the portfolio of an investment consortium

artist's

contradicts the notion of the

work of art

entries.

evidence of the painting's

commercial

as a creation untainted by

concerns. Indeed, Haacke demonstrates that these concerns always govern a

work's status as art
If

Haacke

Kosuth

is

is

and

as

commodity.

interested in

how patronage

affects the

work of

concerned with how curatorial interpretation determines

11

art,

its

Joseph

meaning.

-S*

His Cathexis scries (1981-82) comprises altered black-and-white photographs,

displayed upside-down, of either an Old Master painting or a traditional Salonstyle

hanging of such paintings. These images

comment on
and

the conditions of viewing art in

texts contain

matching

the structure of both

its

.tie

juxtaposed with texts

institutional settings.

that

The images

colored (tosses which highlight significant points in

and suggest

a specific

order of reading. Kosuth thus

emphasizes how interpretative habits and institutional contexts govern the

meaning of art and challenges the viewer

to think

through these constraints.

Louise Lawler's work also underscores contextual elements that determine

viewing in the gallery or museum. In her series of simulated wall

photograph of
areas)

is

museum

setting

(i.e,

an installation shot or

labels, a color

a view of storage

juxtaposed with a word that redirects our reading of the image. In

Midnight (1986), for instance, the word "midnight" refers to the viewing condition
of the photographed artwork
(1986), the

word

(a

sculpture seen outside,

refers to the color of the

room

in

at night),

while in Green

which the photographed

sculptures are being stored. In this way, Lawler focuses our attention on the

work's surroundings on

INTERESTING

its

"frames" rather than on the work

(1985), a painted wall sign that

itself.

With

mimics the bank logos found

at

every local cash machine, Lawler poses an analogy between cultural and financial
institutions.

While the word directs attention

S^vV

to the

punning

rT

tr

Jug
MARCEL DUCHAMP,

From

(The Box

1960

in a Valise), c.

or by

Marcel Duchamp or

12

Rro.se Selavy

associations be-

M[N

tween intellectual interest and monetary

interest,

it

also alludes to a

broader

range of attentions and desires aroused within the exhibition.

Ashley Bickerton,

produces work that plays on the insatiable needs

in turn,

of the art market. His wall constructions are assembled from industrially fabricated parts, with electronic

and painted

aesthetic of the works. Landscape

#5

which emphasize the high-tech

signs,

(1989) addresses the market as a driving

force behind the production of art. Here, the market

electronic display of the work's

markings such

topicality with

cultural value with

represented through the

Confirming

financial value.

"Season 88/89," Landscape

as

commodity

Nagy addresses the

Peter

own updated

is

#5

its

directly links

value.

issue of the

museum

as a

promotional device for

the corporate world in Intellectual History (1984), which consists of a black-and-

white photocopy of
the collection

is

The Metropolitan Museum

and Xerox. By making visual

Electric,

of Art's floor plan. Each area of

IBM, General

overlaid with the logos of such corporations as

the financing structure of the

this relationship,

museum and

Nagy

reveals an aspect of

suggests the kind of public image

sought by these corporations through their cultural sponsorship.

In their film Artful History:

Simon explore the

Produced

fate of the

as a clinical technician

To accompany the

cut

up

to

deemed

work of

(1988),

Mark Dion and Jason

commercial restoration studio.

art in a

in the style of a polite public television

transferred to video) seeks to

retrieved

A Restoration Comedy

documentary, the film (here

undermine the notion of the commercial

restorer

concerned only with the aesthetic integrity of the artwork.

Dion places on the gallery

film,

from a restoration

studio.

wall strips of paintings

These scraps derive from damaged paintings

produce smaller works when the expense of restoring the originals was

exorbitant.

The dimensions of the uncut paintings are presented on

wall to give a sense of the

that led to the cuts.

damage wrought, and

Between the

film

and the

the

text panels relate to the events

installation pieces, restorers

retouchers are seen to respond to the promptings of art dealers and

and

museum

curators as they alter paintings to suit format requirements and marketplace

pressures.

immune

The

to

implication

hidden

These varied
notion of the

that not even the physical aspect of a

work of art

is

desires.

critical

approaches

museum as an

of the viewer.

is

to the institutional contexts

altruistic institution

The works expose many

without, which reveal the desires of the

determinants, from both within and

musem and

13

of art belie the

only concerned with the desires

complicate

its

objectives.

En
Works

All

in

the Exhibition

in inches; height

dimensions are

Wedding Presents, 1989

precedes width precedes depth.

Mixed-media

installation with text,

dimensions variable
Collet lion

RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER(b.
Blps,

1923)

the artist

<>l

MARCEL DL CHAMP

(1887-1968)

1989

From

Rubberized hair, twelve units,

18x9x leach
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York

or by

Marcel Duchamp

(The Box in a

Valise), c.

Mixed media with

closed, 1614

x60x

Rune

Selavy

valise, 16'/hX 14 7/xx4'/k

opened

\7Vi

Collection of Timothy

ASHLEY BICKER TON

or

I960

Baum and

Roland Augustine
(b.

1959)

Landscape #5, 1989

Mixed-media construction. 3414x80^x36

Sonnabend Gallery, New York

ANDREA ERASER

(b.

1965)

Amuse(um), 1989
Installation with seven

MARK DION
SIMON

(b.

(b.

1961)

and

JASON

1961)

Artful History:

aluminum

disks

and

sound recording, dimensions variable

!olle<

tion of the artist

Restoration Comedy. 1988

Videotape transfer

of color film,

sound.

ANDREA ERASER
LAWLER
1917)

28 minutes

and

LOUISE

(b.

Collection of the artists

of Art: The Museum. 1988-89
Produced by Terry McCoy
Videotape, color, sound, 15 minutes

The Public Life

MARK DION

Collection of Terry

McCo)

Cutting Corners. 1982

Mixed media with altered painting by

Brown, 1860, and text, 27 x 25

GUERRILLA GIRLS

J.G.

Collection of the artist

Untitled.

Economic Recovery, 1984

Mixed media with

unidentified

altered painting by an

artist, c.

1825,

1987

Offset poster, 22 x 17

and

text,

Collection of the artists

25 x 15

Collection of the artist

Cntitled.

1988

Offset poster.
History Bunk, 1984

17x22

Collection of the artists

unidentified

Mixed media with altered painting by an

artist, c. 1930, and text, 21 X 29

Untitled.

Collection of the artist

Offset poster,

1989
1 1

x 28

Collection of the artists

Bizarre Chanty. 1987

Mixed media with

text,

altered painting

and

Untitled.

24 X 18

1989

Offset poster,

17x22

Collection of the artists

Collection of the artist

14

HANS HA ACRE

(b.

1936)

"Melancholia,
hair,

Seurat's "Les Poseuses" (small version),

Gallery,

Enlarged from

"The United

cases,

1953)

JEWEL,

tears, a

dishes

artist;

courtesy 303

York

1947)

(b.

1982

Color photograph and transfer type

1989

on paper, 4x13
Metro Pictures,

installation with nine display

bench, and catalogues in wall

x 17 each;
bench, 18 x 60 x 16; wall display, 10 x 30
Postmasters Gallery, New York
display: display cases,

New

LOUISE LAWLER

(b.

Mixed-media

in agar-filled petri

Collection of the
Gallery.

SILVIA KOLBOWSKI
States of America,"

Utopia" (three

1989

with display stand

New York

the Catalogue,

Mama.

wish),

Mixed media

1888-1975, 1975
Fourteen panels with text. 30x20 each,
and one color photograph, 23% x 27 V\

John Weber

and a

50 x

17

New York

STORAGE,

Queens Museum, Hushing

Meadow-Corona Park, New York, on loan from
the Metropolitan

Museum

of Art, restored with

funds from the Chase Manhattan Bank, 1984

Black-and-white photograph and transfer

JOSEPH KOSUTH

(b.

type on paper, 4 x 13

1945)

Metro Pictures,

New York

Cathex/s 44. 1982

Altered black-and-white photograph,

THE NORWICH FREE ACADEMY,

84'A>x 119'/>

Slater

Leo

New York

Castelli Gallery,

Connecticut, 1984
Color photograph and transfer type

Cathexis 45, 1982

on paper, 4x13
Metro Pictures, New York

Altered black-and-white photograph,

84 'A- X

The

Memorial Museum, Norwich,

I19'/t>

Contemporary Arts Publishing

Consortium, Mineola, New York

Arranged

by

Marvin Heiferman, 1985

Black-and-white photograph and transfer

type on paper, 4 x 13

Metro

BARBARA KRL'GER
I

'nlitled

(Buy me

I'll

(b.

1945)

change your

life),

Pictures,

New York

INTERESTING, 1985

(reinstalled 1989)

Latex on wall, dimensions variable

1984

Metro

Black-and-white photograph. 72 x 48
Private collection

Pictures,

New

York

Green, 1986

Color photograph and transfer type

LIZ

LARNER

(b.

on paper, 4 x 13
Metro Pictures,

I960)

New York

Midnight, 1986

Wall Sc catcher, 1988

Anodized aluminum, 12-volt gear motor

with battery, and spring steel, 47 x 12'/i x
303 Gallery, New York

Black-and-white photograph and

embossing on paper, 4x13
Metro Pictures, New York

18'/l>

Etes-Vous Heureuse?, 1987

Color photograph laminated to gold

The Desire

of the

Museum

engraved plexiglass, 5x14

Metro Pictures, New York

Cultures: Timothy

Landers, "Anti-Bodies" (semen

and

blood):

Jackie McAllister, "Scotch Mist" (whiskey

and

haggis); Catsou Roberts, "Gynecology" (semen);

Benjamin

museum

Weil,

floor

"Muscology" (dust from the

and

walls):

Marek

Wieczorek,

15

...

fcfH

ALLAN McCOLLUM

(b.

1982-89
Enamel on hydrostone, 96

Foundingfathersfoily day, 1954

1944)

Plaster Surrogates,

units,

Collage,

12x20

Whitney

Museum

New

(sight)

of American Art,

York; Gift of Rita Reinhardl

76.46

dimensions variable
John Weber Gallery,

New York

Portend

/ the Artist us

Yhung

Mandala, 1955
Collage, 2()!/ix 13M> (sight)

Whitney

PETER NAGY

(b.

Intellectual tin/on,

1959)

New

composite photocopy,

Gorney Modern Art,

A1MEE RANKIN
De

Pictura,

Life oj Art, n.d.

ill

from the

(b.

Whitney

New York

New

Museum

York;

(.ilt ol

[ULIA SCHER

1958)

series

Security by Julia V,

Renaissance, 1983

of American Art,
Rita Reinhardt

76.48

1954)

(I).

1989

Closed-circuit video surveillance

Mixed-media assemblage, 16x20x

Postmasters Gallery,

12

installation,

New York

from the series

Renaissance, 1983-84
Mixed-media assemblage,
l.u

76.45

Collage, 1()x24'/j (sight)

11x8'/..
|ay

of American Art,

1984
Art

Blac k-and-white

Museum

York; Gift of Rita Reinhardt

dimensions variable

Equipment donated by Matthew

Maniscalco,

Pittura,

NYCO

Electronics, Security

Systems, Inc., Panasonic, and Ikegami

16 x

20 x

Electronics (U.S.A)
12
(

Police

lion ol the artist

Private colle< tion

Nature Morte, from the series

198384
Mixed-media assemblage, I6x20x
Collection of Catherine Holland

LAURIE SIMMONS

Renaissance,

(b.

1949)

12

Tourism: Eiffel Tower, 19S4

Color photograph, 60 x 40

from the series Ecstasy, 1987

Mixed-media box construction with sound,
lights, and motor, IS x 24 x 24
Postmasters Gallery, New York

Collection of the

from the series Ecstasy, 1987

Mixed-media box construction with sound,
lights, and motor, 18 x 24 x 24
Postmasters Gallery, New York

Collection of the

Fear,

Metro

Pictures,

artist;

New

courtesy

York

Tourism: Parthenon, 1984

Color photograph, 40 x 60

Possession,

Metro

Pictures,

Untitled

artist;

courtesy

New York

(Women Looking

at Art).

Black-and-white photograph,

from the series Ecstasy, 1987

Mixed-media box construction with sound,
lights, and motor, 18 x 24 x 24
Postmasters Gallery, New York

Sex,

AD REIN HARD
Museum

New

LAURIE SIMMON S
LEVINE (b. 1947)
Project jor the cover of

(1913-1967)

and S

HERR

"New

Observations," 1984

Six black-and-white photographs,

Landscape, 1950

Museum

10

Collection of the artist

8x10

each, and three color photographs.

Collage, 9'/2x22 7/h

Whitney

1984

8x

two

of American Art,

York; Gift of the

artist

8x

10,

one 10x8

Collection of Laurie

66. 14

Photograph

16

of

Simmons

Duchamp

by Nathan Rabin

Whitney Museum of American Art

Downtown

at

Federal Reserve Plaza

33 Maiden Lane

New

York,

at

Nassau Street

New York

10038

(212) 943-5657

Monday-Friday, 11:00-6:00
Free admission

GALLERY TALKS
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 12:30
Tours by appointment

Pamela Gruninger Perkins

Head, Branch Museums

Karl Emil Willers

Branch Director

Susan Wilharm
Manager
Charles A. Wright,

Jr.

Gallery Coordinator

Design: Marc Zaref Design

Typesetting: Trufont Typographers, Inc.
Printing: Eastern Press

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN

ART,

DOWNTOWN AT FEDERAL RESERVE PLAZA

JULY 12-SEPTEMBER

12,

1989