RELAÇÕES PÚBLICAS & MARKETING DIGITAIS

This exhibition presents a selection of remarkable photographs by Shunk-Kender from the Museum’s collection, including five photographs of Yves Klein’s landmark work Leap into the Void (1960)—the iconic image that was published in Klein’s Dimanche-Le Journal d’un seul jour on November 27, 1960 (and distributed throughout Paris), along with four additional, and little-known, distinct views of the performance. Also featured are numerous photographs of Yayoi Kusama’s astonishing New York performances of 1968, including Mirror Performance—an ecstatic gathering of costumed, painted, and nude bodies within one of Kusama’s mirrored chambers—and multiple iterations of The Anatomic Explosion, in which dancers stripped and posed in front of the New York Stock Exchange and other Wall Street–area locations in an unconventional artistic protest against the Vietnam War.

A major portion of the exhibition is devoted to photographs from Pier 18. In 1971, a series of ephemeral artworks were executed at a derelict Hudson River pier in New York. Conceived and organized by Willoughby Sharp, the actions, instructions, and performances of Pier 18 were enacted in February and March of 1971 by 27 (all male) artists, including Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Jan Dibbets, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mario Merz, and Allen Ruppersberg, among others. Sharp invited Shunk-Kender to collaborate with each artist to photograph the individual projects. From the start, Sharp conceived of the project as an installation, in which Shunk-Kender’s photographs would be the physical manifestation of the work experienced by an audience. Indeed, it was through Projects: Pier 18 (June 18–August 2, 1971)—an exhibition at MoMA that was part of the Museum’s experimental Projects series—that the public ultimately discovered and engaged with the Pier 18 artworks.

Without question, the roles played by the two photographers varied from one project to the next. On the pier, Baldessari used his hands to mimic the view of their camera, emphasizing the framing choices inherent in the composition. Merz, on the other hand, suggested to the photographers that they select and record images entirely of their own preference. The resulting Pier 18 pictures capture the chaotic energy, systematic processes, and playful wit of the era’s performance and Conceptual art in two-dimensional black and white.