For many artists, the media culture of the late 1970s and 1980s—the ever-increasing overload of movies, magazines, and television—prompted questions about how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and our experiences of the world. Some, such as Dara Birnbaum, Louise Lawler, and Cindy Sherman, began to examine how pictures and film stills circulate within the art market and the entertainment industry, often using the same tools of production and distribution. Seizing control of the camera or broadcasting on cable and public-access television was, according to Birnbaum, “a way of talking back to the media.” In quoting and reframing familiar images, and staging their own versions, these artists exposed the ways in which gender and power relations are constructed.
Organized by Roxana Marcoci, The David Dechman Senior Curator, Department of Photography, with Gee Wesley and Giampaolo Bianconi, Curatorial Assistants, Department of Media and Performance, and Phil Taylor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography.