Light Years: Conceptual Art and The Photograph 1964-1977

Walking to the furthest corner of the Art Institute was the this exhibit. Struck by a outer layer of text, it spoke as a preface to what you were to encounter upon entering the room. Very simply this explained that conceptual art defy's our expectations of what you can consider to be "art." We are asking what the medium is, or how it is made, or the "authorial sensibility" of its maker? What can we really consider art, and why this and not that?

One of the most important arguments Light Years: Conceptual Art and The Photograph is trying to convey is the seriality of art. In every machine and/or mode of transportation there is a system that keeps these things moving and working. The parts that make up the whole of a system, are the important factors that cannot function with out each other just as a body of photographs. One without the other, convey completely different manifestations then if seen as a whole, well oiled machine.

Photography often serves as a form of communication, a language of a sort. Each image is a representation of a site-specific reality, as the viewer we can interpret this in many ways from how the scale affects my perception, to the medium it is displayed on or the physical factors of the space. This constantly can change depending on where you stand, your mood, the lights and or the people around you. I found the first room, filled with walls that made triangles in the middle of the room one of my favorite displays; I was viciously circling and each time around I would see something different. That thought brought me back to how definition of conceptual art and the photograph create a relationship that is formed through personal experiences.

Matthew S. Witkovsky author of The Unfixed Photograph breaks down the years in which photography became part of the world of art and the conceptual. He refers to Bochner's 36 Photographs and 12 Diagrams as the "illusion of literalism," asking the question if there could be a literal representation of an object or person? Is there any such thing as a literal representation, has the lighting influened the shape or perspective of the wooden blocks? Arguing that these details, "complicate the promise of faithful and proportionate reproductions"(19,Witcovsky).

To a certain point, I would agree with him. Yet, I believe although however it has been photographed it only becomes true if it is left untouched.