Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968
Edited with text by Anna Katz. Text by Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, Karin G. Oen, Dhyandra Lawson, Cynthia Daignault.
This fresh look at photorealism argues for its continued relevance today
This volume, Ordinary People, recovers the social art history of the long-dismissed genre of photorealism and demonstrates the continued relevance of photorealist strategies for artists working today. Spanning the 1960s to the present, this large-scale reexamination of the postwar art movement features the work of more than 40 artists, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and murals. It recasts the work of canonical and underrecognized photorealists of the 1960s and ’70s in new frameworks and identifies younger artists who have deployed photorealism as a vehicle for social/political critique. Unlike the typical photorealism survey, Ordinary People includes a diverse, multigenerational group of artists, with a focused look at the major contributions of women and BIPOC artists to the genre. It explores the representational politics of photorealist painting in the context of the recent rise of figurative portraiture and covers the myriad ways that artists, through this seemingly nonconfrontational aesthetic, have enticed viewers to confront painful historical events and social experiences. Artists: John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Michael Alvarez, John Baeder, Judie Bamber, Gina Beavers, Robert Bechtle, Dike Blair, Andrea Bowers, Vija Celmins, Lenore Chinn, Chuck Close, Cynthia Daignault, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings, Sayre Gomez, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., Duane Hanson, Barkley L. Hendricks, Nur Koçak, Jennifer J. Lee, Marilyn Levine, Sam Lipp, Hung Liu, Richard McLean, Marilyn Minter, Catherine Murphy, Calida Rawles, Ben Sakoguchi, Shizu Saldamando, Joan Semmel, Amy Sherald, Mamie Tinkler, Betty Tompkins, Jesse Treviño, Brittany Tucker, John Valadez, Vincent Valdez, Christine Tien Wang, Idelle Weber, Kehinde Wiley, Martin Wong, Takako Yamaguchi.
Image: Barkley L. Hendricks, "Tequila" (1978)
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Amy Sherald’s 2017 oil painting, The lesson of falling leaves, is reproduced from new release Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968, published to accompany the major MOCA LA survey on view now through May 2025. Spanning from the 1960s to today, and including everyone from Robert Bechtle and Richard Estes to Joan Semmel and Marilyn Minter, this book proves that the genre is not just alive and well, but sometimes challenging, weird and confrontational. In her catalog essay, MOCA curator Anna Katz discusses Sherald. “The dichotomy between painting and photography, drawn along lines of racial exclusion and inclusion, is stark in the work of self-described ‘American Realist’ Amy Sherald, who was catapulted to national fame at the unveiling of her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama in 2018. The lesson of falling leaves exemplifies her selection of Black sitters, often strangers, whom she chooses for their ‘quality of existing in the past, present, and future simultaneously.’ … Sherald’s signature is the depiction of the bodies (skin, hair, nails, eyes) of her portrait subjects in grayscale. She uses grayscale to invoke the nineteenth-century daguerreotype, which comprised some of the earliest portraits of African Americans. In the history of European and North American art, Black people rarely figured in painted portraits and enjoyed their first opportunities to be portrait subjects upon the dissemination of the relatively accessible means of photography. The photographic is thus doing heavy lifting here: whereas in [works by artists like Jesse Treviño and Robert Bechtle], the nonhierarchical distribution of details anchors the images to a specific time and place, in Sherald’s painting the photographic locates a historical origin of representation for Black subjects, while also pointing out a history of absence and pointing toward a future inclusion. The photographic is a corruption, an acknowledgment and an abrogation of painting’s racist foundations.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 256 pgs / 191 color / 10 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $69.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $99.95 GBP £59.99 ISBN: 9781636811000 PUBLISHER: DelMonico Books/The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles AVAILABLE: 11/5/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968
Published by DelMonico Books/The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Edited with text by Anna Katz. Text by Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, Karin G. Oen, Dhyandra Lawson, Cynthia Daignault.
This fresh look at photorealism argues for its continued relevance today
This volume, Ordinary People, recovers the social art history of the long-dismissed genre of photorealism and demonstrates the continued relevance of photorealist strategies for artists working today. Spanning the 1960s to the present, this large-scale reexamination of the postwar art movement features the work of more than 40 artists, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and murals. It recasts the work of canonical and underrecognized photorealists of the 1960s and ’70s in new frameworks and identifies younger artists who have deployed photorealism as a vehicle for social/political critique. Unlike the typical photorealism survey, Ordinary People includes a diverse, multigenerational group of artists, with a focused look at the major contributions of women and BIPOC artists to the genre. It explores the representational politics of photorealist painting in the context of the recent rise of figurative portraiture and covers the myriad ways that artists, through this seemingly nonconfrontational aesthetic, have enticed viewers to confront painful historical events and social experiences.
Artists: John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Michael Alvarez, John Baeder, Judie Bamber, Gina Beavers, Robert Bechtle, Dike Blair, Andrea Bowers, Vija Celmins, Lenore Chinn, Chuck Close, Cynthia Daignault, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings, Sayre Gomez, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., Duane Hanson, Barkley L. Hendricks, Nur Koçak, Jennifer J. Lee, Marilyn Levine, Sam Lipp, Hung Liu, Richard McLean, Marilyn Minter, Catherine Murphy, Calida Rawles, Ben Sakoguchi, Shizu Saldamando, Joan Semmel, Amy Sherald, Mamie Tinkler, Betty Tompkins, Jesse Treviño, Brittany Tucker, John Valadez, Vincent Valdez, Christine Tien Wang, Idelle Weber, Kehinde Wiley, Martin Wong, Takako Yamaguchi.
