MARINA ABRAMOVIC AND ULAY, AAA-AAA, 1978
Abramovic and Ulay kneel in front of each other, gazing into each other's eyes. Initially, they produce the same monotonous sound, but gradually a contest develops: who can yell, scream and yowl the loudest and longest…
YOKO ONO, CUT PIECE, 1964
Ono gave her first performance of Cut Piece (1964) in Kyotoin July 1964. She sat motionless on stage in a traditional Japanese feminine position, and invited members of the audience to cut a piece of her clothing away…
THOMAS RUFF, NUDES
The nudes series was created by Ruff downloading photographs from online pornographic thumbnail galleries and enlarging and distorting them to varying degrees. Literally and figuratively blurring the boundaries between pornography, formalist nude photography, and the art historical genre of the nude…
CAROLYN DRAKE, MEN UNTITLED, 2020-2023
Men Untitled by Carolyn Drake, a new series of photographs exploring her relationship to myths of masculinity in American culture…
LYLE ASHTON HARRIS AND RENEE COX, VENUS HOTTENTOT 2000, 1994
Friends and sometimes collaborators Lyle Ashton Harris and Renee Cox became prominent in the 1990s with provocative work which invites controversy, challenging and subverting white patriarchal supremacy…
PAUL PFEIFFER, RACE RIOT, 2001
In Race Riot, Paul Pfeiffer memorializes the 1996 NBA Championship in which the Chicago Bulls win the tournament. The basic image is a clip from the final victory—the moment in which Michael Jordan falls to the floor, back to the camera, hugging the ball as his teammates gather around him...
CLARISSA SLIGH, REFRAMING THE PAST
Reframing the Past (1984-1994) could also be titled Re-Reading the Family Album. From 1984 to 1994, Sligh’s work centered on a re-investigation and re-evaluation of her family’s photo album…
TOMMY KHA, I’M ONLY HERE TO LEAVE, 2015-PRESENT
I’m Only Here to Leave – a phrase taken from a conversation Kha had when he met performance artist and musician Genesis P-Orridge – started out as a series of cardboard cutout images of the photographer’s face and body, which he placed into real-world surroundings…
MARTHA ROSLER, SEMIOTICS OF THE KITCHEN, 1975
In unsmiling deadpan, Martha Rosler parodies the role of the perfect TV housewife and cook. Running through an alphabet of kitchen utensils, she demonstrates each for the camera…
DEBORAH WILLIS, I MADE SPACE FOR A GOOD MAN, 2009
Printed at the Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia, this color lithograph features a film photography triptych of Deborah Willis (presumably late 1975 or early 1976). In two of the three self-portraits, Willis sits reclining in a wicker chair wearing a black dress, eyes closed or cast down…
ARTHUR JAFA, LOVE IS THE MESSAGE, THE MESSAGE IS DEATH, 2016
From photographs of civil rights leaders watermarked with “Getty Images” to helicopter views of the LA Riots to a wave of bodies dancing to “The Dougie,” the meticulously edited 7-minute video suspends viewers in a swelling, emotional montage that is a testament to Jafa’s profound ability to mine, scrutinize, and reclaim media’s representational modes and strategies…
PIPILOTTI RIST, EVER IS OVER ALL, 1997
From her early music-video-style works to her later immersive projection environments, Rist’s unique artistic vocabulary is rooted in popular culture, technology, and historical feminist video art…
PETER HUJAR, LOVE & LUST, 1969-1986
Celebrated and revered by artists, the work of Peter Hujar remains something of a public secret, but his photographs dealing with sex and eroticism, made between the years 1969 and 1986, have come to define a certain era in New York…
AYANA V JACKSON, TAKE ME TO THE WATER
Jackson uses the archival impulse to assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography and its relationship to ideas about the body. She uses her lens to deconstruct 19th and early 20th-century portraiture as a means for questioning photography’s role in constructing identities…
CARLA J WILLIAMS, SELECT WORKS, 1983-1986
Making self-portraits and using instant film and prints, I knew I had complete control over the images and thus invested in them a degree of freedom that I might not have if I had thought anyone would ever see them, because I didn't think anyone ever would…
MATT GRUBB, BRIAN SINGER 2001
Brian Singer 2001 is a conceptual recreation of the film director Bryan Singer’s infamous gay pool parties from the early/mid 2000’s…
LYLE ASHTON HARRIS, AMERICAS, 1987-88
Harris produced an early series of black and white gelatin silver photographic prints titled “Americas” in 1987-88, in which he explored issues of race, gender, and sexuality through visual representation and their intersection in the formation of subjectivity…
JOHN COPLANS, SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHS
I photograph my body. I generalize it by beheading myself to make my body more like any other man's. Nakedness removes the body from the specificity of time: unclothed, it belongs to the past, present, and future…
BARBARA NITKE, AMERICAN ECSTASY, 1982-1991
American Ecstasy is a memoir in pictures and words of the twelve years photographer Barbara Nitke spent shooting stills on porn movie sets in New York City…
DANIEL RAMPULLA, WILD PLACE
Daniel Rampulla’s Wild Place is a series of photographs that builds an exploration of youth and queerness. These enigmatic images assemble through a series of noir-outdoor portraits, a personal and voyeuristic vision of intimacy…