Robert Heinecken

The Museum of Modern Art presents the retrospective “Robert Heinecken: Object Matter”, covering four decades of the artist’s unique practice, from the early 1960s through the late 1990s.

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The Museum of Modern Art presents “Robert Heinecken: Object Matter”, the first retrospective of the work of Robert Heinecken since his death in 2006.

Describing himself as a “para-photographer”, because his work stood “beside” or “beyond” traditional ideas associated with photography, Heinecken worked across multiple mediums, including photography, sculpture, printmaking, and collage.

Culling images from newspapers, magazines, pornography and television, he recontextualized them through collage and assemblage, photograms, darkroom experimentation, and rephotography. His works explore themes of commercialism, Americana, kitsch, sex, the body, and gender. In doing so, the works in this exhibition expose his obsession with popular culture and its effects on society, and with the relationship between the original and the copy.

“Robert Heinecken: Object Matter” is organized by Eva Respini, Curator, with Drew Sawyer, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.

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Left: Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Are You Rea, 1968, Twenty-five gelatin silver prints, Various dimensions, Collection Jeffrey Leifer, San Francisco. Right: Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Cybill Shepherd / Phone Sex, 1992, Silver dye bleach print on foamcore, 160 x 43.2 cm. The Robert Heinecken Trust, Courtesy of Petzel Gallery, New York

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Lessons in Posing Subjects / Matching Facial Expressions, 1981, Fifteen internal dye diffusion transfer prints (SX-70 Polaroid) and lithographic text on Rives BFK paper 15 x 20" (38.1 x 50.8 cm). Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for Graphic Art, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of Dean Valentine and Amy AdelsonRobert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006) Lessons in Posing Subjects / Matching Facial Expressions 1981 Fifteen internal dye diffusion transfer prints (SX-70 Polaroid) and lithographic text on Rives BFK paper, 38.1 x 50.8 cm. Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for Graphic Art, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Recto/Verso

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Surrealism on TV, 1986, 216 35mm color slides, silent, time variable. The Robert Heinecken Trust, Courtesy of Cherry and Martin Gallery, Los Angeles

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006), Tuxedo Striptease, 1984, Ten internal dye diffusion transfer prints, Each: 61 x 50.8 cm, Private Collection

until September 7, 2014
Robert Heinecken
Object Matter
Museum od Modern Art
The Michael H. Dunn Galleries, second floor
11 West 53 Street,
New York

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