Documenting and Mass Media

On March 23, 2017, I visited the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to view the exhibition entitled, Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media.  This exhibition opened on December 20th, 2016 and will close on April 30th, 2017.  Referencing that artists have continually turned to news outlets for inspiration, this exhibition examines how the artists have interpreted and commented on news images from the 1960’s to the 2000’s.  The statement accompanying the show warns that all the work is political, and “through photographs and videos, these (included) artists have juxtaposed, mimicked, and appropriated media elements to transform ephemeral news into lasting works of art.”  Some of the artists included in Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media are John Baldessari, Donald Blumberg, Martha Rosler, Catherine Opie, Alfredo Jaar, and Robert Heinecken.

Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media exhibition statement

John Baldessari, The Meaning of Various Photographs to Ed Henderson, 1973

Though all of the work is either photography or video of recognizable people from culture (such as former U.S President George W. Bush) or scenes from mass media over the past fifty years (such as the Vitenam War), the art is all conceptual.  Images are juxtaposed next to each other to create new and interesting relationships, ultimately giving rise to new meanings and content.   Playing off of the idea about how illustrated news articles have helped to shape people’s perceptions of current events—and the many different ways they can be altered or manipulated— this exhibition recontextualizes these images into new narratives, or stories.  The bodies of work assembled by each individual artist in this exhibition speak to a documentary approach of their art making practice.  Quite literally, they are using tools and materials (photography and video) that emphasize documentation in contemporary culture.  These artists work with the idea of history as their souce material, but instead of looking back on past events, they were responding to the present— a history that had not been written at the time of their inventions.  Essentially, these artists gave their current experience both form and a language, enabling them to speak and address their specific time.

Martha Rosler, House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home, 1967

As previously mentioned, this exhibition was comprised of many different artists, resulting in an exhibition with lots of work on display.  Though the space was rather large with several room divides, the work still felt crammed together.  However, the amount of art and the way much of it was crowded together created visual intensity, mimicking how mass media operates in general—busy, flashy, loud;  using anything that can grab one’s attention.  The artwork ranged in scale, but was all uniformly framed.  I found similarities to the way the art was framed and how a television set frames its image.  This simple little detail plays such an important role in the relational aesthetics of the exhibition.  As a viewer, I felt bombarded with stimuli, but not necessarily in a negative way, as this felt right for the content and context of this exhibition.

Alfredo Jaar, Untitled (Newsweek), 1994

By following through on its statement, Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media accomplished what it was curated to do.  In addressing the themes of manipulation, fabrication, appropriation, and context, this exhibition and its included artists, spoke to the idea of confirmation bias—creating narratives that fit what one wants you to believe— and the incredible simplicity in which it can be done.  Technology has allows photographs and videos to be altered with ease, allowing for false or altered perceptions of the world to be created.  As seen with Catherie Opie’s work in this exhibition, the juxtaposition of images create new relationships and narratives, so, as viewers, being aware of this device is essential in deciphering visual documentation.  In sum, given how integrated mass media is in comtemporary culture, this exhibition felt incredibly appropriate, adding to this ongoing conversation about mass media. 

Catherine Opie, In and Around Home series, 2004-05

Robert Heickenen, TV Newswoman (Faith Daniels and Barbara Walters),  1986

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, War Primer 2, 2011