Fotomuseum Winterthur | Saturday, 27.11.2004 – Sunday, 20.02.2005

The Last Picture Show – Artists using Photography 1960–1982

In 1976, the art historian Nancy Foote wrote: “For every photographer who clamors to make it as an artist, there is an artist running a grave risk of turning into a photographer.” The exhibition The Last Picture Show attempts to cross the fine line between artists who are photographers and artists who use photography, and to trace the tracks of the conceptual in post-war photographic practice: from the first appearance of the conceptual in the work of artists such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Bruce Nauman and Edward Ruscha to the climax of the art world in the 1970s and early 80s in the work of image-theoretical artists such as Martha Rosler, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman. The exhibition is dedicated to these highly significant and exciting twenty years in which artists appropriated the medium of photography and used it in a wide range of ways.

This large-scale exhibition, held in the Main Gallery, Gallery and Collection, comprises work by fifty-seven artists including Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Christian Boltanski, VALIE EXPORT, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Fischli / Weiss, Gilbert & George, Yves Klein, Barbara Kruger, Gordon Matta-Clark, Sigmar Polke, Charles Ray, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol and William Wegman.

The exhibition was curated by Douglas Fogle. Realisation in Winterthur: Douglas Fogle and Thomas Seelig. A collaboration with the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Main sponsor: Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie