What about Philip Smith?

In class we recently read Douglas Crimp’s essay on Pictures, a show he organized for Artists Space in fall 1977. Pictures was an historic exhibition in that it addressed the radical photographic technique of appropriating recognizable media imagery as opposed to the conceptual and minimalist work popular in the 1960s and ‘70s. Although the essay describes the work of the majority of the artists involved in the show (Troy Brauntuch, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Jack Goldstein), along with one not in the show (Cindy Sherman), there is little discussion of the work of PIctures artist Philip Smith.

Just this year the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984” which was curated by Douglas Eklund. The large show, which featured works by over 30 artists influenced by Pictures techniques, also omitted Philip Smith. Explaining his decision for excluding Smith’s work Eklund disclosed in an interview with Jess Wilcox in Art in America online edition: “As for the relegation of Smith, I don’t have any idea why that happened. When I reviewed his work for this show, it seemed not strong enough to be included; it was a curatorial, aesthetic judgement on my part.”

So why is Smith’s work seemingly replaced by Sherman’s in the Pictures commentary and left out of the recent Met show?

CultureGrrl cornered Douglas Crimp as he was walking through ‘The Pictures Generation” show and asked him what he thought about the conspicuous omission:

“Q: What do you make of Philip Smith’s absence from the Met’s show?
A: He was not so much of the group, of the social world, of the people who formulated this. He’s gay and this [the Met’s show] is a very straight configuration of artists. I don’t know what’s happened to him, career-wise. It’s a slightly touchy subject: I think Philip is upset, reasonably.”

As Crimp suggested, Smith is upset over the situation. He wrote a scathing letter to Art in America which explained his concern over being written out of Pictures history.

While Eklund was responsible for Smith’s exclusion from the Met show, why was Smith’s work left out of Crimp’s October essay on the original Pictures show? Although his work is more drawing-based, he was still a part of the original show and it seems odd that he is so conspicuously erased from this important era in the history of photography.