Marvin Heiferman
Encyclopedia
Marvin Heiferman is an American curator
and writer
, who originates projects about the impact of photographic images on art and visual culture for museums, art galleries, publishers and corporations.
, Eve Arnold, Garry Winogrand
, Robert Mapplethorpe
, Stephen Shore
, Lewis Baltz
, William Eggleston
and Robert Adams (photographer)
. Between 1982 and 1988, he worked as an artist representative for photographers and artists, including Nan Goldin
, Peter Hujar
, Mitch Epstein
, and Richard Prince
, and continued to organized exhibitions for commercial galleries, alternate spaces, and museums. Known as an early champion of color, narrative and appropriation (art)
photography, Heiferman, in 1989, shifted the focus of his work as he began to more specifically concentrate on projects exploring the impact of mediated and vernacular images on history, culture and everyday life.
In 1991, Heiferman became a founding partner (with Carole Kismaric) of Lookout, a company that, for a dozen years, produced exhibitions, publications and cultural projects for arts and humanitarian organizations, commercial publishers, and imaging and media corporations. Since 2002, and working as an independent curator and producer, Heiferman has organized museum exhibitions and develops concepts and content for online projects for clients including the Smithsonian Photography Initiative and the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
A contributing editor to Art in America
, Heiferman writes on visual culture for Artforum
, Bomb Magazine
, Bookforum
, and ArtNews
. He is a core faculty member in the International Center of Photography/Bard College MFA Program in Advanced Photographic Studies, and teaches in the School of Visual Art’s MFA Program in Photography, Video and Related Media.
; Now is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection, Princeton Architectural Press, New York and The Newark Museum, Newark (2008); John Waters: Change of Life, Harry N. Abrams, New York and The New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2004); Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution, The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs (2002) with Lisa Phillips; The Amazing Case of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys, Simon & Schuster Editions, New York (1999), with Carole Kismaric; Growing Up with Dick and Jane: Living and Learning the American Dream, CollinsSanFrancisco, San Francisco (1996) with Carole Kismaric; Love is Blind, powerHouse Books, New York (1996), with Carole Kismaric; I’m So Happy, Vintage Books, New York (1990) with Carole Kismaric; Image World: Art and Media Culture, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989) with Lisa Phillips and John Hanhardt, The Indomitable Spirit, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York (1989), Still Life, Callaway Editions, New York (1983) and Simon and Schuster, New York (1985), with Diane Keaton; collaborative projects with Nan Goldin
, William Wegman
, and Diane Keaton
; and monographs on the work of Jack Smith, John Coplans
, and Dennis Oppenheim for MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York.
click! photography changes everything is an ongoing, web-based project, sponsored by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, that invites both experts is their fields, and the public at large, to explore the power and impact of photography on history, culture and everyday life. Heiferman was editor and creative consultant.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Producer of Nan Goldin's 800-slide projection presentation with accompanying soundtrack. Including presentations at the OP Screening Room- New York (1983); CEPA Gallery-Buffalo, The Rotterdam Arts Foundation (1984); The Collective for Living Cinema-New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art-Boston; the International Center of Photography
-New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial-New York, the Pacific Film Archives-Berkeley (1985); Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation
-New York, The Berlin Film Festival (1986), Queens Museum of Art
-New York, St. Marks Poetry Project-New York (1986),
The Electric Blanket December 1, 1990, the first Day Without Art. An outdoor slide projection at Cooper Union
, with live music. Worked with project directors Nan Goldin
and Alan Frame to edit and sequence of images that depict the AIDS crisis, from political protests to care giving, including portraits of people with, and those who had died from AIDS.
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, who originates projects about the impact of photographic images on art and visual culture for museums, art galleries, publishers and corporations.
Biography
As Assistant Director of LIGHT Gallery, New York (1971-1974), and Director of Castelli Graphics and Castelli Photographs, New York (1975-1982), Heiferman organized exhibitions by photographers including Andre KerteszAndré Kertész
André Kertész , born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition...
, Eve Arnold, Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand was a street photographer known for his portrayal of America in the mid-20th century. John Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation....
, Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
, Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore is an American photographer known for his deadpan images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography.- Life and work :...
, Lewis Baltz
Lewis Baltz
Lewis Baltz is a visual artist and well known photographer who became an important figure in the New Topographic movement of the late 1970s....
, William Eggleston
William Eggleston
William Eggleston , is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries—which, until the 1970s, often tended to privilege work by photographers making black-and-white prints.- Early years...
and Robert Adams (photographer)
Robert Adams (photographer)
Robert Adams is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through the book The New West and the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape...
. Between 1982 and 1988, he worked as an artist representative for photographers and artists, including Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
, Peter Hujar
Peter Hujar
Peter Hujar was an American photographer known for his black and white portraits. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, United States. Hujar later moved to Manhattan to work in the magazine, advertising, and fashion industries. His subjects also consisted of farm animals and nudes...
, Mitch Epstein
Mitch Epstein
Mitchell "Mitch" Epstein is an American photographer whose photographs are in numerous major museum collections, including New York's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern in...
, and Richard Prince
Richard Prince
Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriating photographs in 1975...
, and continued to organized exhibitions for commercial galleries, alternate spaces, and museums. Known as an early champion of color, narrative and appropriation (art)
Appropriation (art)
Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...
photography, Heiferman, in 1989, shifted the focus of his work as he began to more specifically concentrate on projects exploring the impact of mediated and vernacular images on history, culture and everyday life.
In 1991, Heiferman became a founding partner (with Carole Kismaric) of Lookout, a company that, for a dozen years, produced exhibitions, publications and cultural projects for arts and humanitarian organizations, commercial publishers, and imaging and media corporations. Since 2002, and working as an independent curator and producer, Heiferman has organized museum exhibitions and develops concepts and content for online projects for clients including the Smithsonian Photography Initiative and the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
A contributing editor to Art in America
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
, Heiferman writes on visual culture for Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
, Bomb Magazine
Bomb Magazine
BOMB is a quarterly magazine edited by artists and writers. It is composed, primarily, of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines — visual art, literature, music, film, theater and architecture....
, Bookforum
Bookforum
Bookforum is a New York-based magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature. It is edited by Albert Mobilio, Chris Lehmann, , and Michael Miller.-History: Bookforum was launched in 1994 as a literary supplement to Artforum...
, and ArtNews
ARTnews
ARTnews is an arts magazine based in New York, founded by James Clarence Hyde in 1902 as Hyde’s Weekly Art News. It is published 11 times a year.ARTnews covers all art, from ancient to Post-modernism...
. He is a core faculty member in the International Center of Photography/Bard College MFA Program in Advanced Photographic Studies, and teaches in the School of Visual Art’s MFA Program in Photography, Video and Related Media.
Selected Exhibitions
- Bill Wood’s Business (International Center of PhotographyInternational Center of PhotographyThe International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, 2008) - Now is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection (The Newark Museum, 2008)
- City Art: New York’s Percent for Art Program (Center for ArchitectureCenter for ArchitectureOperated by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Center for Architecture is located in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village at 536 LaGuardia Place, between West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street in New York City...
, 2005) - John Waters: Change of Life (New Museum, 2004)
- Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution (Exit Art, 2000)
- Fame After Photography (The Museum of Modern Art, 1999)
- To The Rescue: Eight Artists in an Archive (International Center of PhotographyInternational Center of PhotographyThe International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, 1999) - Talking Pictures (International Center of Photography, 1994)
- The Indomitable Spirit, (International Center of PhotographyInternational Center of PhotographyThe International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, 1990) - Image World: Art and Media Culture (Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, with Lisa Phillips and John Handhardt, 1989) - The Real Big Picture (Queens Museum of ArtQueens Museum of ArtThe Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...
, 1985) - The Family of Man, 1954-1984 (MoMA PS1, 1984)
- Still Life (Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, with Diane Keaton, 1983) - Love is Blind, (Castelli Photographs, 1981)
- Likely Stories, (Castelli Photographs, 1980)
- Pictures:Photographs, (Castelli Photographs, 1979)
- Some Color Photographs, (Castelli Graphics, 1977)
Selected Publications
Bill Wood’s Business, ICP/Steidl, New York (2008) with Diane KeatonDiane Keaton
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
; Now is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection, Princeton Architectural Press, New York and The Newark Museum, Newark (2008); John Waters: Change of Life, Harry N. Abrams, New York and The New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2004); Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution, The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs (2002) with Lisa Phillips; The Amazing Case of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys, Simon & Schuster Editions, New York (1999), with Carole Kismaric; Growing Up with Dick and Jane: Living and Learning the American Dream, CollinsSanFrancisco, San Francisco (1996) with Carole Kismaric; Love is Blind, powerHouse Books, New York (1996), with Carole Kismaric; I’m So Happy, Vintage Books, New York (1990) with Carole Kismaric; Image World: Art and Media Culture, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989) with Lisa Phillips and John Hanhardt, The Indomitable Spirit, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York (1989), Still Life, Callaway Editions, New York (1983) and Simon and Schuster, New York (1985), with Diane Keaton; collaborative projects with Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
, William Wegman
William Wegman
William Wegman may refer to:* Bill Wegman, baseball player* William Wegman , photographer...
, and Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
; and monographs on the work of Jack Smith, John Coplans
John Coplans
John Coplans was a British artist. A veteran of World War II and a photographer, he emigrated to the United States in 1960 and had many exhibitions in Europe and North America...
, and Dennis Oppenheim for MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York.
Selected Books Edited and Packaged
- City Art: New York’s Percent for Art Program, Merrell Publishers, London/New York, Department of Cultural Affairs, City of New York, (2005)
- The Art of the X-Files, Harper Prism, New York, in association with Twentieth Century Fox, and 1013 Productions, Los Angeles (1998)
- Flaming Creature: Jack Smith', His Amazing Life and Times, Serpent’s Tail, London/PS 1 Museum, New York (1997)
- Fay's Fairy Tales: Little Red Riding Hood. Photographs and text by William Wegman, Hyperion Books for Children, New York (1993)
- Fay's Fairy Tales: Cinderella. Photographs and text by William Wegman, Hyperion Books for Children, New York (1993)
- The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, photographs and text by Nan Goldin, Aperture, New York (1986)
- Park City, photographs by Lewis Baltz, essay by Gus Blaisdell, Artspace, Albuquerque/Castelli Graphics, New York/Aperture, New York (1980)
Online & Media Projects
THE BIGGER PICTURE: Photography at the Smithsonian. An interdisciplinary blog, launched in 2009 by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, that explores Smithsonian photographic archives, assets and issues. Heiferman acts as creative consultant and contributor.click! photography changes everything is an ongoing, web-based project, sponsored by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, that invites both experts is their fields, and the public at large, to explore the power and impact of photography on history, culture and everyday life. Heiferman was editor and creative consultant.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Producer of Nan Goldin's 800-slide projection presentation with accompanying soundtrack. Including presentations at the OP Screening Room- New York (1983); CEPA Gallery-Buffalo, The Rotterdam Arts Foundation (1984); The Collective for Living Cinema-New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art-Boston; the International Center of Photography
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
-New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial-New York, the Pacific Film Archives-Berkeley (1985); Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation
Aperture Foundation
The Aperture Foundation was founded in 1952 by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Barbara Morgan, Dorothea Lange, Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Ernest Louie, Melton Ferris, and Dody Warren. Their vision was to create a forum for fine art photography, a new concept at the time. The first issue of...
-New York, The Berlin Film Festival (1986), Queens Museum of Art
Queens Museum of Art
The Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...
-New York, St. Marks Poetry Project-New York (1986),
The Electric Blanket December 1, 1990, the first Day Without Art. An outdoor slide projection at Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, with live music. Worked with project directors Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
and Alan Frame to edit and sequence of images that depict the AIDS crisis, from political protests to care giving, including portraits of people with, and those who had died from AIDS.
Sources & External Links
Articles on Heiferman and his work:- Woodward, Richard. “Marvin Heiferman’s All Encompassing Eye Has Redefined Photography,” Vogue, November, pp. 284-87
- Heiferman, Marvin and Laurie Simmons. “Laurie Simmons and Marvin Heiferman” (Conversation), Art in America, (3 April 2009).
- Johnson, Ken. “A Businessman’s View of Mid-American Life” (Review), The New York Times (23 May 2008) []
- Kimmelman, Michael. “How Photography Makes Celebrity So Irresistible” (Review). The New York Times (9 July 1999) [
- Woodward, Richard B. “Art; Seeking a Suitable Way To Approach the Issue of AIDS” (Review). The New York Times (4 February 1990).
- Barry, Lynda. “Say ‘Cheese,’ America” The New York Times (29 April 1990)
- Ostrom, Saul. “Marvin Heiferman” (interview), Bomb (Fall 1989).
- Grundberg, Andy. “Photography View; A Big Show That’s About Something Larger than Size”, (review). The New York Times (23 February 1986)
- "Click! Photography Changes Everything." Jay Prosser. Photography and Culture, Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2010, pp. 119-122.