Talent (artwork)
Encyclopedia
Talent is a photographic work by David Robbins comprising eighteen photographs that depict contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman
, Jeff Koons
, Jenny Holzer
, Robert Longo
, and fourteen others using the headshot portraits long-utilized by the entertainment industry.
To make the 8 x 10, black-and-white photographs Robbins hired the James J. Kriegsmann studio, a company specializing in headshot photography. During the several-month long period of making the photographs in Kriegsmann's Times Square
studio in New York
, Robbins functioned as the "agent" for the artists – scheduling the shoots, styling the artists' look, and paying the bill. The resultant collection of headshots were produced in an edition of 100 as, according to the Kriegsmann Studio, aspiring entertainers seeking work customarily order them.
Talent updated the image of the artist
from that of modern art
's tortured genius to, instead, a more complex portrayal of a willing participant in the entertainment industry. The piece was instrumental in modernizing the art context for the Information Age
. Visual artists such as Degas and Picasso had long depicted musicians, harlequins, and actors using fine art media, and the Pop
artists had introduced commercial production techniques such as silkscreen to create images taken from popular culture
, but Talent collapsed the distance at which visual artists had previously held entertainment culture.
The eighteen artists featured in the piece include Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Allan McCollum
, Ashley Bickerton
, Michael J. Byron
, Thomas Lawson
, Clegg & Guttmann, Jennifer Bolande, Larry Johnson, Alan Belcher, Peter Nagy, Steven Parrino, Joel Otterson, Robin Weglinski, Gretchen Bender, and David Robbins.
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
, Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
, Robert Longo
Robert Longo
Robert Longo is an American painter and sculptor. Longo became famous in the 1980s for his "Men in the Cities" series, which depicted sharply dressed businessmen writhing in contorted emotion.-Early life and education:...
, and fourteen others using the headshot portraits long-utilized by the entertainment industry.
To make the 8 x 10, black-and-white photographs Robbins hired the James J. Kriegsmann studio, a company specializing in headshot photography. During the several-month long period of making the photographs in Kriegsmann's Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
studio in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Robbins functioned as the "agent" for the artists – scheduling the shoots, styling the artists' look, and paying the bill. The resultant collection of headshots were produced in an edition of 100 as, according to the Kriegsmann Studio, aspiring entertainers seeking work customarily order them.
Talent updated the image of the artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
from that of modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
's tortured genius to, instead, a more complex portrayal of a willing participant in the entertainment industry. The piece was instrumental in modernizing the art context for the Information Age
Information Age
The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
. Visual artists such as Degas and Picasso had long depicted musicians, harlequins, and actors using fine art media, and the Pop
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
artists had introduced commercial production techniques such as silkscreen to create images taken from popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
, but Talent collapsed the distance at which visual artists had previously held entertainment culture.
The eighteen artists featured in the piece include Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist who was born in Los Angeles, California in 1944, and now lives and works in New York City. He has spent over forty years exploring how objects achieve public and personal meaning in a world constituted in mass production, focusing most recently on...
, Ashley Bickerton
Ashley Bickerton
Ashley Bickerton is a contemporary artist living in Bali. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combines both photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages...
, Michael J. Byron
Michael J. Byron
Michael J. Byron is an American visual artist. He holds a B.F.A from the Kansas City Art Institute and a M.F.A from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Byron currently lives in St. Louis, MO where he is a Professor of Art at Washington University in St...
, Thomas Lawson
Thomas Lawson (artist)
Thomas Lawson is an artist, writer, and Dean of the School of Art at California Institute for the Arts. He has exhibited paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of the Pictures Generation exhibit, Metro Pictures in New York, Anthony Reynolds in London and LAXART in Los...
, Clegg & Guttmann, Jennifer Bolande, Larry Johnson, Alan Belcher, Peter Nagy, Steven Parrino, Joel Otterson, Robin Weglinski, Gretchen Bender, and David Robbins.