"Robert Heinecken: Myth and Loss Reimagined" (2017 - 2018)

Robert Heinecken, Vanishing Photograph, 1973

In 2017, I was awarded the Photographic Arts Council / Los Angeles Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative Photography to study Robert Heinecken, a 20^th century visionary whose work speaks strongly to 21^st century practitioners. My intent was to document objects from his archive that comment on the growing gap between the analog and digital era and how accumulation is changing at a time where collecting is less common and experiences dominate. I wanted to learn more about Heinecken’s Vanishing Photographs and his cremated ashes stored in a salt shaker as they are the most poignant examples that bridge the gap between analog and digital. These ephemeral items are enshrouded in myth and they contribute to his legacy and I wanted to hold them in my hands.

Robert Heinecken, Paste-ups for Periodical #5 and Periodical #5, 1971

Despite our radical differences in subject matter, Heinecken is instrumental to my artistic process. His disregard for what he considered a photograph to be, his use of appropriation, his employment of guerilla tactics in the distribution of altered magazines, and his experimentation with three-dimensional presentation first drew me to him in undergraduate school. While in the archive, I made a discovery which altered my course and caused me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about him. While perusing fourteen VHS tapes of a 1995 seminar and two interviews as far back as 1975, I began to notice his memory loss and how it would eventually lead to Alzheimer’s. I lost count of how many times he said “I don’t remember” and watched in shock as he struggled to recall who was standing before him when the daughter of an old friend surprised him while being videotaped. 

Jacinda Russell, Vanishing Photograph: Me, 2017-2018 [imprinted digital negative on unprocessed silver gelatin paper]

My plan to create a contemporary version of his Vanishing Photographs shifted to objects in his archive that implied or overtly suggested absence. Evidence of his declining memory would redefine my series yet still comment on the shrinking role of analog practices.

Jacinda Russell, Robert Heinecken TV Still from 1975 and TV Stills from 1975 and 1995, 2017 - 2018 [archival pigment prints]

I approached the archive open to discovery, letting the objects dictate my direction, and the series grew to include three additional pieces. A diptych of stills from television screens references his cameraless photographs of newscasters from the 1980s. An image of his ashes printed as a positive and negative on transparency film sandwiched in Plexiglas is after Venus Mirrored (1968). Archive Remains is a photogram of a bottle containing the detritus that fell onto the white paper where I examined his possessions that the CCP staff allowed me to keep on my final day.

Jacinda Russell, Archive Remains, 2017 - 2018 [silver gelatin print]

I am captivated by the idea of legacy and mythology defined by the things left behind. This experience was life-changing and will undoubtedly be unveiled in a myriad of ways in the years to come.

"Known and Unknown Collaborations with Interlibrary Loan"

Imogen Cunningham, Received and Returned, 2017 - 2018

In the spring of 2017, I checked out the publication Heinecken from the Ball State University library. Horrified by the sheer amount of plates that were removed, I wondered what equivalent methods of destruction occurred today. Immediately Judy Dater’s Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite came to mind as it is the photograph most flipped over and hidden (therefore riddled with pushpins) of the hundreds that fill the walls of the photography classroom. I was compelled to “fix” this so I ordered books to scan and print copies to replace both the defaced Dater and the missing Heineckens.

Ball State University's Copy of Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait, 2017

Two discoveries simultaneously occurred: Ball State’s Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait featured a high contrast copy of Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite as the original page had been removed. Also, the cover of Imogen Cunningham looked conspicuously censored after it arrived from a neighboring institution. Thus began two collaborations with the Interlibrary Loan librarian – one of which she knew and the other she did not.
 

Gary Schneider: Nudes, Received and Returned, 2017 - 2018

I culled all the new arrivals of contemporary art online bookstores and I took note of missing titles from the history of photography that the university did not own. I searched for books that the librarian might deliberately arrange the sticker or white band with my check-out information over “offending” parts of the human body, and unbeknownst to her, I documented the results.

Joel-Peter Witkin: Vanitas, Received, Revealed and Returned, 2017 - 2018

The books were scanned upon arrival, the information was moved to other areas revealing what was once concealed, and rescanned before their return. There were a few surprises along the way. As I carefully pulled back the adhesive, I found the loaning library placed the sticker in another location and Ball State moved it to a less offending area or they added white paper to the book’s cover.

Helmut Newton: Sumo, Received, Returned and Revealed, 2017 - 2018

Helmut Newton’s Sumo included a “Booklet” inside with the same cover image and a label shielding the model’s feet. I was taken aback that the front was censored but the interior was not. After careful inspection, it was noticeable that someone altered the label and rearranged it over the model’s torso prior to it coming into my possession. 

After awhile, the interactions with nudity became predictable and I began to speculate how the librarian would encounter violence or whether or not she was a cat or dog person (clearly preferring canines). 

Richard Jonas: Rescue Me, Received and Returned, 2017 - 2018

Walter Chandoha: The Cat Photographer, Received and Returned, 2017 - 2018

One Dozen Copies of Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait, 2017

The known collaboration consisted of the librarian obtaining permission to request eleven copies of Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait so I could take a photograph of twelve versions of page 126 and compare how many were missing and whether or not the library resolved it. I placed a new print inside the books where Imogen and Twinka were absent.

Robert Heinecken: A Material History, 2017 - 2018 

As for Heinecken, the ripped pages were integrated into a larger project, Robert Heinecken’s Vanishing Photographs: Myth and Loss Reimagined. I have always been inspired by his screen-printing a Viet Cong soldier over advertisements in periodicals then returning them to newsstands and doctor’s offices. Known and Unknown Collaborations with Interlibrary Loan was my version of his guerilla actions of the 1970s.

Robert Heinecken - "Object Matter" at the Hammer Museum

The Hammer Museum is always a mandatory visit in LA especially if one of the key exhibitions is the original "Artist Who Uses Photography" (or one of my biggest inspirations in the sculptural photography department). Ultimately, Heinecken referred to himself as a "paraphotographer" as he combined the photograph with many mediums, a common practice for artists in the 1960s.

Robert Heinecken, Are You Rea Installation

In his essay, "Reality Effects," Matthew Biro writes: "In 1968, Robert Heinecken released one of the signal works of his career: Are You Rea, a portfolio of twenty-five grainy, ghostly, tonally reversed photograms taken from the pages of popular magazines. His introductory text leaves no doubt as to why he is today considered one of the most prescient forerunners of appropriation. Disclosing his debt to Surrealist theory, he professes his interest in “the multiplicity of meanings inherent in aleatory ideas and images” and declares that “these pictures do not represent first hand experiences, but are related to the perhaps more socially important manufactured experiences which are being created daily by the mass media.”

Heinecken's guerrilla interventions displayed as if they were in a newsstand. He once said: “I sometimes visualize myself as a bizarre guerrilla, investing in a kind of humorous warfare in which a series of minimal, direct, invented acts result in a maximum extrinsic effect, but without consistent rationale.”

Robert Heinecken, Fractured Figure Sections, 1967

The Hammer's installation of several of the "figure sections." [enter many ideas for future display.]

Robert Heinecken, Surrealism on TV, 1986 [three of 216 projected slides = timing is everything]

One of the highlights of this exhibition was seeing a singular concept (the ironic combination of imagery from the media) materialize through several methods (slides, photograms of magazine pages, lithography, and so on). This was the first time I had witnessed one of his slide shows and it was memorizing/humorous (particularly when animal and people comparisons were projected).

Robert Heinecken, TV Dinner #10, 1971 [This is very similar to the one I saw repeatedly while working at the Center for Creative Photography. I was surprised the photo paper has been preserved this long.]

Robert Heinecken, Vanishing Photograph (Krims/Doubleday)

I had long heard about the "vanishing photographs" and to see one gradually changing color and disappearing was gratifying. I witnessed a part of the process and was thrilled to see it displayed in full light rather than hidden behind a cloth, much like a daguerreotype or other light sensitive image would have been shown (or hidden) in a contemporary museum.

There were so many other works I wish were included in Object Matter but I know this was not a posthumous retrospective.