{"data":{"id":"12850","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":12850,"topgoose_id":10672,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":12850,"title":"Pepsi Cola, Long Island City, IV: May 19, 1998","display_artist_text":"Vera Lutter","display_date":"1998","accession_number":"2000.219","dimensions":"Sheet: 55 1/4 × 123 in. (140.3 × 312.4 cm)","medium":"Gelatin silver print on canvas","department":"collection","classification":"Photographs","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":"Unique","publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eVera Lutter, \u003cem\u003ePepsi Cola, Long Island City, IV: May 19, 1998\u003c/em\u003e, 1998. Gelatin silver print on canvas, sheet: 55 1/4 × 123 in. (140.3 × 312.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee 2000.219. © Vera Lutter / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eThis large-scale image of an iconic Pepsi sign atop a building in an industrial area of Queens, New York was created using the earliest and most rudimentary photographic tool, the camera obscura. This device, which dates to the Renaissance, operates on the fundamental principle of photography: when light from an external source passes through a pinhole into an enclosed chamber, an inverted image of the illuminated area is projected onto the chamber’s opposite wall. \u003ci\u003ePepsi-Cola\u003c/i\u003e was made by placing a large sheet of photosensitive paper on an interior wall facing the aperture of a room-sized camera obscura that was set up on the roof of the building. The image was then exposed onto the paper for several hours. Anticipating its reversal in the photographic negative print, Lutter built the camera obscura behind the sign so that it would read correctly in the exposed image. As a result, a sign normally viewed from Manhattan, across the East River, shows Manhattan in the background rather than Queens. Through such visual disparities, a familiar icon looks strange, while the long exposure time, which records only stable objects, makes a city known for its constant movement seem eerily serene.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Large Pepsi-Cola rooftop sign on metal framework above a city skyline at night.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:36:28.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:32.380-05:00","images":[{"id":103436,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/12850/2000_219_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"7327","type":"artist"}]}}}}