Robert Heinecken
1931–2006
Robert Heinecken was a pioneer of conceptual photography, although he rarely stepped behind a camera. Famously referring to himself as a “para-photographer,” Heinecken differentiated himself from a traditional practitioner, preferring to “pay homage to the medium,” as he explained it, “but not to be a photographer.” A printmaker by training, Heinecken was first drawn to photographs as material he could incorporate into his etchings. Inspired by the radical inventions of the Dada movement, he experimented widely with collage, montage, and various exposure techniques during the early 1960s, later moving into photo-sculpture and installations. Images were treated as objects, matter to be manipulated in myriad ways and to various ends.
Found material from magazines, advertising, and television served as key sources for Heinecken’s critical investigations of the increasingly media-saturated landscape around him. Inaugural Excerpt Videograms, composed of twenty-four images, captures scenes from the televised events surrounding Ronald Reagan’s 1981 presidential inauguration. Heinecken produced these “videograms” by pressing Cibachrome paper onto a television screen, exposing the sensitized paper with a flash of the screen’s electronic glow— an unpredictable technique that produced elusive, ghostlike images of the participants (including the president, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra, and Jimmy Stewart). Further confounding the inclination to read the pictured events as documentation, he randomly assigned a short phrase from the inaugural speech to each image, penciling it below; he also gave the series no predetermined order, unmooring it from any chronological significance. Exposing the media’s classic tools of manipulation, Heinecken challenges us to take an active role in our interpretation of his work, reminding us that we can’t believe everything we see.
Introduction
Robert Heinecken (1931 – May 19, 2006) was an American artist who referred to himself as a "paraphotographer" because he so often made photographic images without a camera.
Wikidata identifier
Q7345382
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 15, 2025.
Introduction
Known for his use of photographic imagery, though he rarely used a camera. Heinecken's work was based on appropriated images from magazines and television.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, installation artist, photographer
ULAN identifier
500101250
Names
Robert Heinecken, Robert F. Heinecken
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 15, 2025.
