Experiments in Electrostatics:
Photocopy Art from the Whitney’s
Collection, 1966–1986
Nov 17, 2017–Mar 25, 2018
Barbara T. Smith
1
Though best known as a pioneer of performance art, Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931, Pasadena, CA) was also one of the earliest artists to employ the photocopier. After rejection by the Los Angeles printmaking workshop Gemini G.E.L., she realized “lithography is in any case obsolete . . . We’re in the twentieth century and logically the print [technology] of our era would be the business machine!”
Working with a leased Xerox 914 in her dining room, Smith photocopied what was most readily available: foodstuffs, family photographs, and her own body. She created God’s Breath by pouring, blowing, and scraping flour across the copier’s flat bed. Her use of a domestic material often associated with the “feminine” slyly pokes at the male-dominated tradition of abstract painting.
Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931), God’s Breath, 1966
Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931), God’s Breath, 1966. Photocopies, 23 3/4 x 75 15/16 in. (60.3 x 192.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee T.2017.512. Photograph by Ron Amstutz