Color Pictures: March 3-April 14, 2012 - Paperback

An exhibition of recent photography organized by Frances Colpitt, "Color Pictures" examines color as a subject matter in works by John Baldessari, Sarah Charlesworth, William Eggleston, Russell Lee, Thomas Ruff, Stephen Shore, Allison V. Smith, and Ann Stautberg. The exhibition charts the merger of art and photography from the 1970s to the present. During this period, both the photo world and the art world were transformed by the conflict between photography's high technical and aesthetic standards and the intentionally amateur and nonchalant approach to the camera by conceptually-oriented artists who used the camera to document their often ephemeral materials and elusive ideas. Their rocky fusion led not only to the acceptance of the photographic medium as a legitimate tool for art making, but also to unparalleled growth in the number of artists using the camera in the 1980s and 1990s.