Pictures Generation
ピクチャーズ・ジェネレーション / late 1970s–1980s / Style / Postwar American Art
A late-1970s and 1980s tendency that displaced already familiar advertising, film, magazine, and television images through rephotography, performance, cropping, and overlaid text, exposing systems of authorship, desire, gender, and consumption.
Rephotographed or reenacted images with advertising or film familiarity / Aggressive cropping that removes source context / Short declarative copy over monochrome or limited-color photography / Repeated figures, poses, or commodities whose differences emerge as a series
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Critiquing roles made by advertising or film through reenactment and short text · Re-reading one existing image by changing crop, order, and context
- Type
- When using pronouns and verbs, make a new claim rather than imitating a known artist's wording or identity.
- Composition
- Crop a familiar image tightly and sequence repetitions so contextual differences become legible.
- Material
- Rephotograph or reenact self-made, licensed, or public-domain imagery, exposing its media layer through halftone, copy, or spot color.
- Caution
- Appropriation is not a blanket waiver for rights. State the target and transformation, secure permissions, or reenact the image yourself.
- Further study
- Artists Space's 1977 Pictures exhibition / Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger and Sherrie Levine / appropriation, mass media and authorship
Related entries
- Tableau Photography (タブロー写真)Shared effects: Rebellion.Compare Pictures Generation and Tableau Photography
- Pop Art (ポップアート)Shared effects: Exhilaration.Compare Pictures Generation and Pop Art
More from Postwar American Art
Continue through styles in the same Postwar American Art family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Abstract Expressionism (抽象表現主義)Shared effects: Exhilaration / Rebellion.
- Conceptual Art (コンセプチュアル・アート)Shared effects: Rebellion / Trust.
- Earthwork / Land Art (アースワーク／ランドアート)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
Browse all Postwar American Art entries
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- https://indexstyle.org/styles/pictures-generation
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- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/pictures-generation">Pictures Generation — IndexStyle</a>