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.
At a glance
Visual cues
- 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
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
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Dictionary entry
- 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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- [Pictures Generation — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/pictures-generation)
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- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/pictures-generation">Pictures Generation — IndexStyle</a>