Lehman Loeb Art Center revisits Evidence

Miranda Kimball A&E Editor

On Oct. 2, the Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center welcomed the latest traveling exhibition to grace its walls, Evidence Revisited. The exhibition is on loan from the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona and will stay at the Lehman Loeb until Dec. 19. Evidence Revisited, with its distinguished history and aesthetically striking images, is a real treat for both the Vassar community and any photography connoisseur.

Evidence Revisited examines Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel’s progressive exhibition, Evidence, which debuted at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1977. Sultan and Mandel met in graduate school, as photography students, at the San Francisco Art Institute. Sandra S. Phillips, in the opening essay of the newest edition of the accompanying book to Evidence Revisited, described the San Francisco Art Institute as “the first place where photography was taught consciously as a form of art rather than as a trade.” It is clear that Sultan and Mandel embraced this ethos and directed it towards their collaborative effort.

Amazingly, these two recently graduated photography students, through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, were given the opportunity to peruse and search through the archives of various corporations, government agencies, and research institutions with the goal of publishing a book that would highlight their findings.

In total, Sultan and Mandel sifted through over two million photographs from 70 different archives. They chose 243 images and their final exhibition showcased 89 of these images.

While Sultan and Mandel’s findings were published as a book, these photographs were removed from their original context to such a degree that all that was left for their viewer was a collection of breathtaking black and white images. Was it art or photographic documentation? The images of both Evidence and Evidence Revisited clearly treat them as the former.

The original exhibition was described by its curator as “a poetic exploration upon the restructuring of imagery.” While there are no text panels explaining the images, there is a clear sequence. Joel Smith, photography curator at the Lehman Loeb, explains that “like Marcel Duchamp, Sultan and Mandel have, through their classical photograph technique and smart-alecky sense of humor, transformed an object that was not intended as art into art.” In the mid-1970s, in the realm of photography, this approach of de-contextualization to the craft was truly ahead of its time.

After its initial show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Evidence toured the world, with noted stops at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. At the time, the photography world was considered rather intimate and well connected; clearly that is still the case today. By chance, a school friend of Smith’s, Douglas Nickel, is now the Director of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. With a simple phone call, Evidence Revisited was brought to Vassar through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

Along with the exhibition, the Lehman Loeb is fortunate to have the opportunity to welcome Mike Mandel to campus. He will speak on Tuesday Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. in Taylor Hall 203. An opening reception will follow in the art center.