Software
Information Technology : Its New Meaning for Art, 1970
Tabloid sized exhibition catalogue. Offset printed, printed wraps, staple bound, black and white with images and text throughout, 73 pp, INCLUDES exhibition announcement card: Interactive Paper Systems by Sonia Sheridan. Published by The Jewish Museum, New York, New York. Condition: light edgewear and soil to wrappers, some light toning to pages.
14 1/2h x 10 1/2w in / 36.83h x 26.67w cm
BO69
$ 1,200.00
Catalogue for the renowned experimental exhibition held at the Jewish Museum, New York, September 16 - November 8, 1970. Curated by Jack Burnham on the eve of the 1970s microcomputer revolution, the exhibition explored the potential for telecommunication devices to redefine the “entire area of aesthetic awareness.” “Software is an exhibition which utilizes sophisticated communication technology, but concentrates on the interaction between people and their electronic and electromechanical surroundings.” ____from the foreword.
Certainly a response to other important exhibitions that merged technology and art, like MoMA's "The Machine at the End of the Mechanical Age" (1968), “Software” is considered to be the foremost show of its kind for the period. Nonetheless, it received unkind reviews from contemporary critics, with the New York Times calling it “confusing.” Today, Burnham's assertions that the goals and uses of intelligent computer programs still remain very unclear even at the highest levels and “...computerized data files on individuals continue to be an extremely serious threat to human rights‚” are as relevant as when they were first written.
Catalogue features artists: Vito Acconci, David Antin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Scott Bradner, Donald Durgy, Paul F. Conly, Agnes Denes, Robert Duncan Enzmann, Carl fernbach-Flarsheim, Giorno Poetry Systems, John Goodyear, Hans Haacke, Douglas Huebler, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Theodor Nelson, Jack Nolan, RESISTORS, Allen Razdow, Sonia Sheridan, Theodosius Victoria, Lawrence Weiner, Ned Woodman.
Traveled to The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, December 16, 1970 - February 14, 1871. With texts by Karl Katz, Jack Burnham, and Theodor H. Nelson. Includes work by Fluxus, conceptual and performance artists: Vito Acconci, David Antin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Scott Bradner, Donald Burgy, Paul F. Conly, Agnes Denes, Robert Duncan Enzmann, Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim, Giorno Poetry Systems, John Goodyear, Hans Haacke, Douglas Huebler, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Theodor Nelson, Jack Nolan, RESISTORS, Allen Razdow, Sonia Sheridan, Theodosius Victoria, Lawrence Weiner, Ned Woodman.
