Robert Heinecken may have been classified as a photographer within the art world, but he was rarely found with a camera in hand. Not interested in photography as a means of documenting life, he believed that “Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.” Heinecken created unique images by placing magazine clippings on light tables to expose both sides of the images. Other times he used unexposed pornographic images as source material for collages that were delicate and jarring. Some of his most interesting work came from Videograms- still images made by placing light-sensitive paper directly on a television screen. Techniques that seem now to be essential components of experimental photography were largely developed by Heinecken. Though contemporaries like Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha were perhaps more well known, Heinecken’s work stands out as emotional and vibrant in the first wave of artists who used photography as source material for conceptual art that stepped out of the darkroom and into life. — Text by Kelsey Kreiling. More imges after the jump.
