Heiferman, Marvin; Keaton, Diane
Published by Callaway Editions, 1983
Hardcover in very good condition.
The lures of Hollywood movies, with their amalgam of stars, events, and luxuriant details, were seemingly insufficient to insure audience appeal. With the aim of cementing seduction, Hollywood studios in the postwar years churned out an endless stream of promotional stills, employing publicity departments and independent agencies to disseminate the images at large. These stills were used for posters, newspaper clips, and magazine reproduction; they displayed professional as well as supposedly intimate moments. Some show rehearsed and overheightened moments taken from feature films, while others are behind-the-scene views of life on the set. All display an exaggerated expression, an unconvincing artificiality that is retrospectively revealing.
“Still Life” contained some 44 of these color photographs, dating from 1940 to 1970. Organized by Diane Keaton and Marvin Heiferman, who edited the accompanying book (Still Life, Callaway Editions), the exhibition was the product of a year of picture research in periodical archives, film studios, publicity files, and collections in California and New York. What it yielded is a vista not over American life, but over the American dream as it informs American life; these pictures tell much about the conjunction of glamour, action, and overstated expression that comprises the coding of postwar aspiration.
Heiferman, Marvin; Keaton, Diane
Published by Callaway Editions, 1983
Hardcover in very good condition.
The lures of Hollywood movies, with their amalgam of stars, events, and luxuriant details, were seemingly insufficient to insure audience appeal. With the aim of cementing seduction, Hollywood studios in the postwar years churned out an endless stream of promotional stills, employing publicity departments and independent agencies to disseminate the images at large. These stills were used for posters, newspaper clips, and magazine reproduction; they displayed professional as well as supposedly intimate moments. Some show rehearsed and overheightened moments taken from feature films, while others are behind-the-scene views of life on the set. All display an exaggerated expression, an unconvincing artificiality that is retrospectively revealing.
“Still Life” contained some 44 of these color photographs, dating from 1940 to 1970. Organized by Diane Keaton and Marvin Heiferman, who edited the accompanying book (Still Life, Callaway Editions), the exhibition was the product of a year of picture research in periodical archives, film studios, publicity files, and collections in California and New York. What it yielded is a vista not over American life, but over the American dream as it informs American life; these pictures tell much about the conjunction of glamour, action, and overstated expression that comprises the coding of postwar aspiration.
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