Douglas Huebler
American, 1924–1997
Variable Piece #70 (In Process): 166A
INV-2139
Douglas Huebler
American, 1924–19971975/76
Variable Piece #70 (In Process): 166A
Douglas Huebler American, 1924–1997 →photographphotography
Date
1975/76
Medium
Typed and signed statement, typed list of characterizations, five chromogenic prints mounted on two panels
Dimensions
Top panel: 40.6 × 116.8 cm (16 × 46 in.); Bottom panel: 40.6 × 96.5 cm (16 × 38 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Contemporary Art Discretionary Fund
Douglas Huebler used diverse systems of documentation to chronicle rule-based but unscripted events and encounters. Variable Piece #70 stands as the most ambitious project of his career—to make a photographic record of “everyone alive.” The utter futility of the premise was liberating, and Huebler would set different terms of play for each foray. For Variable Piece #70 (In Process): 166A, he asked participants to describe themselves by selecting from a set of 80 placards imprinted with different personal characteristics. This work features all five people who posed with the sign reading “One person who may be culturally dislocated.” Far from a fastidious archivist, Huebler pursued Variable Piece #70 until his death, always undermining the project’s potential rigor with allowances for subjectivity and humor.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
Variable Piece #101
Douglas Huebler American, 1924-1997
Location Piece #2, New York City - Seattle, Washington
Douglas Huebler American, born 1924-1997
The Plane of Flat Gray Color Represented Above
Douglas Huebler American, 1924-1997
The Plane of Deep Gray Color Represented Above
Douglas Huebler American, 1924-1997