Archives of American Art

Oral history interview with Allan Sekula

Summary

Collection ID:
AAA.sekula11
Creators:
Sekula, Allan
Panzer, Mary
Dates:
2011 August 20-2012 February 14
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
12 Items
Sound recording: 12 sound files (6 hr.,14 min.)
digital, wav
143 Pages
Transcript
Repository:

Scope and Contents

Scope and Contents
An interview with Allan Sekula conducted 2011 August 20-2012 February 14, by Mary Panzer, for the Archives of American Art at Sekula's studio and home in Los Angeles, California and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York.
Scope and Contents
Sekula speaks of his career and some of the mediums he works in; language and contemporary art; Roland Barthes; his relation to contemporary art; west coast conceptualism; genre switches; realism; documentary photography; Belgium and the industrial revolution; Meunier; minor figures; art history and marginalism; Roberto Matta; World War I; Homer Folks; Fish Story; historic cinema; economic factors of art shows and publication; galleries and the art world; growing up and his family; his father and moving; Ohio; his brothers and sisters; San Pedro; demographics of students at school; sports at school; Vietnam; protests; cross country and swimming; California; fishing; college; U.C. system; declaring a major; John Altoon; Ed Kienholz; exposure to art; visiting museums; Marcuse's classes; Baldessari's classes; course work and student life; student demonstrations; working in a library and exposure to books; father losing his job; science and working as a chemical technician; politics; his uncle committing suicide; moving away from his father; the draft; John Birch; Students for a Democratic Society; his mother; politics of his parents; Aerospace Folk Tales, autodidacts and scholarship; San Diego and Mexico; obtaining a camera and starting to use it; art school; CalArts; UCSD; Meditations on a Triptych; David Salle; Fred Lonidier; Phel Steinmetz; MFA and art training; poets; story of Allen Ginsberg and one of Sekula's sculptures; production and the audience; A Photograph is Worth a Thousand Questions, photography and the burden of tradition; pictorialism; moving to New York; Artforum; October; New York music scene; Captain Beefheart; Bo Diddley; Little Richard; Steichen and aerial photography; origins of October; New Criterion; Art Critic's Grant; teaching at Ohio State; television; technological historians; New York subway and getting a ticket for using French money; RISD lectures; Long Beach; photography; collages; Metro Pictures; New Topographics; School as a Factory; moral choice and the viewer; work method and the audience; Social Criticism and Art Practice; east and west coasts; Ed Ruscha; documentary; film, Los Angeles; cinema and social history; Ohio State Department of Photography and Cinema; Los Angeles Plays Itself; Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; Ohio State campus, anti-Semitism; Ronald Reagan and protest; influences and colleagues; intellectual genealogy; Michael Graves and Ohio State architecture; Bad Ohio; tenure; University Exposed; AIDS issue of October; The Body and the Archive; making film; Korean War; collectors and images. Sekula also recalls Eleanor Antin, Jeff Wall, Terry Fox, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Paul Saltman, Marcuse, Baldessari, Sacvan Bercovitch, Stanley Miller, Jef Raskin, Paul Brach, David Antin, Howard Fried, Peter Van Riper, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Manny Farber, Ihab Hassan, Diane Wakoski, Jackson Mac Low, Martha Rosler, Lenny Neufeld, Joshua Neufeld, David Wing, Brian Connell, Max Kozloff, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Carole Conde, Karl Beveridge, Barry Rosens, Tom Crow, John Copeland, Harry Lunn, Hilton Kramer, Grace Mayer, Carol Duncan, Eva Cockroft, Richard Pommer, Rosalind Krauss, Sally Stein, Paddy Chayefsky, John Hanhardt, Mel Ramsden, Sarah Charlesworth, Jospeh Kosuth, Baruch Kirschenbaum, Robert Heinecken, Brian O'Doherty, Howard Becker, Jay Ruby, Jerry Liebling, Anna Wilkie, Ronald Feldman, John Gibson, David Ross, Britt Salvesen, Larry Sultan, Mike Mandel, Roy Ascott, Ilene Segalove, Paul Schimmel, DeeDee Halleck, Noel Burch, Joan Braderman, Woody Hayes, Thom Andersen, John Quigley, Ron Green, Kasper Koenig, Dan Graham, Jonathan Green, Christa Wolf, Catherine Lord, Ben Lifson, and Annette Michelson.

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
Allan Sekula (1951-2013) was a photographer, filmmaker, and writer, based at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Mary Panzer (1955- ) is a historian from New York, New York.

Administration

Existence and Location of Copies
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.

Digital Content


Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Activism Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Antisemitism Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Architecture Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art -- Exhibitions -- Economic aspects Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art -- History Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art, Modern -- 20th century Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Art -- Study and teaching Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Conceptual art Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Documentary photography Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Korean War, 1950-1953 Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Music -- New York (State) -- New York Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Photography Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Realism Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
World War, 1914-1918 Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Interviews Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sound recordings Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Photographers -- California Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Filmmakers -- California Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Authors -- California Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Altoon, John, 1925- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Antin, David Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Antin, Eleanor Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ascott, Roy Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Braderman, Joan Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Baldessari, John, 1931- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Barthes, Roland Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Becker, Howard Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bercovitch, Sacvan Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Beveridge, Karl Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bo Diddley, 1928-2008 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Brach, Paul, 1924- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Burch, Noël, 1932- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Burn, Ian, 1939-1993 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Captain Beefheart Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Charlesworth, Sarah, 1947-2013 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Chayefsky, Paddy, 1923-1981 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Conde, Carol Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Connell, Brian Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Evans, Walker, 1903-1975 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Farber, Manny Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Feldman, Ronald, 1938- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Folks, Homer, 1867-1963 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Fox, Terry, 1943- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Fried, Howard, 1946- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1997 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Graham, Dan, 1942- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Graves, Michael, 1934-2015 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Halleck, DeeDee Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hanhardt, John G. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hassan, Ihab, 1925-2015 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hayes, Woody, 1913-1987 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Heinecken, Robert, 1931- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Higgins, Dick, 1938-1998 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Kienholz, Edward, 1927- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Kirschenbaum, Baruch David, 1931- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Knowles, Alison, 1933- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
König, Kasper Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Kosuth, Joseph. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Kozloff, Max Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Kramer, Hilton Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Krauss, Rosalind E. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Liebling, Jerome Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lifson, Ben Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Little Richard, 1932- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lonidier, Fred Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lord, Catherine, 1949- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lunn, Harry, 1933-1998 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Mac Low, Jackson Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Mandel, Mike Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Matta, 1912-2002 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Mayer, Grace M. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Michelson, Annette Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
O'Doherty, Brian Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Pommer, Richard Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ramsden, Mel Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Raskin, Jef Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Reagan, Ronald Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Rosler, Martha Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ross, David A., 1949- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ruby, Jay Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ruscha, Edward Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Salle, David, 1952- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Salvesen, Britt Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Schimmel, Paul Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Segalove, Ilene, 1950- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Stein, Sally Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Steinmetz, Philip Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sultan, Larry Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Van Riper, Peter Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wakoski, Diane Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wall, Jeff, 1946- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Artforum Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
California Institute of the Arts Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
The Ohio State University -- Faculty Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Rhode Island School of Design Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
University of California, San Diego Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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