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Robert Whitman (American, born 1935)
Shower, 1964
Robert Whitman created some of the first, and most significant, mixed-media performance works of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the performances and happenings of this period, artists created events designed to engage the viewer through spontaneous reaction to sensory and emotional stimuli. Such events, pioneered by Whitman and others, often juxtaposed film and projected images with live action. The work is one of the earliest examples of the projected image's shift away from the two-dimensional cinema screen into projective installations.
Shower is one of a group of five works Whitman made between 1963 and 1964 in which films were projected onto physical objects. It shows a film of a woman taking a shower, projected from the rear onto a curtain, behind which water cascades inside a metal shower stall. At one point, the water turns to colored paint, which pours over the woman and then washes off of her as it quickly reverts to water. This dramatic moment, intercut with close-up shots of the drain and shower head, evokes both the painterly happenings of the early 1960s and the famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller movie Psycho (1960).
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About Robert Whitman
Born 1935, New York, New York
Lives in Warwick, New York
Beginning in the 1960s, Robert Whitman collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg and engineers founding "Experiments in Art and Technology" (E.A.T.) to sponsor collaborations between artists and engineers. Whitman has created works using live performance, slide projection, film, and lasers, believing that nearly anything can be used to create art and film. Rather than depicting real objects, as one would with a still life painting, Whitman incorporated real objects into his artwork.
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Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Lupe, 1965
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