Writings by Robert Heinecken

The following writings by Robert Heinecken, which range in date

from the early 1960s to 1980 and appeared in a variety of contexts,
are reproduced here verbatim as they were originally published,
with the exception of a small number of spelling errors that have
been corrected for this volume.

STATEMENTS ABOUT WORK, c. 1963

1. I attempt to involve myself in work and ideas which constantly challenge that which I previously understood or thought I understood.
2. I am interested in the relationships and play between an unfamiliar
picture/object content and the familiar photographic image.
3. An aspect of the work has to do with altering the literal/cultural
meaning of existing public images by making minimal changes
and additions. Using superimposition, juxtaposition and other
contextual changes, I am functioning as a visual guerrilla.
4. I am interested in the various ways that photographic images
transcend their relationship to actuality.
5. The pictures and objects are not related to direct experiential
camera vision, but represent formalized symbolic equivalents
of experience.
6. The figure, because of its human, erotic, sensual and psychological
connections, remains my primary subject interest and is the vehicle
for the formal content of the work.
7. Often the work relates to my ongoing interest in random and
aleatory occurrences and associations. The images are the result
of situational rather than visualized stimuli. Synthesis rather
than selection is significant.
8. Through my work, I am involved in extending the photographic
medium into new processes, concepts and areas of concern and
in the utilization of new light sensitive materials.
9. My basic aim is to be able to relate the concept and content of the
last piece to the next, so as to be involved in the constant development of individual subjective work. I value the open-ended evolution
of ideas as opposed to a particularized esthetic resolution.
Published posthumously, in Robert Heinecken,
edited by Luke Batten, et al. (London: Riding House, 2012)

154

Robert Heinecken: Object Matter

The Photograph: Not a Picture of,

but an Object about Something
In the last 20 years or so, there has been considerable alteration
in our ideas about art and in what constitutes quality and validity.
Traditionally, fine arts students have been purposefully kept away
from photography in any form because it was considered to be
antithetical. More recent concerns have weakened some of the
existing concepts, and any attempt now to define art in terms of
subject matter, materials, or media is not intelligent. The question,
Is Photography Art? is no longer a pertinent one. Art is not defined
in terms of media, but rather in terms of individuals, and more
correctly in terms of a specific work. What is important is who does
it, why, and what is our response to it. One reason you do not see
many fine photographic prints, is that artists in the past have not
been opened to its potential. Hopefully this will change.
Along with the rather obvious advantages photography has for
developing vision, other aspects are also important. Whether or not
a student artist finds the photographic medium one which he fits,
he is going to benefit by contact with it because he will better
understand it, its relationship to other kinds of image making, its
difference from a hand formed image, how the camera vision differs
from direct experience and its possible combination with other
materials and media.
The found object idea in sculpture is very close to a photographic
concept. It depends on associative and formal meanings which
reside in objects and surfaces, which when put together in such a
way as to allow closure on various levels, become meaningful. Both
ideas depend on actuality as well as on interpretation.
The specific course content of the photography area at UCLA is
fixed by artistic intention and any application of the work to vocational, pedagogical, or commercial aims is coincidental to that
which is taught. Students are able to grapple with their own photographic images and problems as they occur, but are not expected to
be able to deal with the multiple applied uses of the photograph.
The extreme proliferation of the photographic image has created
certain obvious barriers which must be surmounted. However, the
somewhat similar proliferation of the written word has not prevented
poets from making use of words and language for artistic purposes.
The photography area is an integral part of the Pictorial Arts
field. It operates within the field in the same related yet autonomous
way that painting, sculpture and printmaking do. It is in this position
by virtue of the philosophy of teaching and the intent of the work.
A photographic study/research area is under development. This
area will support the curriculum as well as serve more general uses.
It will consist of 3 main parts. 1) A collection of historic and contemporary prints which are pertinent to the esthetic movement in
photography. The collection will be limited to photographic prints
which show the continuing development of the photographic print
as an artistic and expressive medium. 2) Acquisition of an adequate
library dealing with the esthetics of photography. Availability of the
serious and pertinent periodicals in this field. 3) An exhibition program which deals not only with prints from the collection but with
thematic material, one man exhibitions and also concentrates on
rather unknown individuals or on untried photographic ideas.
Writings by Robert Heinecken

This kind of photograph must be looked at more intensely than

one is used to looking at photographs. The meaning is probably not
on the surface or necessarily associated with the subject matter. It
may be operating on completely unfamiliar levels. It may not even
seem understandable.
The photograph in this context is not a picture of something but
is an object about something. It seeks to trigger response, not simply
to identify subjects or situations. I try to distinguish between making
a photograph and taking a picture.
Emphasis is placed on the original fine print and on its interpretation. Only in this form may the viewer be in touch with the image as
a complete individual work and fully appreciate all aspects of it. Under
present printing conditions, fine half-tone reproductions take place
only if extreme care is taken with all aspects of the production.
Photographs dont have to be highly manipulated to be meaningful, although this aspect offers considerable potential. The image
must transcend the subject matter in some way, but the ways are
numerous and varied.
There is really no intelligent separation between technique and
content in photographic work. However, the question of emphasis is
nearly always phrased in such a way so as to force a choice between
the two. In this program, the emphasis is placed on personal artistic
expression and on technique only as a means to that end.
These photographs are made for reasons which are personally
meaningful to the producer, and further, are judged to have intrinsic
artistic value.
By developing conceptual competence, individuality, and a personal point of view, the photographic medium is used as a particular
and peculiar means to artistic ends. The course work is pointed
towards each students determination of and involvement with his
own unique visual concerns and towards the resolution of these
concerns in this medium. Through the development of conceptional [sic] poetic vision, a student is expected to evolve a body of
work in which the images are related one to another and finally
form a group of prints which can be seen and understood as personal images.
Published in 21st Annual Art Directors Show
(Los Angeles: Art Directors Club of Los Angeles, 1965)

155

Manipulative Photography
The statements I am going to make describe one phase of a teaching
attitude. I will first describe the program at UCLA so as to place the
statements in context.
In the Art Department at UCLA there are four separate majors.
Pictorial Arts (Fine Arts), Design (all phases), Art History/Theory,
and Art Education. Within the Pictorial Arts field there are four
areas of concentration. These are Painting/Drawings, Sculpture,
Printmaking and Photography. Photography operates in the same
related yet autonomous way as do these other areas of concentration. The areas of Design (such as Graphic and Industrial Design)
which utilize photographic images in supplementary ways maintain separate conditional attitudes and teaching concerns.
All undergraduate Pictorial Arts students are required to take
at least one course in photography as well as in each other media.
Both undergraduate and graduate students may concentrate in the
area of photography.
By developing conceptual competence, individuality and a personal point of view, the photographic medium is utilized as a
particular and peculiar means to artistic ends. The course work is
pointed towards each students determination of and involvement
with his own unique visual concerns. Through the development of
poetic vision a student is expected to evolve a body of work in which
the images are related one to another and finally to form a group
of prints which can be seen and understood as personal images.
The instructional content of the area is fixed by artistic intention
and any application of the work to vocational, pedagogical, or commercial aims is purely coincidental to what is taught. Students are
able to grapple with their own photographic images and problems
as they arise, but are not expected to be able to deal with the multiple applied uses of the photograph.
The statements that now follow are related to the conditions
which I describe above, but I feel they have application and relevance to other teaching situations.
It seems to me that there is no development per se in art. There
is only the development of new artists, who hold new concepts about
art. In most of mans endeavors there is the idea of application of his
ideas and objects to specific purposes and to progress of some sort.
In fine art no comparable idea exists. The chief aim of art (in a liberal
arts situation at least) is in the refinement of a persons relationship
to his existence, a continuing process which is accomplished through
his work. In making photographs, or in any other similar poetic
endeavor, the formal means or structure towards that refinement
must be completely open ended and have the definite possibility of
taking diverse manipulative direction[s] as well as an invariable one,
provided that intense personal commitment is the result.
We constantly tend to misuse or misunderstand the term reality
in reference to photographs. The photograph itself is the only thing
that is real, that exists. The elements in the print are simply referents of various kinds which operate on various levels. Obviously
no picture, photographic or otherwise, can hope to come close in
duplicating or even simulating reality. Unless, of course, one is
concerned with making photographs of things rather than photographs about things. I find the differentiation between of and about
156

a useful one. 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.)
Once you open the shutter of a camera you have made the first
manipulative step away from the real. Any step you take beyond
that is really only a relative position on a sequential continuum of
possible alteration. The end of this sequence is complete obliteration
of the image. How far you choose to go on this continuum is a matter
of concern only to each individual involved, and should not be
conditioned (especially in a student) by arbitrary limits of validity.
In this vein I am always amazed by a listing of the former students
of Hans Hofmann, the abstract expressionist painter. This list includes
the diverse styles and attitudes of such people as Larry Rivers, Alfred
Leslie, Marisol, Wayne Thiebaud, and Michael Goldberg.
This indicates to me that Hofmann is a great teacher of painting.
These artists have each developed particular areas of concern at a
high degree of intensity, but it is the intensity which seems to have
been learned, not the internalization of Hofmanns image ideas.
What might result from a persons experimental concepts should
consist of circumstances which are flexible. Where the boundaries
of photographic validity lie, in terms of subject and form, is often
questioned. Students seem to want to know where they should
stop, rather than where they might go. I find this a disturbing attitude in a person who is learning about art and an artists concerns.
Each person must eventually discern his own limitations, but this
is often a matter of defiantly crossing the boundaries and coming
back, if necessary, rather than cautiously easing up to them.
It seems to me that we may have become over concerned with
propagating the ideas of [Edward] Steichen, [Edward] Weston and
Ansel Adams and slighting those of [Lszl] Moholy-Nagy, [Gyrgy]
Kepes, Man Ray and [John] Heartfield. There are, I feel, quite a lot
of second-rate Weston-oriented photographs around, but you have
to really search for any examples of even third or fourth-rate Man
Rayoriented photographs. I dont mean that we dont owe a great
deal to Weston and to the effect of his vision on all of us. I simply
dont see why we assume that what made him what he was has
much to do with development of future generations of photographic
artists. In relation to Westons work I was very interested, in a recent
Aperture monograph, to see photographs and read statements by
Weston which seem to support a more open artistic attitude than
we are commonly led to believe he held. It seems that he may have
definitely crossed some boundaries himself.
Various manipulative methods have been in existence and
described in detail ever since the first photographic images were
made. Today some of these techniques are outlined in fifty-cent
books which bear titles such as Darkroom Magic, Photographic
Tricks, and so on. These books deal with ways to manipulate photographs but not with whys. This is correct I suppose, because the
people who read these books are not concerned with content. My
point here is that these methods are performed and illustrated on
an extremely low level in these books, and unfortunately no one is
usually available or willing to conjecture about or teach what positive artistic potential exists in these or other untried methods.
More often the predominant attitude seems to be one which simply
Robert Heinecken: Object Matter

dismisses these attempts not on the basis of their quality, but on

the basis of the fact that they do not fall within the limitations of
straight photography or pure photography or whatever. I dare say,
however, that even in these generally trite fifty-cent books occasional images occur which are considerably more visually pertinent
than a lot of photographs which appear in the popular periodicals
(photographs given superbly subjective titles, such as f8/125th).
We have progressed to the point that we accept highly subjective
and manipulative conceptual notions about photographic images,
but we must also give equal consideration to manipulative ideas as
they relate to the final form of the photograph.
The term photography, as we understand it and use it, has come
to be synonymous with straight photography. In this context I
dont think that as a term, photography goes very far to define
certain kinds of photographic activity; it goes no further than the
word sculpture goes to define the various processes by which a
three-dimensional object might be formed. I should like to see us
broaden our concept of what photography is or can be.
Such aspects as the manipulation of time and space; experiments with various interpretations of motion and speed; the
possibilities of repetition and changing images; the viewing condition of the print; the surface on which the image is formed; the
reassembling of photographic images; the montage; and the multiple possibilities of combining photographs with other media and
materials all need serious and intense investigation by artists and
their students. The latter idea of combining photographs with other
media is sometimes a little difficult to swallow for those of us who
have been concerned primarily with the beauty and meaning of the
photograph itself. However, a fragment or section out of the objective world has great potential when combined with elements from
the imagination. A curious kind of Gestalt results because of the
ambiguous combination of credibility and deception.
Once a person delves into the obvious physical manipulation of
a photograph, his responsibilities to a total resolution of the image
are multiplied. Since he is no longer held to what he can find existent, in order to attack the problem thoroughly, he must be aware
that the vastness of choices now available to him are going to
complicate the process of resolution a great deal. In this way the
methods of manipulation are subjugated to their proper place; that
of simply contributing to picture content.
The automatic use of the camera by the public and commerce
has been of some disservice in that it has slowly conditioned us to
see in patterns of dull illusionism. This constant illusionism has
tended to stylize and generalize the way that we perceive things. At
the same time this proliferation of the mundane photographic
image has forced open creative possibilities for camera vision when
placed in the hands of sensitive individuals. The straight photograph,
however, is only one facet of that camera vision.
You can control what you include in the picture in terms of
literalism, symbolic characteristics and formal elements, but you
cant control what a person internalizes out of the viewing experience.
Ambivalent and ambiguous content seem to me to have potential
equal to that of literal, symbolic or referential content.
One of the largest areas of photographic education in which
these inequities occur is in the area of film or motion picture work.
Writings by Robert Heinecken

We find schools primarily concerned with teaching the translation

of literal or actual experiences into cinematic ones. This, of course,
is appropriate and certainly has artistic potential. However, the film
and its singular ability to deal with multiple aspects of form, manipulations of time and distance, possibilities of an ever changing or
forming image, the fact of integral audio sensations, the play of
space, timing and frequency at which an image is seen will simply
lie dormant until such time that students, and hence the public
are educated to the potential of the film as a manipulative visual
medium and not simply a communicative or story-telling device.
Over the horizon lies the probable development of mechanical
devices which have the potential of creating images and forms
which are much more illusionistic and real than present cameraproduced images are. It is the responsibility of artists/teachers to
interpret for the Culture and for their students the possible artistic
uses of such devices. To accept only the most obvious or utilitarian
function of an image-making device is to deny the real potential of
artistic involvement at its deepest level.
Published in Contemporary Photographer 5, no. 4, Winter 1967

157

I Am Involved in Learning to Perceive and Use Light

I feel that a particular set of circumstances and conditions exist
around my work and sense that this is more or less true of the work
of other individuals as well. Holding the intention that this writing
may pertain to a rather wide range of extrinsic applications, I choose
not to attempt to augment or clarify or, in fact, limit its meaning by
the inclusion of illustrations. The foundation of anything I try to
verbalize in relation to my work is rooted to my belief in the concept
and value of the on-going evolution of ones personal vision as evidenced by formal expression.
If items are being produced independent of specific extrinsic
functionand if their appearances lie outside of popular taste
and if their meanings are poetically structuredand if they tend
not to elicit relevant societal feedbackand if they do not seem to
have potential for salesthen their value to the individual maker
must be attached to the intrinsic relationships that exist between
those items themselves. It is often difficult to sustain desire and
motivation and energy in the face of indifference, unless one understands the actual organic nature of aesthetic process and then
secondly, the relationship of that process to existence.
Initially we run because of our legs. Subsequently we are told to
run between lines against intellectual and emotional ideas, thereby
examining and perceiving time. Later still, encouraged to run in
circles against age, we lose interest. The truth is to run each time
in relation to the distinct qualities of that wind, and to the personal
sensations of resistance.
My basic tenet is relatively simple. To relate the former to the
future, the last to the next. By continuing to utilize certain constant
structural forms, intellectual ideas and emotional states, I explore
the potential of the resulting images as expressional [sic ] vehicles.
Put in simple languageI make something to see what it looks like
and to see if it looks like anything else.
I have stated elsewhere that I dont sense a vertical development
per se in art, rather, only the lateral development of new artists who
hold new precepts about what art is, or can be. It is not progress, but
growthand I separate, or even divorce, these two terms. Personally,
I continue to experience uneven cycles which are combinations of a
period of confused stasis, a period of productive ideation, a period of
energetic resolution, followed by stasis, etc. Sometimes that fulfilled
pattern takes a day, and sometimes a year. The frequency of resolution makes no sense except when viewed in light of those particular
circumstances which accelerate and modify and intensify behavior.
I recall a span of about 34 years when a range of factors came
together to cause a very interesting and productive period for me.
First, I found myself in contact with a group of graduate students
who were very challenging, very bright and very committed. Second,
a colleague who acted as a fine catalyst on me. Third, a personal
life which was producing heightened emotional states and tensions.
Additionally, the stimulus of other places and other spaces was
meaningful. And finally the special re-discovery of sexuality. All of
this combined with a set of visual ideas which were fortunately very
open-ended and viable.
The work which resulted was a true organism. It was not the identity of these component factors or individuals which was important,
158

but the exact composition, union and assimilation of those factors.

Perhaps less important but relevant, was the climate of potential professional acceptance which I began to experience.
The camera or the resulting print as a witness to visual experience
is simply not present as a precept in my work. I use the camera as a
tool for gathering or recording or copying, but not on a conscious
experimental level. However, I do think of the picture/object as a
symbolic equivalent for experience, or fantasy or imagination.
I am interested in what I term gestalts; picture circumstances
which bring together disparate images or ideas so as to form new
meanings and new configurations. Often this involves the integration of words and typographic elements. In this vein, it is the
incongruous, the ironic and the satirical which interest me, particularly in socio/political or sexual/erotic contexts. I sometimes
visualize myself as a bizarre guerrilla, investing in a kind of humorous warfare in which a series of minimal, direct, invented acts result
in a maximum extrinsic effect, but without consistent rationale. I
might liken it to the intention of making police photographs in which
there is no crime involvedbut with that assumption.
The methods and process characteristic of the photographic
medium fascinate me, especially in relation to all kinds of unconventional light sensitive materials, and combinations. In the work,
I am involved in a constant redefinition of the implied boundaries
of what photography is, for me. Not just in relation to media extensions, but idea extensions as well.
The following are a series of rather loosely connected (and briefly
described) personal thoughts, ideas, and interests which hopefully
will add up to a description of my working premise and attitudes.
These factors determine the appearance and content of my work
and collectively define its difference from other photographic work.
I visualize the entire history and range of photographic image
possibilities as a kind of 3 dimensional continuum with barely
discernible and intermittent demarcation points. I am more interested in those distinctions of motive, temperament and idea than
in groupings of chronology, process, or generalized appearances. As
an example, I find it interesting to try to understand and relate Les
Krims photographs to the 19th century allegorical illustrations by
J[ulia] M[argaret] Cameron. And then both of those to [Edward S.]
Curtis theatrical photographs of the American Indians. Or on
another level, Fred Sommers assemblages of the 1940s to the
European photo montage work of 20 years earlier. And those to the
writings of [Alain] Robbe-Grillet.
All of it has to do with the particular illusion inherent in the photographic medium. The physical and temperamental point at which the
deception takes place is different in each of the above examples but
the image idea and my subjective response to it seems constant.
One tends to assume certain things about conventional photographs. Even with a sophisticated understanding of the high degree
of abstraction involved, and the knowledge of the discrete and
pointed differences between vision and perception or experience
and image, the lens-formed picture remains our current model for
accuracy of rendition. In spite of an awareness of inferred time and
motion, as in cinema or video, the basic similarity between what
one sees with his eyes in nature, and what one sees in a photograph
is striking. This is especially true if effective cultural conditioning
Robert Heinecken: Object Matter

has been present. My mother (b. 1895) still says Kodak when she
means camera and photographic when she means realistic. In the
same way, and because of the same kind of conditioning, I (b. 1931)
say picture instead of image and television rather than video tape.
Typically we see the photographic image as a complete and total
one, and therefore strangely correct; automatically resolved in
terms of the disposition of objects in space, rational scale reduction,
more or less correct translation from color to value and probably most
important, rational depiction of ordinary time, place and subject.
In most well done (or well seen) conventional photographs, it
seems to be the selection of the particular combinational relationships of the above inherent lenticular ingredients which determines
quality. I feel that I am involved in the application of these same
factors and principles not as they are found/selected, but as they
are synthesized or produced additively. What I begin to respond to
in dealing with manipulated or synthesized photographic work is
not really a refusal of the importance of these given factors but a
kind of impatience with the rationality of their lens structure and
heritage, and their seeming completeness.
I have an appreciation and a sincere interest in accepting and
extending these same characteristics in the context of a synthesized facture rather than in an analytics or selected one. The
presence of residual photographic illusions/reality (rational time,
space, volume etc.) as they function in the separate elements of a
synthesized image or object, is as important as it is in an entire,
selected one. It may be similar to a comparison between igneous,
as opposed to aggregate, geological formations. In any conglomerate object, structural dichotomy is intrinsic, and therefore, at least
from my standpoint, extrinsic resolution and restructuring on a
formal level is imperative. Therein exists the challenge of this work.
I think I understand when I hear the word subject matter defined,
but become confused and more interested when I invent the term
object matter.
In addition to the specific lenticular characteristic mentioned
above, other properties of the medium present themselves to me as
interesting predicaments if not dilemmas, and hence working ideas.
The surface of photographic paper is strangely uniform and
resistant. The silver image seems to be on the surface or even on
top of it, floating and dislocated from its base. The evidence of pressure, even slight (as now, writing with a pencil) or deeply bonded as
in etching, is missing. The experience of physically imposing or
imbedding the mark in the materials is not felt. Each time I look at
a photographic print, I cannot escape asking myself Are those
induced black shapes floating on white paper, or erased white
shapes emerging from black paper?
Color, in a color photograph, seems to remain descriptive and
identificational rather than functioning psychologically or spatially
or expressionally as it can do when added to black and white or
monotone prints. Or especially when used as the initial pigment as
in gum printing and blue printing or as the ink color in etching,
lithography or gravure. Additionally, the chemically induced colors
of photographic materials are not only unique and beautiful, but
inherent and spontaneous.
The volume of 3-dimensional objects as typically depicted by
the camera lens is of course an illusion of volume, and when actual
Writings by Robert Heinecken

volume or dimension is played against that flat illusion, its space

becomes beautifully ambiguous.
Scale or size in conventional photography has tended to be kept
small because of the rather questionable canon that a fine pattern
of grain is desirable. Grain size in a picture seems relevant only to
the distances involved in viewing it. The history and presence of
albums and books have perhaps tended to limit and condition ideas
of appropriate scale in the medium. Exhibition space and controlled
light rather than page size seem relevant as the context for a good
deal of my work.
Superimpositional and negative (reversed) and combinational
methods seem to me to be innate to the photographic process. The
fact that light initially causes density and hence a reversed image,
seems relevant. The fact that the emulsion is on a transparent base
seems important. The fact that the emulsion can be applied to almost
any surface seems like a gift.
The kind of delicacy and the exquisite strange volumetric appearances of the photogram have incredible potential. The opportunity
for photographic appearances and subtleties to coexist with free
associations and open ended synthesized configurations, is rich.
Serialism and systems relating to serial thinking are of special
interest to me, as are aleatory propositions. I utilize them in the work
but often on sub-structural or formative levels which tends to keep
their visibility submerged.
All of the above possibilities have even higher potential when I
consider their unavailability in the human optical system and hence
their possible appropriateness to the human picturing system. I
am not so concerned with the photographic medium as a smooth
rectangular window out, but as a variously shaped and surfaced
vehicle in.
My most recent work has to do with the use of various light sensitive materials themselves, and reflections about the medium itself,
often disassociated from my typical image concerns. These ideas
are now surfacing and are in stages of being collected, assimilated
and produced.
I have always respected and in a sense marveled at a succinct
and germane statement which I believe is Minor Whites. In it, he
makes the beautiful distinction between learning to be a photographer versus learning to photograph. I like to feel that I am involved
in a further discussionlearning to perceive and use light.
Published in Untitled Quarterly 7/8: On Change and Exchange,
edited by Peter Thompson (Carmel, Calif.: Friends of Photography,
April 1974)

159

Untitled
The following ideas are to be taken seriously but theoretically. I have
found it useful to apply them variously to learning and teaching
situations (extrinsically and intrinsically), and the best results
seem to be based on how flexibly one approaches them. It is not to
be taken as a system, but as a series of connected concepts. Since it
must be presented here in a given linear manner it is important to
note that while I believe all aspects of it to be relevant, this particular
sequence may only be a personal ideal and only circumstantially
applicable. It is a kind of raw outline leading to what I consider to
be authentic behavior. It has to do with the development of the
artist as an autonomous and responsible individual, and it assumes
that such a thing can be taught and learned, and that teaching and
learning are separable.
The first notion which an individual must grasp is the deceptive
fact of personal existence. This realization and acceptance is not
necessarily innate and while some people seem to know it from
birth, others never know it. One can even know it and somehow
reject it. The understanding of self-identity and the meaning of that
identity is primary crucial.
Secondly, one must have the feeling that this special existence
is the way it is because of ones unique and particularized experiences. Its not necessarily that they are more exciting or dramatic
than someone elses, just unique. More importantly one must sense
that the separate and often diverse elements of experience are
potentially related to one another in distinct ways.
Third, one needs to have a natural or developed interest in
externalizing these experiencesnot necessarily to or for others,
but simply to place them outside of ones self, and to do so continually, consciously, and seriously, not simply on a casual basis as
is usual. Also one needs to find it valuable to have some tangible
object, event, or form which can represent the experience. This calls
for a willingness to use artifice to produce evidence and to use
evidence to produce artifice and to be willing to confuse the two.
This capacity for imagination, fantasy, and visualization may be what
we call ego. These three initial stages occur through ones parents
or other early contacts or can be realized and assimilated later.
The next stages we are more inclined to develop in schools or
other institutions, but they are by no means automatic or even likely.
It is highly desirable to explore ones capacities in regard to the
physical senses. Meaningful controlled activities involving the tactile, verbal, visual, kinesthetic, linguistic, rhythmic and spatial senses
allow one to discern innate capabilities and qualities of each sense
and ones tendencies toward each or toward certain combinations.
It is helpful here to work under the guidance of people who themselves love these senses and have functional experience with them.
Given a leaning toward a particular sense or combination of
senses, one can then examine what constitutes the tools, media,
and skills needed or involved in working with that sense. One
should undertake studies and activities directed at developing
basic skills, and more importantly, determining personal preferences. (Ill concentrate here on the visual, assuming that what
follows would be the same for any other choice within the broad
field of the arts.) Activities such as drawing, painting, printmaking,
160

film, photography, video, sculpture, installation, and performance

are the obvious media distinctions, but others will certainly emerge.
Again I would stress combinational thinking and encourage the
discovery of the relationships that exist between media. The basic
idea is to learn various ways by which passive observation is effectively converted into concrete form or object.
One should identify the medium (or media) in which one is both
comfortable yet challenged. Concentrate on that medium by studying its craft and its history simultaneously. By craft I dont mean
exclusively to master the technical, but rather to develop a personal
attitude about the meaning of craft and the meaning of technical
excellence. Obviously some media require more technology than
others, and some require more collaboration. It is important to
learn to what extent one is comfortable with either of these conditions. It is sometimes useful to break craft down into discernable
areas such as subject matter, image formation, image application,
and image presentation. These areas are certainly inseparable
parts of one item or idea but it is possible to determine preferences
and capabilities in certain areas over others. In the above it is again
helpful if one has instruction from individuals who care about the
medium, care about the objective/subjective, and care about the
student. Avoid those who view the medium as an activity which
produces a solution to a given problem. Find those who view it as
producing a series of intrinsically related problems per se.
The study of history is important for at least two reasons. First
it should provide one with the sense of being (or becoming) a part
of an ongoing community of serious and committed individuals,
and the feeling that it is all right to be an artist even in cultures
and circumstances which tend to mitigate [sic ] against it. This
study of history should not be limited to, much less concentrated
on, the chronology of certain events or pictures. Rather it should
examine the relationship of past motives and results to the social,
esthetic, political, economic, psychological, etc., climate and
thought of the time. This will allow the individual to develop and
determine a consciousness about these important factors as they
exist in history, and as they relate to present work. Secondly, this
study should function to reveal the extant ideas and forms so that
one knows what not to repeat, or at least to know that one is repeating. The study of craft and history obviously never stops. Craft
continually evolves and there is new history with every new artist.
Next a period of more or less independent work is beneficial to
learn discipline and concentration and to discern individual preference and capacity for content through mode. There are many
modes and many terms for modes which may differ from mine. The
terminology of art is interestingly confusing and accurately reflects
its current subjective character. I identify at least five modes: realism/
abstraction/symbolism/expressionism/formalism. It is important
to visualize these terms as not representing boxes or categories but
as loose and overlapping demarcation points along a continuum
running from the objective pole to the subjective pole. (Perhaps
there are no poles, but rather a kind of circles [sic ].) I will only briefly
describe my meaning of these terms because it is the ideas and the
relationships of the modes which are most important, not exact
definitions. Realism means such things as close visual reference,
replication, veracity, depiction, accuracy, a model of what we see,
Robert Heinecken: Object Matter

a nearly one-to-one example of scale and spatial relationships etc.

Abstraction has to do with distillation, essences, reduction of broad
information, attention to the meaning of detail, and, to some extent,
distortion. Symbolism is related more to the intellect and to the
literary. It brings to mind transference, displacement, metaphor,
analogy, interpretation, and the esoteric. Expressionism means the
externalization of powerful; personal emotional states. These need
not be entirely or exclusively negative, only powerful. Formalism is
a primary concern for the particular relationships of the elements
which make up the object. Structural, perceptual, spatial, configurational, and beautiful come to mind.
By presenting these modes in a specific order, a hierarchy is
implied. Hierarchies do exist and they do change. They alter from
past to present and from one culture to another. I believe the challenge and task of each artist to be that of evolving meaningful,
organic, personal hierarchies of mode, independent of audience or
extrinsic response, and to take direct responsibility for those
choices. Perhaps all art and all artists tend to deal variously and
simultaneously with all such modes. Work which mutates divergent
modes in imaginative ways will interest other artists. Work which
is obsessively directed toward or limited to a particular mode can
reconstruct a previously implied hierarchy and become developmentally significant in the course of the medium or of art itself.
It is important to keep the above discussion of modal ideas from
becoming a system or formula. Or if, in fact, it is viewed as a system,
one accepts that limitation. I personally place a lot of faith in intuition
and instinct in these matters but feel that there are often circumstances which make it difficult to give ones self permission to use
them. Perhaps intuition is developed, not simply identified. Also it is
not intended for (nor does it lend itself to) use in the ranking or the
evaluation of people or work. It is useful for discussing, examining,
comparing, and analyzing ideas/intentions in ones self and as a way
to heighten ones response to unfamiliar and even uncomfortable
work in all fields of art and in fact human endeavor in general.
After this period of open-ended and independent investigation
described above, one will meet the problem of stylistic identification.
Such identification can occur organically or be caused consciously,
and one can accept it or reject it as seems necessary. In any event
a personal and functional attitude must be formed concerning it.
Develop an ability to autonomously decide what to make, what it
should involve, what it should look like, and (more difficult) what
not to make.
Closely related to and following the idea of stylistic identification,
I recognize a developmental stage which is more difficult to define
or describe. It has to do with determining the breadth of inquiry
versus particularization and making distinctions of relevant choice.
An oversimplified way of stating it would be refinement versus innovation. It is the ability to sense when one has learned all there is
from a particular set of ideas/objects and to leapfrog ideas intelligently in order to step organically from a comfortable state to a new
(yet related) problematic one.
All through these theoretic sets of circumstances and decisions,
it is necessary to differentiate constantly between the work and its
authentic developmentthe requirements of ones job or profession
and the problems of ones career as an artist. It is desirable but rare
Writings by Robert Heinecken

that these three aspects (work, job, career) triangulate in such a

way that is equally productive to the others. There can be extreme
differences of motive involved in each and one must clearly understand and make distinctions between them.
I write all of this with some trepidation. I am much more comfortable with a personal application of parts of it as it seems useful
circumstantially than I am with laying it out as a kind of schema.
I am aware that if all of this is seen as a linear or vertical direction,
that equally interesting lateral moves could also be described which
would produce different results. I also realize that as a set of thoughts
it tends to look backward after the fact, rather than forward through
projection. I do continue to wonder however about the reasons for
the meteoric acceleration of short-winded ideas and work and (for
example) a concern for an identification of style prior to an identification of self.
Published in Exposure
(Society for Photographic Education) 18,
no. 3, Fall 1980

161