ABSTRACT
An exhibition titled Pictures, curated by Douglas Crimp at Artists Space in 1977, would have a considerable impact on the art discourse of the 1980s, although this was not perceived at the time. He selected Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, and Phillip Smith because their pictures consisted of pictures whose images were appropriated from pictures. The overwhelming number of Americans born after 1945 had been weaned on the mass media, particularly television. Thomas Lawson personalized the pervasive influence of the media, asserting that the insistent penetration of the mass media into every facet of people's daily lives has made the possibility of authentic experience difficult, if not impossible. John Baldessari and Richard Prince were the first to make pictures from mass-media pictures. Baldessari showed the way from conceptual art of the late 1960s, which focused on aesthetic issues, to what might be called media art.
