Andy Warhol

Coplans, John

NEW YORK GRAPHIC SOCIETY

Mekas, Jonas

TOMKINS, Calvin

Arts & Photography

Little,Brown & Co

Book by Turrell, James, Coplans, John, Panza di Biumo, Dr. Giuseppe, Adcock, Craig

James Turrell: Occluded Front

Turrell, James

Adcock, Craig

Panza di Biumo, Dr. Giuseppe

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Lapis Pr

"What is distinctive about [Coplan's] mind and the way it works is the ingenuity, curiosity, independence, range, and above all the sense of a pattern emerging without pressure...." —Stuart Morgan Provocations, a selection of John Coplans’ writings from 1963–1981, edited by art critic and curator Stuart Morgan, includes essays on Classic Modernism, Photography, and Pop Art, chapters from his now out-of-print books Kurt Schwitters (written with Walter Hopps) and Serial Imagery, and his controversial report on the decline of the Pasadena Art Museum.

Provocations

Morgan, Stuart

History & Criticism

powerHouse Books

While Coplans has published abbreviated versions of his nude portraits in catalogs and small format books, A Body is the first publication to present the full emotional impact of this important work in an oversized monograph that takes the viewer on a protean voyage through, inside, around, and all over the human body.

A Body

Individual Artists

Following the attacks of September 11, artist and downtown resident John Coplans responded unconsciously to the disaster by making photos of his arms and legs and then collaging the two together into one image. After making four such images, Coplans realized the connection to the aftermath of the event, where workmen were digging up debris and constantly finding human remains, especially body parts. At the same time, Coplans’ problems with his eyesight became exacerbated; he was unable to see facial features, and he could neither read nor focus. The days became dark, somewhat like dusk, but worse. For some time, his left eye had been useless because of Macular Degeneration; now, the same thing was happening to his right eye. Yet Coplans could still see flat images the size of a postcard fairly distinctly with the aid of a magnifying machine, and decided to continue working on Body Parts. Since he could not see, the question arises as to how Coplans could take these photographs. In fact, he had not taken any of the images himself since he first began making the various Self Portrait photographs in 1984. Coplans would preview the pose with a video camera connected to a television set and have an assistant do the actual shooting. But once his eyesight had been severely diminished, this system became useless and he had to find another. For Coplans, the solution came from recognizing the fact that we don’t actually see an image with our eyes—we perceive it with our minds. He then applied this concept to the process of making photographs for Body Parts; Coplans imagined the image in advance and then found the pose. In the past when he could see, it was necessary to take many photographs to match the image on the video, but now it was done in a single shot to get the first half of the image; then his assistant would take the complimentary pose. Very often this was accomplished on the first take with assistant Bradford Robotham. Together with A Body (powerHouse, 2002), Body Parts forms the complete Coplans oeuvre.

Body Parts

"What is distinctive about [Coplan's] mind and the way it works is the ingenuity, curiosity, independence, range, and above all the sense of a pattern emerging without pressure...." —Stuart Morgan  Provocations, a selection of John Coplans’ writings from 1963–1981, edited by art critic and curator Stuart Morgan, includes essays on Classic Modernism, Photography, and Pop Art, chapters from his now out-of-print books Kurt Schwitters (written with Walter Hopps) and Serial Imagery, and his controversial report on the decline of the Pasadena Art Museum.

Literature & Fiction

Distributed Art Pub Inc

John Coplans, autoportraits

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Actes-sud

ROY LICHTENSTEIN AU CENTRE POMPIDOU

BEAUX ARTS ED

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Books by Coplans, John