Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Sam Moyer
American; 21st-century
New York, NY: Hill Art Foundation (Exhibition: Sam Moyer: Woman with Holes)
39%
Hard Message 4. 2023. Silver gelatin print, concrete frame with Long Island beach stone aggregate
Frequently, current art is a game of deploying one medium or technique as a means of justifying the use of some other "primary" medium or technique. This artwork is primarily a photograph, but Moyer has made its frame into a sculpture — and a sculpture made out of the same stuff that's in the photo! — by way of imbuing the image with more significance than it would have had on its own as a simple picture. There's nothing wrong with doing this sort of thing — it might even be unavoidable today — but Moyer has done it poorly. That's partly because there's something bland and unintentionally cheap about the beach-concrete material; partly because as a sculpture the frame has nothing going for it besides the fact that it's made of something quirky; partly because it's pat and simple-minded to zhuzh up a representation by juxtaposing it with the "real" object it's representing. Pointing out that pictures aren't things can be a component of great art, but it's not sufficient on its own. (2025)