Background
Douglas Huebler grew up in rural Michigan during the Depression and served in the Marines in World World War World War II
artist Photographer university professor
Douglas Huebler grew up in rural Michigan during the Depression and served in the Marines in World World War World War II
University of Michigan. Académie Julian, Royal College of Artist
After the war, funded by the GI Bill, Huebler earned his bachelor"s and master"s degrees at the University of Michigan, and later went on to study at the Académie Julian in Paris. He worked for several years as a commercial art illustrator in New York as he established himself as an artist. Initially a painter, Huebler moved on to produce geometric Formica sculptures in the early "60s, which aligned him with the Minimalist movement.
In 1969, he participated, with Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner, in a landmark exhibition of conceptual art curated by Seth Siegelaub.
As part of the show, Huebler issued one of his most famous statements: "The world is full of objects, more or less interesting. I do not wish to add any more." He then started producing works in numerous media often involving documentary photography, maps and text to explore social environments and the effect of passing time on objects.
A representative example of Huebler"s early work is Duration Piece #5, 1969, a series of ten black & white photographs with accompanying text. To document the piece, Huebler stood in Central Park and, each time he heard a bird call, he pointed his camera in the direction of the call and shot a photograph.
In 1971, he began "Variable Piece #70 (In Process) Global," for which he proposed his intention "to photographically document the existence of everyone alive." In the 1980s and "90s, Huebler began incorporating painting into his conceptual art pieces, creating a persona he called "the Great Corrector," who took works by masters like Picasso, Matisse, Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch and attempted to "make them better." Foreign his "Buried Treasure" series, incorporating text about the unscrupulous dealer, Huebler paints fake Monets, Van Goghs, Gauguins and a De Chirico.
Huebler"s academic career spanned more than forty years. He taught art at Bradford College in Massachusetts, and at Harvard. Huebler served as dean of the art school at California Institute of Arts from 1976 to 1988 where he influenced a generation of artists including Mike Kelley and Christopher Williams.
In 1989, he retired to Cape Cod.
He died in Truro, Massachusetts in 1997. Huebler’s first one-person museum exhibition was at the Phillips Gallery, Detroit, in 1953.
Thereafter, he exhibited extensively in galleries and museums in the United States and Europe, as well as in international exhibitions such as documenta V (1972), and was included in many surveys of conceptual art The last retrospective of his work during his lifetime was presented at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1994.
There have been several posthumous one-person exhibitions, including at the Camden Arts Centre, London (2002) and the MAMCO, Geneva (2006).
In 2004, Huebler’s work was included in the exhibition, A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Los Angeles
Best known for his incorporation of photographs alongside text, paint, and other media in order to break down traditional artistic associations with photography, Douglas Huebler is also often credited as a founder of Conceptual art.
His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Huebler’s solo shows include his first, at the Phillips Gallery, Detroit (1953), along with retrospectives at the Palais des beaux-arts, Brussels (1994); Camden Arts Centre, London (2002); Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (Mamco), Geneva (2006); and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2012).
Selected group exhibitions include Documenta, Kassel, West Germany (1972) and "A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958–1968", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2004).
Variable Piece #150
Duration Piece #4 Bradford Massachusetts
Mediate
Duration Piece No. 15 Global
Duration Piece #11
Duration Piece #12, Venice, California - Plum Island, (Newburyport) Massachusettes
Location Piece #3(A) American Alphabet Survey
Duration Piece # 77, Brussels
Variable Piece No. 44
The World Is...
Untitled (The Line Above)
Site Sculpture Project, Windham College Pentagon, Putney, Vermont
Untitled
One Person Who Is As Pretty As a Picture
Artists Rights Society.
