Affect and Spectatorial Agency: Viewing Institutional Critique in the 1970s

In 1974, the Claire Copley Gallery was a storefront space overlooking a gallery-laden stretch of La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. Among Los Angeles cognoscenti, Claire Copley was known as a “serious” gallerist who showcased work by minimalist and conceptual artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Daniel Buren, and within that context, Copley's invitation to Michael Asher to present his first solo exhibition in an American commercial gallery was entirely appropriate. Yet, even within the early 1970s conceptual milieu, Asher's 1974 Claire Copley exhibition stood out. Asher's work had recently expanded from primarily sensory installations, such as the 1969 works for Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art, to include conceptualism more prominently.