Collection Online as of May 28, 2023

100 Boots

1971–73

Part of a set. See all set records

Eleanor Antin

(American, b.1935)

America

Set of 51 postcards; photomechanical reproductions (relief half tones) of black and white photographs

11.4 x 17.8 cm (4 1/2 x 7 in.)

Dorothea Wright Hamilton Fund 2018.294

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The postmarks, along with the inevitable signs of wear and tear on the individual postcards, are the visual records of the work's circulation through the global postal system.

Description

100 Boots consists of fifty-one photographic postcards that the artist mailed to recipients around the world during a two-and-a-half-year period. Modeled on the literary form of the “picaresque” (an episodic, often disjointed story that follows the exploits of its protagonist), the postcards document the adventures of one hundred empty boots as they march from the beach in San Diego to streets of New York.

Eleanor Antin

American performance artist, conceptual artist, and photographer, born 1935

Provenance

Eleanor Antin

2018

(Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)

2018–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

“Reading Ruscha.” Art in America 61, no. 6 (November – December 1973) P. 64-71

Delahoyd, Mary, and Jacki Apple. Alternatives in Retrospect: An Historical Overview 1969-1975. New York: The New Museum, 1981.

Antin, Eleanor. 100 Boots. Philadelphia, Pa: Running, 1999. P. 64-71

Fox, Howard N., Eleanor Antin, and Lisa E. Bloom. Eleanor Antin. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1999.

Godfrey, Mark. “Image Structures.” Artforum 43, no. 6 (February 2005) P. 146-153

Lewallen, Constance, Karen Moss, Julia Bryan-Wilson, and Anne Rorimer. State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

Antin, Eleanor, Huey Copeland, Malik Gaines, Alexandro Segade, Henry M. Sayre, and Emily Liebert. Multiple Occupancy: Eleanor Antin's "Selves". New York: Wallach Art Gallery, 2013.