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The Extended Document: John Baldessari, Thomas Barrow, Michael Bishop, Marcia Resnick, Richard Schaeffer, and William Wegman. At the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y., through May 30.

The latest major exhibition presented by the International Museum of Photography is, in actuality, an over-extended analogy between work in a medium which must always be “documentary” in some sense of that word. But it is, nonetheless, an important presentation of recent photographs and ideas and it signals a major breakthrough in at least one area.

The six exhibitors each display one of two main concerns, and it is this division which most seriously disrupts the thematic unity implied by the title of the show. John Baldessari and William Wegman are represented by photographs which, in and of themselves, are not intended as works of art but as records (documents, if you absolutely must) of concepts, that concept being the essential element of each piece. The remaining participants, on the other hand, show pictures which are art works in a more traditional sense, in that they are crafted objects, created with at least as much attention to form as to any literal “statement” or “meaning.”

For instance, while Thomas Barrow makes obvious reference to the cancellation of lithographers’ plates in his Cancellations series, the scratches and holes which he inflicts upon his negatives often go much beyond this, echoing the lines of ribbons on a parade float in Festival, n1973, p1974; adding new complexity to a ganglion of phone wires in Albu Line, 1974; suggesting lightning in Mobile Home, 1974, or a wrecking ball in 4-3-2, 1974. Furthermore, the scratches give the impression of being in front of (or above) the picture plane, thus adding to the illusion of depth.

Marcia Resnick also alters a number of her pictures, but in a very different way. Her series, See Changes, 1974, consists of identical photographs of a figure looking out over the Grand Canyon. These have been cut up, painted, or drawn upon to lend a feeling of “unreality” to landscape or figure, or to create such illusions as a “transparent boy.” A few are especially note worthy for the fact that a minimal amount of handwork has a very intense effect: two dozen short strokes of a pencil become ominously pointed objects flying through the space around the boy, and a blackened sky not only creates a mood totally different from that derived from any other print in the group, but seems to change the orientation of the figure. He now seems to be looking up at the sky, rather than into the canyon.

The See series created by Resnick must be considered as separate from See Changes because it comes closer, in certain ways, to the approach taken by Baldessari and Wegman than the other work in the show. These are prints which aim at an illusion of “neutrality” in technical and pictorial terms (and even in terms of what is photographed). They have a “conceptual look” in their repetition of a programmed situation in which the participants are presented. But the poetry of the statement (which might have something to do with isolated people looking into a confused, banal, or empty world) could not be indulged in by those cool, objective analysts.

In his pictures, Michael Bishop has often made comments about the photographic medium. Thus, there is little reason to argue William Jenkins’ suggestion that the Bishop photos, with their vignetted corners and straightforward recording of mundane subject matter, relate to the work of Atget and Evans. (Jenkins, Assistant Curator of 20th Century Photography at GEH/IMP and organizer of the exhibition, makes the point in his catalogue essay.) The Bishop prints, however, are the product of an aesthetic which is very different from the one out of which those master historians were working. The black curves formed by the vignetted corners, of course, are not unavoidable limitations but functional elements echoing the shape of machine parts or a Volkswagen bumper, mapping the movement of a swiveling set of stairs, or emanating from the tips of a fan-like trellis.

The dioramas, displays, and illusionistic murals photographed by by Richard Schaeffer seem as absurd as the Las Vegas sculpture depicted in his recent book, Turquoise Pleasures. Yet in this case the subjects, for the most part, are not intrinsically ridiculous. It is Schaeffer’s point of view (technically and philosophically) which makes these images so strange. His framing and the distortion of tones created by his use of Kodalith paper are conscious additions to the effect.

Humor and a lack of any self conscious “artistic” quality in the pictures are particularly evident components of the art of both John Baldessari and William Wegman. But the most important correspondence is apparent in their demand that the viewer “read” the image or sequence. One does not go about this in the same way that one might at tempt to “read” a Minor White picture, but more as though he/she were approaching a scientific chart or graph or perhaps a comic strip. Baldessari, in fact, actually incorporates words into the pictures and seems to invite us to play an artgame with him: can you find the word(s) subtly double-exposed or airbrushed into the photograph?

Wegman’s interest is in physical appearances, but he uses the photograph both as an analytical tool (how do things/beings look alike? how are they different?) and as forged evidence. Thus, in Family Combinations, 1972, or Twins Lynn/Terry, 1971, we see a highly technical experiment, wherein physiognomic similarities are pointed out by superimposing the strikingly similar images of different family members. Yet in Before/On/After: Permutations, 1972, a dog performs a number of very funny exercises according to a symbolic “score” which, upon examination, proves to have been added after the event.

While the “object-oriented” picture-makers discussed above have been noticed and discussed, to one degree or another, in photographic circles, it is the “Art World” which has laid claim to the work of Baldessari and Wegman. For this reason, it is especially significant that this work is currently hanging at George Eastman House. For too long, photographers and photography curators have barely paid lip-service to photographic work which comes out of the painting context. It is, of course, doubtful that Warhol or Rauschenberg, for example, were much affected by this situation. Rather, it was our medium which was impoverished through such ignorance. It is to be hoped that the simple and unheralded inclusion of two “fine arts” workers in this exhibition is another indication that the incredible explosion of interest in photography is also causing a repercussion effect. Such an interchange could only be a stimulus to the production of more exciting work in all the arts.

A catalogue of the exhibition reproduces three or four pieces by each exhibitor, and includes an introduction by William Jenkins. It is available from the museum for $3.