These boots were made for narrative photographic essaying

March 30, 2022 3:01 PM

100 Boots is a narrative work of photographic art by Eleanor Antin, made of 51 postcards over the course of 1971-1973, telling a visual story of a collection of rubber boots making a pilgrimage from San Diego to New York. Additional bits at MoMa; kadist.org; getty.edu.
posted by cortex (5 comments total)

I love this! A picaresque tale of 100 boots on a journey across America, told in postcards.

There's a press release at the MoMa link from the original exhibition that is so fun. Part of the description of the boots' adventures: "The boots started in the establishment culture ("At the Bank," "In the Market"), then committed their first crime ("100 Boots Trespass"), after which they embarked on a series of adventures at deserted ranches, on river boats, in and out of odd jobs, and even had a love affair with a sad ending."

Thanks for posting this, can't wait to dig further in.
posted by the primroses were over at 6:48 PM on March 30, 2022

Well THIS is darn cool!

I have so many questions!

The closest thing to a description of the project I could find is from the Hemispheric Institute (goodness), which is helpful but doesn't tell me all the things I want to know:

• How did she make the postcards? Did she get them printed while she was in the various locations, or do them all at once after getting back to her studio?
• How many are there? (Are the 51 cards at the Cleveland Museum of Art the whole collection?)
• Where are they all from? (The Cleveland Museum of Art pages have an Alternate Views link that lets you look at the back, and that shows the location - and also credits Philip Steinmetz for the photographs, at least on the ones I've looked at - but it would be nice to have a list of all the locations.)
• How did they get from the individual recipients to the museum? 100 Boots Up was sent to Tom Wolfe in the Art Department at Bard College. How did it make its way to Cleveland? (The Provenance section doesn't really answer that for me.)
• Did she make the same number of prints of each image and send them all to the same set of people, or was it different every time?

Oh, and okay, poking around some more, there's a paragraph in the Wikipedia article on Eleanor Antin that says there were 51 postcards (so yep, this is all of them), and explains a bit about her sending them out. But I want to know everything!

(Looks like the Art Institute of Chicago has a similar collection. Yay!)

These are all so great. I love 100 Boots Turn the Corner. I love 100 Boots Inside.
I love 100 Boots Try Again, even if I don't actually understand it. (Not tall enough to ride this ride?) I love the last one, 100 Boots on Vacation, all of them crowded together in the back of the car.

This is absolutely wonderful, and I am so glad to know it exists. Thank you so much for sharing this, cortex!
posted by kristi at 6:50 PM on March 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

51 images is the complete series. Phil Steinmetz (later Phel) photographed all of them. Except for the ones in NYC, all the locations are in Southern California, mainly the beach towns of north San Diego County.

Elly printed and sent them out more or less as they were photographed, with one exception that I know. The final card, On Vacation, was photographed the same day as the first one, Facing the Sea. After they had placed all the boots on the beach and put them back in the truck, she had Phil take that photograph for later use.

The quantity kept growing, as people asked to be added to Elly’s list.

“Picaresque” is exactly the right word to describe the story, but the MoMA press release is a little off, I think, with the word “establishment.” 100 Boots' came from a bourgeois, comfortable middle-class world.

The answers to many of Kristi’s questions, including the dates and locations of all the images and Elly’s own entertaining account, are readily available in:

100 Boots, by Eleanor Antin. Introduction by Henry Sayre. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1999.
ISBN 0-7624-0457-4

There are many copies at vialbri.net. I would avoid the very cheapest copies and ask in advance if the dustjacket is present and in good condition.
--my grandfather, w/ permission
posted by duende at 2:58 AM on March 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

she was my teacher at UCSD. i briefly appear as a character in a film she made about Rasputin.
posted by lapolla at 3:40 AM on March 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

duende, thank you for that great info! And many thanks to your grandfather! (Was he on the list? Is he Phel?!
posted by kristi at 6:03 PM on March 31, 2022