Eleanor Antin Eleanor Antin's Vietnam-Era Boots Speak to Today's Troubles

Artnet News Apr 02, 2017

THE DAILY PIC (#1764): There has always been a suspicion that conceptual artists take the easy way out, avoiding the hard labor that painters and other traditional artists go through in stretching a canvas or boiling rabbit-skin glue or hammering away at a great lump of rock. Seeing the famous 100 Boots project that Eleanor Antin came up with in the early 1970s, now revisited at Alden Projects in New York—with a number of never-before-seen images on view—I was struck by how much crazy labor she put into it. For month after month after month, her five-score empty rubber boots had to be carted across the country, set up in various evocative spots, and then photographed before someone could come along and chase Antin away.

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