To Tell The Truth, 1973

Allen Ruppersberg

In the photo series, To Tell the Truth (1973), Ruppersberg plays himself as a blindfolded man wearing a sleeping mask (significantly) and sitting at a table. In each new image, a different object appears before him on the table, and below the image a verbal narrative progresses—but the viewer comes to recognise that each object is being described incorrectly, as if some deadly slippage between the imagery and the text were developing further in each frame. When a bottle of ketchup appears on the table, for instance, the caption reads, “A pitcher of water”. A handgun appears along with the caption “A sawed-off shotgun”. When the man lifts his blindfold and raises the handgun to his head, the caption reads “An Argument”, and in the final frame, as the man kills himself, the caption reads, “A Murder”.

March 17 – May 7, 2011