Variable Piece #70 (In Process): 166A

<p>Douglas Huebler used diverse systems of documentation to chronicle rule-based but unscripted events and encounters. <em>Variable Piece #70</em> stands as the most ambitious project of his career—to make a photographic record of “everyone alive.” The utter futility of the premise was liberating, and Huebler would set different terms of play for each foray. For <em>Variable Piece #70 (In Process): 166A</em>, he asked participants to describe themselves by selecting from a set of 80 placards imprinted with different personal characteristics. This work features all five people who posed with the sign reading “One person who may be culturally dislocated.” Far from a fastidious archivist, Huebler pursued <em>Variable Piece #70</em> until his death, always undermining the project’s potential rigor with allowances for subjectivity and humor.</p>