The Viewer as Voyeur. April 30–July 8, 1987.

Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, 1987. Essay by Andrea Inselmann, Grant Keste, James Peto, and Charles A. Wright, Jr. Exhibition catalogue of 28 works in various media by sixteen twentieth-century artists and photographers, including Walker Evans, Weegee, Edward Hopper, Eric Fischl, Joseph Cornell, Reginald Marsh and others. Wraps, 12 pages, 8 illustrations (1 color). Very good with a few small crimps.  Summary:

The Viewer as Voyeur (1987) is a 12-page exhibition catalog published by the Whitney Museum of American Art. It documents a specialized contemporary art exhibition held from April 30 to July 8, 1987, at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris (a branch gallery located in midtown Manhattan).

The publication explores the psychological, social, and aesthetic dynamics of spectatorship, examining how modern artists manipulate the line between innocent viewing and complicit voyeurism.

Key Themes and Artworks

• The Gaze and Power: The exhibition’s core thesis centers on the power dynamic inherent in looking. It investigates how artists position the audience as uninvited witnesses to intimate, private, or taboo moments, thereby shifting the gallery visitor's role from a passive art lover into an active, self-conscious voyeur.

• Urban and Subterranean Spaces: The curated selection focuses heavily on the grit, anonymity, and nightlife of the modern city—environments where surveillance and looking without being seen are commonplace. A prominent feature of the exhibition is artist Jane Dickson’s work, such as Peep Land (1984). Working from her own photographs of New York City's Times Square, Dickson depicts the neon-lit, psychological underworld of strip clubs, sex workers, and late-night urban drift.

• The Domestic and Social Unconscious: The exhibition also features influential figurative artists like Eric Fischl and Weegee (Arthur Fellig). Fischl’s paintings expose the awkward, underlying sexual tensions and vulnerabilities of American suburban life, while Weegee’s historic street photography captures the raw, unguarded reactions of crowds witnessing urban tragedies or intimate public embraces.

• Critique of Desire and Objectification: By assembling works that deal with eroticism, surveillance, and exposure, the exhibition acts as a critical inquiry into how media and culture foster an obsession with looking. It forces viewers to acknowledge their own desires and the potential discomfort of invading another person's private space.

Significance

The Viewer as Voyeur stands as an important artifact of late-1980s contemporary art criticism, capturing the decade's deep fascination with post-modern theories of "the gaze" and institutional critique. By highlighting artists who subverted traditional, romanticized portraiture, the exhibition and its catalog underscore how art can be used to interrogate the ethics of modern visual culture.