Recent Acquisitions
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired its first photograph generated with A.I.: an image by Costa Rican artist Matías Sauter Morera. The historic sale was facilitated by Hannah Sloan Curatorial & Advisory and Craig Krull Gallery.
Matias Sauter Morera. Cristian en el Amor de Calle (2024). Photo courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery
HSC&A is thrilled to announce that the J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired Cristian en el Amor de Calle (2024) by Matías Sauter Morera for its permanent collection. This significant acquisition marks the first AI-generated photograph to enter the Getty’s collection and will be featured in the museum’s upcoming exhibition, The Queer Lens: A History of Photography, curated by Paul Martineau. The 20 x 20 inch c-print comes from Sauter Morera’s series Pegamachos, a body of work that reimagines a previously censored and unseen part of Costa Rica’s cultural past.
We extend our gratitude to the Getty Museum for recognizing the cultural and artistic significance of this work, and we celebrate Sauter Morera’s contribution to expanding the boundaries of what is considered photography.
A selection of prints from Pegamachos will be presented in a forthcoming solo show at Craig Krull Gallery, Bergamot Station Arts Center, Santa Monica, opening March 22, 2025. The Queer Lens: A History of Photography will be on view at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Dr, Los Angeles, California, June 17–September 28, 2025.
/ In The News
Why Has the Getty Museum Acquired an A.I. Photograph?
The work by Matias Sauter Morera will be included in the museum's upcoming show, "The Queer Lens."
By Adam Schrader, January 10, 2025
The acquisition of Sauter Morera’s Cristian en el Amor de Calle was announced on January 31 by Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica and confirmed by the museum. It will be shown in an upcoming exhibition curated by Paul Martineau titled The Queer Lens: A History of Photography.
The image shows two young Latino men wearing blue leather jackets with gold embellishments in a rustic café or bar. Created by Sauter Morera, it evokes the aesthetics of queer history in 1970s Costa Rica when stories emerged of “pegamachos,” or cowboys from the Guanacaste Coast, who engaged in secret encounters with young gay men.
“Pegamachos still exist today, but less and less so. It’s a lifestyle that is clandestine, hidden and cloaked in anonymity,” Sauter Morera told me over email.
The artist uses various A.I. models and Photoshop to edit, refine, and enhance the images he creates. He initially considered using a straight photographic documentary approach, as he would in his normal practice as a photographer, but that would have proven difficult. The artist would have had to track down his subjects, potentially exposing them.
“A.I. provided a way also to achieve this without intruding on real lives or placing real Costa Rican faces that people of the community might recognize,” he said. “Since the pegamachos culture remains hidden, these A.I. images serve as a mimicry of photography, a fiction, and a medium through which I can imagine and construct an imagined parallel history.”
Private Acquisition
We are also thrilled to place a rare, full set of Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots into a private collection in New York. This important project intersects several critical art movements in the 1970’s including performance art, land art, conceptual photography and feminist resistance aimed at institutional sexism.
Eleanor Antin (USA, b. 1935), 100 Boots, 1971-1973, 51 halftone printed postcards, 4 ½ x 7 inches / 11.4 x 17.8 cm each
From 1971-1973 artist Eleanor Antin produced 100 Boots, a conceptual work of “mail art” in which she staged 100 rubber boots in various settings – from California to New York City – then had them photographed and mailed to individuals and institutions, bypassing the traditional gallery system which had long overlooked women artists. While many of these scenes are humorous, the empty army boots recall the Vietnam War and the soldiers who did not come home.
The list of addressees of this particular set of 100 Boots postcards provides a snapshot of a renowned generation of artists and thinkers, including Donald Judd, Sam Wagstaff, Lee Krasner, and Tom Wolfe, to name but a few.
This rare, full suite of 51 cards from the artist’s personal collection was the last known remaining set on the market.
Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots are held in major institutions worldwide including LACMA, SFMoMA, MoMA NY, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. The artist is represented by Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles.
Eleanor Antin (USA, b. 1935), 100 Boots Facing the Sea, Del Mar, California, Feb. 9, 1971, 2:00 PM
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