A Glass of Milk

Author

Jack Goldstein (CA)

Date of creation

1972

Courtesy of

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Technique

video

Material

16 mm film

Size

4 minutes, 42 seconds

Can an image provoke a collective emotion and capture a shared sentiment? Jack Goldstein was a leading figure of the Pictures Generation, a group of artists based in New York that aimed to reflect upon questions of the power of representation, through the use of quotation, framing and staging. In one of his early films A Glass of Milk, Goldstein methodically slams his fist on a card table causing a glass of milk to spill and eventually fall over. A strong example of how a relatively simple image can convey something that is hard to describe in words: a universal sentiment of a building tension that keeps a grip on society, and eventually will “break the camel’s back.”