Entries from October 2009
October 29, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
The death of photographer Roy DeCarava was announced Wednesday, October 28. He is remembered fondly as a pioneer of black and white photography, as a husband, and as a father.
DeCarava discovered photography first as a tool to document his work in printmaking, but embraced and carefully harnessed the medium when he realized its potential to make moments his own by capturing his perception of each of his scenes. He went on to establish himself as a postwar street photographer of daily life, specifically African-American life in New York. DeCarava was not the first photographer to shoot Harlem, but his commitment to interpreting it in artistic terms sets him apart from the history of social documentary established there.
As he wrote in his application for a Guggenheim fellowship, (via NYT Arts Beat), DeCarava did not work to make ??a documentary or sociological statement.? Rather, he strived for ??a creative expression, the kind of penetrating insight and understanding of Negroes? which he believed he could interpret. DeCarava was the first African American to win that Guggenheim fellowship. He thought that photography was not only a way of seeing and capturing the world, but also a kind of poetry, evidenced by the distinct darkness of his images ?? both from the lighting of each scene, and his development and print processes.
Through his work in photography and his interest in particular cultures, DeCarava associated with many other well-known cultural figures. Edward Steichen was a mentor to and collector of DeCarava??s work, eventually purchasing three photographs for the MoMA collection. Langston Hughes was a colleague and friend and wrote text for DeCarava??s book, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. Jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holliday were photographic subjects for DeCarava??s study of the New York jazz world.
Read the NYT obituary and see a slide show of DeCarava??s work.
Watch a 1996 interview with Charlie Rose.
See DeCarava images in the MoCP collection.
October 27, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Untitled Film Still #30,, 1979. (Via artnet.com)
Art 21 follows MoCP collection artist Cindy Sherman, Yinka Shonibare (MBE) and Paul McCarthy in its recently aired episode "Transformation." These three artists use several tactics and work in many mediums in order to ??satirize society & reinvent icons of literature, art history, & popular culture.? As PBS describes, Sherman??s segment ??surveys thirty years of untitled works in which the artist photographs herself in various scenes and guises, grouped into informally-named series such as fairy tales, centerfolds, history portraits, Hollywood/Hampton types, and clowns.?
Cindy Sherman insists that her works - from movie stills to modern portraits - are not self-portraits, although they all feature her as the main character. Instead, her photographs are studies of many "different" characters, broadly drawn and bordering on caricature, but still possessing the delicate details that identify them as familiar types. Sherman achieves these images after hours spent changing her costume (including prosthetics at times), hair, eyebrows, makeup, and facial features.
Untitled (Cosmo Cover Girl), 1990-91.
In her segment, Sherman mentions a journal she kept as a child ?? The Cindy Book ?? inside which she pinned family snapshots, circled herself in the image, and wrote ??That??s me.? The existence of this journal and its resurrection during her college years, revealed to Sherman her own physical transformations and led to her first intentional explorations of the transformational powers of make-up.
Untitled (#464), 2008. (Via artnet.com)
Sherman shares incites into her countless characters, referring to them as separate entities. She admits that, though her characters are versions of Sherman in disguise, the women and men she creates ??feel like such real people.? Drawing from a fascination and close relationship with TV and film for inspiration, Sherman strives to create a narrative, whether with several figures, or Sherman alone. Much of her work is intentionally untitled, so that viewers?? imaginations of her narratives are not influenced by a preconceived notion.
Don??t miss a very cool ??ride-along?? at the end of the segment, as Sherman shops in a thrift store for inspiration for her future characters!
More on Art 21
Sherman in the MoCP collection
View Carrie Mae Weems??s Art 21 segment and the MoCP blog post.
October 17, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled #2451, 1990
The season premiere of the PBS series Art in the Twenty-first Century highlights the historically steeped recent work of MoCP collection artist Carrie Mae Weems. This episode, entitled "Compassion" (watch it!), features artists, like Weems, who ??explore conscience; reconcile past & present; expose injustice; or express tolerance? through their compelling artworks.
Weems??s creative process generally involves an appropriation or carefully orchestrated reconstruction of old photographs, familiar images, sculptures and artifacts related to African American culture. These reconfigurations result in new works that comment on racism and difficult topics that are seldom addressed in mainstream media.
The segment opens with Weems??s narrative of a project involving an appropriation of photographs from the Harvard University art collection. Weems??s use of the images incited a legal (and moral, for Weems) battle with the University, which ended in the university??s ironic acquisition of Weems??s images for their collection.
Weems also details her close relationship with and desire to know and understand her family members, the process of storytelling, and the days she spent dancing with Anna Halprin.
Carrie Mae Weems, The First Major Blow, 2008 (Via Artnet)
As the segment reveals, Weems??s 2008 work reinvents press photographs from historical and political events, starring students as stand-ins in dramatically lit scenes. Of the creation and audience reactions to this work, Weems comments that the processes of thinking about and ??looking at the sadness and history of the past 40 years? puts into context, and even creates, the mere possibility of Barack Obama??s run for the presidency.
PBS??s videographers were on-site for Weems??s latest work ?? new reconstructions of history related to the 2008 presidential election, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama. To her young student models, Weems carefully and emotionally instructs: ??This not about you. We are using these bodies to talk about something that??s much bigger than we are.?
Stay tuned! Collection artist Cindy Sherman is the focus of a future episode, entitled "Transformation."
More Weems images in the MoCP collection.
Cao Fei, currently exhibiting in the MoCP Reversed Images show, also appears in the "Fantasy" episode.
October 15, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Irving Penn. Chanel Feather Headdress (New York, September 19, 1994), 1996. MoCP Collection.
It was announced Wednesday, October 8 that fashion photography icon Irving Penn died in his home at the age of 92. In his work for Vogue magazine, Penn stripped his subjects of the ornate, decorative backgrounds that those in the fashion world had become accustomed to associating with high fashion photography. In his New York Times obituary, Andy Grundberg writes, ??Instead of offering spontaneity, Mr. Penn provided the illusion of something fixed, his gaze precisely describing the profile of a Balenciaga coat or of a Moroccan djellaba in a way that could almost mesmerize the viewer? and noted that ??nothing escaped the edges of his photographs unless he commanded it.?
Penn was also a master darkroom technician, constantly experimenting with ways to make his work interesting and new. He meticulously worked and re-worked his images using a platinum based chemistry process (different from that of traditional silver), which added depth and radiance to his images.
Irving Penn, New York. 1951. (Via the New York Times)
Pablo Picasso, Truman Capote, Georgia O??Keefe, and Miles Davis have all been photographed by Penn in his luminous, seemingly abstract style. However, it is his fashion work in Paris from the 1950s that is most loved because of its ability to ??convey a knowledge of history, composition, and form; a respect for the beauty of women and the expressive quality of dress that has rarely been matched? (from the Boston Globe).
See more of Penn??s images.
Read more on Penn at the MoCP Collections page.
October 13, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Robert Frank. Political Rally, Chicago, 1956. MoCP Collection.
With the opening of the exhibition of images in Robert Frank??s book The Americans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, filmmaker Philippe Seclier??s An American Journey: Revisiting Robert Frank??s The Americans, a documentary which traces the book??s creation, has been released. In a New York Times film review, Mike Hale reports that Seclier spent two years with his video camera ??retracing? Frank??s journey across the United States, revisiting not only site specific locations but also a few of the people that appeared in Frank??s iconic images. Though the film??s release is confined to New York (for now?), you can view a few short clips from An American Journey here.
See more of Frank??s photographs at the MoCP collections database.
October 9, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Ansel Adams. Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite National Park, California. MoCP collection, gift of Arnold and Temmie Gilbert.
The PBS series The National Parks: America??s Best Idea features Ansel Adams as a key artistic influence of the creation of the national parks. The countless captivating images of the American landscape published in his book Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail influenced President Franklin Roosevelt??s decision to designate Kings Canyon in California as a roadless and purposefully undeveloped national park. As the PBS site notes, because of Roosevelt??s handicap his ??only access to the splendor of Kings Canyon would be through Adams' photography.? Adams??s relationship with Harold Ickes, the then Secretary of the Interior, led to an eventual employment contract with the Department of the Interior. His eight-year stint with the department took Adams to nearly every national park, which he photographed for ??prominent display in Washington.? Adams??s work with the national parks is a great example of photography??s (and art??s!) international influence and its effect on the ways we see and experience the world.
Visit the PBS ??The National Parks: America??s Best Idea? site to see an Ansel Adams video excerpt from the series.
View the Ansel Adams images from the MoCP collection database.
October 7, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
Women in Photography NYC (WIPNYC) and Lesle Tonkonow have curated an online exhibition of works by Tracey Baran, concurrent with the exhibition Pictures of Tracey: Photographs by Tracey Baran, at Tonkonow??s gallery, Artworks+Projects. Both exhibitions honor the life and work of Baran, who passed away after a brief illness in 2008.
Tracey Baran. Club Valentine, 2003, printed 2006. MoCP collection.
MoCP curator Karen Irvine describes Baran as a creator of ??visual journals,? who ??records and refines her experiences into images that reference fundamental themes such as love, death, and regeneration.? Irvine compares Baran??s ability to ??capture the simple elegance of color in the most ordinary corners of everyday life? to that of William Eggleston.
Baran was a popular featured artist of the MoCP??s Fine Print Program and her lyrical images appeared in a solo show at the MoCP in 2002.
Tracey Baran. Wishing and Hoping, 2007.
October 6, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
MoCP veteran Karsten Lund shares his experiences and impressions of the museum as seen from his former first floor ??bunker?? office in the latest issue of Proximity magazine. Lund spent two years at the museum as the Collection Research Fellow, during which he curated an exhibition and devoted countless hours to delving into the details of the lives, processes, and experiences of many of the artists featured in the museum??s collection. His research became a ??process of discovery? as he uncovered stories of photographic groups and movements, like the "New Color Photographers,??" and important photography projects, like the Changing Chicago project begun in 1987. He even describes the MoCP as a ??catalyst? for discovery for a range of audiences.
Read ??Dispatch from the Vault? for more discoveries in his research, the secrets of his curatorial practice, and other thoughts on the MoCP.
Visit our online collections database for a glimpse of all of his hard work!
October 2, 2009 | Details | Comments (0)
The MoCP is happy to announce new member benefits at all levels. Our members can now enjoy subscription discounts to three fantastic photography and cultural publications: photograph, Proximity, and Aperture.
MoCP members pay $30 for six issues.
photograph is the bi-monthly guide to exhibitions, private dealers, resources, auctions, fairs, festivals, links, and the latest news for the photo enthusiast and collector.
MoCP members pay $20 for three issues.
Proximity is a magazine dedicated to contemporary art and culture. Our mission is to amplify discourse on local and global art ecologies. We hope to serve as a map of artists, collectives and alternative spaces to commercial galleries, museums and universities ¬as a means of connecting and cultivating sustainable creative communities. (Published in Chicago!)
MoCP members pay $36 for four issues.
Discover the magazine praised by the world??s greatest photographers. Since 1952, Aperture has been showcasing the finest in creative photography from acclaimed masters to new talent. Every issue contains stunning images, powerful writing, and exquisite reproductions on the highest-quality paper.
Join online today! A membership to the MoCP also gives you exclusive access to artists and museum staff at private events, discounts on MoCP publications, and an exclusive members-only preview of the year??s Fine Print Program selection (announced every spring). For more information, contact Sarah Miller, Membership and Fine Print Coordinator, via email at sarmiller@colum.edu or call 312-369-7794.
