Boris Mikhailov. Untitled, from the series Case History. 1997–98. Chromogenic color print. Courtesy the artist, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin. © 2011 Boris Mikhailov
Boris Mikhailov is one of the leading photographers from the countries that formerly constituted the Soviet Union, and his work is currently on view in the exhibition Boris Mikhailov: Case History at the Museum (through September 5).
Fernand Dcute and Daniel as Joan Collins. Photo by Sol Aramendi
For the past few months, Rebecca Goyette, one of three educators running the Museum’s Community Partnership Programs, has been working with the photographers at Project Luz to combine their own practice as artists with images and themes from MoMA’s collection.
Tina Barney. Mr. and Mrs. Castelli, W Magazine. 1998. Chromogenic color print, printed 2010. The Museum of Modern Art. Acquired through the generosity of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder. © 2011 Tina Barney
We reinstall the permanent collection in the first five rooms of The Edward Steichen Photography galleries at least once a year, in order to continuously have on view a selection of outstanding works from the Museum’s collection. Each new display is organized differently, but all of them aim to suggest the vitality and richness of photography’s creative traditions.
Edward Steichen with delphiniums (c. 1938), Umpawaug House (Redding, Connecticut). Photo by Dana Steichen. Gelatin silver print. Edward Steichen Archive, VII. The Museum of Modern Art Archives
Edward Steichen: painter, photographer, modern art promoter, museum curator, exhibition creator—and delphinium breeder.
Yes, in addition to his groundbreaking career as a visual artist and museum professional, Steichen was also a renowned horticulturist. While he lived in France, the French Horticultural Society awarded him its gold medal in 1913, and he served as president of the American Delphinium Society from 1935 to 1939. In the early 1930s, after leaving his position as chief of photography for the Condé Nast publications—including Vogue and Vanity Fair—and more than 10 years before beginning his career as Director of the Department of Photography at MoMA, he retired to his Connecticut farm to raise flowers.
Arnulf Rainer. Untitled. 1969–74. Oil stick on gelatin silver print. The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Joachim Aberbach (by exchange). © 2011 Arnulf Rainer
As I’ve assisted Roxana Marcoci and Eva Respini with the exhibition Staging Action: Performance in Photography since 1960—which opened January 28 in The Robert and Joyce Menschel Gallery on the third floor—I’ve come to recognize the variety of layered themes that are present in the show, despite the fact that the exhibition itself only includes about 50 works (many of which are new acquisitions).
In recent years, with the increasing turn toward the digital, photography has become more complex and varied in its range of possible representational renderings. Photography is at a point of transformation, and in organizing the New Photography 2010 exhibition, I wanted to be responsive to these changes and bring together a group of artists who have expanded the conventional definitions of the medium.
Visitors await entry to The Family of Man, an exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, at the Government Pavilion, Johannesburg, Union of South Africa (on view August 30–September 13, 1958). From The International Council/International Program Exhibition Records. Image courtesy The Museum of Modern Art
This year marked the 55th anniversary of the opening of MoMA’s photography exhibition The Family of Man, a show that was groundbreaking in its extent—503 images by 273 photographers originating in 69 countries—its physical design, and the numbers of people who experienced it.
Taking her cues from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Douglas Sirk, as well as from the staged photographs of Cindy Sherman and Guy Bourdin, Alex Prager’s pictures focus on cinematic images and mise-en-scène. Sharing personal anecdotes about her life and work, Prager tells us in the video interview above how she came to take her first photographs and make her debut film Despair (2010), which has its U.S. premiere in the New Photography 2010 exhibition.
Carleton Watkins. Late George Cling Peaches. 1887–88
I’ve recently had the good fortune to assume the role of cataloguer in MoMA’s Department of Photography. The greatest perk of my position is simply that I get to work with the photographs in the Museum’s collection on a daily basis. One of my first tasks in the department was to catalog a number of important works that recently entered the collection—some by purchase, some by gift. Among my favorites were three photographs by Carleton Watkins, including this awe-inspiring albumen silver print of a crate of peaches; works by Judith Joy Ross and Inge Morath; and a collection of snapshots that came in as the generous gift of New York collector Peter J. Cohen.
In this video interview, artist Deana Lawson talks about her photography-based work, including her thought-provoking piece in the Greater New York 2010 exhibition—Assemblage (2010), an installation consisting of hundreds of four-by-six-inch glossy photographs T-pinned to the walls of one of MoMA PS1’s third-floor galleries.
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