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Author Topic: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY  (Read 1961 times)

Schewe

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THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« on: April 09, 2017, 12:14:43 am »

Just saw this...

THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY


Diane Arbus, “Triplets in Their Bedroom, New Jersey,” 1963.
© The Estate of Diane Arbus, LLC

Quote
At the end of his career, John Szarkowski, the legendary curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, quipped that Arbus, Friedlander, and Winogrand sounded more like the name of a law firm than like the names of the artists he first exhibited in 1967, in his influential show “New Documents.” The exhibition—which is the subject of a new book, “Arbus Friedlander Winogrand: New Documents, 1967,” published by moma, to mark the show’s fiftieth anniversary—was modest by today’s standards: small, framed black-and-white pictures by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand, arranged in two galleries on the museum’s ground floor. The works on display possessed a casual, offhand quality; the subject matter was so apparently random and ordinary—a man and a woman heading in opposite directions through a set of glass doors (Friedlander’s “Street Scene, 1963”); a nude middle-aged couple and their daughter sprawling leisurely on the grass beside a country road (Arbus’s “Family Evening, Nudist Camp, Pennsylvania, 1965”)— that the public had a difficult time comprehending what the pictures were trying to say.

Wish I could have seen the show but I think the book will be informative...
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RSL

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2017, 03:36:02 pm »

Thanks, Jeff. Those three certainly transformed photography, but it seems most photographers haven't grasped the transformation. On User Critiques we're still getting sunsets, pets, and waterfalls. I guess that's okay. It's certainly the kind of stuff banks and insurance offices like to hang. But it doesn't deal with the stuff that photography does better than painting.

Gotta have the book, though it looks as if I have most of the photographs in it from other sources.
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David Sutton

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2017, 06:22:08 pm »

There's an interesting video about it at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HethsSD0jyM
From the notes for the introduction:
"Sarah Meister, Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA, will frame the evening with an introduction that draws from her extensive research for the book "Arbus Friedlander Winogrand: New Documents, 1967." This will be followed by a panel discussion, moderated by art historian Rob Slifkin and featuring artists Max Kozloff, Tod Papageorge, and Martha Rosler, all of whom have written persuasively on related subjects. Learn more: http://mo.ma/2lo6Sdw"
David
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landscapephoto

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2017, 11:25:53 am »

Those three certainly transformed photography, but it seems most photographers haven't grasped the transformation.

Then, maybe it did not transformed photography as much as it tried to.

Seriously: that exhibition, and the other ones in the same vein that followed (I am thinking about the New Topographics, for example) indeed sought to transform photography. 50 years later these works seem awfully dated to the present generations, the ones who thing Instagram and the iPhone are hip. Maybe we like the photography of the 70s because we were raised with it and we failed to grow and adapt. I wonder.
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RSL

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2017, 11:48:21 am »

Hi Land, I think we grew and adapted just fine. But that doesn't have much to do with the fact that these three photographers transformed photography in their time. Both HCB and Robert Frank transformed photography even more extensively than these three did. But in time you get to the point where a transformation of this sort becomes, in the minds of current observers, an historically interesting fact without much relevance for the present. Still, it's interesting to see what's been at the heart of every photographic transformation: the capture of relationships between people and people and people and their surroundings, which is what carries significance for human observers.
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Otto Phocus

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2017, 12:52:06 pm »

But isn't photography always transforming?  I like to think of the transformation of photography to be more of a smooth spectrum as opposed to discrete stages.

While the works of these individual photographers is impressive, the article did not convince me that this specific exhibit somehow transformed photography.  It seems to be more along the lines of an exhibit of the works of photographers who helped transform photography; as it is their work and not the exhibition that should be the focus.
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RSL

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Re: THE EXHIBIT THAT TRANSFORMED PHOTOGRAPHY
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2017, 05:04:41 pm »

Otto, you might want to read this: http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhatisPhotographyFor.html, and then examine again the idea that the transformation of photography moves over a smooth spectrum (whatever that means). Fox Talbot was the first jump. HCB was the second jump. In the United States at least, Robert Frank was a third jump. There have been other jumps since Frank, but it's certainly not a smooth progression.
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