Recently I went to the Ricky Maynard exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Syney. Accompanying this exhibition was an exhibition of photographers that had influenced Maynard. This included Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Mary Ellen Mark, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, W Eugene Smith and Paul Strand.
The most frustrating part of the exhibition was that it was presented with archival lighting. It just ruins an exhibition when you are looking at photographs in the dark. The Paul strand photogravures came off worst being 5x4 inch prints. They just seemed so dull in that light, I would love to see what large scanned prints made from his negatives would look like in decent lighting conditions.
The exhibition goes for three months. I think that I would prefer to have the lights turned up for half the exhibition time and for the prints to be locked in a box for the other half of the time.
Am I the exception or are there others of you out there that can't stand archival lighting?
Cheers,