New photography at MoMA, old photography at the Met, and everything in between at ICP

Saw a few shows. Have a few things to say.

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New Photography 2009 at the MoMA

The New Photography 2009 exhibition at the MoMA claims to be “a thematic presentation of significant recent work in photography that examines and expands the conventional definitions of the medium.” As not all the work was analog, I’m assuming the show’s curators were open to including digital images and processes. Given that, I’m surprised by how questions and challenges raised by the digital were explored so minimally (if at all) in a show that aimed to examine the conventions of photography—because what else, if not the digital, is doing that? Well, apparently lots of collage.

The show frustrated me to a thankfully quick end (it’s a small group of six artists with one body of work each) simply because the work reminded me of high school art projects that either I did myself or that I saw many of my peers produce in abundance. Collage, digital collage, sculptural collage, photocopying, photograms—what were exercises in developing the visual thinking of prep school youth supposedly now expands the conventions of photography? Not any conventions I’m familiar with (or still see as the convention).

The only photographs that interested me were Sara VanDerBeek’s, but only because of how interesting the sculptural compositions were (using different photographs of varying iconic recognition to create, in their physical and conceptual relationships, portraits of Detroit). That they were photographs of the compositions—or the way she photographed them (presentational studio still lifes)—didn’t add anything to the pieces nor did they challenge how I see photography. I would’ve rather just seen the compositions themselves instead of these representations.

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Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans at the Met

I don’t have much to say about Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans at the Met except that the show seemed to focus so much on Frank’s sequencing and storytelling by juxtaposition skills, which I feel is best exhibited in, well, book form. I’m not sure that the exhibition accomplishes anything that the book doesn’t—except maybe spread the images out a little bit to give them room and air to breathe.

It’s the Met though, and it’s intended to be a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication, so I guess they weren’t necessarily trying to accomplish anything new or challenging. And the exhibit does expose the book and the photographs to the modern Met audience (i.e., the masses who go to the Met to go to the Met, not to think about art) that may not know the work or have the attention span to sit down and peruse the book. So that’s cool.

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Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial at ICP

I’m also nearly speechless about Dress Codes, the Third Triennial at ICP, though not for a lack of things to say but more so a lack of words to express how I felt about it. I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed by how extensive (if not exhaustive) the show is with driving the point home. Maybe I’m crippled by my fear that I can’t look at the work objectively as art when I love the subject matter (fashion and personal image) so much. Or maybe it’s just that my experience at the show is colored by my having taken a class with curator Chris Phillips last spring, who then previewed a lot of the exhibited work for us in class. I was able to experience the work first in a classroom setting, so I don’t know if what I experienced at the show is from seeing the show up or from (subconscious) recollection of our discussion.

Trying to close the gap between fashion images and fine art photography is a contemporary challenge, and I think the exhibition takes a commendable stab at it: Dress Codes looks at how art represents, explores, and comments on how people dress—its reflection of personal identity and of the global implications. And it does so with a great variety of media, visual styles, and ideas, no less. From the consumerist and the commercial (Kota Ezawa’s IKEA-inspired images) to the personal (David Rosetzky’s video portrait of Cate Blanchett) to the ethno-racial (Mickalene Thomas’s 70s film-inspired portraits of confident black women) and beyond, there are many social and cultural perspectives that add richness to the show. I think the curators did a great job of amassing and presenting work that exhibits the great social observation out there amongst artists, regarding fashion, beauty, and style (personal or otherwise).