"Bouquet of Flowers" by Edward Steichen
A rare synchronicity of scheduling makes it possible for photography fans and collectors to survey 150 years of photography in three current museum exhibitions. The only hitch: you need to travel to Milwaukee, Washington D. C. and New York to do so. You can take in the most expansive show–75 years from 1906 to 1981–at the nearby Milwaukee Art Museum’s “Color Rush: American Color Photography from Stieglitz to Sherman,” a sharp-eyed, captivating survey on view through May 19.
Next, fly to Washington’s National Gallery of Art for “Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop” that runs through May 5. Then head up to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for “Photography and the American Civil War” which is up through September 2.
One theme running through all three shows, overtly stated or not, is the meta question of what is “real.” Such a question would have been inconceivable for Civil War photographers Matthew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan who captured the fierce reality of battle. The National Gallery show deals with the less-explored issue of photo manipulation before Photoshop came along in 1987. Milwaukee tackles the struggle color photography endured during the first six decades of the 20th century to be accepted as “real’.
Color Rush - "Red Interior"
“Color Rush” begins in 1907 with the Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, introducing the autochrome, the first widely used color process that didn’t require the manual application of color. Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen learned the process that first year and autochromes debuted in American magazines, such as National Geographic, in the 1910s.
The co-curators, Milwaukee’s Lisa Hostetler and the Art Institute of Chicago’s Katherine Bussard, have fashioned a decade-by-decade, scholarly yet highly accessible tour of color’s life story. The exhibit features leading photographers of each period with the focus on color’s evolution and photographic practice. Bussard spoke of their intentions. “Lisa and I set out to rectify the problematic–if prevailing–notion that color photography prior to the 1970s was either amateur or commercial and only recognized as such. The historical reality was never that simple, never so definitive.”
The show has a bipolar personality. During its youthful years, color film was used primarily by advertisers and commercial printers to lure consumers with eye-catching images before exploding into total saturation with Brownie and Polaroid cameras. By the late ’60s, color film has its artistic breakthrough.
For nearly a century after photography’s origin, black-and-white monochromes were the artistic language of reality. While Kodak introduced 35mm Kodachrome film in 1936, color remained the province of advertising, photo magazines such as LIFE and movie spectaculars. As color technology developed, the issue of realism between black and white and color was joined.
Starting in the 1960s, Americans begin snapping color pics by the millions to capture everyday moments and key life events. Alongside its penetration into popular culture, the exhibit registers color’s move into the art world with “The Conceptual Turn.” Artists such as Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Joel Meyerowitz and William Eggleston react against conventional notions of art-making and see the artist as a producer of ideas rather than simply objects. Their photos blur the boundary between art and life.
The exhibit ends with images by Cindy Sherman and a provocative video installation by Nan Goldin. I only wish the curators’ critical gaze had encompassed more conceptual and pop culture references from the 1980s. It felt like the exhibition ended too abruptly with Sherman and Goldin. However, I’d highly recommend making this enjoyable show part of a weekend getaway.
"Leap into the Void" at NGA
Starting with the invention of Photoshop, the question of whether a photo presents a true representation of reality or a crafty manipulation is ambiguous and rich with distinctions that would have baffled earlier generations. The National Gallery show demonstrates that altered photos are part of a tradition dating to the origins of photography in the 1840s. Even a photo purist as Ansel Adams was not above making tonal changes to enhance his iconic images.
The National Gallery’s press release makes a telling point. The exhibit images show “that photography is–always has been–a medium of fabricated truths and artful lies.” Wish I had said that myself. This is a show I’m sorry to miss.
"Pennylvania Light Artillery"
The Met exhibit features more than 200 rare and poignant photos of the Civil War, the national tragedy in which an incredible 750,000 lives were lost. the curators examine the evolving role of the camera during America’s bloodiest war.
While the works of Brady, Gardner and O’Sullivan are the most iconic images, the conflict engaged the talents of roughly 1,000 photographers, working individually and in teams. It features studio portraits of Union and Confederate soldiers made on thin sheets of copper (daguerreotypes), glass (ambrotypes) or iron (tintypes), gory battlefield views of the dead at Antietam and rare muti-panel panoramas of Gettysburg’s killing fields.
Fly to all three venues online and access information about each exhibit, go to www.mam.org, www.nga.gov and www.metmuseum.org.
Addendum: I have just returned from a visit to the Art Institute and discovered another photographic exhibit worth your time. It is “When Collecting Was New,” a display from the Robert A. Taub collection. Taub purchased his first photo at a bookstore in Denver in 1960 and acquired most of the 200 works he donated to the museum during the 1970s and early 1980s.
"Galax, Virginia" by Lee Friedlander
That was a key period in photography’s acceptance as a true art form. The market boom for fine art photographs took off in the 1970s and was led by two pioneering New York dealers, the Witkin and Light Galleries.
Taub played an important role in paving the way for color photography’s acceptance as an undeniable part of art practice. By collecting vernacular and commercial images, such as NASA photographs and images commissioned by his employer, Ford Motor Company, Taub helped change the definition of photographic art.
The Department of Photography will host a free seminar on the show on Friday, April 26th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Fullerton Hall. Registration is not required. It should prove a worthwhile event.