Photography Exhibitions

[MitchW]

We drove down to Greensboro, NC for Thanksgiving, stopping for a few nights in Richmond, VA, both on the way down and on the way back.

Who knew the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was going to turn out to be a really great way to spend a day? State run, free admission except to special exhibits. And a special photography exhibition was the main draw (with comp tickets from our bed and breakfast, owned by the museum and right across the street).

A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845

An exhaustive survey - photographers you know and photographers you don't:

Quote

...the exhibition includes photographs by Alexander Gardner, George Barnard, P.H. Polk, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, Robert Frank, Clarence John Laughlin, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon, Doris Derby, Ernest Withers, William Eggleston, William Christenberry, Baldwin Lee, Sally Mann, Carrie Mae Weems, Susan Worsham, Carolyn Drake, Sheila Pree-Bright, RaMell Ross, and others.  

Photos of photos:

 

Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama, 1936, Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975), gelatin silver print, 9 5/8 x 7 7/8 in. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Gift of Norman Selby (PA 1970) and Melissa G. Vail, 2020.31

Just an amazing exhibition.

Edited December 28, 2024 by MitchW

[MitchW]

Moving on, if you are in the least bit interested in photography, then get yourself to MoMA and see the Robert Frank exhibition.  I've been twice so far, and will make one more visit before it closes. Exhaustive and exhilarating. You have about two weeks left to see it.

Life Dances On Robert Frank in Dialogue

Quote

Coinciding with the centennial of Frank’s birth, the exhibition will explore his restless experimentation across mediums including photography, film, and books, as well as his dialogues with other artists and his communities. It will include some 200 works made over 60 years until the artist’s death in 2019, many drawn from MoMA’s extensive collection, as well as materials that have never before been exhibited.

James Baldwin - 1960

[Wilfrid]

This seems the perfect place to mention the Schomburg Center's centennial tribute to Baldwin. Plenty of photos, great video footage including Baraka's eulogy at his funeral. 

Not a huge show, but bigger than the supposed Baldwin show at the NYPL Schwartzman building which turns out to be one glass case within the large Treasures show. Apparently they are rotating the Baldwin memorabilia once a month. For regulars?

Well, there's always Pooh.
 

[Wilfrid]

And the Baldwin keeps coming. Might see this at the weekend, depending on temperature.

https://www.bklynlibrary.org/exhibitions/turkey-saved-my-life

[Wilfrid]

I made it down to the Baldwin show at the Brooklyn Central Library. Photographs marking his ten year engagement with Istanbul, 1961-1971, but mostly taken around 1962-5, I believe. The photographer Sedat Pakay clearly had much access. At first sight it's a tiny exhibition and you wonder, did I need to come a long way? This is deceiving; it's just very scattered, around the entrance room, around the main ground floor; and I almost left before I saw a little sign, the exhibition continues upstairs. Which it does.

Put together in one gallery, this would be satisfying. Of course, the trip can also be paired with the Brooklyn Museum, but there was not much there I cared about that I had not already seen.