Reblog
More American Photographs looks to Great Depression photography to illuminate impact of Great Recession on America The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has announced their new exhibit, More American Photographs, which is set to open March 1st with more than 100 works. Director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Jen Hoffman, will be the curator of the exhibition, which was first exhibited in the fall and early winter of 2011. For more: Inspired by the Farm Security Administration’s (FSA) 1930’s and 1940’s program to document the Great Depression’s effects on America’s landscape and people, More American Photographs offers a portrait of America today in the wake of the Great Recession. Incorporating FSA works owned by the Library of Congress, this exhibition vividly and poignantly discloses the diverse effects of the recent economic calamity: environmental disasters, factory-ghost towns, the collapse of the housing boom and a lack of economic mobility. The exhibition’s 12 contemporary artists include Walead Beshty, Larry Clark, Roe Ethridge, Katy Grannan, William E. Jones, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Martha Rosler, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth and Hank Willis Thomas. Many of these artists, some of whom do not typically work in a documentary style, have emulated the same straightforward and unglamorous style of photorealism the FSA photographers pioneered in the 1930s. Such historical examples from Esther Bubley, Sheldon Dick, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, Louise Rosskam and Ben Shahn will also be on view. The exhibition’s title refers to Walker Evans’ American Photographs, one of the most powerful photography books ever produced, originally conceived as a catalogue to accompany Evans’ solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1938.
Thu, 5th Jan — 1 note