Tucked into a back room on ICP's lower level, a collection of Magnum contact sheets quietly overpowers the sensational Weegee crime exhibit one must traverse to get there. The contact sheet, not usually intended for the general public, is a unique method for a museum to display photographs. Iconic photos move us, but they stand alone; how can we fully digest their meaning, their historical context? The Magnum exhibit offers a creative solution.
The diverse collection at ICP, which spans the decades since Magnum Photos’ formation in the 1940s, provides intimacy with reading stations, but the best selections are enlarged and displayed on the walls. Outtakes from the famous “Dali Atomicus,” in which Philippe Halsman captures Salvador Dali jumping in midair among hanging objects, come complete with humorous handwritten notes pointing out badly thrown cats and a secretary in the background. Rene Burri’s shots of Che Guevera in conversation stun with their intimacy. Some gems in the collection are recent and lesser-known, such as Trent Parke’s “The Seventh Wave,” capturing the otherworldly beauty of underwater bathers in Australia. But perhaps beauty and history combine best in Leonard Freed’s “Police Work,” no longer a lone striking image of a bare torso and handcuffed arms, but a narrative of frenzied shots as police stuff the shirtless criminal into the back of a cruiser. By revealing each blurry, blown-out take on the roll of film, these contact sheets offer a fascinating peek both into historic events and each photographer’s mind.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I enjoyed your thoughtful and descriptive review of the Magnum contact sheet exhibit. I especially appreciated the detail you provided in your concise descriptions of the contact sheets by Halsman, Burri, Parke and Freed. You singled out “the beauty” of Freed’s contact sheet as a high point and I would have liked know more about why this stood out for you. I also wonder if your description of contact sheets as “intended to be kept private” is somewhat ambiguous, and at odds with the feeling conveyed in your closing statement that the exhibit was a “delicious peek” at the photographer’s process.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your piece. I thought you gave a clear sense of what viewers can expect and why they should skip to the Magnum exhibition instead of suffering through Weegee. Two brief notes: Magnum formed in the 1930s not the 40s, and you do not need to hyphenate adverbs (badly thrown cat instead of badly-thrown cat). Also, though I think you do it a bit toward the end, perhaps you could more clearly reference the (rhetorical) question you posed at the end of the first graph later on in the review as some sort of concluding thought.
ReplyDeletegreat reworking, the first graph in particular presents the reader with a beautiful summary of the stakes of the show.
ReplyDelete