A Photography Mecca

The first stop on my NYC itinerary was the International Center of Photography, located at Avenue of the Americas (6th) and 43rd. When I asked my lovely readers for suggestions on things to see a few weeks ago, Cube suggested checking out the Weegee exhibit at the ICP. I'm so glad she did, cuz I was able to take in 4 really diverse and all really interesting photography exhibitions. All of these exhibitions close on Friday, August 27, so if you have any interest in them you better go soon!

On the first floor, there is an installation of really large photographic works in Atta Kim: On-Air. These are all recent works by the Korean photographer, including several long-exposure (like 8 hours or more) photos of Manhattan and of the Korean DMZ that show surprisingly quiet, tranquil scenes in places that we know to be active and even chaotic in real-time. Plus he has a really cool series of giant images that represented "morphing" (sorry, I can't remember the technical term) 10, 20, or even 100 other images into one. There was an image of Buddha that he made using about a dozen different people in different poses, but when he merged all the photos into one he got a surprisingly clear single image of a Buddha that represents all of the models combined. He did the same thing with people's faces - morphing 100 portraits into one, including one image that was 100 different men from 100 different countries. Racial and ethnic characteristics melt away as these diverse men all combine to become one face. Very cool. (Note, on the ICP web site you can look at selections of images from all of these exhibitions. It's worth exploring.)

Downstairs, there are currently three exhibitions that offer a wide range of subject matter and artistic styles. First is their "headline" exhibition, Unknown Weegee. Photographer Arthur Fellig, aka Weegee, created images, particularly those he shot for the tabloid newspaper PM, which illustrate the tenuousness of working class life in 1940's urban America. These images show graphic and poignant depictions of tenement living and its dangers, including racism, poverty, murders, fires, and crime, contrasted with rare glimpses of Hollywood glamour. Weegee captured candid images of Veronica Lake and Eva Gabor, as well as his "Intermission" series showing performers and patrons from high society enjoying a night at the opera. These images are all gritty and tangible, and I found myself absorbed in each one of them, trying to determine the story behind what he allowed us to see.

Next up was a collection of photographic collages in Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Yeah, this was not so much my style. Moving on....

Surprisingly, my favorite show was the smallest one at ICP. In just a single, small room painted a pale blue, the exhibit Paris: Eugene Atget and Christopher Rauschenberg showcases two artists pursuing the same subject matter with similar techniques. Atget photographed scenes of Paris in the 1910's-20's, sharing rich images of a beautiful city's architecture and public spaces. In one of my favorite styles of photography, Atget hints at the comings and goings of early 20th century Parisians but he does so without showing any people in the images at all. I love photographs that give a sense of human activity without using any people in the image at all. There are photos of shops, playgrounds, and cafes, all expectantly waiting for their intended visitors to appear. In the 1990's, contemporary artisit Rauschenberg created an homage to Atget by photographing many similar subjects, also giving a sense of current Parisian life without showing any human subjects. What I really loved about this exhibit was that the two artists' work was shown side-by-side, and you truly could not tell which images were modern and which were from a century ago. Rauschenberg intentionally focused his lens on locations that haven't changed over the decades, and he was careful to not include any glimpses of modernity in the form of new cars or evidence of electronics, etc. These romantic black-and-white images really pulled me in and I found myself wishing I could be walking the streets of Paris myself.