The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) moma.org presents “New Photography” exhibitions every two years. Known for exploring new compelling ideas and the many exciting directions within photography and photo-based art, these “New Photography” exhibitions comprise a key component of MoMA’s contemporary art program. This year MoMA’s Photography exhibition “Being: New Photography 2018”, is about being human.
As stated in the Museum’s press release “At a time when questions about the rights, responsibilities, and dangers inherent in being represented — and in representing others — are being debated around the world, the works featured in this exhibition call attention to assumptions about how individuals are depicted and perceived.”
Organized by Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography, it is on view from March 18 through August 19, 2018.
“Being: New Photography 2018” – It’s Time Has Come
“Being: New Photography 2018” includes over 80 new and recent works by 17 artists from eight countries. While at various stages in their careers, all artists are presenting their work at the Museum for the first time. It’s interesting to see how these artists used photography to capture what it means to be human.
Many of the artists in the exhibition challenge the conventions of photographic portraiture. Employing such creative tools as masking, cropping, and fragmenting many artists create a sense of disorientation. In others, snapshots or found images are taken from their original source and placed in a new context to expose hidden narratives. While some of the works might be interpreted as representations of individuals not all works of art include images of the human body. Overall, the diverse works of art explore urgent issues that include privacy and exposure, the formation of communities, in addition to gender, heritage, and psychology.
Aida Muluneh, an Ethiopian artist born in 1974, constructs characters through colorful make-up and costume and by doubling figures or limbs. She titled her series “The World Is 9” (2016) after her grandmother’s saying, “The world is nine; it is never complete and it’s never perfect.” In this series Muluneh conveys the complex multiplicity and contradictions inherent within an individual.
Carmen Winant is a writer and visual artist born in San Francisco, California in 1983. Her art is known for revealing representations of women through collage, mixed media and installation. In this exhibition her site-specific installation “My Birth”, 2017–18 sprawls across two facing walls from floor to ceiling. In this installation she has mounted an assortment of arresting images collected from books and magazines of women preparing for and in the process of labor and childbirth.
The artist explores how these natural activities are often kept hidden from our view, in spit of our culture that is inundated by images. In this installation she also reflects upon her own birth experience presented in a seemingly endless tapestry of images.
B. Ingrid Olson was born in 1987 in Denver, Colorado and currently lives and works in Chicago. The artist frames photographs of figures or body parts, often including her own, within other pictures or within acrylic boxes. The body is observed with reflected references that are both literal and metaphorical. Her piece “Felt Angle, box for standing (2017)”, shown above, challenges our perceptions of psychology and identity.
In an interview with in The Seen, with Alfredo Cramerotti, she states, “Whether photographic or sculptural, I would say that much of my work questions the idea of being in a body in space. Ideas of embodiment, proprioception — the sense of oneself as a body moving in the world in relation to other things — gender, sexuality, as well as dynamics, such as universality versus specificity or inside versus outside, are all circulating in my mind as I make the work.”
Andrzej Steinbach. Untitled from the series Gesellschaft beginnt mit drei. 2017. Inkjet print, 35 7/16 × 23 5/8″ (90 × 60 cm). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Conradi, Hamburg and Brussels. © 2018 Andrzej Steinbach
Andrzej Steinbach is a Poland-born artist living in Germany. His series “Gesellschaft beginnt mit drei” (Society Begins with Three), created in 2017, employs the conventional format of a group portrait, yet each picture depicts only one complete figure, while other figures in the image are cropped. In this series he uses the same subjects but alternates their positions and attire. His photographic images raise questions about the political interpretations of style, culture and identity.
In an interview on the Biennale website he states, “Cultural symbolism, history, social practice and their importance for individuals and their identity formation form the central interest of my work.”
About the Museum of Modern Art: Since 1985 MoMA, in both its midtown Manhattan location and MoMA PS1 in Queens, have been committed to sharing the most thought-provoking modern and contemporary art. It pledges to “celebrate creativity, openness, tolerance, and generosity.” Its aim is to be inclusive in its museums and on its website. Diverse cultural, artistic, social, and political positions are always welcome.
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