I know … I only listen to vinyl, and only through vintage tube electronics, and I only use film and make silver gelatin black and white prints. And I prefer “straight” photography. Ok, I get it, there’s a pattern operating here.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Allentown Museum of Art to take in the exhibit Fresh Perspective, Modernism in Photography, 1920-1950. Little did I know that I was going to see three different shows! Let’s start with the exhibit I travelled to see. The Fresh Perspective show contained twenty-five mostly 8×10 black and white prints by Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, August Sander, Walker Evans, and others, some of which I was not familiar with. Everything from landscapes and landscape fragments, to formal portraits, to cityscapes, to objects used and worn in everyday life. A few pictures stood out in particular to me … Edward Weston’s Kelp, Point Lobos, Margaret Bourke-White’s Aerial View of New York Bus Terminal Building, and Eggs with Slicer, also by Edward Weston. A very nice little show and well worth seeing!
I left the photographs of the Masters and strolled into a large auditorium containing the Lehigh Valley Photography Club 2019 Juried Exhibition. As you can imagine, there was a large cross section of photographs covering all subject matter in both black and white and color. Of course mostly larger digital prints.
Then walked two floors up the stairs to a very large show, Carrie Mae Weems, Strategies of Engagement. The New York Times has called Weems “perhaps or greatest living photographer” and I have to say the exhibit was fascinating on a number of different levels and perhaps it is top level representative of the current state of exhibited photography. Very large silver gelatin and digital black and white prints, purposefully out of focus color prints, even huge hanging images printed on thin muslin cloth. Most appeared to be staged or posed in some way. There is even text and videos. The work focuses on racial stereotypes and problematic issues in American history concerning Native Americans and African Americans. Very different to me, and to be honest, I had trouble wrapping my head around what I saw, but I believe worth seeing.
The trip to the Allentown Museum showed me where photography has come from to where it now is at the art museum/gallery levels. Also on display was the work of many who make photographs for the joy of it. It all gave me a lot to think about. I had started off with the older work, then went on to the camera club photographs, and ended with the new work. When I finished, I just had to return one more time to view the older work. I looked at those twenty-five prints again, then smiled and left for the ride home.
If you happen to be in or near the Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley do check out the Allentown Museum of Art. The Fresh Perspective and Carrie Mae Weems shows run throughMay 5th and May 12th respectively.