Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
From the opening of The Museum of Modern Art, in where the artist who has chosen the camera as his
1929, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., its first director, then twenty- medium can find guidance by example and encouragement
seven years old and inspired in particular by the and where the vast amateur public can study both the
Photography
example of the Bauhaus, thought it might be a good classics and the most recent and significant developments
idea to include photography among the techniques of photography.4 And although the first photography
represented: in a draft for a brochure he envisioned that exhibition organized by MoMA was indeed a historical
1 3 4 5
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., in Harriet S. Bee On the history of MoMA's Department Department of Photography brochure, Press release for Always the Young
and Michelle Elligott, eds., Art in Our of Photography, see Christopher December 1940. Department of Strangers, February 26, 1953. MoMA
Time: A Chronicle of The Museum of Phillips, The Judgment Seat of Photography files, The Museum Archives, New York.
Modern Art (New York: The Museum Photography, October 22 (Fall of Modern Art, New York.
of Modern Art, 2004), p. 29. 1982): 2763. See also Peter Galassi,
Two Stories, in Galassi, American
2 Photography, 18901965, from The
Ibid. Museum of Modern Art, New York
(New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 1995), pp. 2639.
11
photography added to our knowledge of the truth by In another contrast with Steichen, Szarkowski was
presenting the work of (mostly) living photographers, an eloquent and charismatic advocate of a conception
American as well as foreign, such as the young W. Eugene of photography that was close to the tenets of modernism
Smith, Robert Frank, and Lucien Clergue.6 and informed by Clement Greenbergs writings on
Succeeding him at the head of the department in painting. In an era of new crossovers and connections
July 1962 was John Szarkowski, a thirty-six-year-old between photography and the other visual arts,
photographer (with two books of his own work under Szarkowski undertook to define and promote a pure
his belt) who would remain there for thirty years. When (or straight) contemporary photography that relied
the Museum expanded in 1964, it was given an exhibition on its own cardinal virtues (the act of framing, the
gallery designated for presentations on the history of relationship to reality, the quality of light) and displayed
photography as told through the works in the collection a certain documentary transparency. This conception
(then around seven thousand images), as well as a presages Szarkowskis unease with large formats and
well-appointed study center with a library intended reveals his predilection for black and white, though he
for students and photographers. Photographers were would sometimes show contemporary work in color,
encouraged to drop off their portfolios to be seen and by artists such as Ernst Haas, in 1962; Marie Cosindas,
considered by the department, which returned them in 1966; Helen Levitt, in 1974; and, of course, William
without commentary. Szarkowski considered this Eggleston, in 1976.9 This tradition of documentary style
system, with its lack of dialogue, very unsatisfactory is anchored in the work of Eugne Atgetwhose archives
but acknowledged that half the exhibitions we do of Szarkowski bought for the Museum from Berenice
younger photographers are the direct result of our looking Abbott in 1968and Evans, who died in 1975 and
at unsolicited portfolios.7 As the chronological period to whom he devoted a major retrospective in 1971. Its
covered by the Museum continued to growwhich main heirs, Szarkowski believed, were Diane Arbus,
might have restricted the amount of space allotted Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand, all three of
to contemporary workand a market for historical whom were featured in the exhibition New Documents
photography began to form in the early 1970s, especially in 1967 (fig. 2). Szarkowski called them documentary
in the United States, Szarkowski nevertheless continued photographers and believed them motivated by more
to engage with contemporary work, giving the majority personal ends than those of the preceding generation,
of exhibitions to active photographers. At the same sharing the belief that the world is worth looking at,
time he profoundly modified this engagement from and the courage to look at it without theorizing
that of his predecessors, in both its form and the type (qualities that also suggest Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz,
of photography he championed. He greatly reduced the and Nicholas Nixon, among others).10 At a time when
number of thematic exhibitions, which he considered the practice and history of photography were making
too didactic, and instead favored those that highlighted their way into academia, Szarkowski stubbornly
personal itineraries and individual signatures. His defended an antitheoretical and nonacademic approach,
first exhibition, in 1963, was titled Five Unrelated which he describedbetraying a taste for provocation
Photographers, a subtle and symbolic way of indicating as the easiest of the arts: Putting aside for today the
a break with his predecessor, and proposed something not very mysterious mysteries of craft, a photographer
that would be, as he allowed, more about photographers finally does nothing but stand in the right place, at
than about moral or philosophical position.8 In contrast the right time, and decide what should fall within and
with the traditional, densely hung displays dear to what outside the rectangle of the frame. That is what
Steichen, Szarkowski preferred to install photographs it comes down to.11
in the same manner as paintings and drawings: mounted Throughout his career, with more than fifty
in passe-partouts and framed, on white walls with more contemporary exhibitions taking place under
space between the images, thus asserting photography his direction, Szarkowski scarcely deviated from
as an art rather than a medium of communication. this concept of contemporary photography, keeping
Fig. 1 Fig. 2 6 7 9 10
Installation view of Postwar European Installation view of New Documents, Press release for Diogenes with a John Szarkowski, in John Gruen, Photographic paper is not beautiful. Press release for New Documents,
Photography, organized by Edward organized by John Szarkowski, Camera, May 21, 1952. MoMA Archives, The Reasonably Risky Life of John It looks like something made in February 28, 1967. MoMA Archives,
Steichen, May 27August 2, 1953, September 14, 1967January 6, 1968, New York. Szarkowski, Art News 77, no. 4 a plastics factoryjust a shiny New York.
with works by Robert Frank with works by Lee Friedlander (April 1978): 68. surface. . . . Big photographs have
that problem to deal with. Some deal 11
8 with it more successfully than others. Szarkowski, "Introduction to
Ibid. But it is a real problem. Szarkowski, Lee Friedlander," Colony News
in Nicole Krauss, Everywhere Felt but (MacDowell Colony, Peterborough,
Nowhere Seen, Modern Painters 17, N.H.), 16, no. 1 (Fall 1986).
no. 2 (Spring 2004): 61.
12 13 14 Fig. 3 Fig. 4
These complaints went as far back Press release for Projects: Keith Michael Demarest, The Arts, Avenue, Installation view of Photography Installation view of Projects 16:
as 1940, when the American Abstract Sonnier, May 24, 1971. MoMA Archives, April 1977, p. 22. into Sculpture, organized by Peter Bernhard and Anna Blume,
Artists held their How Modern Is New York. See also Eva Respini and C. Bunnell, April 8July 5, 1970, organized by Lisa Kurzner,
The Museum of Modern Art? protest. Drew Sawyer, "A 'New Prominence': with works by (left to right) Dale May 13June 20, 1989
Photography at MoMA in the 1960s Quarterman, Robert Watts, Robert
and 1970s," in Mary Statzer, ed., Heinecken, and Michael de Courcy
The Photographic Object (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2016).
Installation view of More Than One Installation view of New Photography Installation view of Cindy Sherman: The John Tagg, The Burden of Press release for New Photography 2, Between 1985 and 2013, the New Among them Uta Barth, Walead
Photography: Works since 1980 from 2013, organized by Roxana Marcoci, Complete "Untitled Film Stills," organized Representation: Essays on June 1986. MoMA Archives, New York. Photography exhibitions presented Beshty, Thomas Demand, Philip-Lorca
the Collection, organized by Peter September 14, 2013January 6, 2014, by Peter Galassi, June 26September, 2, 1997 Photographies and Histories There were no New Photography ninety-eight artists of eighteen diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Graham,
Galassi, May 14August 9, 1992, with works by (left to right) Brendan (Minneapolis: University of exhibitions, between 2000 and 2004 nationalities: American (fifty-one), Lisa Oppenheim, Barbara Probst,
with works by (left to right) Robert Fowler, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Minnesota Press, 1988), pp. 1415. (when the Fifty-Third Street building Brazilian (one), British (eight), Michael Schmidt, and Toshio Shibata,
Frank, Carl Pope, Michael Schmidt, Chanarin, and Josephine Pryde was under construction and the Canadian (two), Chinese (three), to name only a few.
16
Anselm Kiefer, and Felix Gonzalez- Museum relocated to Queens) and Cuban (one), Dutch (three), French
Galassi, in Rosalind Williams, 20
Torres (on floor) in 2014. Starting in 2015, the thirtieth (three), German (eleven), Icelandic
Photography Considered Art from anniversary of the first exhibition, (one), Iranian (one), Israeli (two), Barr, in Bee and Elligott, Art in Our
the Beginning of the MoMA," Revista the cycle will resume on a biennial Japanese (two), Polish (one), South Time, p. 39.
tendencias del mercado del arte, schedule, in a larger space and African (four), Spanish (one), Swiss
June 2009, p. 90. showing more works by more artists. (two), and Ukranian (one).