"Pictures by Women"

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KenR

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I saw the current exhibit “Pictures by Women” at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. A very broad survey of the topic – shallow in some spots, quite deep in others as the Museum only used its own holdings rather than borrowing from other museum or collections to fill things in. While it was interesting to see the change in themes from motherhood and family in the early works to “strong masculine themes” (my wife’s words) in many of the later photographs, as well as the later exploration of gender itself, overall it left me unsatisfied, I think because it tried to do too much.

In addition, the audio guide to the exhibit was terrible. For example, it discussed Helen Levitt’s color street photographs from the 1970’s without discussing her earlier photographs of children playing in the 1940’s-1950’s. Dorothea Lange certainly merited a wall of her own in the show, with about a dozen photographs, but the audio guide didn’t mention her at all.

Worth seeing, but I wanted and expected much more.
 
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I am resistant to gender-exclusive anything. But I liked this show, even as I found the same shortcomings as you did. The eighties kinda blew the rest away, at least in this particular selection.

They should have borrowed stuff from other museums. but whaddya gonna do.
 
Apologies to all if the text is unreadable. I use the default white text on a black backround. I'll see if I can change the text color at this point.
 
KenR said:
I saw the current exhibit “Pictures by Women” at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. A very broad survey of the topic – shallow in some spots, quite deep in others as the Museum only used its own holdings rather than borrowing from other museum or collections to fill things in. While it was interesting to see the change in themes from motherhood and family in the early works to “strong masculine themes” (my wife’s words) in many of the later photographs, as well as the later exploration of gender itself, overall it left me unsatisfied, I think because it tried to do too much.

In addition, the audio guide to the exhibit was terrible. For example, it discussed Helen Levitt’s color street photographs from the 1970’s without discussing her earlier photographs of children playing in the 1940’s-1950’s. Dorothea Lange certainly merited a wall of her own in the show, with about a dozen photographs, but the audio guide didn’t mention her at all.

Worth seeing, but I wanted and expected much more.
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You can just quote it and remove the formatting.

martin
 
I thought this exhibit was great. I chose not to do anything but enjoy work that I rarely get to see. I wasn't expecting a retrospective with historical and social significance summed up by one show. I was simply expecting pictures by women i.e. a wide variety of images by great women Photographers. That is rare with today's, trying to hard to be a movement, curators. Some of the photos were simple, some were very complex. It was a loose theme and in 2010, that should be applauded. There was one main theme in my opinion... great photography.
 
The themes clearly changed over time. Most of the early work stuck to "women's themes" of children and family, but with time it was clear that the photographers had long left that limitation behind. The mid and late century work were quite varied in their theme and if viewed in a vacuum, you would never guess the gender of the photographer.

Unfortunately exhibits like this one suffer by their very breadth - too shallow in most areas and so one wishes for more.
 
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