"Conversations: Photographs From the Bank of America Collection" at MFA Boston

Written by Lloyd Pennaeth Wednesday, 20 April 2011 21:12

Boston, MA.- The art of conversation is explored in a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA), to highlight visual dialogues among some of the most notable photographs of the 19th and 20th centuries. "Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection" features more than 100 images, drawn from thousands in the renowned Bank of America Collection. The exhibition, through June 19th, in the Lois and Michael Torf Gallery, is curated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is provided by the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. MFA curators Anne Havinga, the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs, and Karen Haas.

The Lane Collection Curator of Photographs, chose specific photographs from the rich trove of images to initiate 'conversations' between paired and sequenced works in a wide range of themes, including portraits, landscapes, street photography, and abstraction. These juxtapositions highlight contrasting subjects, periods, approaches and techniques, and also suggest connections between the artists themselves that will inspire visitors to look closely and come up with conversations of their own. Showcased are works by some of the most recognized names in photography, from 19th century innovators Gustave Le Gray, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Carleton Watkins, to 20th century luminaries including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Harry Callahan, and Irving Penn, as well as contemporary image makers William Eggleston, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman, and Alec Soth.



The Bank of America Collection is a global assemblage that comprises paintings, works on paper, video, photography, sculpture, textiles, and maps dating from the 18th century to the present, which it shares with the public through individual loans and the Art in our Communities program.  By providing these exhibitions and the support required to host them, this program helps enrich communities culturally and economically and generates vital revenue for museums. At the conclusion of 2011, Bank of America will have loaned more than 50 exhibitions to museums worldwide. "Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection" presents unique visual groupings, including images featuring visitors responding to art in museums, such as two photographs by Thomas Struth: "Audience 4", an intriguing view of people gazing upward at Michelangelo’s David, and "Musée du Louvre 4, Paris", an image of visitors contemplating Géricault’s famous "Raft of the Medusa" in a Louvre gallery. In the section focusing on people and portraiture, Julia Margaret Cameron’s stunningly lifelike profile of her niece, "Untitled (Mary Emily May Prinsep), is seen alongside Edward Weston’s portrait, "Tina Modotti, Mexico", which offers a compelling view of his sitter’s psychological state.  Both images show women gazing downwards in compositions that are elegant and lyrical.  Nevertheless, they are clearly women of different times: the Victorian Prinsep appears soft and demure while Modotti, the modern woman, has allowed her photographer-lover to capture her emotional state up close.

Nearby these works is a group of photographs exploring the uncanny in the everyday, as seen in William Eggleston’s iconic image of a tricycle, "Untitled (Memphis)" and Lee Friedlander’s "T.V. in Hotel Room, Galax, Virginia", which shows an eerily disembodied child’s face on a television screen. Landscapes and seascapes are well represented in the exhibition with 'conversations' arising among many of the images.  Alvin Langdon Coburn’s "Snow in Canyon, Grand Canyon" and Art Sinsabaugh’s "Midwest Landscape #32" suggest the artistic possibilities of the American landscape in photography from very different periods and perspectives.  A dramatic ocean view by Gustave Le Gray, "Seascape with Yacht and Tugboat, Normandy (1857)", represents his technical virtuosity and expressiveness and is juxtaposed with the more modern, conceptual photograph "New York State" (1970) by Kenneth Josephson, taken nearly a century later. The exhibition is rich in street photography, including Helen Levitt’s "New York" (about 1940), an image of three children wearing Halloween masks on a tenement stoop, and Garry Winogrand’s "World’s Fair, New York City" (1964), a candid black and white photograph of a group of people animatedly talking and gesturing on a bench, seemingly frozen in midsentence.  Contemporary urban subjects are also explored in interpretations of cityscapes, such as Vera Lutter’s "135 LaSalle Street, Chicago, VI" (2001), a camera obscura image of skyscrapers, and Stéphane Couturier’s "Unter den Linden, Berlin" (1996), one of his many large-scale color views of construction sites around the world.



Historic monuments and travel to exotic locales are documented in several photographs, including Francis Frith’s documentary image, "The Ramesseum of El-Kurneh, Thebes, Second View" (1857–58), which captures the grandeur of ancient Egypt — a sight available only to a very few intrepid travelers in the mid-19th century — and Richard Misrach’s "Ticket Booth and Pyramid, Giza, Egypt" (1989), which shows, in wry contrast, the modern tourist experience of these ancient sites.  Works of abstraction and experimentation also are on view. "Light Abstraction" (about 1924–25) illustrates Jaromir Funke’s use of soft focus that enabled him to create Cubist-inspired compositions out of everyday objects with light, shadow, and reflection.  The blurring of subject matter is also seen in Thomas Ruff’s "d.p.b. 08" (2000), which uses speed to distort an image of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. After its debut in Boston at the MFA, "Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection" will travel to major European museums.

The original Boston Museum of Fine Arts opened its doors to the public on July 4, 1876, the nation's centennial. Built in Copley Square, the MFA was then home to 5,600 works of art. Over the next several years, the collection and number of visitors grew exponentially, and in 1909 the Museum moved to its current home on Huntington Avenue. Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 450,000 works of art. We welcome more than one million visitors each year to experience art from ancient Egyptian to contemporary, special exhibitions, and innovative educational programs. November 2010 marked the opening of The New MFA. Designed by the world-renowned Foster and Partners architects, The New MFA comprises a new wing for Art of the Americas; renovated art of Europe galleries; improved conservation and education facilities;The Linde Family Wing devoted entirely to contemporary art; and a new, larger public space—the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard. Established in 1876, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is one of the oldest and most distinguished art schools in the United States. Through an affiliation with Tufts University established in 1945, the SMFA offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, providing students with a full range of academic resources.Visit the MFA website at www.mfa.org

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