All Grown Up!

Commentary / March 22, 2013

“Untitled (Memphis), 1970” by William Eggleston, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Great news! Photography has come of age; it is legitimately art. How can we be sure? The New York Times says so.

”New York, ca. 1962”, by Garry Winogrand, on view at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

In a front-page story in their special “Museums” section on Thursday, March 21, 2013, (“The Lens Rises in Stature” by Carol Vogel), the Times has tracked down and interviewed curators from the pre-eminent art museums of the US: Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Art Institue of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. These curators have revealed that they now have the clout to mount shows that cross departmental borders in unprecedented ways, allowing them to create exhibits that mix photographs with prints, drawings and other media. Says Jeff Rosenheim, head of the photography department at The Met, “We can be far more experimental now. For so long, we were fighting just to have a wall.” MoMA’s newly arrived photography director, Quentin Bajac (from Pompidou Center, Paris) expands further, “I’m thinking of photography within a far broader context – with film and painting, architecture and drawing – making connections that show it to be equal in status with all the arts.”

“New York World’s Fair, 1964” by Garry Winogrand on view at SFMOMA

How has photography risen to such heights? It seems that “museum directors are realizing that photography exhibitions draw crowds, particularly the young audiences they covet.” This has prompted a countrywide outbreak of photography shows with a “consistently robust schedule.” Case in point: fashion photographer Mario Testino’s recent blockbuster solo show, “In Your Face”, at the MFA, Boston this past fall.

“Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Los Angeles 2003” by Mario Testino from MFA, Boston show

But why? Today, everyone with so much as a phone is a photographer. We are inundated with photographs. This has had the two-fold effect of making pictures accessible and also piquing everyone’s interest in images. Especially great ones. This is where museums (and galleries) have stepped up to meet demand. Says MoMA’s Bajac, “We’re in a time when there are too many photographs online. We have to help people learn to swim in that new ocean of images…educate the eye.” I say, “bring it!”