Faces in the Crowd

“These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all”
~ from “The Boy in the Bubble” (1986) by Paul Simon

By Elin Spring

Street photography holds up a mirror to ourselves and gives us permission to stare. As both society and photography continually transform, the mirror reflects that, too. In “Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography,” Karen Haas, Lane Senior Curator of Photographs at MFA, Boston, presents a five-decade global slice of street photography that brings us up to the present. This gem-like show features the images of twenty-five photographers drawn from the museum’s collection. Their viewpoints illuminate individual and collective responses to socio-political changes, but also the ways in which people’s attitudes and gestures remain familiar over time. On view in MFA, Boston’s Herb Ritts Gallery through July 13^th, 2026.

“New York” by Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009), 1976, printed 1993, Photograph, dye transfer color print. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Graham Gund, © Helen Levitt Film Documents LLC. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In photographs from Pittsburgh to St. Petersburg, the backdrop of cities large and small serves to accentuate a common humanity. The sense of transit inherent to street photography, especially the way they are gathered on these walls, creates a feeling that we are all notes in the movements flowing through a symphonic piece.

“View from a barbershop near Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey” 2001, by Alex Webb, courtesy of the artist and Magnum Photos.

Through faces deep in contemplation to those in the ecstatic throes of an embrace, we recognize the complexities of daily life. These images are imbedded with layers of meaning. Some crystalize a clash of cultures or ideas, like Alex Webb’s puzzle-like juxtaposition of Muslim and secular cultures in Istanbul.

“Taxi” 2016, by Luc Delahaye (French, born in 1962), Photograph, chromogenic print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Richard and Lucille Spagnuolo, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Luc Delahaye’s staged “Taxi” is a large-scale, Christian Renaissance-style “Madonna and Child,” portrayed by a Palestinian woman in a headscarf, enduring her restless, western-clothed child. Poignant in its tension and dignity, the forced intimacy of this shared West Bank taxi is a metaphor for Palestine as a joint territory.

“A Man and Two Women After a Church Service” by Dawoud Bey (American, born in 1953), 1976 Photograph, gelatin silver print. Gift of David W. Williams and Eric Ceputis, © Dawoud Bey, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Dawoud Bey’s “A Man and Two Women After a Church Service” pits the quiet elegance of its subjects against the prevailing stereotypes of Black inhabitants of NYC’s Harlem. In contrast, Amani Willett’s ominous pair of images, one of a pensive Black woman dome-lit in a darkened taxi, and the accompanying nighttime image of a tire-streaked roadway, is a terrifying, symbolic reminder of the way Black people continue to be forced off America’s roads.

Left to Right: “Untitled” (tire tracks on pavement), “Gail”, both 2020, from the A Parallel Road series by Amani Willett, courtesy of the artist. (Installation view by Elin Spring)

“Untitled” 1965, from the Women Are Beautiful series, © Garry Winogrand.

“Pyongyang” from the series Unanimous Desires by Matthew Connors (American, born in 1976), 2013 Photograph, inkjet print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Scott Offen, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Given the compact nature of the exhibition, the images encompass an impressive range of moods and locations: like Garry Winogrand’s vertiginous photograph from his “Women Are Beautiful” series (1965); Helen Levitt’s colorful, bustling street corner; Matthew Connors’ scrutinizing stance of a North Korean man from his “Unanimous Desires” series (2013); Cristobal Hara’s fleeting encounter with a self-possessed Spanish girl; Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s Japanese woman poised alone in a crowd; and Michael Wolf’s impassioned kiss, caught unaware via French surveillance camera, seen on Google Street View and photographed from his computer monitor.

“Cuenca (Crowded Bus)” by Cristobal Hara (Spanish, born in 1946), about 1973 Photograph, gelatin silver print. Gift of Peter Soriano, © Cristóbal Hara, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

“Untitled (71 1879B)” by Yasuhiro Ishimoto (Japanese, born in United States, 1921–2012), about 1967 Photograph, gelatin silver print, printed 1980s. Gift of David W. Williams and Eric Ceputis, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

“Parisian Street View #28” 2009, printed 2025, © Michael Wolf.

These photographers invite our emotional engagement as they still both moment and movement. Although small by comparison, “Faces in the Crowd” reminds me of Edward Steichen’s 1955 humanist classic, “The Family of Man,” condensed, updated and rendered through the alluring lenses of street photographers. Go stare all you like, through July 13^th, 2026.

For more information about this exhibit, go to: https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/faces-in-the-crowd-street-photography

Feature Image: “Gail” 2019 from the series A Parallel Road by Amani Willett, courtesy of the artist.