Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870

tktkt

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is exhibiting a major survey that examines photography's role in invasive looking. Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870 is co-organized by SFMOMA and Tate Modern, and gathers more than 200 pictures that together form a timely inquiry into the ways in which artists and everyday people alike have probed the camera's powerful voyeuristic capacity. tktktkt

Works by major artists, including Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Thomas Ruff, Paul Strand, and Weegee will be presented alongside photographs made by amateurs, professional journalists, and governmental agencies, exploring the larger cultural significance of voyeurism and surveillance technology.

Conceived by SFMOMA Senior Curator of Photography Sandra S. Phillips and co-curated with Tate Curator of Photography Simon Baker, Exposed traces how voyeuristic observation with cameras in the 19th century influenced street photography in the 20th century. Moving beyond typical notions of voyeurism and surveillance as strictly erotic or predatory, the presentation addresses these concepts in their broadest sense — in both historical and contemporary contexts — investigating how new technologies, urban planning, global intelligence, celebrity culture, and an evolving media environment have fueled a growing interest in the subject. With the proliferation of cell-phone cameras, YouTube videos, security cameras, reality television, satellite views, and infrared technology, our potential to spy on others seems increasingly boundless.

The presentation draws from renowned private and museum collections worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives, and features a concentration of important works from SFMOMA's collection. Exposed is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with original essays that examine the surreptitious use of the camera in all walks of life. tktktk

"As the importance of photography has grown over time, and the art museum itself has become a place for investigating larger cultural issues, this seems an appropriate moment to look at these kinds of pictures to learn from them and to better know ourselves," says Phillips. She first conceived the project as a follow-up to her groundbreaking 1997 SFMOMA exhibition Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence, the first museum presentation to examine mug shots and other police photographs as cultural artifacts. Phillips continues, "The camera is now more adept at concealment, and we often feel protected because we are watched — a telling and relatively recent development. The spy who used to be consigned to the shadows and often called shady is now tolerated in the open and can, in fact, be you or me with a cell phone, even as we are being observed through a surveillance camera."

Facilitated and encouraged by the camera, voyeurism and surveillance provoke uneasy questions about who is looking at whom, whether for power or for pleasure. Voyeurism has long been acknowledged as an essential aspect of photography and represents its most common use. Yet there have been surprisingly few attempts to examine the history of this invasive form of looking. Exposed aims to fill this critical void by highlighting five types of voyeuristic photographs: street photography; the sexually explicit pictures normally associated with voyeurism; celebrity stalking; photographs of death and violence; and surveillance in its many forms.

While Exposed primarily focuses on the medium of photography, the exhibition will also showcase examples of film, video, and installation work by artists such as Thomas Demand, Bruce Nauman, and Andy Warhol, selected by Phillips in collaboration with SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling. Exposed will also feature a selection of archival cameras that were designed to be concealed in artful ways, including models used by spies during the cold war.

Pages: 1 · 2

Culture and Arts, Art and Museums, Photography and Auctions, History, Gift Shopping, Senior Women Web, Sightings Add comments

Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870

More Articles