Museums: June 2007 Archives

The NY Times has reviewed the street photography show at the Met, drawn from the museum's collection which opened last month.

When artists talk about “training the eye,” they generally don’t mean doing exercises to maintain 20/20 vision. They mean honing a set of instincts, learning to see relationships among colors or objects or spaces. The title of this small but potent collection of contemporary photographs from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection describes this kind of vision another way: seeing what is “Hidden in Plain Sight.” The show focuses mostly on versions of street, rather than studio, photography.

Hidden in Plain Sight
Through Sept.3 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Ave
(212) 535-7710

Andy Grundberg reviewed the new show "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe" in this past weekend's Washington Post.

In the show's fine catalogue, curator Witkovsky asks a central question: "Why would 'new photography' take hold especially strongly in Central Europe?" His provisional answer revolves around the presence of a strong amateur photography tradition and the creation of schools that nurtured photography as a radical new instrument of expression. One could also point to Central Europe as the meeting place of constructivist ideas from the Russian avant-garde and new art movements from France and Italy such as cubism and futurism.

The exhibition is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, through Sept. 3rd and will be coming to the Guggenheim on October 10th.