4.15.2013

GARRY WINOGRAND: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Exhibition and Catalog

 John F. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles, 1960
Garry Winogrand, posthumous digital reproduction from original negative; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 Los Angeles, ca.1980–83
Garry Winogrand, gelatin silver print; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 Richard Nixon Campaign Rally, New York, 1960
Garry Winogrand, posthumous digital reproduction from original negative; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 Los Angeles, 1980–83
Garry Winogrand, posthumous digital reproduction from original negative; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

(SFMOMA/Yale University Press)

The exhibition catalog, Garry Winogrand, serves as the most comprehensive volume on Winogrand to date and the only compendium of the artist's work. Five new essays, and nearly 400 plates, trace the artist's working methods, major themes, and create a collective portrait of Winogrand.  

Leo Rubinfien provides an extensive overview of Winogrand's life and career. Erin O'Toole, assistant curator of photography at SFMOMA, considers the Winogrand archive at the Center for Creative Photography and matters relating to the ethics of posthumous printing of the artist's work; she also writes introductions to each of the three main plate sections. Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, considers the magazine culture that gave birth to Winogrand's early work and the emergence of the museum context that fostered his ideas in the 1960s. Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography at SFMOMA, writes about Winogrand's relevance for contemporary photography. Susan Kismaric, former curator in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, offers a selected bibliography, full chronology, and annotated checklist that enables the reader to tell who among Winogrand's various editors has been responsible for the selection of any photograph, and when.  

Photographer Tod Papageorge, the Walker Evans Professor of Photography in the School of Art at Yale University, and Winogrand's intimate friend, protégé, and sometime editor, writes of his early years in New York when he met Garry Winogrand and became one of his closest friends. Papageorge curated Winogrand's 1977 exhibition, Public Relations, at the Museum of Modern Art. His own photographs have been exhibited and published widely, including Passing Through Eden (Steidl, 2007), American Sports, 1970: Or How We Spent the War in Vietnam (Aperture, 2007), OPERA Città. (Punctum Editions, Rome 2010) and Core Curriculum: Writings on Photography (Aperture, 2011). 

In the exhibition catalog Papageorge writes, "Before long, Garry and I were photographing together....moving up and down Fifth Avenue between Forty-second and Fifty-seventh Street, picture scouts loosely spread along a block or two, the flow of office workers, shoppers, tourists, cops, would-be world-beaters, and les belles dames sans merci presenting whole schools of potential actor-subjects shifting, rushing, pushing, expressing incalculable, evanescent patterns of gesture and movement. We each found a place in it, and a reason. For me, the challenge was to stop and hold that streaming flood of movement in a clear, coherent picture. Garry, for his part, was more compelled by the exchanges and story lines of the human comedy he encountered (and, with his rapid eye and mind, intuited or imagined), bringing his camera so quickly to and from his eye that he appeared to be scratching his nose. Up and down, back and forth: we were all in it nearly every moment, but Garry Winogrand was in it and in his very element."

March 9 - June 2, 2013
Edited by Leo Rubinfien; With contributions by Sarah Greenough, Susan Kismaric, Erin O'Toole, Tod Papageorge, and Sandra S. Phillips 

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Garry Winogrand: Co-organized by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. San Francisco March 9–June 2, 2013 (Source: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art http://www.sfmoma.org)

6 comments:

Susan May Tell said...

Fantastic!! Thanks for this!

John F Martin said...

I saw the exhibit at the SF MOMA last week. Very impressive. If you like Winogrand this is a must see. There were many posthumous prints that I had never seen before. It was a treat to see his proof sheets with his red editing marks. In general I prefer his early work in the 60's, 70's over his more recent work.
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Tamara Reynolds said...

I know I saw his work just after his death at the MoMA, but cannot seem to find it listed. The show had a huge contact sheet as the opening image. I believe some of the undeveloped rolls where also contacted and exhibited. Am I imagining this or has anyone else remember this show? Most incredible and very influencing to a young photographer.

LizBlog said...

Tamara, His close friend, Photographer Tod Papageorge, curated Winogrand's 1977 exhibition "Public Relations" at the Museum of Modern Art in NY. Maybe you are thinking of that...

Robert Holmgren said...

I've been itching to see the Winogrand show at SFMOMA and finally went to see it today. Interesting newer stuff complimenting the interesting older stuff. Getting to see the formative works, family pictures and correspondence allowed for a better appreciation of his life's work. Having heard Garry discuss his photography and answer questions from confused audience members the aspect that seems to be missing is his humor and wonderful way with words.