[ART]_CONnected

THE  GOOD AND THE BAD

In the last few weeks I have visited a few photo exhibitions and galleries. I‘ve been to the International Centre of Photography in New York, the Multimedia Art Museum and the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography in Moscow, and the Museum for Fine Art in Boston, MA. I have seen a lot of really good photographic work. And i have learned a lot about "how to do and how not to do" a photo exhibition...

THE GOOD...

The exhibitions at the ICP where (almost) perfect. Almost - because there was so much information beside the pictures one can hardly assimilate all the informations...

There where two exhibitions: "We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933–1956 by Chim"*)  and "Roman Vishniac Rediscovered"**)

Both exhibitions featured a lot of additional informations on the photographers and the envirenment the created their work. There was amply room for the hanging and a perfect lighting.

At the ICP, New York

At the ICP, New York

At the ICP, New York

Not long after my visit to New York City i returned to Moscow. And there again I found at the Lumiere brothers Center for Photography a very good exhibition (actually there have been three, but the other two I have already seen at a earlier visit).

At the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow

Again very good pictures in a convenient environment. A lot of informations about the photographer and his work. If you are in Moscow in the next three weeks I highly recommend to visit the Lumiere Brothers Gallery - the exhibition is running until June 30.

...AND THE BAD.

A big disappointment was the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, MA, "East 100th Street" by Bruce Davidson. Bare walls, bad lighting, no informations about the photographer, the background... One should expect something much better then this from a highly prestigious museum like the MFA.

At the MFA, Boston, MA

A famous name and some photographs (even if they may be really good) don't make a good exhibitions. 

*) David Seymour (born Dawid Szymin, 1911-1956), or Chim (pronounced shim, an abbreviation of the surname "Szymin"), was a Polish photographer and photojournalistknown for his images from the Spanish Civil War, for co-founding Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and George Rodger, and for his project "Children of War" with UNICEF that captured the plight of children in the aftermath of WWII  He became president of Magnum after Capa's death in 1954 and held this post until his own death in 1956 by Egyptian machine-gun fire in the aftermath of the Suez crisis. 

**) Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) was a Russian-American photographer, best known for capturing on film the culture of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe before the Shoa.