Photo 117 Blog
This is a Walker Evan’s photo, but the link is to an upcoming SF MOMA exhibit titled “U.S. PREMIERE OF EXPOSED: VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE AND THE CAMERA SINCE 1870” which will take place in 2011. Below is a list of some of the overarching themes. Five Themes of Forbidden Looking The Unseen Photographer Photography has been central to voyeuristic looking since 1871, the year in which the gelatin dry plate was invented and cameras became small enough to be secreted in books, clothing, shoes, pistols, or canes. Although most “detective cameras” were advertised as harmless amusements for amateurs, the public found them troubling from the start, raising concerns about privacy that remain valid to this day. This section of the exhibition traces the use of the hidden camera in public spaces, from the turn-of-the-century amateur picture makers Paul Martin and Horace Engle, to modernist photographers Walker Evans and Weegee and contemporary artists such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia, whose series Heads, featured here, famously inspired a privacy lawsuit in 2006. Voyeurism and Desire Among the first applications of photography was the production of erotic pictures, originally in the form of daguerreotypes and stereo views. Ranging from Edgar Degas’s studies of nude bathers to Andy Warhol’s Blow Job and provocative pictures by Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and Helmut Newton, this section traces the gray area between voyeuristic sexuality and pornography since the 19th century. Celebrity and the Public Gaze Photographs of public figures date back to the 19th century, but the roots of today’s cult of celebrity lie in the invasive techniques of the Italian paparazzi, whose pictures were consumed widely via the popular press in Europe and the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. The most persistent was perhaps Tazio Secchiaroli, who pursued stars on his Vespa, enraging some of his subjects to the point of violence. Other figures of note represented in this section include Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon, Doris Banbury, and Ron Galella, the American paparazzo who was infamously punched by Marlon Brando and sued by Jackie Onassis. Witnessing Violence          In 1928 photojournalist Tom Howard made a shocking image of Ruth Snyder’s electrocution using a hidden camera strapped to his ankle. It was a watershed moment in voyeuristic reportage, fueled largely by the insatiable public appetite for tabloid journalism. Significantly, the 20th and 21st centuries have seen many of their signal catastrophes captured on film, from the Hindenburg disaster and John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the 9/11 tragedy. Surveillance From shots used to identify suffragettes and anarchists to prisoner Rudolf Cisar’s clandestine views of Dachau, photography has been crucial to a wide variety of surveillance projects, both political and private. This section juxtaposes FBI photographs and military reconnaissance shots with work by contemporary artists who have critiqued or appropriated the technologies of surveillance, including Jordan Crandall, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Probst, and Thomas Ruff. 

This is a Walker Evan’s photo, but the link is to an upcoming SF MOMA exhibit titled “U.S. PREMIERE OF EXPOSED: VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE AND THE CAMERA SINCE 1870” which will take place in 2011. Below is a list of some of the overarching themes.


Five Themes of Forbidden Looking

The Unseen Photographer

Photography has been central to voyeuristic looking since 1871, the year in which the gelatin dry plate was invented and cameras became small enough to be secreted in books, clothing, shoes, pistols, or canes. Although most “detective cameras” were advertised as harmless amusements for amateurs, the public found them troubling from the start, raising concerns about privacy that remain valid to this day. This section of the exhibition traces the use of the hidden camera in public spaces, from the turn-of-the-century amateur picture makers Paul Martin and Horace Engle, to modernist photographers Walker Evans and Weegee and contemporary artists such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia, whose series Heads, featured here, famously inspired a privacy lawsuit in 2006.

Voyeurism and Desire

Among the first applications of photography was the production of erotic pictures, originally in the form of daguerreotypes and stereo views. Ranging from Edgar Degas’s studies of nude bathers to Andy Warhol’s Blow Job and provocative pictures by Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and Helmut Newton, this section traces the gray area between voyeuristic sexuality and pornography since the 19th century.

Celebrity and the Public Gaze

Photographs of public figures date back to the 19th century, but the roots of today’s cult of celebrity lie in the invasive techniques of the Italian paparazzi, whose pictures were consumed widely via the popular press in Europe and the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. The most persistent was perhaps Tazio Secchiaroli, who pursued stars on his Vespa, enraging some of his subjects to the point of violence. Other figures of note represented in this section include Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon, Doris Banbury, and Ron Galella, the American paparazzo who was infamously punched by Marlon Brando and sued by Jackie Onassis.

Witnessing Violence         

In 1928 photojournalist Tom Howard made a shocking image of Ruth Snyder’s electrocution using a hidden camera strapped to his ankle. It was a watershed moment in voyeuristic reportage, fueled largely by the insatiable public appetite for tabloid journalism. Significantly, the 20th and 21st centuries have seen many of their signal catastrophes captured on film, from the Hindenburg disaster and John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the 9/11 tragedy.

Surveillance

From shots used to identify suffragettes and anarchists to prisoner Rudolf Cisar’s clandestine views of Dachau, photography has been crucial to a wide variety of surveillance projects, both political and private. This section juxtaposes FBI photographs and military reconnaissance shots with work by contemporary artists who have critiqued or appropriated the technologies of surveillance, including Jordan Crandall, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Probst, and Thomas Ruff. 

Posted 2 years ago