Hidden in Plain Sight: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
A bedspring suspended from a tree may seem an unlikely subject for a museum-quality photograph, but photographer Carrie Mae Weems thought otherwise. She understood that the Gullah community at Sea Island, Georgia, had placed it there to ensnare evil spirits and thereby found it an intriguing form for photographic capture.
Her 1992 shot is among approximately 35 contemporary images on display in Hidden in Plain Sight, an exhibition from the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The international group featured in the show includes French artist Jean-Marc Bustamante, a sculptor who eventually took the path of conceptual photographer. His image Light is striking—this large, black-and-white photograph is a haunting rendition of a vacant classroom devoid of any sign of human life.
Like Bustamante, Gabriel Orozco is a sculptor-turned-multifaceted-artist; he has won recognition for his drawings, installations, and video art as well as his photographs. In the desert of Timbuktu, he came across dozens of small terracotta pots scattered across the sand: grave markers and receptacles for offerings. His candid-yet-enigmatic shot of these sand-dwelling orbs, entitled Cemetery, is among his photographs in the exhibition.
The museum has been collecting Orozco photographs for more than ten years. Each is “a small and wonderful visual epiphany,” says Malcolm Daniel, the curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at the Met. Shirley Moskow
May 15 – September 3, 2007
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York
212.570.3828 • www.metmuseum.org
Photo: Gabriel Orozco, Cemetery, 2002. Chromogenic print. Image courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, Hideyuki Osawa Gift, 2003.
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