(Re)viewing Bodies: Selected American Photographs, 1930-2000
Friday February 8, 2013 - Thursday March 7, 2013
Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999), Eleanor, ca. 1947. Gelatin silver print. Gift of the Callahan Family, including Allison Hollinger (B.A. Wesleyan 2008), and Susan and Peter MacGill, in loving memory of Harry Callahan, 2008. © The Estate of Harry Callahan; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York (copy photo: R. J. Phil).
Since the invention of photography, viewers have responded with immediacy to photographs of people. Roland Barthes wrote about the indexical nature of the photograph--the fact that "that has been," the evidence that a certain person once stood in front of the camera.
This exhibition examined how twentieth-century American photographers have represented the body, whether as subject or compositional element. Topics included the abstracted or fragmented body, the body and labor, the body and performance, the body in social situations, and the body in pain. Photographers included Diane Arbus, Larry Burrows, Harry Callahan, Judy Dater, Gordon Parks, Jerry Uelsmann, and many more. The exhibition was curated by students in the Wesleyan course ARHA 360: Museum Studies, fall 2012.