before photograhy peter galassi moma_1981

8/9/2019 Before Photograhy Peter Galassi MOMA_1981

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The Museum of Modern rt

50th Anniversary

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PRESS PREVIEW

*

l ^ ^ \

FOR

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

* M ay 6, 1981 *

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I NO. 18 *

10:0 0 A .M.-1:0 0

P.M.*

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NEW THEORY EXAMINED

IN

E XHIBIT ION

OF PAINTING

A ND

PH OTOGRAPHY

BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY: PAINTING A N D T H E INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY , an

exhibition consisting o f some 40 paintings and drawings dati ng from 1780

to 1840, as well as a comp arable number o f photo graphs r epres enting some

of t h e best and most original work o f early pho tog rapher s, will open at

The Museum

o f

Modern

A r t in t h e

East Wing Galler ies

on May 9. T h e

exhibition, directed

by

Peter Galassi , Ass ociate Curator

of t h e

Museum's

Department

o f

Phot ography, will remain

on

view through July

5,

1981.

Photography w as invented in the early decades of t h e ninetee nth

century

by

fou r

o r

five indivi duals wor king indepe ndently

o f

each othe r.

Each

of t h e

inventor s comb ined

t w o

scientific principles that

had

been

known

fo r

some tim e: first, that light passing through

a

small apert ur e

in o ne wall o f a dark chamber woul d form an image on the opposit e wall;

second, that certain light-sensitive chemicals could b e used to render

that image permanent. T h e former principle had been known fo r hu ndre ds

of years , t h e latte r fo r nearl y a c entury.

Despite

t h e

lapse

o f

time between

t h e

disco very

o f

these principles

and

t h e

invention

o f

pho tog raphy, histo rians have ge nerally concentrated

on scientific and technical is su es , paying l ittl e atte ntio n t o t h e role

of artis tic tradition in th e inventio n o f phot ography. Consequ ently,

photography h as been reg arded ge nerally as an artistic outs ider, a tec hnical

accomplishment which proceeded to disru pt t h e course o f painti ng. BE FORE

PHOTOGRAPHY will challenge this appr oach. Photog raphy was not a

continued

...

11 West 53 Street, Ne w York, N.Y. 1 0019, 212-956-6100 C able: Mod ernart



NO. 18

bastard left by sci ence on the doors te p of art, states Mr. Gal ass i, but

a legiti mate child of the Western pictorial traditi on.

The paintings and drawings to go on view, primarily from European

co lle cti ons, are landscapes by such maste r artists as Co nstable and Corot

and by some of their talented but less well -known co ntempo raries . Many of

these works, such as the oil sketches by Franjois-Marius Granet, have never

been seen before in the United States. The phot ographic sectio n of the

exh ibi tio n, drawn from the Mus eum' s C ollec tion and other pub lic and pr ivate

collections, presents work by outstanding early photographers, including

Will iam H enry Fox Talbot , Gustave Le Gray, and Timot hy O'Su lli van.

Ever s ince the Renaissance invention of linear pers pec tiv e, artists

had considered vision the sole basis for representation: every perspective

pict ure shows its subje ct as it would be seen from a partic ular point of

vi ew , at a parti cul ar mo me nt. Yet only gr adually did painters deve lo p formal

strategie s capable o f suggesti ng the immediacy and relativi ty of eve ryday

visual exp eri ence. Only after centurie s of expe rime nt did they come to

value pic tures that seem to be caught by the eye rather than composed by

the mind. Ph ot og raph y, Mr . Galassi co ntends, was born of this fundamental

transformation in artis tic value.

The fragmentary, contingent per cept ions that character ize mo dern art

first appear in force in the small landscapes exhibited in BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY.

Modest in scale and ostensib le ambi tio n, thes e work s are often asto nishingly

inventive. The y repr esent the emerg ence of a tentative but pro foundly original

sense of pictorial order, based on a heretical concern for the visual aspect

of the most humble thi ngs. The pictures are, in Galassi's vi ew, the clearest

continued ...



NO. 18

symptom of the broad artistic transformation that catalyzed the invention

of ph ot ogr aphy. The se l andscapes pr ese nt a new and fundamentally mo dern

pictorial syntax of immediate, synoptic perceptions and discontinuous,

unexpe cte d form s. Galassi co ntinue s, It is the syntax of an art devote d

to the singul ar and co ntingent rathe r than the universal and st able. It

is also the syntax of phot ography. The photogr aphic section of the

exhibition illustrates this argument by demonstrating the artistic capital

that the best early phot ographer s made of the new pictorial strateg y, whi ch

painters had long been inventing and which photographers could not avoid.

Followi ng the opening of the exh ibi tio n, the Dep artment o f Education

will pre sent, in conjunction with the Dep artment o f Pho togr aphy, a series of

lectur es exploring the artis tic context of phot ography's invention. Peter

Galassi will deliver the first of these l ect ure s, a consideration o f the

ex hib iti on's majo r th es is , on Tu es day, May 12 at 8:15 p.m. The followi ng

Monday, May 18, Robert Rosenblum, Professor of Fine Arts at New York

Univ er si ty, will sp eak. The l ast lec tur e on Tu es day, May 26, will be by

Kirk Varnedoe, Assoc iate P rofess or, I nstitut e of Fine Ar ts , New Yor k

Univers ity. Tic kets for the lecture s are $4, memb ers $3 , students with

cur rent I.D. $2 .50. Tic ket s will be available at the Lobby Inform ation

Desk or by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope with payment to

Education Dep artment, The Museum of Modern Ar t, 11 West 53 Stre et, New Yor k,

NY 10019.

Befor e P hot og raphy: Painting and the Invention o f Ph ot og raph y, a 156-

page c atalog ue, will be publi shed by The Mus eum of Modern Art to accompany

the exh ibi tio n, and will be distr ibut ed by the New York Gr aphic Soc iet y.

Included will be an introductory essay by Mr. Galassi and 80 single-page

plates of wo rk s in the exh ib it io n, 8 of them in co lo r. In additi on,

continued ...



NO. 18

the book will contain a catalogue entry for each work and an extensive

bib li og raphy. Before Pho tog raphy will sell for $2 2.50 cl oth bou nd and $12.50

paperbound.

After the ex hibi tion cl oses at The Museum of Modern Art, it will travel

to Joslyn Art Museu m in Omaha, Nebraska; The Univers ity of C alifornia's

Frederick S. Wigh t Art Galler ies in Los Angele s; and the Art Institute

of Chicago.

BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY and the lecture series exploring its thesis have

been made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

2/81

For further information, please contact Luisa Kreisberg, Director, (212)

956-2648,

or Sharon Z ane, Associate Dir ect or, 956-7295, Department of

Public Inform atio n, The Mu seum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Str eet , New Y ork ,

NY 10019.

before photograhy peter galassi moma_1981

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