Above photograph by the author. Depicts a still from one of the artworks.

Museum of Modern Art exhibition Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 showcases contemporary photography that directly or inadvertently addresses the question of what photography for artistic purposes is in our image-based, post-Internet reality. This show marks the 30th anniversary of the first “New Photography” series, which in 1985 served as a window into the image-making process of one-hundred different international photographers. In a similar vein, eighteen artists and one artist collective participated in Ocean of Images. The displayed works range from quirky to sinister to cerebral to tactile, and while not powerful in the same stirring way that serious fashion and landscape photography can be, they do communicate a sense of youthful exploration and exuberance, as if by experiencing the imagery the viewer is accompanying the photographer on his or her journey behind the lens. (more…)

Above photograph by the author. Depicts the Museum of Modern Art’s lobby from above.

Yesterday I paid a visit to two exhibitions at the MoMA, the first being Jackson Pollock: a Collection Survey, 1934-1954 and the second Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015, which will be covered in the next installment of this post.

The works in the Pollock show are drawn entirely from the museum’s collection, and span the twenty-odd years during which Pollock was a key figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement and New York art scene. Perhaps the greatest aspect of the exhibition is seeing Pollock’s unmistakable evolution as an artist, from creator of mythic, comic book-style etchings and violent, hypnotic paintings to inventor of the ‘drip’ technique that continues to challenge our understanding of the act of painting. (more…)