Thoughts on Gallery Exhibitions

[roderick]

For the photographers who have had gallery showings, what was the process to finally come up with a theme for the exhibition?

Was it a flash of inspiration, decide on a theme, then shoot with that in mind?

Or, was it a theme that was distilled from ongoing various bodies of work that was taken over the years.

Just curious,

Roderick

[davidb]

For me, I work a "project" for a while and then pull together the best images. I've had a few minor shows but they were all based on projects.

For instance, I did a show about the local rail yard. I shot there about 6 times shooting about 20 rolls of medium format film. From that, I got about 15 very nice photographs.

[Wilbur Wong]

The title of our group show in San Francisco earlier this year was "Tranquility in the Landscape". For this title (theme), the trigger was a book my wife had read, "The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality". This seemed to reflect the direction my personal vision had been headed.

I looked at the direction of my current photography, as well as those of my LF friends and felt that our current work could follow this thematically. As for the title of the show, I must have run through several dozen iterations of word combinations and I also wrote a brief gallery statement. That statement and possible titles circulated within my photography friends as well as with the gallery and my gallery signage consultant. Eventually it all came together, and we had a very nice show.

Nearly all of the photographs exhibited were of recent work and none of them were shot specifically for this particular show.

[paulr]

most solo shows are the culmination of a body of work ... either the whole thing, or a representative selection. or else they're a retrospective, which tries to represent all the bodies of work you've produced over many years. this kind of show is usually for someone who's old and famous. or at least very accomplished.

group shows are where you're more likely to see whimsical themes. that's where the creative editing of a curator is on display alongside the pictures. someone can decide they want to do a show about muted colors, or about refugees in afghanistan, or french suburban architecture, or the new style of work coming out of young photographers in hungary, or contemporary daguerrotypes, or whatever. themes can be cultural, technical, historical, aesthetic, geographical ...

the idea can come from a whim or it can come from interesting trends that the curator notices in the work he or she comes across.

[Merg Ross]

Over the years my work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions. In the solo exhibitions I have never had a theme as such, but have given special attention to the continuity of the images. Continuity is very important when choosing prints for a show. It also helps to have a large inventory of images from which to choose.

The majority of the group exhibitions have been thematic, although in some cases the theme was quite broad in scope. For instance, the theme might be, "Photographers Under Age 40", which was an exhibition sponsored by Eastman House some years ago (when I was under 40)! Or, the theme might be specific, such as the exhibition at MIT when Minor White was curator, "Be-ing Without Clothes".

The important thing is to be true to your vision and photograph what interests you. Perhaps from that body of work a theme will evolve.

[Kirk Gittings]

Until one gets well known, projects are easier to get shown because they may have value to a venue in addition to your talents. An example would be a portfolio of work about a significant place. Most of my early big shows were about important places, Chaco Canyon for instance or important things like historic New Mexico churches. The success of these shows paved the way for exhibits that were collections of my work. I.E. what was important about the show became that it was my images. This did not happen overnight. It took like 25 years before I had a museum exhibit where the theme was my work.

I still prefer to do new work thematically, because It gives me some boundaries to focus on, but also is easier to get published or shown. For instance, my current project is about mythological landscapes of the SW with V.B. Price and it was effortless to find a publisher and museum show. I prefer to work with creative writers who I can work with symbiotically (?), where my photographs are not illustrations and the writing is not just captions. I have had some really weak collaborations with writers and some spectacular successes. Chaco Body was an example of this with a coherent suite of my images running parallel to V.B. Price's poems. Each could and have stood alone, but they collaboration exceeds the parts. It was a surprisingly successful as a book, performance, limited edition portfolio, traveling exhibit and even a PBS special and now gets mention in histories of New Mexico.

This is a great example of my point above about projects. It was about a place, but it was also a personal work of art, which coincidentally paralleled the rising interest in the archeology of Chaco Canyon in the late 80's and early 90's. Chaco Body was a real critically acclaimed project, which was very satisfying as Chaco is very close to my heart and the images were a kind of meditation. FWIW I took my first "keeper" a personally satisfying LF image at Chaco in 1978. That book was published in 91, 16 years ago. In terms of pure sales the new book, a retrospective, has sold far more copies. Gussy Fauntleroy, who turned my history into poetry, wrote a great text, but this book will never have the personal satisfaction of CB.