Postcards…not in a Museum gift shop?

The Met has a new exhibit of…wait for it…Walker Evans’ personal postcards. Apparently, the man who would become a great photographer of the 1920s and 30s got his early schools in this vernacular art. 

So next time you see a touristy post card just remember that one day these tidbits might be insight into a forgotten era of American pop-culture. I think this is a very intriguing exhibition for the Met to put on - far from the high brow quality of their usual exhibitions, this show is readily approachable and an interesting insight into the life and quarks of one of the most recognizable photographers today. 

“This exhibition will focus on a collection of 9,000 picture postcards amassed and classified by the American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975), now part of the Metropolitan’s Walker Evans Archive. The picture postcard represented a powerful strain of indigenous American realism that directly influenced Evans’s artistic development. The dynamic installation of hundreds of American postcards drawn from Evans’s collection will reveal the symbiotic relationship between Evans’s own art and his interest in the style of the postcard. This will also be demonstrated with a selection of about a dozen of his own photographs printed in 1936 on postcard format photographic paper.”

3 years ago | Tags: art folk art postcards Walker Evans the Met exhibition pop-culture

“It’s Time We Met”

The Met has started a new ad campaign. The museum will be plastering city buses and buildings with amateur photos of people at the Met which were posted to flickr. I think this says a lot about the new administration and how they’re trying to be cool and hip and reach a new breed of visitors. 

This photo, of Gene and Cindy Russell was taken by their daughter Laura while they were all on holiday to the museum. Laura then posted the photo to flickr and the Met’s marketing team came across it: 

There has been quite a debate on the subject of fair use and undermining professional photographers by going to a free source and amateur photographers for their campaign. I think its a very interesting way to do business and I certainly don’t think that this sort of photo sharing will ever get rid of the paid photographer. Photography is many things to many people (just as other forms of art are as well…think of the Sunday afternoon painter versus Degas) and while we may use amateur photography for things like this - we’re doing so with a purpose: for it to look amateur.

Any thoughts? Any photographers angry about the appropriation of their profession?

3 years ago | Tags: marketing, art museum the met fair-use advertising amateur photography