Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947 Present
Curated by Prof. Maria Antonella Pelizzari with graduate students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate
September 29–November 26, 2017
Opening Reception: September 28, 2017, 7–9pm
Leubsdorf Gallery
Hunter West Building
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 1–6pm
On the occasion of Magnum Photos’ 70th Anniversary, the Hunter College Art Galleries presents Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present, an exhibition that revisits the history of the cooperative photo agency, focusing on the idea of “Community”—a subject that has been central to the practice of photographers and continues to be crucial in our time.
Framing Community features a selection of seventeen visions and narratives representing communities in a conflicted, dispersed, and racially fractured state. The subjects of this photo exhibition are searching to belong, while living in exile and navigating shifting politics and identities. Organized into four thematic sections: Longing for Community, Shifting Community, Contested Territories, and Displaced Community, the exhibition includes works by photographers Bruno Barbey, René Burri, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Bieke Depoorter, Carl de Keyzer, Paul Fusco, Jim Goldberg, Thomas Hoepker, Josef Koudelka, Susan Meiselas, Alessandra Sanguinetti, David Seymour, Alec Soth, Larry Towell, Peter van Agtmael and Alex Webb.
Magnum Photos, founded in 1947 on the shared belief in humanist values, has seen a world in increasing disarray at the brink of social change, alienated by divisive politics and migrations. Photographers, witnesses of these fluctuating conditions, have demonstrated a creative sensibility and individual engagement, generating images that have marked history. These photographers’ wide range of approaches to social documentary is relevant in regard to an idea of community that has radically changed in the seven decades of the history of Magnum. If the first years were marked by a universalist utopia that celebrated human sameness, across these decades, photographers have increasingly questioned their position as outsiders looking in, negotiating religious and political diversity while seeking trust from within these various communities.
Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present was developed over a two-semester curatorial seminar, led by Art History Professor Maria Antonella Pelizzari, and is the result of an exceptional team effort by the graduate students involved in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate at Hunter College. In addition to the exhibition, the class produced a comprehensive catalogue, published by Hirmer Verlag and available through University of Chicago Press and Thames and Hudson.
Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present is made possible by the generous support of the David Bershad Family Foundation, the Susan V. Bershad Charitable Fund, Inc., The Crossways Foundation, Arthur and Carol Kaufman Goldberg, the Leubsdorf Fund, Linda Macklowe, and Agnes Gund in support of the Curatorial Certificate Program.
ABOUT THE ADVANCED CURATORIAL CERTIFICATE
Hunter’s Department of Art & Art History has long provided its graduate students the opportunity to work with faculty and our galleries’ professional staff on exhibitions of exceptional quality. The new Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies builds on that tradition and the curatorial interests and ambitions of Hunter faculty and students—and our commitment to exhibitions whose themes, theses, and checklists have been developed and honed by our students. The program is designed to offer both a theoretical and historical grounding in curatorial practices and practical experience in exhibition organization and display and object research and preservation. Every student enrolled in the certificate program has the opportunity to work on an exhibition from inception to fruition, whether in the annual Curatorial Seminar or in faculty-supervised guided internships in the Hunter College Art Galleries or in museums and galleries beyond the College.