Walterdad

When ever I find myself in Manhattan, I try to carve out a little time and hit the galleries to see what's happening. This summer and early fall, I hit the Gary Winogrand show at the Met, The Survey of Latin American Photography 1944-1913 at ICP and the Steven Shore show over in Chelsea.
After the initial delight of seeing prints of classic Winogrand street shots ( full frame and no cropping here) I found myself dragging a bit as one room unfolded into the next. Probably more to do with museum fatigue on my part, rather than Winogrand. As exiting and reading some of the wall texts it became apparent that almost full 25% of the images were posthumously selected from either undeveloped film or negatives. Other than the interest this might have for a
Winogrand scholar, One has to wonder if this is a good idea ?
I could see a case for either way.
The Latin American Survey with the exception of Alberto Korda, was chock full of photographers I had no idea existed. For obvious reasons having to do with the history of the region, the political subjects were particularly powerful. Most, but certainly not all of political subject matter you see shot from here is light weight by comparison. A number of shots had a factual reality that comes from the photographer literally taking his life in own hands without the distanced look of some photo journalism.
Steven Shore, color photo pioneer, despite his established reputation was a breath of fresh air as well. After having gone from one gallery to the next, featuring epic scaled photographic prints with seemingly interchangeable authorship, here was work that didn't rely on the "hey wow factor"of giant prints. The still life shots done in the Ukraine had the hallmark characteristics
that Shore has developed and has been emulated so much by other contemporary photographers. That is the look of the mundane and anonymous that on a quick, lazy or uninformed first glance has the sort of passive presence that seems to have the all the intention of a snap shot. Hardly the case - All the pictorial considerations one would expect are there - just understated and subtle.
Wondering if any one else has seen any of this work and what their impressions were ?

cbtsam Loc: Monkton, MD

Well, I saw the Winogrand show. I understand what you mean by museum fatigue; it started to hit me, and I thought about quitting early, but the more I got into the exhibit, the more impressed I became with the work, and I became energized by the experience. Much of it was familiar, of course, but not all of it.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I saw the Winogrand show in San Francisco, and I went to it knowing there was work from the undeveloped and unproofed film he left when he died, and I was looking forward to that. I thought the curators did a great job of selecting images that fit in well with the work he had chosen to print during his life. You could argue about whether they were the shots he would have chosen, but for me they answered the question of whether there was anything good in what he left behind.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

I think you're still suffering from information overload. Give it a couple of weeks to figure out what you learned from all that then ask the question again.

Walterdad

I retrospect, Perhaps museum fatigue wouldn't have been a problem in a smaller venue. The problem with the the Met is, by the time I made my way upstairs to the Winogrand show, I had more or less already time traveled through 2000 years of western art.