I was moved in part to post the photograph below because I’ve been thinking a little bit about vernacular photography since this catalog crossed my path recently. I haven’t gotten far into it, so more substantive discussion will have to wait, nor have I seen the exhibition on The Art of the American Snapshot at the National Gallery that it accompanies, and I’m unlikely to do so. Still, my basic reaction to the catalog so far is that it looks excellent; a fine piece of scholarship that features numerous engrossing images and examines an area that raises many interesting questions. I should note, though, that other questions have been raised about the exhibition by Tyler Green, who recently alluded to an old post of his raking the National Gallery over the coals for hosting it. Here’s the meat of his objections:
There are two problems with the show. First, it goes without saying that museums should not present vanity exhibitions. Museums shouldn't do it even when there's a coherent focus to the show. There's no question that the profile and financial value of Mr. Jackson's collection will increase after the NGA's curatorial, communications and exhibition-related staffs work to glorify him. A non-profit organization's resources should not be used in that manner. (And just because the NGA is getting half of the works on view there's no reason to believe they'll get the other half. The NGA should know this better than anyone: After fluffing the Ebsworths with a show in 2000, the Ebsworths' collection landed in Seattle.)
The NGA should be doubly ashamed because of its exhibition record. If the NGA wants to do a show about 100 years of the 'American Snapshot' it should do so. The museum certainly has the resources to do whatever it wants, to set its own curatorial agenda instead of letting private collectors do the job. Even more specifically: It would be preferable to have the NGA's curators define the show's title term, scope, etc. Jackson is not an NGA curator -- but the museum has just turned him into one.
There have been too many bad exhibitions done to flatter collectors to not take these objections seriously. Still, I think Tyler’s categorical dismissal of exhibitions drawn from private collections is extreme, and that in the case of this show as judged by its catalog, don’t necessarily apply. We are talking about something that is very far from a vanity show but rather a very serious contribution to photographic history. I’ve furthermore always been skeptical regarding arguments against museums displaying something because a private party might benefit. Any exhibition, whether drawn from a private collection or no, has the capacity to have an impact on art values; should museums show nothing out of fear of causing others to profit? What about long-term loans, or loans from private collectors to exhibitions that also draw on public collections—should those works stay out of the public eye? I think the public benefit to showing loaned private works is considerable, and when a collection is of sufficient interest, featuring it along can be a valid choice no matter what the effect on prices. In this case, half of the objects have been donated to the National Gallery, so it’s a moot point for them; and while the rest may now command more interest should the owner choose to sell, I don’t think even the NGA can raise the price point of anonymous snapshots very high.
Tyler’s next paragraph moves into an interesting area, but I don’t think it really works. To be sure, I imagine the National Gallery could indeed, if it had wanted to, gone out and assembled a collection of snapshots and done a show on the theme, though of course it would lack the specific images in the current exhibition. But I don’t think that working with a private collection means that the museum ceded its curatorial role. To hold so is to ignore how relationships between museums and collectors work. Institutions are built on private collections, that’s always been the case—if museums were limited to what they bought on their own, they’d lack a chunk of the heart of their collections. Do we look at the Havermeyer Collection and think that the Met ceded its curatorial role and somehow disgraced itself by accepting it? Of course not. To be sure, this is different to the extent that it’s a single exhibition and not all the works will be donated. But the National Gallery’s curatorial hand is firmly present, reflected in the winnowing of the owner’s more than 8,000 (if I remember correctly) photographs to a bit over 200 for display, not to mention the interpretive and historical work the curators’ performed. The owner does contribute an essay detailing the history of the collection to the catalog, but that information is itself of value and does not, to my mind, call the museum’s role into doubt.
In the end, it’s all about how the exhibition is done and what it accomplishes. Museums are always in the position of courting collectors and donors, and they run the risk that the relationships that develop will be abused, that’s inevitable whether one likes it or not. When institutions allow true vanity exhibitions that flatter actual or potential patrons while displaying work of questionable taste or low historical value in poorly conceived ways, they deserve to be criticized (the Hammer's exhibition that Tyler discussed in another post seems more on point here than the National Gallery's.) When on the other hand the end result is an exhibition that makes a serious contribution to the field while presenting to the public work that it otherwise would not see, I don’t find the same objections valid. As far as I can tell, the National Gallery succeeded in presenting a rigorous exhibition of high quality; that the objects in it are privately owned doesn’t affect that at all.
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