Photography Collection

David Zwirner presents Thomas Ruff’s sixth solo exhibition at the New York gallery, marking the debut of new work in two series: zycles and cassini. Among the most influential photographers working today, Ruff has redefined photography’s conceptual possibilities, simultaneously capturing and questioning the essence of photography as both a means and a tool for visual experience. Over the past twenty-five years, he has approached various photographic genres in his work, including portraiture, the nude, landscape and architectural photography. He carries out these investigations using his own analog and digital photographs, computer-generated images, alongside images culled from scientific archives, print media, and the Internet.
In both of his new series — drawing from the natural sciences, astronomy, neurology, and art history — Ruff creates elaborate, open-ended visual systems that challenge viewer’s perceptions, demonstrating that structures can become increasingly complex the more one contemplates the details. The zycles series, grounded in mathematics and physics, shows computer screen-grab recordings of curves modeled in thre e dimensions. The views captured by the computer are produced as large-scale chromogenic prints, or are printed directly onto canvas. Inspired by 19th century science books, Ruff’s zycles present abstract contours based on “cycloids,” the mathematical curves obtained from rolling one curve along a second, fixed curve. Particularly interesting to Ruff was Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s (1831-1879) treatise on electro-magnetism, accompanied by copperplate engravings of magnetic fields. Ruff found these delicate traceries, while not intentionally aesthetic, suggestive of minimalist drawings. To explore their visual and spatial possibilities, Ruff used a thre e-dimensional rendering program to translate the algebraic formulae of the cycloids — regarded in mathematics as “the most aesthetic of curves” — into computer-generated imagery. The resulting virtual structures display the intricate linear filigreeof cycloids as they would appear in space. The spiraling formations, always faithful to their mathematical origins, evoke a multitude of forms: the trajectories of planets, cascading ribbons, line drawings, or musical vibrations. The works in the cassini series are based on photographic captures of Saturn taken by NASA’s Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft, which launched in 2004 and completed its initial four-year mission in June 2008. The spacecraft orbited around Saturn to provide the first in-depth, close-up study of the planet and its domain, including its rings, moons, and magnetosphere, the enormous magnetic bubble that controls its planetary movement. Ruff acquired these black and white raw images from NASA’s website, where they were broadcast directly from the spacecraft and made available for public download. Through computer manipulation, Ruff infused each gray-scale image with saturated color. The resulting chromogenic prints transform the originals into visual statements that both capture the swe eping enormity of planetary structures while still distancing themselves from concrete forms, evocative instead of abstract and minimalist compositions.

Thomas Ruff, zycles 3080, 2009. Pigment print on canvas.100 3/4 x 81 1/8 x 2 3/4 inches.

Thomas Ruff (born 1958, Zell am Harmersbach, Germany) is known for hisexploration of the mechanical production of images, and how technical mediation can influence a picture’s expressiveness. His telescopic views of the night sky, Sterne , printed from pre-existing negatives; his provocative nudes borrowed from pornography websites; Substrat, his colorful manipulations of Japanese manga and anime; and his jpegs demonstrate Ruff’s approach to reinventing existing images. Together with zycles and cassini, these serialized considerations draw attention to the abstraction that occurs when the visually explicit is re-imagined. He was the subject of solo museum exhibitions at Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museum für neue Kunst, Freiburg; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest (all 2009); Moderna Muse et, Stockholm, Sweden; Sprengel Museum, Hanover (all 2007). His work is held in the collections of many major museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Moderna Muse et, Stockholm; The Art Institute of Chicago; Essl Museum, Klosterneuberg; Dallas Museum of Art; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He was the 2006 recipient of the Infinity Award for Art presented by the International Center of Photography, New York, and in 2009 Aperture published jpegs, a large-scale book dedicated exclusively to this monumental series. The artist lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Thomas Ruff
February 11 – March 13, 2010
Gallery David Zwirner
533 West 19th Street
New York

After more than 45 years in a personal archive, a limited-edition photography series, "Marilyn Monroe: The Visit," has been released by famed photographer Len Steckler and Eagle National Mint. Shot in December 1961, Steckler's intimate photographs depict a natural, relaxed Monroe during her first visit with poet Carl Sandburg, in Steckler's New York apartment.On a wintry afternoon, Sandburg and Steckler patiently awaited Monroe, who arrived three hours later than planned, claiming she was at the hairdresser's trying to get her hair white to match Sandburg's. The two spent the rest of the afternoon bonding over conversation and cocktails, fostering a new friendship while Steckler quietly observed, his Nikon loaded with black and white film, nothing more than natural Northern light pouring through the windows. Sandburg was 83. Monroe was 35. Steckler kept the negatives from the Monroe and Sandburg encounter in his personal archive for close to 50 years, and has now partnered with collectibles dealer Eagle National Mint for a limited-edition release of nine unique images, available as single-shots and in triptych form (a series of three images). The "Marilyn Monroe: The Visit" limited-edition series will be available for purchase exclusively online at www.thevisitseries.com and by phone at 1.800.521.0454.

Lillian Bassman shot this photograph, called "Fantasy on the Dance Floor," featuring model Barbara Mullen in a Christian Dior dress, for Harper's Bazaar in 1949.

By Julie Neigher
To set eyes on a photo by Lillian Bassman is mesmerizing. The image, usually that of a striking woman, hits with the force of an epiphany. Suddenly those heroin chic ad campaigns of the '90s seem shopworn and flat. And the clunkily posed spread in this month's glossy feels oh-so-forced. In the '50s and '60s, when Bassman clicked her shutter, she created a visual time capsule. One wonders, eyeing the elegant angle of a gloved arm or the mysterious tilt of a hat, "If I stare long enough at this picture, will I hear the rustle of taffeta and tulle swaying? The low and beckoning incantations of Sinatra?" It's as if the photographer had the ability to manipulate time. Bassman was considered one of the preeminent fashion photographers of the 20th century when she suddenly withdrew from the scene. But, now, at age 93, she is in the midst of a renaissance, prompted back to work almost by accident. And renewed interest in her legacy has led to a new book and exhibitions around the world, including a stunning retrospective, "Lillian Bassman: Women," at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica. Her pictures, some not seen for decades, capture and immortalize the style of an era. ¶ They say every picture tells a story. Here's Lillian Bassman's, in her favorite timeless black-and-white.
Her parents, Russian Jewish immigrants, ascended to a middle-class life in the Bronx in the 1920s. One summer, her mother took 6-year-old Lillian to Coney Island. While there, Mom earned a few extra dollars waitressing for the Himmels, who were dear friends. And, because it was beshert -- meant to be -- Lillian met their son Paul, an older chap of 9, who, in time, became her betrothed and a respected photographer in his own right. But it was another man, design genius Alexey Brodovitch, who was to chart her future. After taking Brodovitch's prestigious design lab class, Bassman secured an internship as his assistant at Harper's Bazaar. She flourished, and in 1945, when Junior Bazaar debuted, she shared the masthead with Brodovitch as art director. Not only did she conceptualize layouts, but she too charted futures -- notably fostering the work of Richard Avedon (who would remain a lifelong friend).

Studying painters
Though Junior Bazaar would soon fold, Bassman wanted to master the professional aspects of photography. Avedon, away in Paris, offered her an assistant and the use of his studio. An apt and passionate pupil, she began to formulate her distinctive vision and style. She studied the great painters. She knew exactly what, in an El Greco, elicited a breath of awe, and she wanted to evoke that feeling in her own work. "I spent my life in the museums studying old masters from different periods," she said in a recent interview. "Elegance goes back to the earliest paintings. Long necks. The thrust of the head in a certain position. The way the fingers work -- fabrics work. It's all part of my painting background." In the darkroom she spent days using a brush, bleaching a print to create dream-like contrasts and abstract effects. To give her photos dimension, she often shaded faces and clothes. The process added mystery while affording her female subjects power and presence. But not everyone got it. Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar (1934-1958), famously remarked to Lillian, "I didn't bring you to Paris to do art. I brought you here to do the buttons and the bows." If only Snow were alive to eat her words. It's because buttons and bows weren't her thing that Bassman is now regarded as one of the most accomplished photographers of the 20th century. Her "thing," it turns out, was the elegance of women. It was that aspect of femininity that became her source of inspiration.
Bassman's work, in turn, inspired the very fashion designers whose creations she photographed, such as Dior's John Galliano, who has said of her work, "It was the technique and spirit that I wanted to capture in the dressmaking process."
Perhaps her most compelling guiding spirit was her favorite model, Barbara Mullen -- noted for her 20-inch waist. As Bassman recalls, "There are models that are not models but muses. She had everything marvelous: a beautiful neck, grace, the ability to respond to me. We used to get on the floor, and when I get excited, I take my shoes off. The two of us would dance. We understood each other." Mullen speaks with equal effusion. "I moved very well in front of the camera. My arms, my legs -- I seemed able to do anything with them -- I felt absolutely wonderful when I moved with Lillian. I was like being free -- it was like being in heaven." It was poetry in black and white. But poetry is, well, not a mass medium. And if you're a fashion magazine trying to flog clothing, the Bassman approach was a tough sell. In the '60s, a new species called the supermodel arrived on scene, striking diva poses. The clothes of the day, mod and hippie, ceased to be compelling. Sexuality lost its mystery. Soon, the work no longer spoke to her. She'd had enough, and she quit. In the '70s, Bassman destroyed most of her early work. Her darkroom went cold for 20 years.

Her return
But it turns out that this is a kind of Cinderella story. It even involves a carriage (well, carriage house). For years, Bassman had rented out the ground floor of her Manhattan carriage house to the painter Helen Frankenthaler. In 1990, Frankenthaler found bags stuffed with negatives.
She gave them to Bassman, who ignored them. In 1991, photo historian Martin Harrison spotted the exquisite negatives sitting in storage and pushed Bassman to work again. In no time, she was exhibiting at galleries. Neiman Marcus asked her to shoot a campaign. And she was dispatched to Paris, where she shot the couture collections for the New York Times Magazine. Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar, says, "You have an emotional response to her photographs -- you can almost smell the lily, hear the phone ring, feel the fur. Lillian is a poet of photography." Nowadays, the poet no longer has to stand for hours in a darkroom inhaling noxious chemicals. She pursues her art using another medium -- Photoshop. This is where she reinvents her photographs, using technology that many 20-year-olds haven't mastered. The creative visions come to her, and she realizes them, this time with the swish of a mouse, not a paintbrush. She has embraced the new social media, interacting with fans through Facebook. Bassman lost longtime love Paul in 2009. Himmel, whom she married in 1935, was a celebrated fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue (and also a student of Alexey Brodovitch's). Some of his nonfashion work was exhibited at MoMA, and in 1999 Assouline published a book on his career. But in the late '60s, a disenchanted Himmel left photography and learned psychotherapy as a profession instead. A homage to both their talents has been exhibited at the Deichtorhallen in Germany since November 2009. It's as it should be. The two kids from New York who met more than 85 years ago and just "clicked" were always side by side in life, supporting each other in their work, and it makes sense that they are on display together. Bassman's children, Lizzie (a photographer and archivist of the family work) and Eric (editor in chief of Abrams Books), have always formed a vital part of her life, and they are with her daily. When asked how she feels about her newfound stardom, Bassman shrieks with delight. "Astounded! I can spend hours doing my own thing and enjoying every minute. I live in my studio with my work, my kids -- it's like it's happening to someone else." And in a way it is happening to someone else. Lillian Bassman remains the same flesh and blood woman. But, like her photographs, she has stepped from the darkroom into the spotlight. And, she too has been reinvented ever so slightly.

By Allan Turner
The images are split-second camera clicks of history. American troops storm Omaha Beach. Martin Luther King Jr. gestures heavenward, speaking of his dream. Heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali jams his powerhouse fist to the lens. For most of the last century, Magnum photographers — photojournalists with an artist's eye — have frozen the stuff of life on film. By 1998, when the New York-based photo cooperative stopped distributing paper prints to its clients, Magnum cameramen and women had generated 180,000 pictures of people and events worldwide. The earliest images dated to the Spanish Civil War, a full decade before the agency's 1947 founding. Beginning this fall, Magnum's massive photo collection — for decades stored at the co-op's Manhattan headquarters — will be available to students, scholars and the public at the University of Texas' Harry Ransom Center in Austin. The photos, recently purchased for an undisclosed sum by the family investment firm of Texas computer magnate Michael Dell, will be on loan to the university for at least five years. During that time, the Ransom Center will stage at least two public exhibitions, said center director Thomas Staley. Co-op photographers periodically will travel to Austin to speak to students. Glenn Fuhrman, co-managing partner of MSD Capital, the Dell investment firm, called the collection “an irreplaceable trove of American and world history.” Such a collection, he said, might never exist again. “Magnum was founded by the five most important photographers of World War II and certainly are among the most important of the 20th century,” said Museum of Fine Arts, Houston photography curator Anne Tucker. “Most of the photographers they let in subsequently were of the same caliber. From a fine arts perspective, you've got a great group of people.”
Staley said the collection, which includes photos by the founding members Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, David Seymour and William Vandivert, currently is being catalogued by center staff members. Plans call for digitizing the entire collection, Staley said.
The collection will join the center's other photographic holdings, which, numbering more than 5 million prints and negatives, include works by photographic giants William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Walker Evans and David Douglas Duncan.
Jonathan Roquemore, the photo agency's director of brand relations, said current Magnum members voted four years ago to explore selling the collection, which contains the work of more than 100 photographers. Photographers or their estates continue to control rights to the images.
Neither Roquemore nor Staley would disclose the sale price, although Staley said the collection has been insured for more than $100 million. Magnum, which traditionally has distributed photographs to periodicals and book publishers, has, like other older media, been squeezed by the growth of digital media. Roquemore said money gained from the sale will be used to further the agency's multimedia offerings, which include, in addition to still prints, audio interviews and video.

By Lindsay Pollock
Billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD Capital LP, has acquired about 185,000 vintage photographic prints from the Magnum Photos agency in what is thought to be among the largest photo transactions in history. While no price was disclosed, the collection has been insured for more than $100 million, according to a knowledgeable source who declined to be identified. MSD Capital will lend the photos for five years to the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin. Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of computer maker Dell Inc., which is based in Round Rock, Texas, is an Austin resident and University of Texas dropout. “Having this incredible collection in Austin is especially exciting to me,” said Dell in a press statement. Forbes magazine estimated Dell’s net worth at $14.5 billion in 2009. MSD Capital manages more than $10 billion in assets, according to a press release. Ransom is among the leading acquirers of research materials from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among its holdings are the Watergate Papers, Norman Mailer’s archives and page proofs from James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The Magnum archive includes the work of 103 photographers, images dating from the 1930s to 1998 that in some case are as much photojournalism as fine art. They chronicle world events such as the Spanish Civil War and the U.S. civil-rights movement. “This is a singularly valuable collection in the history of photography,” said Thomas F. Staley, director of the Ransom Center, in a statement. The center will promote the collection with exhibitions, research and fellowships. Magnum and MSD will contribute to maintenance and insurance costs. Magnum retains the copyright and licensing rights to all of the images.

Art Collectors
The deal wasn’t far afield for MSD’s co-managing partners, Glenn R. Fuhrman and John C. Phelan, who are major contemporary- art collectors and serve on museum boards. Fuhrman is a trustee on the board of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in Washington. He also founded the Flag Foundation in New York’s Chelsea district where he holds art exhibitions. Phelan is a trustee of the Aspen Art Museum, in Colorado, and the New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. “Given the technical changes that have taken place in the world of photography, including the digitization of images, a collection of prints like these will never exist again,” said Fuhrman in the statement.

Photojournalism’s Heyday
The deal was initiated by Magnum director Mark Lubell, who had been charged with modernizing an agency that newspapers and magazines long tapped for images to grace their pages. The advent of scanning and digital files increased the rarity value of the agency’s physical working prints and made them more salable. Magnum was founded in 1947 during photojournalism’s heyday by four photographers: Robert Capa, David “Chim” Seymour, George Rodger and Henri Cartier-Bresson. They structured the agency as a cooperative, owned by the members. “Their success helped to produce the principle that photojournalists could be independent and produce their own work,” said Peter Galassi, chief curator of the department of photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. At mid-century, influential and widely circulated newsmagazines like Life were all-powerful. Magnum protected photographers’ copyrights and boost their leverage.

Fuzzy Finances
“Magnum existed as a way to skip the middleman, not just economically but critically and editorially,” said New York photography dealer Howard Greenberg. “They would have much more say in how their pictures would be reproduced.” The agency, with offices in New York, London, Tokyo and Paris, attracted top talent over the years. The roster includes Elliott Erwitt, Bruce Davidson, Susan Meiselas, Josef Koudelka and Gilles Peress. “Out of the history of Magnum, so much of the greatest work in photojournalism was created,” said Greenberg. Though the agency has had an impeccable photojournalistic reputation, the financial picture is fuzzier. Lubell has focused on getting the agency in order. Yet he explains that the company was founded not to be a profit center, but to sustain the members. “Magnum is not in business to make a lot of money,” Lubell said. “Its goal was to help photographers achieve the visual authorship they seek.” So what about the new financial windfall? “I told the photographers, ‘We should all have a glass of champagne and get back to work,’” said Lubell, pointing out that the agency was named for the bubbly bottle.

The Sydney Opera House will be transformed into a picture of mass nudity when thousands of Australians bare all on the steps of the landmark. Spencer Tunick, famous for photographing masses of naked people in public, says his next installation will take place in Sydney on March 1. The artist says he's hoping to get more than 2,000 people to strip off for his work, which aims to create a human base for the Opera House. 'The people will be either standing, intertwined, reclining,' Tunick told AAP from Hawaii. 'No yoga positions,' he laughed. 'But mostly easy to do positions, that will reflect the surface of the steps to turn into a human canvas of sorts.' The installation will go ahead rain, hail or shine. The New-York based photographer has completed works on every continent, including Antarctica, but admitted it was sometimes difficult to find people 'to take that leap of faith'. He urged the adventurous to sign up. 'It's not as easy as you think,' Tunick said. 'I'm not trying to convince anyone who doesn't want to do it - I'm just trying to get the people that are on the fence to come and show up. 'You'll have an incredibly good time. It's very fulfilling.' Tunick, who photographed thousands of naked people in Melbourne in 2001, first scouted the Opera House as a location almost 10 years ago.
This latest work had been commissioned by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, but was for people of all sexual orientations, Tunick said. A New Mardi Gras spokeswoman says the group has been in discussions with Tunick for two years about his Sydney project, and received approval from the City of Sydney, the Opera House Trust, the Royal Botanic Gardens, and the police. The City Of Sydney contributed $20,000 towards the project, she said, but she would not reveal the total cost, saying only that it was 'a lot'. Tunick's work is now less controversial than his first photo shoots of naked people in the streets in the mid-1990s, but he says public nudity is still a hot topic.'The naked body in film, in theatre in television is quite accepted at this point but as far as the naked body in public space I think there's still a lot of area to work on there,' he said. 'It's difficult.' Looking ahead, Tunick says there's still many places he'd love to create installations including in the caldera of a volcano, eastern Europe and the Caribbean.
'You never know, I might end up in Perth one day,' Tunick added. All Australians wishing to take part in Spencer Tunick's Sydney installation must register their interest at www.mardigras.org.au/tunick
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The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present the U.S. debut of a major survey that examines photography's role in invasive looking in autumn. Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870 is co-organized by SFMOMA and Tate Modern, and gathers more than 200 pictures that together form a timely inquiry into the ways in which artists and everyday people alike have probed the camera's powerful voyeuristic capacity. Works by major artists, including Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Thomas Ruff, Paul Strand, and Weegee will be presented alongside photographs made by amateurs, professional journalists, and governmental agencies, exploring the larger cultural significance of voyeurism and surveillance technology. Conceived by SFMOMA Senior Curator of Photography Sandra S. Phillips and co-curated with Tate Curator of Photography Simon Baker, Exposed traces how voyeuristic observation with cameras in the 19th century influenced street photography in the 20th century. Moving beyond typical notions of voyeurism and surveillance as strictly erotic or predatory, the presentation will address these concepts in their broadest sense—in both historical and contemporary contexts—investigating how new technologies, urban planning, global intelligence, celebrity culture, and an evolving media environment have fueled a growing interest in the subject. With the proliferation of cell-phone cameras, YouTube videos, security cameras, reality television, satellite views, and infrared technology, our potential to spy on others seems increasingly boundless.
The exhibition tour begins at the Tate Modern, London, in May of 2010. Following its stateside premiere at SFMOMA in the fall, Exposed will travel to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in spring 2011. The presentation draws from renowned private and museum collections worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives, and features a concentration of important works from SFMOMA's collection. Exposed will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with original essays that examine the surreptitious use of the camera in all walks of life. "As the importance of photography has grown over time, and the art museum itself has become a place for investigating larger cultural issues, this seems an appropriate moment to look at these kinds of pictures to learn from them and to better know ourselves," says Phillips. She first conceived the project as a follow-up to her groundbreaking 1997 SFMOMA exhibition Police Pictures: The Photograph as Evidence, the first museum presentation to examine mug shots and other police photographs as cultural artifacts. Phillips continues, "The camera is now more adept at concealment, and we often feel protected because we are watched—a telling and relatively recent development. The spy who used to be consigned to the shadows and often called shady is now tolerated in the open and can, in fact, be you or me with a cell phone, even as we are being observed through a surveillance camera."
Facilitated and encouraged by the camera, voyeurism and surveillance provoke uneasy questions about who is looking at whom, whether for power or for pleasure. Voyeurism has long been acknowledged as an essential aspect of photography and represents its most common use. Yet there have been surprisingly few attempts to examine the history of this invasive form of looking. Exposed aims to fill this critical void by highlighting five types of voyeuristic photographs: street photography; the sexually explicit pictures normally associated with voyeurism; celebrity stalking; photographs of death and violence; and surveillance in its many forms. While Exposed primarily focuses on the medium of photography, the exhibition will also showcase examples of film, video, and installation work by artists such as Thomas Demand, Bruce Nauman, and Andy Warhol, selected by Phillips in collaboration with SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling. Exposed will also feature a selection of archival cameras that were designed to be concealed in artful ways, including models used by spies during the cold war.

Five Themes of Forbidden Looking

The Unseen Photographer

Photography has been central to voyeuristic looking since 1871, the year in which the gelatin dry plate was invented and cameras became small enough to be secreted in books, clothing, shoes, pistols, or canes. Although most "detective cameras" were advertised as harmless amusements for amateurs, the public found them troubling from the start, raising concerns about privacy that remain valid to this day. This section of the exhibition traces the use of the hidden camera in public spaces, from the turn-of-the-century amateur picture makers Paul Martin and Horace Engle, to modernist photographers Walker Evans and Weegee and contemporary artists such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia, whose series Heads, featured here, famously inspired a privacy lawsuit in 2006.

Voyeurism and Desire

Among the first applications of photography was the production of erotic pictures, originally in the form of daguerreotypes and stereo views. Ranging from Edgar Degas's studies of nude bathers to Andy Warhol's Blow Job and provocative pictures by Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and Helmut Newton, this section traces the gray area between voyeuristic sexuality and pornography since the 19th century.

Celebrity and the Public Gaze

Photographs of public figures date back to the 19th century, but the roots of today's cult of celebrity lie in the invasive techniques of the Italian paparazzi, whose pictures were consumed widely via the popular press in Europe and the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. The most persistent was perhaps Tazio Secchiaroli, who pursued stars on his Vespa, enraging some of his subjects to the point of violence. Other figures of note represented in this section include Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon, Doris Banbury, and Ron Galella, the American paparazzo who was infamously punched by Marlon Brando and sued by Jackie Onassis.

Witnessing Violence

In 1928 photojournalist Tom Howard made a shocking image of Ruth Snyder's electrocution using a hidden camera strapped to his ankle. It was a watershed moment in voyeuristic reportage, fueled largely by the insatiable public appetite for tabloid journalism. Significantly, the 20th and 21st centuries have seen many of their signal catastrophes captured on film, from the Hindenburg disaster and John F. Kennedy's assassination to the 9/11 tragedy.

Surveillance

From shots used to identify suffragettes and anarchists to prisoner Rudolf Cisar's clandestine views of Dachau, photography has been crucial to a wide variety of surveillance projects, both political and private. This section juxtaposes FBI photographs and military reconnaissance shots with work by contemporary artists who have critiqued or appropriated the technologies of surveillance, including Jordan Crandall, Bruce Nauman, Barbara Probst, and Thomas Ruff.
Major Publication

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in association with Yale University Press, will publish a major catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition. Phillips edits the volume and introduces the five primary themes of the exhibition, providing rich historical context for the more contemporary work; Simon Baker looks at two 20th-century practitioners with very different approaches to urban photography—Bill Brandt and Ilya Ehrenburg—finding contemporary counterparts in Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca diCorcia; Philip Brookman considers the genre of street photography as both art and surveillance; Carol Squiers examines the subject of paparazzi pictures; Marta Gili looks at surveillance's impact on contemporary art; and Richard B. Woodward addresses a startling recent trend: the self-documentation of sex, crimes, and other private acts. The book (256 pages, $50) will be available at the SFMOMA MuseumStore in the spring of 2010.

Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870
October 30, 2010, through April 17, 2011
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco

Police have sent documents to prosecutors on photographer Kishin Shinoyama and two models, accusing them of public indecency after Shinoyama staged nude photo shoots in a variety of public locations. The Metropolitan Police Department's Security Bureau say Shinoyama, 69, set up 12 nude photo shoots in public for a 22-year-old adult video actress and another model during 2008. Locations included Aoyama Cemetery, and a church in Minato Ward. They are charging the three with public obscenities. "I'm sorry. I did give some thought to those around, but it wasn't enough," Shinoyama reportedly said. The photos were later included in "No nude by Kishin 1 20XX Tokyo", a photo collection published in January 2009 by Asahi Press. "I wanted to create a seminal work to celebrate my 50th year as a photographer," said Shinoyama. Police say that on September 7, 2008, they received a report from a resident that Shinoyama was doing a nude photo shoot in Minato Ward. The photographer later wrote to police saying that they were taking swimsuit photos; however, he took nude photos. Shinoyama graduated from the Department of Photography at Nihon University's College of Art. He has taken nude photos for magazines including Playboy, and shot actress Rie Miyazawa's bestselling nude photo collection "Santa Fe."

Thousands of photographers protested in London on Saturday against the use of anti-terror laws which allow police to stop and search suspects.Trafalgar Square was lit up by camera flashes as an estimated 2,000 photographers gathered to complain at what they see as the increasing tendency of police to use the legislation to stop them taking pictures. Freelance photographer and writer Marc Vallee, who helped organise the protest through social networking sites Twitter and Facebook, said frustrations with police centred on the scope of an anti-terror law passed in 2000. Vallee, 41, said: "It's quite obvious that professional photographers across the country are being searched because they are photographers, not because they are suspicious. "It's a common-law right to take pictures in public places and we are here to show that." Many protesters waved placards bearing the slogan: "I'm a photographer, not a terrorist." (AFP)