Being: New Photography 2018 Review

The Being: New Photography 2018 exhbit featured at the Museum of Modern Art showcased a lot of interesting pieces. One of the pieces which appeared to be normal family photos had a very interesting back story. On display across two walls were over 2000 photographs of child birth and the process of going into labor. One photographer that stood out to me the most was Stephanie Syjuco. I like the use of patterns and how the subjects are wearing clothing that have the tags still attached which conveys a deeper message.

MoMa Extra Credit

Being: New Photography 2018

Out of the entire photography exhibit, one set of photographs that had caught my eye was My Birth by Carmen Winant. This specific set of photography caught my eye because of the two walls, top to bottom, lined with photos pf varying sized of women giving birth which is something that is seen as taboo to many people. I thought out of the different collections of work, this had really stuck out to me. Birth is something spoken about yet at the same time, considered nasty to many people, and to see two whole walls filled from top to bottom of countless experiences of new and old moms was something very unique to me.

The photos were a collection of shots ripped or cut from larger images and old albums. They ranged from close ups of the baby, the mother, and the process of giving birth. Many of the photos are gray scale and grainy while others are old with fading colors. A lot of the photos are also fill the frame types where the focus is the baby leaving the womb. There were also some rule of thirds photos, mainly featuring women giving birth in water or the infant fresh out of the womb with the cord still attached. I did not add the photos to this extra credit assignment due to their graphic nature, involving blood and nudity not being allowed on this website.

Being: New Photography 2018 Review

Being: New Photography 2018 exhibition, which showcased the theme of ‘what is means to be human’, had a large collection of work by many talented photographers and it was showcased in MoMa. A lot of them show a clear subject while some provoke you to think deeper. Like I said earlier, most of the compositions had a clear subject but some provoked a deeper thought, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s work were some that provoked a deeper thought and his work is what caught my attention. There were two compositions that caught my interest the most and they were ‘A Sitting with Matthew-2015’ and ‘Mirror Study-2016’, both by the talented Sepuya. Both compositions have a clever use of framing. ‘Mirror Study’ is a little hard to grasp and it seems like an illusion which is why it was a little more interesting to me out of the other compositions in the gallery. Along with that ‘A Sitting with Matthew’ was also interesting to me because most of that composition is a large black cloth which curves down and reveals some other subjects in the background. Even in this image you can see the clever use of framing in the mirror and the other images clipped on to the wall. In general, his compositions were different and it provoked some thoughts as I viewed them. Because of the interest setups and composition, I spent most time figuring them out than the others.

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