Looking at Life II

This weekend, I was at the International Center of Photography ("ICP"), in Midtown Manhattan. ICP had an exhibit on photos used in Life Magazine, the now-defunct, classic image-oriented magazine (along with National Geographic). When I was a kid, my mother used to dismissively refer to Life as a magazine for people who couldn't read. One of the things she missed, though, was the fact that Life was able to rely on images, predominantly, to convey an emotion because its photographers – Robert Capa, Andreas Feininger, etc. – were so adept at conveying emotions through their image. Whatever dogma may have existed at the time, the photographers understood what people would respond to; even now, looking at the images from Vietnam (such as the classic Nick Ut shot of a young girl, naked and screaming, fleeing a village that was hit by napalm) and World War II (like Capa's classic image of men cowering behind tank traps on Utah Beach as they fought their way up into Normandy). Not many images today grab as powerfully. A few images by James Nachtwey – more on him in the coming weeks – of the Sudan genocide grab with similar emotional effect, but few really cause me to pause.

I've never been to the ICP before. It's small - very small. I arrived at ICP at 4:30 on Saturday, leaving me with just until 6:00 PM until the museum closes. I did the entire museum in 1.5 hours, with time to spare for futzing around in the gift shop, even after I had gone through the Life exhibit twice. Admittedly, I skipped a video art installation on the 1970's pop art group "The Ant Farm," but I was not really sure what a video installation had to do with photography (little), and why I want to see a bunch of stoned goofballs drive a car into a bunch of televisions or reenact the Zapruder film. While the Life Magazine exhibit was well worth the $10 I spent to get into the two story museum (the top of which has a small gallery devoted to photos of JFK's presidential candidacy; ICP wears its political heart on its sleeve, as downstairs had a small gallery devoted to anti-war photos from Iraq). When the sum of the exhibits were considered, it seemed that the museum suffered from bad judgment. Some of the photos from the JFK exhibit were covered - in fact, were duplicated - in the Life magazine exhibit. There was too much overlap between the exhibits. The Abu Ghraib exhibit seemed too "general news" for a museum. To me, museums are here to show me something new and novel or old and overlooked. I don't need them to show me something that I'll see ad nauseum on CNN.

I mentioned my concerns to one of my photographer friends, Wormold, and he pointed out the fact that, if ICP were to do away with its small, poorly thought out exhibits, it could probably have two large exhibits that are worth the cost of admission to see. I am certainly glad I spent $10 on seeing the Life magazine exhibit. However, I would never have spent that sort of money on the three other exhibits at ICP, and I spent so little time in them - I literally walked through the Abu Ghraib exhibit in under a minute ("Yep, exactly the same photos I've seen on television; moving on, then....") - that I agree with his notion that these other exhibits were not smart inclusions in such a small museum space.

However, I do have a snazzy ICP logo hat. That counts for something.

Comments

[j-a]

the ICP was closed on the day i chose to go there in may. glad you managed to get to visit and it sounds interesting for all its faults.

[Rachel]

My parents have the Life magazine that Chronicles the Kennedy assassination. I remember leafing through those pages and being amazed at the photographs--especially of JFk Jr. saluting his father's coffin as it passes.

Photographs burn their images into people's souls much more than words seem to. A good photograph for me is one that makes me notice something that I might not have--some detail, some feeling, some nuance.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[TPB, Esq.]

That's too bad, J-A. It's a neat little place, as you said, in spite of its faults.

Rachel, I think we used to have that same issue of "Life." I was always find of those photos, although I am more interested in the "slice o' life" photography that captured rural and suburban America in the fifties. A lot of what should have been the next task of Walker Evans.