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Carnegie To Exhibit Duane Michals
20 August 2014
Opening Nov. 1 at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art, Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals will feature the largest single collection of the artist's work over six decades, including work from both the museum's 139 pieces and loans from all over the world.
Sting, 1982. Gelatin silver print; Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery and the artist.
The works in Storyteller include classic sequences from the early 1970s as well as rarely seen images from later in his career. The Young Girl's Dream from 1969 and Chance Meeting from 1970 are among the early sequences and Rigamarole, a tintype with oil paint from 2012, is among his later images to be exhibited.
"When I began to do sequences, it wasn't because I thought it was cool and the latest thing. I did it out of frustration with the still photograph," Michals said. "I'm not interested in what something looks like, I want to know what it feels like.... My reality has entered a realm beyond observation."
Curator of Photography Linda Benedict-Jones, who organized Storyteller, added, "Duane Michals is a sensitive and provocative artist who has followed his own unique path. His way of staging narrative scenes, then recording them with a 35mm camera, represented a fresh approach to the medium. This, combined with an uncommon intimacy when dealing with topics such as death, desire and the passage of time, set him apart as an image-maker."
The exhibit includes some of Michals' commercial photography and portraiture, which includes assignments for Neiman Marcus, Esquire, Vogue and Gap, as well as commissioned portraits of Nancy Reagan, Sting and Willem de Kooning.
The exhibit runs through Feb. 15, 2015. For more information see the news release below.
Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals
Definitive retrospective of groundbreaking photographer Duane Michals opens Nov. 1 at he Carnegie Museum of Art
PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- Opening Nov. 1 at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals is the definitive retrospective and the largest-ever presentation of this innovative artist's work. Drawing from select loans and the museum's holdings, which constitute the largest single collection of Michals's output and spanning six decades, the works in Storyteller include classic sequences from the early 1970s as well as rarely seen images from later in his career.
Born in 1932 and raised in a steelworker family in McKeesport, Pa., Michals broke away from established traditions of documentary and fine art photography in the 1960s when he added handwritten messages and poems to prints, produced multi-image narrative sequences and experimented with double- and triple-exposures. His work was poignant and unabashedly sentimental, flying in the face of the dominant photographic aesthetics of the time.
"I'm a storyteller," he often states as he begins a talk in public -- equally interested in the moments before and after the "decisive moment" (a term coined in reference to the work of famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson). "When I began to do sequences, it wasn't because I thought it was cool and the latest thing. I did it out of frustration with the still photograph." He has observed that his practice aims to transcend mere appearances: "I'm not interested in what something looks like, I want to know what it feels like.... My reality has entered a realm beyond observation." This approach can be seen throughout his career, from early, carefully staged sequences, to hand-painted gelatin silver prints and tintypes, revealing the artist's hand at work long after the image is captured.
According to curator of photography Linda Benedict-Jones, who organized Storyteller, "Duane Michals is a sensitive and provocative artist who has followed his own unique path. His way of staging narrative scenes, then recording them with a 35mm camera, represented a fresh approach to the medium. This, combined with an uncommon intimacy when dealing with topics such as death, desire and the passage of time, set him apart as an image-maker."
CMOA, a fixture in Michals's artistic upbringing, has acquired 139 of his works, ranging from his earliest images made in Russia in 1958 to hand-painted tintypes that he began creating in 2012. Michals, in turn, has always felt an attachment to Pittsburgh, a subject of many of his photographs and of two books, the sequence The House I Once Called Home (2003) and poetry collection A Pittsburgh Poem (2013). Lending institutions to Storyteller include Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Musée des Beaux Arts (Montreal), High Museum of Art (Atlanta) and Museum of Modern Art (New York). Even longtime admirers of the artist may be unfamiliar with several of his bodies of work and an examination of this full range is long overdue: while Michals has been championed in several solo exhibitions throughout Europe in the past decade, this is his first major museum exhibition in North America since 1998.
Storyteller also touches upon Michals's extensive portfolio of commercial photography and portraiture, which spans several decades and includes assignments for Neiman Marcus, Esquire, Vogue and Gap, as well as commissioned portraits of such figures as Nancy Reagan, Sting and Willem de Kooning.
Presented alongside Storyteller will be the exhibition Duane Michals: Collector, which highlights works from Michals's private art collection that are promised gifts to the museum. The eclectic array of objects, ranging from 1799 to 1999 and from Francisco de Goya to André Kertész to Mark Tansey, will be united by Michals's unique take on the artists, the artworks and their influence on his own practice. Organized by associate curator of fine arts Amanda Zehnder, Duane Michals: Collector will further contextualize his work from an unusually personal perspective.
Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals represents a refreshing, much-needed reexamination of a historically significant photographer. Michals' pioneering photography infused the medium with a personal, critical approach that translates universally. In an art world that feels at times jaded and detached, his images retain the same moving, affecting impact that they commanded decades ago.