Museum of Contemporary Photography opens its vast vault
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Marshall Scheuttle, Wonder Lodge, 2013. 2015:57. Photo: Courtesy of MoCP
On its 50th anniversary, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography presents a snapshot of its impressive collection.
The big picture: "MoCP at Fifty: Collecting Through the Decades" culls from the museum's archive of 18,000 objects to illustrate the evolution of the art form, but also reveals images of how Chicago — and the world — have changed in half a century.
Zoom in: The museum's hometown appears throughout the exhibit, with scenes of quiet, empty CTA stations, a crowded State Street lined with marquees marking the era and a girl on a tree swing in a distinctly Chicago neighborhood lined with workers' cottages.
- It's hard to pin down just one theme throughout. A familiar, but beautiful, scene of spilled milk in a Kenosha grocery store hangs close to an arrestingly real portrait of Ken Meeks, an AIDS patient in a hospital gown, lesions covering his arms, staring into the camera.
Context: Each gallery represents a decade in the museum's history, starting in 1979, when the founders started collecting. Until the early 2000s, MoCP almost exclusively acquired works created after 1959 by American artists.
- In the decades since, the museum has been more intentional about filling in gaps of representation and gathering work that expands the traditional definition of "photography."
What they're saying: "Because the collection is so vast, we approached the exhibition less as a 'greatest hits' survey and more as an opportunity to create unexpected conversations across time," MoCP executive director Natasha Egan tells Axios.
- "One of our goals was to include works that had never, or only rarely, been exhibited at MoCP."
- "We wanted the show to reflect not only the history of photography, but also the personality, curiosity, and evolving vision of MoCP itself over the last fifty years," Egan adds.
State of play: This isn't the only time the public can peek inside the vast archive. Individuals, groups, and classes can request tours and viewings through MoCP's site.
If you go: "MoCP at Fifty: Collecting Through the Decades" is on display at 600 S. Michigan Ave. through May 16. The museum is free.