What We Lose When Curating Follows the Money
about 5 months ago (12/11/2023)
What We Lose When Curating Follows the Money Skip to content Gerhard Richter, "Tante Marianne" (1965), oil on canvas (all photos Olivia McEwan/ Hyperallergic ) LONDON — Something feels off from the introductory lines of the exhibition booklet for Tate Modern’s Capturing the Moment . It proposes that the show “[will] explore the relationship between the brush and the lens,” yet the very next sentence clarifies that it won’t be doing this with any degree of precision: “Rather than attempt a definitive account of the dialogue between [painting and photography], an open-ended discussion is encouraged through varying depictions of people and place that invite us on a journey through recent art history.” This “something” off is immediately apparent from the show’s opening room, which focuses on painting — but not really, as Dorothea Lange’s iconic photograph “Migrant Mother” (1936) appears for no given reason. No captions make any convincing stab at examining a “dialogue” with photography or photographic influence, or even how any of the works are relevant to each other.