An American Visits America: Photography Show In Miami - Page 3

The exhibition is open until 15 April 2007 and is "from the collection of Miami-raised and New York-based collector, art dealer and curator Charles Cowles." 101 of the 160 pieces are gifts to MAM for their collection. The guest curator of the show was photography critic Andy Grundberg who is "... currently Administrative Chair of Photography at the Corcoran College of Art and Design (Washington)." He chose the "core" 101 prints while Cowles chose 60 of the works " which he has hung 'salon style' — wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling – as his preferred way of seeing the collection.

I enjoyed that wall. It reminded me of my grandmother-in-law's Victorian-style piano with its mélange of framed family photos fighting for attention, related but confusing like the piles of an efficiently disorganized office. The wall was chock full of gems and less-than-gems, wonderful eyes seeing things newly or better, some mediocre prints (a Joel Meyerowitz Cape Cod shot I normally love and today felt cheated out of its normally delicate colors and excitement in the mundane porch and background lightning flash).

The problem is that this wall neglected those helpful tags to label the pictures, mixed styles, and types, and over-loaded my tired eyes with visual information until I fled. Later I came back from across the gallery a few times when I noticed pictures I wanted to see that had been lost in the morass of images, times, styles, views and feelings.

My over-all feeling: Wow! Pleasure for my first exhibit in ages. What a lovely way to break from doctor visits, computer shopping, and just plain American shopping that can take so much time for so little pleasure and so much money. If I lived here I would go again at least once. However, since this visit loaded me with maps and opening invitations to galleries I didn't know existed and a whole "Miami Art District," I now must begin exploring.

There was one jarring moment that aged me most and either excited or saddened me. I have not come close to understanding enough of Photoshop and am considering Aperture for my new Mac (but its horrendous cost kept me from a new, better film scanner and — oh, someday! — one of the neat, new Nikon digital SLRs like the D80 or D200). The Museum has a room with seats for the kiddies and a chemical darkroom with lightbox, trays, and Omega 4x5 enlarger. All those years I slaved away in those fumes, mixing acetic acid and trying new developers, fell asleep while prints washed on deadline, and now it is all just a museum piece. The digital darkroom reigns.

Article Author: Howard Dratch

Howard writes on science, books, movies and news for Blogcritics and on his own blogs from the border of North and Central America.

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