Great Book And Brooklyn Exhibition

During an impromptu 24 hours in New York last month, I enjoyed a brief opportunity to revisit the Brooklyn Museum for the first time since 1996.

The draw? In addition to longstanding curiosity about Georgia O'Keefe's 1949 canvas "Brooklyn Bridge" and other permanent collection works, I was enticed by online promotion of the current exhibition "Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to Present" organized by returning guest curator and author Gail Buckland.

Georgia O'Keeffe,
via Brooklyn Museum Shop

On site I learned that Buckland also created a beautiful new book -- in her words, via one of several email exchanges, "... not a catalogue but a self-contained trade book of the same title" -- featuring the 230 or so images credited to 170 photographers.

Both the exhibition and book include images from several A-listers not necessarily know for their still camera work, such as Andy Warhol, Stanley Kubrick and Leni Riefenstahl.

The museum displays, arranged in four galleries divided by a small exhibition-centric gift shop, are organized across eight themes like the chapters of the 300-page volume published by Knopf (with thanks to the author, a review copy arrived at my door not long after we established contact; thanks also to the museum for a review ticket).

Thomas Pelham Curtis,
via Brooklyn Museum

Looking back, it's certain I did not follow the suggested flow of the exhibition, quickly skipping to the Olympic section. It impressed me several photographs snapped at the first modern Olympiad at Athens in 1896 appear steps from images of Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

Rare images captured by members of the first Team USA, and Buckland's wall-text pointing out early cameras used at the first Games, set up a theme described later in this exhibition section: The Olympics are the place at which the latest photo technology is often introduced.

It was fun to spot Sonja Henie skating on a frozen lake in St. Moritz, stills from Riefenstahl's "Olympia" (specifically, elements of an album the filmmaker presented to Adolf Hitler), the original negative of Bob Beamon's record-breaking long jump, and an action shot captured a millisecond before Greg Louganis' head made contact with a Seoul diving board. Buckland's hand-picked images in this five-ringed section, and across most other sections of the exhibition, include more than 60 Olympians or Games-related participants.

Carl Yarbrough, via Getty Images

Most breathtaking? Carl Yarbrough's mid-crash image of an airborne Hermann Maier competing in Nagano.

Most famous: Neil Leifer's overhead and ringside images of Muhammad Ali (see below).

One of the largest images on view is from London 2012's beach volleyball venue. The photographer, Donald Miralle, lined up center court just beneath a painter at his easel on the far side of the outdoor grandstand.

By chance, in the press room following Rio 2016's beach volleyball competition, I secured a photograph of the painting by that artist, whose name is Spens. For those who look closely at the images below, some may notice the canvas has grey speck, perhaps representing Miralle in the purple field atop the media seating area (in the photograph, Spens is visible above the window at center):

Donald Miralle, via Brooklyn Museum

Spens, photographed by Wolaver

Buckland's assorted selections reminded me of familiar sports images while introducing new material. I spotted fresh-to-my-eyes photos of Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Gabby Douglas and Dorothy Hamill.

Annie Leibovitz,
via ArtNet.com

Though a Leibovitz image of an Olympic and NBA star appeared (see left), I was surprised that none of the photographer's 1996 Olympic images made the cut. Readers of this blog may recall my half-day on set with Leibovitz in Colorado Springs detailed in this 2008 post.

My hunch -- that some of these sponsor-commissioned works may no longer be Leibovitz's to contribute -- was sort of affirmed in an email exchange with Buckland.

"I do know and like Annie's Atlanta Olympic photographs," wrote Buckland. "With her, there is always many to choose from but she isn't always ready to let an author pick his or her favorite. Saying that, I always loved this picture of Magic Johnson and so do the people visiting the show. I am very pleased that I had permission (with some difficulty) being allowed to reproduce it and exhibit it."

In the book I appreciated Buckland's inclusion of a "Technology Timeline by Nigel Russell" in which the history of sports photography is summarized by decade or year from the earliest image-capturing methods to digital works captured by drone-mounted lenses. Another handy appendix titled "The Beginnings of Sports Photography" takes readers from the first known sports portrait (featuring a posed tennis player) to high-speed action images as technology and the artistry of camera work advanced.

Tim Clayton, via Brooklyn Museum

The book also includes a bit more detail (building upon the wall text in the exhibition) about special approaches to sports photography, such as early underwater and other aquatic imagery.

"Who Shot Sports" remains on view at the Brooklyn Museum through January 8, and I highly recommend a trip to see the exhibition as well as checking out Buckland's book.

Book cover image provided by Brooklyn Museum. Two in-exhibition images below by Nicholas Wolaver.

Neil Leifer, via ArtNet.com

Herb Ritts, via Brooklyn Museum

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center Shows Photography Exhibition "The Olympic City"

 

 

Not long ago -- before the awful Oklahoma tornado news, a 40th birthday vacation in New Mexico, and a week of work at Cedar Point theme park in Sandusky, Ohio (all experiences about which I will eventually write) -- an online calendar listing caught my eye in April.

The brief mentioned the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center just opened a photography exhibition titled "The Olympic City" featuring numerous works compiled by a pair of photographers who visited several five-ringed host cities. The exhibition continues through June 15.

Though I regret the travel-related delays to craft this post (it's been a few weeks since a rainy afternoon visit to the exhibition), it's been good to reflect on the show in anticipation of a panel discussion set for March 23 (Thursday night -- tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.) and an upcoming Atlanta Olympic field trip also planned by the museum on June 8.

"The Olympic City" features several dozen images created by photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit, who since 2008 trekked the globe to explore past Olympic host cities and evidence of impact and legacy from the big event. Details of their journey are chronicled via The Olympic Project.

Not every Olympic host city is represented, but the exhibition includes a healthy mix of recent and older, summer and winter, historic and less iconic Olympic developments. Most Olympiads from Rome 1960 to London 2012 are covered, with Munich as the only gaping hole in Hustwit's and Pack's travels.

I pondered the exclusion of Munich and the extent to which this may be intentional since the 1972 Games, in many ways, defies one component of the exhibition, presented to serve as a "possible guide to the dos and don’ts of contemporary built environments." If not overshadowed by the events of Sept. 5, Munich's Games would stand today as a marvel of Olympic legacies done right.

"The Olympic City" exhibition skews on the "don'ts" in many ways. Why include Berlin 1936 without the Bavarian Olympic counterpart of 1972? If you want to make an anti-Games point, leaving out Munich is one way to punctuate the point.

Seoul's 1988 successes also are excluded; but then, maybe Korea remains on the photographers' "to do" lists, not yet earning enough votes from those tallied by project donors.

Most of the exhibition photographs provide a beautiful and thoughtful snapshot on the many ways time buffs away the shimmer of the Olympic glory days. Images of Barcelona's amazing 1992 architecture and Mediterranean-nestled venues stand out. A look at inner-city Los Angeles and remnants of 1932 and 1984 influences are interesting and shed new light on lesser-known legacy projects (In 2003, I think I bought ice cream from the same vendor photographed at the L.A. Coliseum).

A peek at small town Lake Placid, N.Y., brought back memories of my own visit to the Olympic Village in the Adirondacks and the conversion of housing to modern prison. And a look at the harsh realities of war torn Sarajevo allude to the dark tale of the region's post-Games horrors. Well done.

So it confused me that when their project visited Mexico City, Pack and Hustwit missed some spectacular and positive impacts of the Games. Where was their photo of Diego Rivera's murals created for the Olympic venues? Not here, perhaps overlooked on the hunt for homeless inhabitants of a city long-since changed by the Olympic impact, or missed while exploring the crapped out Olympic Village cinema?

In London, why show the trash-strewn backside of an Underground station when across town there are new world class buildings by renowned best-of-our era architects (like in Barcelona)? I liked the Banksy-style anti-Games spray paint commentary (and concur, not everyone likes the Olympics). But there was a lot of graffiti photographed in this exhibition, across many Olympic cities, where more attention could have gone to non-negatives and non-alleyways. I had the feeling both photographers got locked on a mission to find the filth.

There are exceptions. On the luxury side, I liked the Helsinki image of an historic waterfront hotel opened in 1952. Images of the people in or around the once-Games gathering places are more personal and thought provoking -- what was the personal legacy for these individuals, I wondered. The bandage-clad Montreal Olympic Stadium also stood out for this visitor.

But the exhibition kept bringing me back to observations of other art museum photography noted earlier this year. Why go for decrepitude when there is more positive "out there" to be captured by the lens?

One other Olympic city stood out for its exclusion from the current exhibition stop: Atlanta and the 1996 Games. I'd like to think that the museum's planned June 8 "opinionated tour" will be fair and balanced, including Atlanta's "good" Olympic legacy elements (Centennial Olympic Park, 7,000+ college dorm rooms, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, Turner Field, Atlanta History Center archives and expansion) and forgotten legacies (tennis center, AUC venues), but have a sinking feeling the tour may be a Fox News version of "fair" and "balanced" skewed on the negative side. Thursday night's panel discussion should be interesting to experience.

Other critics and reporters offered their POV on the exhibition when it stopped in Atlanta and  recent markets. The book version of the exhibition is coming soon, too.

Should anyone go see "The Olympic City" exhibition? Yes, absolutely! Just soak it in with a grain of salt, looking beyond the grime to the brighter side of the cities once lit by the Olympic flame.

Photos of exhibition by Nicholas Wolaver include works copyrighted by Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit -- view their gallery here. The Montreal stadium image at the top of this post is from the exhibition and its website OlympicCityProject.com