On the morning that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) sent out its "Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection" press release, a representative from the bank stepped up to a podium at the MFA to present the new exhibit. Her speech began with, "Don't you love waking up early in the morning to hear from a corporate sponsor?"
While normally our answer would be no, Bank of America's broad and beautiful collection of professional photography is difficult to resist. Drawn from the thousands of images that make up their archives, "Conversations" includes 100 photos carefully chosen and arranged by MFA curators Anne Havinga and Karen Haas, ranging from portraits to landscapes and even fashion photography.
The wealth of material that the curators had at their disposal can be largely attributed to the number of mergers Bank of America has been involved in. With each new bank acquisition came artistic acquisitions as well. Luckily, the corporation has been loaning out pieces to museums at zero expense.
Upon entering the exhibit, it is immediately apparent that the pieces were installed in an organized, sensitive manner. The exhibit begins with portraiture, followed by landscape, followed by social documentary photos. The center of the room is left to the genre of art portraying art, and the hallway includes the less−easily defined realist and abstract photography, as well as industrial photography.
The issue with an exhibit such as this is how to categorize it. On the surface, there is no over−arching theme, technique or time period. It is not even limited to American photographers — though the majority of them are American. This broad range makes it difficult to analyze or critique. But the curators insist that the exhibit is not random, and that their intention to create intellectual dialogue among viewers, once experienced, becomes more apparent. The title, "Conversations," comes from the juxtapositions and pairings of the photographs, which are meant to provide interesting contrasts and comparisons for the viewer to discuss.
Upon entering the exhibit, one is immediately struck by a large−scale photograph by Thomas Struth, a photographer who spent much of his time examining how groups of people and individuals view art. His documentary photography often depicts colorful, unstaged images of visitors in a museum gazing at grandiose and famous pieces of art. Struth's image at the entrance of "Conversations" is no different, and its context here could not be any more fitting. We are visitors in a museum looking at an image of other visitors. It sets the tone for how we should interact and relate to the photography in the rest of the exhibit.
After the entrance come the interesting pairings of photographs that characterize "Conversations." One set particularly worth mentioning is William Eggleston's "Untitled (Memphis)" (1970) and Lee Friedlander's "T.V. in Hotel Room, Galax, Virginia" (1962). While there are clear differences between the works — Eggleston's work is in color and features a tricycle; Friedlander's is black−and−white and focuses on the edge of a bed and a television — there are also interesting comparisons that can be drawn from the works. They each depict a typically harmless object that becomes eerie and menacing when transferred through the camera lens.
The photograph of the tricycle, taken from a low angle on the ground, suddenly makes the harmless children's toy powerful and dominating. The houses in the suburban background are easily dwarfed by the looming quality of the blue bike. Meanwhile, Friedlander's photograph catches the television in a moment when it is broadcasting a close−up of an infant. The image comes as a shock, and the child is close to ghostly because of the way it shines luminescent in opposition with its darker setting. Taken from the point of view of someone watching the television in bed, the unassuming setting suddenly becomes creepy and disquieting.
Perhaps the most recognizable photograph in the collection is "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" (1945), an iconic American image that has frequently been used to garner patriotic sentiment. The black−and−white photograph by Joe Rosenthal depicts four soldiers struggling to raise a flag on Japanese soil during World War II. The diagonal structure of the image slowly draws your eyes upward from the four soldiers working with one another to the top of the flagpole. Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph.
"Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection" is more than just a random congregation of well−regarded art. At the very least, it serves as an interesting and informative primer on various types and styles of photography from the world's leading photographers; at the most, it is a visual experience meant to incite the open flow of conversation and ideas. The MFA is certainly lucky to have access to such a wide and powerful collection, and we are certainly lucky to have the opportunity to view it.
