Surface Tension at Met Museum

DOG STAR readers enjoy contemporary photography and this show is worth checking out.


Plan to see this photography show and Robert Frank!


Always free for high school students at the Metropolitan Museum


Remember:  Met is closed on Mondays and open until 9pm on Friday and Saturday - make it a date night!


Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection 
September 15, 2009–May 16, 2010
Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography, 2nd floor


Photographs are often perceived as transparent windows onto a three-dimensional world. Yet photographs also have their own material presence as physical objects.


Contemporary artists who exploit this apparent contradiction between photograph as window and photograph as object are featured inSurface Tension.


The exhibition presents 30 works that play with the inherent tension between the flatness of the photograph and the often lifelike illusion of depth. Surface Tension highlights the ways in which artists use photographic and multi-media techniques to direct our attention to the physical surface of the photograph. 


Among the works featured are photographs that have been purposely scratched, burned, or painted on, as well as photograms made by placing objects directly on top of a sheet of photographic paper.


The exhibition is drawn entirely from the permanent collection and features several recent acquisitions and other contemporary photographs never before shown at the Museum. 


Here for the Met website