“Public, Private, Secret”
International Center of Photography
250 Bowery, NY 10012
June 23rd, 2016 – January 08, 2017
The International Center of Photography has packed up and moved to their new downtown Manhattan location on Bowery Street. The ICP Museum opened their doors on June 23rd with a new exhibition entitled, “Public, Private, Secret“ which features artwork from Zach Blas, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol. The show focuses on the concept of privacy in today’s society and how someone views themselves in relation to society’s idea of the public image. Of the new space, ICP Curator-in-Residence Charlotte Cotton said:
“This new space enabled us to rethink our curatorial practices and respond to our contemporary image environment in new ways. Public, Private, Secret’s non-hierarchical organization allows for dialogue between and about the diversity of photographic and visual culture in a wholly unique and unexpected way.”
The exhibit includes My Meds by Natalie Bookchin, which is a video of a real time stream of pictures filtered through various keywords taken from social media. From Testament, the video takes clips from online diaries and edits them into a montage that touches base on the various medications that all the subjects are taking.
From Spirit is a Bone, Adam Broomberg’s and Oliver Chanarin‘s The Revolutionary features a facial recognition system which acknowledges that today portraits can be made of people without them being present. Similarly, for Portrait Landscape by John Houck, in the video there is also a facial recognition aspect that takes clips from the 1966 film Blow-Up and the software misidentifies objects as faces.
The Clock by David Reinfurt is a good representation of the secret aspect of photography. The two parts of the installation consisted of a monitor that records outside of the museum and the recording being projected inside the exhibit. The projection is significantly distorted representing the way images are incorporated into our daily lives “continuous and discrete.” There are also additional collections that represent the exhibit title well, such as Public Web 4 where artists contributed work that touch on the topic of privacy.
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am till 6pm. The Public, Private, Secret exhibit will be on display until January 8th. The exhibit will also be hosting various workshops throughout the fall like “Becoming Anonymous” which is aimed at sorting through the world of online privacy and “Our Net Youth Workshop” that will enable students to develop their own private networks that exist independently of the Internet. Check out their website to learn more about the various programs.
Photos: Courtesy of International Center of Photography.
