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Exhibition

About Time

Photography in a Moment of Change
May 14–September 25, 2016

This thematic exhibition brings together work from across the medium’s history — from daguerreotypes to slide projections to video installations — that consider the way photography’s complex and ever-changing relationship with time has reflected and inflected our ideas about permanence and obsolescence, history and memory. In a period of tremendous technological change, this exhibition puts historical and contemporary works in dialogue to highlight the fundamental issues that have been central to the medium since its invention. The presentation showcases work by Julia Margaret Cameron, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Phil Chang, Dawoud Bey, Owen Kydd, and Zoe Leonard, among others, as well as Recordings #3 (At sea), a newly commissioned installation by Jason Lazarus.


Exhibition Preview

Artwork image, Dawoud Bey's Betty Selvage and Faith Speights, from The Birmingham Project, 2012
Artwork image, Wilson Alwyn Bentley Snowflake [8794]
Artwork image, Zoe Leonard, TV Wheelbarrow
Artwork image, Eadweard Muybridge, Ascending an Incline
Artwork image, Martin Munkácsi, Untitled
Artwork image, Alfred Stieglitz, Old and New New York
Artwork image, Janet Delaney, Flag Makers, Natoma at Third Street
Artwork image, Owen Kydd, Composition, Warner Studio (on green)
Artwork image, Hiroshi Sugimoto, U.A. Playhouse, Great Neck, New York
Artwork image, Matthew Buckingham, Image of Absalon

Dawoud Bey, Betty Selvage and Faith Speights, from The Birmingham Project, 2012; promised gift of Courtnay Haden; © Dawoud Bey; photo: courtesy Rena Bransten Projects

Wilson Alwyn Bentley, Snowflake, 1885–1931; collection SFMOMA, purchase through a gift of Kate and Wes Mitchell in honor of Corey Keller, curator of photography; photo: Don Ross

Zoe Leonard, TV Wheelbarrow, 2001/2006; collection SFMOMA, purchase through a gift of the Art Supporting Foundation, Nion McEvoy, Kate and Wes Mitchell, and the Accessions Committee Fund; © Zoe Leonard; photo: Don Ross

Eadweard Muybridge, Ascending an incline with a bucket of water in each hand, plate 81, from the series Animal Locomotion, 1887; gift of John Fisher; photo: Don Ross

Martin Munkácsi, Untitled, 1923; collection SFMOMA, Fund of the ’80s purchase; © The Estate of Martin Munkacsi; photo: Don Ross

Alfred Stieglitz, Old and New New York, 1910; collection SFMOMA, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, gift of Georgia O’Keeffe

Janet Delaney, Flag Makers, Natoma at Third Street , from the series South of Market, 1978-1986, 1982, printed 2003; collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Janet Delaney; photo: Don Ross

Owen Kydd, Composition, Warner Studio (on green), 2012; collection SFMOMA, Foto Forum purchase; © Owen Kydd; photo: Katherine Du Tiel

Hiroshi Sugimoto, U.A. Playhouse, Great Neck, New York, 1978; collection SFMOMA, Mrs. Ferdinand C. Smith Fund purchase; © Hiroshi Sugimoto; photo: Don Ross

Matthew Buckingham, Image of Absalon To Be Projected Until It Vanishes, 2001; collection SFMOMA, Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Fund purchase; © Matthew Buckingham


Major support for About Time: Photography in a Moment of Change is provided by Lisa and John Pritzker. Additional support is provided by Kate and Wesley Mitchell.

Header image: Dawoud Bey, Betty Selvage and Faith Speights (detail), from The Birmingham Project, 2012; promised gift of Courtnay Haden; © Dawoud Bey; photo: courtesy Rena Bransten Projects