The Power of a Single Image to (Re)Construct History

Does a photograph lock a single moment in time? That idea has long been debated, and the exhibition (Re)Constructing History embraces the possibility for photographs to both record an instant and collapse the past and present.

Borrowing its title from artist Carrie Mae Weems’s series Constructing History, featured in the exhibition, this installation of works largely from SFMOMA’s permanent collection encourages audiences to imagine the layers of history we encounter through a seemingly fixed image.

Across three galleries, photographs explore complicated, painful, and familiar histories. The first gallery considers Wall Street as a nexus for understanding and critiquing the United States and its evolution as an exceedingly powerful financial hub. This avenue has captivated photographers since the camera was invented, including featured artists Paul Strand, Lisette Model, and Nona Faustine. Faustine’s provocative work From Her Body Came Their Greatest Wealth (2013) shows her standing naked in white high heels with hands shackled atop a wooden crate on Water Street, a site at the heart of New York City’s banking and finance sector that was associated with the slave trade 150 years ago. In one image, Faustine connects the hidden trauma of the past to its impact in the present-day Black American experience.

The second gallery presents contemporary artists such as Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman who question, celebrate, and appropriate visual cultures that preceded them, from Renaissance paintings to canonical photographs. Through geography-based artworks like the 1977 Rephotographic Survey Project, which documents the evolution of southwestern landscapes between the nineteenth century and the 1970s, the final gallery considers how photography is uniquely positioned to reveal the hidden forces behind changing environments and landmark formation.

In addition to Weems, this presentation celebrates contemporary Black artists Faustine, Carla Williams, and Dawoud Bey as respective anchors in each gallery. These artists create works that exceed the bounds of static photographs, offering imaginative images that reveal stories of Black life previously unseen or unconsidered.

(Re)Constructing History is on view October 4, 2025, through May 2026 on Floor 3.

Major support for (Re)Constructing History is provided by the Pritzker Exhibition Fund in Photography.