“GARRY WINOGRAND: WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL.” The Denver Art Museum presents 50 photos from its own collection by the late photographer. No better reality check than Winogrand’s women. Those couture fripperies, tailored perfectly to their mannequins, need a little balance. The exhibit will be up at the same time as the frilly “Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective,” a show expected to draw big crowds from near and far. It’s also a bit of wonderfully timed counterprogramming. The museum has a large Winogrand collection, thanks to a few local donors who liked his work. ![]() His own words, from 1970, stenciled on the gallery walls: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”Īssembled by curator Eric Paddock, with an assist from Micah Messenheimer, the Winogrand show gives DAM’s photo department a chance to show off its stuff. He was more Walker Evans he shot what was in front of him and let it speak for itself. Winogrand may have been stuck on New York’s trendy women, but he was no Herb Ritts - fashion photography wasn’t his thing. You have to shake off the feeling that it is frozen in time to see where it transcends its very cute (in retrospect) era. With such an emphasis on a single year, the show can get trapped in something akin to nostalgia. That time-capsule quality isn’t always a plus. Think Mary and Rhoda, Betty Ford and Katherine Ross think of macrame and store windows in the time before Internet shopping think hats, scarves and shifts, bra optional. Phone booths? Yes, they were part of the landscape when these pictures were taken, and the period is fun to look at. Maybe that’s a lot to see in photographs so effortlessly snapped they carry such simple titles as “Woman with Bandana” or “Bus Stop, Park Avenue.” And it is slightly off-message for a street photographer whose reputation is that of a documentarian who recorded the social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s. ![]() These photographs hold tight to a certain confidence in the moment, every moment, and there is something life-affirming about that. This is the sneaky wonder of Winogrand’s eye and the most interesting thing about the nearly 50 scenes assembled from DAM’s own collection for “Garry Winogrand: Women Are Beautiful.” In this photographer’s lens, even the dullest day can turn interesting as the possibilities for each second rise. A viewer wants the details: Why this picture, why today? These women exist in the moments we don’t deem valuable the time between the time that matters.īut isolated, composed, cropped, framed and, yes, hung on the wall of a gallery or museum, they take on a different meaning. If anything, the scenes are strikingly inconsequential. They go about their ordinary Manhattan lives not even aware that they are being photographed. ![]() Walking, talking, hailing a cab, heading … somewhere. There’s a terrific amount of optimism in the Garry Winogrand photos currently on display at the Denver Art Museum, though you don’t see that right away.Īt first, you just see women, mostly young, generally fashionable, doing nothing much in particular. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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