Weegee would have loved it. As proud as he was of his photos he was just as proud of the creation of “Weegee the Famous”, and the show at the International Center of Photography that opened on Thursday evening, celebrates both the persona and the work. Also opening are three other exhibits that fill ICP with photographs that fulfil the description “International”.
There is a very engaging show of contact sheets and photos from Magnum that coincides with the book “Magnum Contact Sheets” from Thames and Hudson. As Kristen Lubben, the curator of this exhibit noted in her wall text, Henri Cartier-Bresson had this to say about contact sheets, “A photo exhibition or a book is an invitation to a meal, and it is not customary to make guests poke their noses into the pots and pans, and even less into the buckets of peelings.” From what I saw Thursday evening the guests enjoyed very much poking into the “peelings.”
Another exhibit is a body of work by Grey Villet from a story he did for Life Magazine in 1965. The story was on racially mixed couple who by marrying in DC and then moving back to Virginia in 1958 violated the Virginia Racial Integrity Act. The couple, Richard Loving and his wife Mildred Loving were arrested and convicted of a felony. The case would eventually go to the Supreme Court in 1967 and their conviction would be over-turned. Although Villet shot 73 rolls of film, the magazine only used 9 images, but luckily Villet sent a set of 70 prints to the Lovings and these prints make up the bulk of the exhibition. It is a wonderful body of work.
The fourth exhibit that opened is photographs from 3 photographers in the annual series called “Perspectives.” Curator Christopher Phillips shows a selection from larger bodies of work by, Chien-Chi Chang, Anna Shteynshieyger and Greg Girard.
Bob McNeely
