The International Center of Photography, in collaboration with W. M. Hunt / Collection Blind Pirate and the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery, presentsHunt’s Three Ring Circus: American Groups Before 1950. The exhibition features more than 100 photographs and video from a private collection of unusual vintage images of American crowds, rallies, assemblies, teams, organizations, fraternities, unions, clubs, tribes, conventions, and alliances, all made before 1950.
The title “Hunt’s Three Ring Circus” is completely self-serving, but serendipitous because it is the title of one of the E.J. Kelty works in the exhibition. Collecting is many things – a passion, an obsession, a neurosis, a folly, a way of capturing history, and more than anything it is a pleasure. I look upon exhibitions as an opportunity to share that with an audience. I want to amaze and to engage the audience … to delight them.
I have been collecting photography for over 40 years. There is more than one collection. The better known one, “Collection Dancing Bear” was the subject of “The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious”published by Thames & Hudson and Aperture (and as “L’Oeil Invisible”by Actes Sud in France). There were major exhibitions in France, Switzerland, The Netherlands and in the US at the George Eastman House.
But not in New York City.
A second “Collection Blind Pirate” with images of American groups before 1950 has been exhibited in various forms in Houston, Bologna and Arles and beginning Monday, Sept 28th in my hometown at the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Gallery.
Hello New York City.
I had given up on the likelihood of a show here. This opportunity snuck up on me. I ran into Brian Wallis, who was then the Senior Curator at the International Center of Photography, waiting for an elevator and he suddenly said, “oh, I have been thinking you, how would you like to show your groups in New York in collaboration with the ICP”.
”Huh? OK”.
It was that simple.
So much of my early education as a collector came from repeated visits to the grand old ICP on upper Fifth Ave. Looking is the best advice anyone can offer a beginner. Just keep looking. This collaboration is an opportunity for me to say thank you for Cornell Capa’s legacy. I feel very indebted, and I like to give back, to be inviting and encouraging.
The 1285 space is the former the UBS Gallery, It is not terribly well known but centrally located just around the corner from the MoMA.
It has its own photography exhibition history. “Aperture: Photographs”, an exhibition from the Foundation’s print and fundraising programs from over fifty years precedes “Hunt’s Three Ring Circus”. In 2002, collector Ray Merritt installed his enormous survey “”A Thousand Hounds”. In 2006 Canon produced a surprising Walker Evans exhibition with large contemporary digital restrikes of classic images. Drawing from the George Eastman House collection, Alison Nordström organized the “60 From the 60s” exhibition in 2010.
Now make way for posses, clubs, crowds, circles, coteries, camps, crews, tribes, teams, klans, unions, fraternities, lodges, organizations, gangs, … “Hunt’s Three Ring Circus: American Groups Before 1950.”
– W.M. Hunt, 2015
EXHIBITION
Hunt’s Three Ring Circus: American Groups Before 1950
Sept 28, 2015 – January 8, 2016
International Center of Photography
1285 Avenue of the Americas at 51st St.
New York
