New Photography 2006:
Jonathan Monk, Barbara Probst, Jules Spinatsch

The New York City Museum of Modern Art presents New Photography 2006: Jonathan Monk, Barbara Probst, Jules Spinatsch, the latest installment of its annual fall showcase of significant recent work in contemporary photography. On view until January 8th, 2007, in The Robert and Joyce Menschel Gallery on the third floor; the exhibition features over 30 photographic works and two slide projections. It is organized by Roxana Marcoci, Associate Curator with the department of photography at the New York MOMA.

Twenty-one years after the first New Photography exhibition, the series continues in its sixteenth installment to highlight the Museum’s ongoing commitment to a broad spectrum of current photographic work.

Explains Ms. Marcoci, “Today’s photographic-based work holds a complex genealogy—it is rooted in established photographic traditions, and is also an outgrowth of the broader world of contemporary art. This year’s exhibition features three artists from Europe whose varied approaches tap into film, video, and digital technologies, attesting to the diversity of the medium.”

Each photographer represented in the exhibit has impacted the world of contemporary photography in their own unique style. Jonathan Monk offers a personal, humorous twist on the dry aesthetic of Conceptual and Minimalist strategies of the 1960s and 1970s. His tongue-in-cheek photographs and slide shows include personal histories and family anecdotes, which are of great significance to his work.

Barbara Probst’s photographic work consists of multiple images of a single scene, shot simultaneously with several cameras via a radio-controlled system. Using a mix of color and black-and-white film, she poses her subjects, positioning each lens at a different angle, and then triggers the cameras’ shutters all at once, creating tableaux of two or more individually framed images. Although the pictures are of the same subject and are taken at the same instant, they provide a range of perspectives.

The Swiss artist Jules Spinatsch documents the security preparations surrounding several political events. Instead of presenting a photojournalistic account of the events, such as anti-globalization protests and politicians shaking hands, the panorama shows the meticulously planned and tightly controlled security operations.

For more information about the show and the New York MOMA please visit http://www.moma.org