"People Watching," Museum of Art’s Major Summer/Fall Exhibition Now on View

Exploring how humans witness each other, People Watching: Contemporary Photography since 1965, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition featuring an expansive selection of photographs is now open.

The show examines how people look at each other—as a recreational activity, an act of surveillance, a type of harassment, a sign of empathy, and a documentary form of expression.

The idea for the exhibition came together in the wake of the global pandemic of 2020, when social distancing and shelter in place orders transformed the understanding of one’s relationship to others, as well as the recent social and racial justice movements, when people were demanding to be seen, heard, and respected.

The exhibition brings together a group of images from 1965 to the present that investigate the ways in which artists represent individuals on the street, at home and at work, in the studio, and during journalistic assignments.

More than 120 photos are featured by more than sixty photographers from the last sixty years, including Diane Arbus, Alfredo Jaar, Sally Mann, Irving Penn, Accra Shepp, Andy Warhol, and Ai Weiwei, among others. The exhibition runs through November 5, 2023.

“We could not help but be inspired by the sudden changes to how we view each other and ourselves in 2020. With People Watching we have mined the collection for artworks that will give us and our audiences a chance to analyze the ways in which we look at each other and portray each other," said Frank Goodyear, codirector of the Museum.

“In doing so, the exhibition presents important works from the museum’s diverse collection, some of which are going on view for the first time. And while People Watching is about noticing differences, it is also about attempts to find common ground, an idea that is especially poignant at this point in time.”

The exhibition features more than forty works acquired since 2020.

This selection includes works generously donated by collectors Nancy Rutter Clark, Joseph Baio, and Robert Freson, among others.

It also features many photographers, whose work has only recently been added to the collection, including Adou, Jules Allen, Larry Burrows, Chan Chao, Paul D’Amato, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mikki Ferrill, Jona Frank, Katy Grannan, Graciela Iturbide, Rashid Johnson, Meryl McMaster, Daido Moriyama, Laurel Nakadate, and Farah Al Qasimi.

Divided into six sections, the show juxtaposes work from different eras to compare and contrast how photographers have depicted subjects in a variety of public and private settings.

The exhibition begins with “On the Street”, a section that features artworks exploring the public lives of individuals and groups.

It looks at why people are drawn to street photography: is it to document, understand, scorn, or admire their subjects? Beginning with work from the late 1960s by Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, the section also includes artworks by Leonard Freed, Zig Jackson, Elinor Carucci, and others.

The section “On Assignment” features documentary photography and photojournalism from the last nearly 60 years. This section explores the ethical obligations that photographers confront when presenting human subjects in other parts of the world. Images by Larry Burrows, Sebastião Salgado, and Alec Soth are included here.

“At Home” presents artworks with a focus on the family and their private lives at home. Larry Clark, Donna Ferrato, Emmet Gowin, and Laura McPhee are featured here.

“In the Studio” features images of posed subjects, removed from the challenges of working in public. The sitters are all more than they first seem when represented by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Shirin Neshat, and others.

In “Towards the Self,” the camera is turned on the photographers, with the artists exploring the fluidity of self-presentation while trying to be their authentic selves. Photographers like John Coplans, Martine Gutierrez, and Jo Spence grapple with themes such as aging, desire, and mortality.

The final section “Presence/Absence” includes photos where people are present, though often missing in the actual images. Dawoud Bey confronts the ghosts of plantations, Edward Burtynsky shows the impact humans have on the natural landscape, and Adou explores globalization’s impact on China in this section.

Works by Bowdoin College alumni Abelardo Morell ’71, H’97 and Kevin Bubriski ’75 are included, as well as those by by Michael Kolster, professor of art and chair of the visual arts division of the College’s Department of Art, showing the strength of both the College’s art and photography programs, as well as its contemporary photography collection.

The Museum has a long history of engagement with the medium, having started collecting photography in the early 1980s. This collection has proven invaluable to the education of several generations of Bowdoin art and art history students and has been featured regularly in different public exhibitions.