A llama in Times Square…fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge…polar bears playing in a pool at the zoo… subways, skylines, shadows, and stolen moments… all these things and more tell the varied story of New York City, captured by the lenses of many of the medium’s greatest photographers. Now, these images will be on view as part of “Celebrating the City: Recent Acquisitions from the Joy of Giving Something,” opening February 18th at Museum of the City of New York. The exhibition will feature approximately 100 photographs selected from the more than 1,000 images recently gifted to the Museum by the Joy of Giving Something (JGS), a non-profit organization dedicated to the photographic arts.
Museum of the City of New York Shares Love Letter To Nyc With “Celebrating the City: Recent Acquisitions from the Joy of Giving Something”
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With images ranging from documentary to quirky, architectural to atmospheric, “Celebrating the City” features selections from this transformative donation, which notably includes works by 30+ creators new to the MCNY collection. The exhibition presents multiple images from Helen Levitt’s dynamic and celebrated street photography; Sylvia Plachy’s playful and eccentric examination of the people, animals, and moments of NYC; and Michael Spano’s slice-of-life city shots spanning the 1990s and 2000s. Other key figures in 20th century photography are incorporated into the show, including Ilse Bing, Bruce Davidson, Mitch Epstein, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, William Kline, Saul Leiter, Alfred Stieglitz, Rosalind Solomon, and Paul Strand, to name a few — all capturing indelible, sometimes implausible, intimate, and often incredible moments of the city.
MCNY’s “Celebrating the City” is organized into 10 categories, from working, going shopping, playing, and gathering to loving, gazing, being, reflecting and building, all illustrating the universality of the city and offering the opportunity to compare how some of the best-known photographers have returned to the same subjects again and again.
Some exhibition highlights include:
- Bruce Cratsley’s “Brooklyn Bridge Centennial” (1983)
- Bruce Davidson’s “Square Riggers, South Street Seaport” (1996)
- Elliott Erwitt’s “New York City” (1955)
- Larry Fink’s “Studio 54” (1977)
- Ken Heyman’s “Dogs’ Last Swim in Central Park Lake, New York” (1985)
- Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s “Alice (Alice Rose George)” (1987)
- Inge Morath’s “A Llama in Times Square” (1957)
- Sylvia Plachy’s “Baseball Plié” (1982)
“In addition to offering glimpses of life in the city, ‘Celebrating the City’ juxtaposes various picture-making approaches, showing the different ways in which photographs are created as well as illuminating the decision-making process behind photography, collecting, and curation,” says Sean Corcoran, senior curator of prints and photographs, Museum of the City of New York. “We’ve paired the JGS photographs with a handful of recently acquired works –presented in the anteroom — in an effort to tell the story of a diverse and contemporary city from a range of perspectives.”
Highlights from the exhibition’s anteroom draw from other recent acquisitions in the MCNY’s collection that demonstrate the Museum’s ongoing commitment to reflecting the diverse range of people and perspectives that make up NYC. On view: Works by Jamel Shabazz and Mahtab Hussain; An Rong Xu and Annie Ling’s photographs of contemporary life in Chinatown; a Máximo Colón photo taken on the Lower East Side; images from Jamie Permuth’s YONKEROS series; and Pablo Delano’s photographs from Washington Heights.
ABOUT THE JGS FOUNDATION
Joy of Giving Something, Inc. (JGS) is a New York based nonprofit organization dedicated to the photographic arts. Since its inception, works from the JGS collection have been made available as loans to major museums around the world. JGS has supported numerous emerging artists through awards, acquisitions, and book projects. JGS is now focused on expanding access to visual arts education and supporting artists in photography and related media by providing scholarships and grants to museums, schools, and community-based organizations across the country.
About the Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world’s most influential metropolis. Winner of “Best Museum” in Time Out New York‘s “Best of the City 2021” and multiple American Alliance of Museums (AAM) awards, MCNY engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city’s past, present, and future. To connect with the Museum’s award-winning digital content, visit www.mcny.org; or follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @MuseumofCityNY and on Facebook at Facebook.com/MuseumofCityNY.
