As a new intern at the Nelson-Atkins, I was excited today to get a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming exhibition The Photographs of Homer Page: The Guggenheim Year, New York, 1949-1950. The show will be open to the public this Saturday, February 14, but today our exhibition staff arrived on the scene to install the photographs and labels. They didn’t waste any time, either—by the time I got there at 10 a.m. they were almost done hanging the photographs!
Watching the installation, it struck me how much effort goes into deciding the precise order and placement of the works of art in an exhibition. Photographs waiting to be hung sat on foam cushions on the gallery floor, with blue tape to mark the space between them. Some of the photographs are grouped together in pairs or trios, showing different aspects of city life. Since the labels weren’t up yet to give me any clues, I had to look carefully at each group to decide what the photographs might have in common or what stories they might tell.
One of the reasons I love the Bloch Building galleries so much is that the windows and skylights let in natural light. Page took almost all of these photographs outdoors, and it was nice to be reminded of that environment as I looked at his work. Making my way around carts of installation materials, stepladders, and the photographs themselves, for a moment I even felt like I was one of Page’s subjects walking along a busy city street.
I’m looking forward to another visit to the finished exhibition and to attending Curator Keith Davis’s opening lecture on Sunday, February 22, for an expert’s perspective on this great photographer.