Exhibition

Title: Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos Into the Digital Age

Date: September 10, 2013 - January 5, 2014

Place: Harry Ransom Center (HRC), University of Texas, Austin

Curator: Dr. Jessica S. McDonald

Role: Graduate Curatorial Intern

Over 400 objects

In the main gallery

Including photographs, contact sheets, photo books, video, correspondence, ephemera, and magazines

Representing 65 years

Featuring the work of nearly 90 photographers

With the majority of prints selected from the HRC’s Magnum Photos collection

And also loans from the Magnum Paris office and public and private collections

 
 

A large-scale survey exhibition of the Magnum Photos agency, culled from a collection of approx. 200,000 photographic prints placed on deposit at the HRC in 2009 from the Magnum office in New York.

Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos Into the Digital Age explores the beginnings of an independently-run, photographers’ cooperative at the end of WWII and the inner workings of a photo agency from front line to front page. The exhibition highlights the many ways Magnum photographers developed their social documentary projects, using reportage as a base for a wider range of independent ventures published both in-print and online. On display, were some of the most iconic images and photo essays documenting global events of the 20th and 21st centuries.

For the exhibition, I worked in the Department of Photography to source exhibition material, manage object lists, and document exhibition layout, in addition to selecting and retrieving prints from the Magnum Photos collection.