Taking Pictures

Floors 3, 8, Education Center

This four-session course explores the ways that artists have used photography since the 1960s. Beginning with the work of Zoe Leonard (b. 1961), the course looks at how artists employ strategies of repetition, framing, and de-familiarization to challenge photography’s traditional identity as a straightforward document. We will consider artists who address questions that are central to the history of photography, from the complex role of place and the construction of identity to the medium’s relationship to loss and death.  Finally, following Leonard’s diverse use of materials, we examine the relationships between photography and other media, such as performance and installation.  The course includes extended time in the exhibition Zoe Leonard: Survey, and we discuss work by her peers including Laurie Simmons (b. 1949), Connie Samaras, Sophie Calle (b. 1953), Trevor Paglen (b. 1974), and Lorna Simpson (b. 1960), among others.

Instructor: Paula Burleigh is a Joan Tisch Senior Teaching Fellow at the Whitney and a PhD candidate in Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Paula has taught adult education courses at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as undergraduate courses in Art History and the History of Photography at CUNY Baruch College, Hunter College, and Bard High School Early College.

Option 2: Wednesdays, April 4, 11, 18, 25
6:30–8 pm

Option 3: Thursdays, April 5, 12, 19, 26
2–3:30 pm

Series: $375 adults; $300 members