In its early days, photography was often confined to the studio, where subjects posed stock-still for as long as it took an image to be fixed on a glass plate. When film cameras became portable and, later, handheld, the medium easily moved outdoors, keeping pace with dramatic urban growth. But documenting that change wasn’t always the focus; some shooters used the form for contemplation as they wandered on foot, their work the visible transmission of their musings. The photographer became the flaneur, that traditional walker alert to all the city’s paradoxes.
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“Of Walking,” curated by associate director Karen Irvine, explores the connections between pedestrians and profundity. Several large works by the Japanese artist Sohei Nishino dominate the main-floor gallery. Part of an ongoing project, they’re collages of hundreds of black-and-white 35mm location shots that Nishino took in his rambles through a chosen city. In each, a central artery—the Thames in Diorama Map London (2010), a railway line in Diorama Map Tokyo (2004)—leads the viewer on a circuitous route across urban sprawl, following Nishino’s footsteps and sensory memory.
Selected street photographs from MoCP’s permanent collection, including images by Dorothea Lange, Garry Winogrand, and Dawoud Bey, share space with an interactive installation by two conceptual artists, Liene Bosquê and Nicole Seisler. Using porcelain blocks to make impressions of architectural elements they spot while roaming a city, the duo here riff on a Japanese garden, arranging their molded blocks to leave three-dimensional reliefs in a sandbox. On opening night, the artists will guide neighborhood tours on which visitors can mold their own impressions; some will later be added to the exhibit.
Reception Thu 10/17, 5-7 PM Through 12/20 Museum of Contemporary Photography Columbia College 600 S. Michiganmocp.org free
