114. Auckland Art Gallery
Looking at people looking at art
Street photography is about taking candid photos in public places. However, it isn’t limited to what can be seen outside. Public art galleries, for example, offer opportunities to document people, objects, and spaces in cultural settings designed for the act of looking. Individual visitors may follow the prescribed route and lose themselves in the quiet contemplation of one work after another, largely oblivious to the presence of others. For those attending with someone else or as part of a group, the exhibits are likely to spark a discussion about what they’re seeing and how they interpret it. Some will take out their phones and photograph a work of art that resonates with them personally. Others will take a selfie in front of an iconic piece as a souvenir to share on social media. The primary relationship is between the first-person viewer and the art. However, if you have a camera — and the curiosity, attentiveness, and sensibilities of a street photographer — you’ll take a step back and notice other relationships: between people, between individuals and the art, and between the art and the surrounding objects and spaces.
Street photography is always about relationships, especially those that are not easily noticed. We might take a photograph to document a person or object, but we would take a different photograph if we were interested in exploring our relationship to that person or object. Similarly, if we see the world in terms of complex, constantly changing relationships and interactions, we can make that our subject. The dynamic between things is often more exhilarating and arresting than the things themselves. A relationship caught at just the right moment contains traces of what has just happened and hints of what might happen next. It compresses rather than freezes time.
After writing the previous post about visiting the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, I searched my archive for other gallery visits I had documented. I took the photos below while attending the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera – Art and Life in Modern Mexico exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery in Aotearoa New Zealand on Saturday, 29 October 2022. The popularity of the paintings — many of which are well known — guaranteed a large number of visitors, and it was sometimes difficult to get an unobstructed view of the art on display. With everyone’s attention intently focused on the artwork, I was able to stand back and observe how visitors were relating to the work, to one another, and to the exhibition spaces.
What’s next?
We might make a quick trip to Toronto.
What do you think?
I invite you to leave a comment below.
I’ve taken dozens of such photos, perhaps for the same reason as you. I’ll admit, sometimes I take them because the subject annoys me, and I think sometimes I take them just to document the moment. I even staged one for my wife to photograph, and I can not be the only one to have taken this photo. (I’ll try to send you two photos in Substack chat, just for laughs.)