Nickell’s Bag

I received an intriguing reader-submitted review from local artist Toni Matlock, of “Capture the Moment,” an exhibit of Pulitzer Prize-winning photography currently on view at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture. While the exhibit has reportedly been the most popular ever put up by the University — with crowds often standing shoulder-to-shoulder even on weekdays — Matlock points out what she feels are significant shortcomings of the presentation. I present her review here in full, unedited (those who saw this post prior to 10/19 may note, however, that Toni submitted a revised version, which has replaced the prior version).

“The Pulitzer Poster Show; a plea for originals”
By Toni Matlock, 10/14/09

What a disappointment to find that none of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs are on view in the “Capture the Moment” exhibit brought to Missoula by the Montana Museum of Art & Culture. The exhibit, spread between three art galleries on campus, is made up entirely of posters. Whatever grace or elegance found in the nuance of the original award-winning photos is cheapened by a billboard presentation.

Without the original object and narrative context of the accompanying story in “Capture the Moment”, the Pulitzer images become something else entirely from how they were made, judged or originally intended. The entries are submitted to Pulitzer – and judged – as 11 x 14 inch glossy prints and “must be accompanied by a clipping or photocopy of the newspaper page on which it originally appeared with date and caption.”  The content of the images may not be manipulated or altered.

In “Capture the Moment,” the scale of each image is at best five times larger than its original and at worst fifty times larger, creating two and three foot bastardizations of the award-winning images. The significance of the shift in scale is potent.  The magnitude swallows viewers, ramming the heavily loaded content down their throats. What was once an intimate experience viewing them on newsprint held in your lap and between your hands is thrust nakedly into the public like banners peddling sodas at Walmart. Quality is seriously compromised through the manipulation and absence of the originals.  Additionally, the presentation baldly ignores the original context of the image in a newspaper layout, near its related article or with its caption. The exhibit ostensibly pins itself to the Pulitzer award as its foundation, yet the display does not present the images in the way that they were intended, viewed or judged.  Here, they hang swollen and divorced from their original articles with newly written ‘educational’ wall text.

The Pulitzer collection tours American history at its most emotionally charged moments and offers adequate cogent material to consider. Just as they are, the pictures are compelling, not easily passed or readily overlooked.  Even as an 11 x 17 inch glossy print, who would not pause to examine the expression of a man stabbing another with an American flag? Or peer through one’s own tears, speechless, into a starving child’s eyes? A show of the original images, had they been presented, would bear plenty of sensation and humanitarian salute. Instead, swallowed by billboards, not an ounce of intimacy is left. The arrangement, at its worst in the Meloy gallery, is a wall-to-wall visual bombardment. As if in the midst of a shooting gallery, the viewer ricochets between gross images of grief and destruction. The manipulative presentation combines with dramatic material until you can barely breathe.

Let it be clear that the Pulitzer images are definitely worth seeing. The exhibit was developed by the Newseum, an interactive museum of news located in D.C., in association with Business of Entertainment, Inc., NYC, and the curator Cyma Rubin, the President of Business of Entertainment, Inc.  Rubins has a solid record as a theatrical and motion picture producer. The Newseum bills itself as a “dazzling, high-tech, emotional roller-coaster ride through 500 years of headline history.”   The show travels to a handful of libraries and historical museums this year and next, plus one art museum: the Montana Museum of Art and Culture. An entertaining spectacle bundled for education merits space and an audience, however without the original works there is no need for an art gallery. So, march the posters down Higgins Avenue. Plaster Southgate Mall with them.  As it hangs now, the lesson is to strip original work from its context, blow it up really big, slap it on poster board and hammer a person over the head. You don’t even need a bona fide hammer; apparently any rock will do.

Capture the Moment is on view through Oct. 23 at three locations on the UM Campus: the Meloy Gallery (PARTV Center), the Paxson Gallery (PARTV Center), and the Gallery of Visual Arts ( Social Sciences Building). For hours and other information, visit the exhibit Web site.

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Toni Matlock makes movies and sculptural video installations in Missoula. She holds degrees from The Art Institute of Chicago (BFA), the University of Washington (MFA) and The University of Montana (MFA). She has taught courses in Contemporary Art & Art Criticism at the University of Montana.

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