Blog Posts by Subject: Photography

One hundred years ago this month people lined up at the Louvre to see an empty space on a wall.

On August 21, 1911 a guard at the Louvre noticed a painting was missing. He initially thought nothing of it, assuming it was behind the scenes being photographed. It soon though became apparent what had really happened.

Someone had stolen the Mona Lisa.

There is something about a photograph that speaks of permanence, but what it captures is the quintessence of the ephemeral — a moment in time.

Recent Acquisitions: Prints and Photographs is on view in the Print and Stokes Galleries at The New York Public Library's Stephen A Schwarzman Building through June 30, 2011.

Presented in honor of the 100th birthday of NYPL's landmark building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, Recent Acquisitions: Prints and Photographs features an exceptional collection of print and photographic works by contemporary artists acquired by the Library within the last decade.

About a week after my most recent post, something extraordinary happened. Regina Fiorito, a representative of the Estate of Martin Kippenberger (represented by the Galerie Gisela Capitain in Cologne) contacted the Library about it. "We would like to be in touch with Kathie Coblentz from the Spencer Collection, we read her blog today about a Kippenberger book. We (The Estate of Martin Kippenberger) were thrilled and have a missing piece of information for her." 

When is a book not a book? For this month's Spencer Collection Book of the Month, I have a couple of answers in mind.

From the point of view of contemporary art, the answer might be, "When it's a book object."—"Art which makes use of the book format or the structure of the book; typically ... unique sculptural works that take the form of, or incorporate, books but that do not communicate in the ways characteristic of a conventional book." The Spencer Collection and the Library's other special collections possess a number of such works, and like snowflakes or unhappy families, no two are alike.

Today we most often encounter a photograph as a digital image — its only physical presence is the screen from which it shines: a television, computer, or mobile device. Disembodied, the digital image can exist in infinite places at once, with no physical characteristics of its own.

Currently on display at the St. George Library Center is a photo exhibit by photojournalist Sri Walpola, "A Taste of Home: Cooking Sri Lankan in New York." We sat down with him for a brief interview.

What inspired "A Taste of Home: Cooking Sri Lankan in New York"?

Since my arrival in New York, I started cooking. I started looking for Sri Lankan ingredients first, and then I started cooking with the help of my mother and both my sisters via the telephone because all of them are in Sri Lanka.

As I listen to Block Ice & Propane, I recall the other possible uniform title I considered for this blog thread: “Prone to Hyperbole”; because this collection of songs may be the most evocative set of music the universe has ever heard!

Who hasn't had a fascination with a camera?  Mine was long ago with an Olympus when I was young and snobbish and only snapped black and white.  Perhaps the most successful series was Medicine Cabinets, sometimes taken surreptiously.  My two favorites were those of my friend F___ , whose didn't change, at all, from year to year, and that of a cataloger.  I don't even remember her name, but aspirin was in the upper left and Zantac in the lower right.  



In our work at the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, we regularly come across public school educators who believe that they are not supposed to talk about religion in the classroom. On the contrary, we feel that teachers can and should teach about religion.

Would you like to learn how to knit or improve your bird watching skills? The DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Division currently holds over 100 hobbies and leisure activities magazines for hobbyists, amateurs and enthusiasts alike.  

New York in the 1970s, without cellphones, the internet, globalization, etc., was a very different place and arguably more vibrant (though I'm glad Central Park isn't like it used to be.)  Photographer extraordinaire Peter Moore tirelessly went about the City capturing just about everyone and everything, and became particularly known for his thorough photojournalism of the avant-garde scene, which included such influential groups as Fluxus and the Judson Dance Theater.  Tuesday will feature one facet of this multi-talented man's enormous body of work—The Avant Garde Festivals of Charlotte Moorman.

Katarina Bishop grew up all over Europe, but she isn’t an heiress. She has a Faberge egg, but she isn’t a Romanov. Kat is used to looking at a room and seeing all the angles, but that was before she stole a whole other life at the Colgan School only to walk away from it months later without a trace.

That was before everything went sideways.

Harlem is an iconic place, a fabled community, a vibrant hub of African-American culture and pride known the world over. Its essence has been captured in music—"Take the A Train" by Duke Ellington, in literature—The Street by Ann Petry and photography—Art Kane's 1958—"Great Day in Harlem" and in many photos by famed photographer James Van Der Zee.

Harlem and Aguilar CRW students gathered at the Zora Neale Hurston Room of the Harlem Library on Friday May 28 for their debut as budding photographers of the CRWs of the NYPL. Students browsed the exhibit before guests arrived and were thrilled to see their photos mounted on the exhibit wall of the immense community room.

Students in the CRW Photography Workshop brought in objects which held personal significance for them. We spent some time writing about these objects and then went into the garden to take some portraits of each other posed with our special objects.

Have you got a few minutes? Good, because once you open these books, you’re going to want to keep flipping through.

A class field trip to El Museo del Barrio inspires the students' creativity.

This past Friday, the group shared their dreams in front of the class. They shared dreams that they had during sleep, as well as those that they hope to achieve.