Tate Modern

Street and Studio

An Urban History of Photography

23 May - 31 Aug 2008

Norman Parkinson
Wenda, Times Square, NYC, September 1949
© courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive, London
Street & Studio is a magnificent exhibition of international photography. It presents a fascinating history of photographic portraiture taken on the street or in the photographer’s studio, looking at the differences between these two key locations in which photographers work. Street & Studio brings out the contrast between the photos taken in the carefully orchestrated studio, and images captured in the changing and uncontrollable street, whilst highlighting the crossovers between the genres and their influence on each other.

Over 350 striking works are gathered in this stylish exhibition, by some of the world’s most famous and important photographers including Francis Alÿs, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Paul Strand, James Van der Zee, Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans. Focusing on photos taken in buzzing cities, with their cosmopolitan cast of hipsters, businessmen, beauties and criminals, Street & Studio builds an engrossing urban history of photography, ranging from early black-and-white pictures from the late 1800s, to elegant fashion photography from the mid twentieth century, to cutting-edge portraiture by contemporary artists.
 

Tags: Francis Alÿs, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Juergen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans