An Hour With Sarah Meister

Curator Sarah Meister

Fred M. suggested this, in the comments, and I enjoyed it (I'm not quite all the way through it, but almost). It's on Slate's "Working" podcast, and it's called "How Does a Museum Curator Do Her job? Meet Sarah Meister, a curator in MoMA’s department of photography."

Two bits (I couldn't quote because the format makes it too hard): she notes that the pictures on your phone or your computer are images, but that a photograph is a physical object like a print on paper, that has qualities such as, for instance, a size; and (a separate observation made separately) that after a photograph has been on exhibit for a while it needs to be "rested." The general rule of thumb, she says, is that if it's exhibited for three months it should be rested in a cool, dark place, with no one looking at it, for a year.

You can listen to the "Working" podcast on your browser, or via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Enjoy your Saturday! Back soon.

Mike
(Thanks to Fred)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "Good suggestion. I've not listened to this podcast but Sarah Meister is one of the more outgoing and energetic curators of photography out there in the museum world. Also noteworthy, MoMA has recently been running a YouTube Q&A series with some of their curators, Meister being one. You can see her 45 minute talk from May here. I think some readers may especially enjoy seeing what MoMA's main photo vault looks like."

Rob Campbell: "She's got a most engaging manner to her, has Sarah. The long-term aspects of the projects, the gestation periods—are somehow in huge conflict with the immediacy of photography itself. Seems hard to accept that marriages made in heaven can come from the process. It also feels strange that, essentially, that which is exhibited boils down to art selection by committee. I'd have thought that a curator should be given free reign—within financial realities—to do pretty much what they want to do and succeed or fail by their own intuition. If nobody's actually putting themself out there, taking total responsibility for a show, something seems less valuable about the job.

"Okay, different medium, but I couldn't imagine Fellini having had to consult too many people about the spirit of his concepts, which is probably why they were so groundbreaking. Could be I'm just not a team player, and so this methodology feels kinda strange and counterproductive to me."

Mike replies: Oh, but "auteurs" such as Fellini, Woody Allen, or the Coen Brothers are very much exceptions to the rule. I once had the ambition to while away my life writing screenplays, but then I read Monster: Living Off the Big Screen by the late John Gregory Dunne, husband of Joan Didion, about his and Joan's work life writing screenplays. It paints a dystopian picture. Not only do studios demand countless rewrites (some seemingly just to demonstrate the autocratic power of the producer) with specific changes, but they can also bring in other screenwriters to work on your script—and, since the rules specify that the top three screenwriters are the ones who get all the credit, and the apportionment is made by a fine-grained count of words, they can actually take your creation right out of your hands. If you wrote, "Smith: Why, it's you, Jones! Hello!" and the interloper changes it to "Smith: Jones! Hello there. It's you," then the new guy gets the credit for those six words. If enough of your words are changed, you can sink to fourth or fifth place on the list of writers, and "your" movie will not have your name on it.

Screenwriters are lackeys or worse, considered tradesmen like a focus-puller or a set builder. The story is the skeleton of most movies, as important as the direction or the performance of the lead actors. But they're given no respect or control. How could anyone expect to get good work out of artistic people treating them like that? Hollywood even chewed up Faulkner and spit him out.

And then Hollywood bemoans the lack of original screenplays, and is reduced to making hyped-up retreads of old television shows or children's comic books and so forth. Which is no wonder at all. Imagine if a great actor's body were replaced by an animated cartoon character, say, and only his or her voice was retained! Er...wait....

Back to the subject, I'm not too involved with that world, but I do believe there are museums where the curators do have the kind of artistic freedom you're talking about, or something close to it. But—I'm speaking purely speculatively here—I imagine they, like film auteurs, are exceptions to the rule.

Comments

[Len Metcalf]

That definition of a photograph is beautiful. One we are losing with the proliferation of screens and devices. There is so much magic in a print. For me they are the primary goal. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy your writing so much is your understanding of the physical print. Your promotion of it through print sales. My question is, how can we continue to promote this notion to current and future generations of photographers?

[Speed]

That "general rule of thumb" should be applied also to the art in our homes and offices.

[Rick Hanstock]

Not sure sure if this is appropriate but have just watched a fascinating documentary on Satoshi Kuribayashi, an amazing award winning insect photographer. Insects aren't my thing but his gentle philosophy and approach to photography was fascinating as was the equipment he makes and uses. Broadcaster was NHK (Japan ) the series is called the Professionals and can be watched on the net just search for NHK. They tend to repeat their progs so you should be able to pick it up from their schedule for your part of the world. Might take your mind off the stomach flu.

[almostinfamous]

MOMA has a course conducted by Sarah on Coursera that I started but could not finish due to a family tragedy,I'm waiting to get signed up for the next iteration
https://www.coursera.org/learn/photography

[Michael]

I've used the terms photograph, image, picture, interchangeably in the past but that definition of photograph is really helpful. What about 'picture' though - that seems to be a broader term that includes painting etc.

[Steve Jacob]

OED: "noun. A picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused on to light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment, or stored digitally."

The term "image" applies to any painting, drawing, screen print, etching or illustration, whether photographically generated or not, and whether it is digital or not.

What is wrong with the term 'photographic print'?

[I just think we're missing the obvious, and that after another generation has passed, people will accept the obvious as being...well, obvious, and they'll wonder why we didn't. What we do now is fundamentally different because the means of camera-imagemaking have changed so drastically. We're just slow to accept the implications of the differences because our thinking about the matter is already formed and our old ideas are persistent. And our ideas are confused--the clarity of our thinking is fogged--by status concerns. --Mike]

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Four years ago my wife and I sold our farm, packed everything worth keeping and put it in storage so we could travel the US and Canada. We are both artists and our walls were covered with the art/photographs we had created over the years. All was packed away and we have not seen any of it for the duration. It was a wonderful experience but we have now come off the road, bought a house and next week the movers will bring all our “stuff” and our art to the house. Having only four-year-old memories of these photographs and paintings I wonder what my reaction to them will be.

[Franklin Berryman]

"What we do now is fundamentally different because the means of camera-imagemaking have changed so drastically. We're just slow to accept the implications of the differences because our thinking about the matter is already formed and our old ideas are persistent. And our ideas are confused--the clarity of our thinking is fogged--by status concerns."

What I do with both film or digital is fundamentally the same - make images. I have no idea what you mean by status concerns.

[Paul Richardson]

Here’s my two cents worth regarding digital images vs prints: a digital image isn’t a photograph, it’s a reproduction of a photograph that is subject to way too many variables to have much of any real meaning. Calling it a photograph is like calling an iPhone image of the Mona Lisa a painting.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Having now listened to the full interview with Sarah Meister, and with more than a little (-ahem-) knowledge of that world, I can confirm that Sarah's remarks represent the best overview of a top art museum curator's roles I've encountered. If anything, she downplays the amount of time that her "Miscellaneous" third job task category can really consume. Research, shopping, and exhibitions/publications represent the sweet spots for art museum curators. But the essential tasks of fund-raising, basic organization management, and legal administrivia can easily consume more than half of one's time.

Rob's comment represents a very common misunderstanding of museums' and curators’ operations, particularly at major public institutions. Exhibitions are damn complex to stage, especially when object loans must be identified and arranged and gallery space is at a premium. I know of no museum, public or private, where the curators can just whimsically tack stuff to a wall and call it a show. There are many parties involved (lenders, painters, electricians, carpenters, signage/graphics, publications, marketing and social media relations, lawyers, etc., etc., etc.) in nearly every show. In my experience even a relatively modest exhibition, not traveling to other venues, requires at least 2 years from conception to preview. Double that for more complex shows, especially travelers.

So yes, an art museum curator’s work features some wonderful moments of fulfillment and gratification. But they are balanced by many hours of just plain hard, and often frustrating, work far away from any glamor. The media being exhibited often hardly matters with regard to the challenges.

[John Camp]

"The general rule of thumb, she says, is that if it's exhibited for three months it should be rested in a cool, dark place, with no one looking at it, for a year."

I'm sorry, but this reminds me of the Stratocaster in Nigel Tufnel's guitar vault (in Spinal Tap) that the producer was not allowed to look at (or play, or point at) because it was so precious.

[Steve Jacob]

Hi Mike, I am more irked by the blatant kidnapping of English words, whatever the motivation.

[Steve Rosenblum]

As I know you are a fan of Dorthea Lange's "Migrant Mother" photo, I think you will find this article in the World's Best Photography Journal to be interesting as it describes Sarah's search to solve some of the mysteries surrounding that photo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/lens/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother.html?fbclid=IwAR2F9PjlIQaLBBDo2XXLYXgBgzBmEgN-wp-4mXtzb_S9sXNgT69LtILeAbI&login=email&auth=login-email

[Tim Bradshaw]

I think that no individual gets to decide what the words 'image' or 'photograph' refer to in general usage: instead the language will adjust to how things are, as it has always done, and in a couple of decades the meanings will be clear again.

I'll make a small bet (safely so, because this probably won't settle down in my lifetime) that 'photograph' will refer to what she wants to be called 'images' and we will need some other term for physical artifacts when that distinction needs to be made (which might be 'print' or 'photographic print' or 'print of a photograph' or something).

I completely agree that the way we make images with cameras now is more different than people realise to the way they were made in the photochemical era (well, it is for some of us: I'm just on the way to spend the afternoon in the darkroom...). I think that the two things will be seen as increasingly different and we'll need different terms for them, but I don't think that I, or anyone, gets to say what happens to the language: that's the sin of prescriptive linguistics.

[Sharon]

Mike, your description of John Gregory Dunne’s book brings to mind Ray Bradbury’s book about adapting Moby Dick to the screen and Larry King’s stories of adaptating “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”. Both are very funny reads of hugely frustrating endeavors.

Thanks for posting the video.

Sharon

[Joe Holmes]

Wow, she's incredibly articulate, plain-spoken, open... I could have listened to twice that much.

[Jean]

Thank you, Mike for The link to a very interesting podcast!

Get well soon! Greetings from Norway.
Jean

[Ramon Acosta]

Mike:

Off topic:
You can delete this if you want.(I know you have god like power over your blog, but I woudn't mind if you did). On one of your previous article someone posted a link to your sensor size articles from 10 years ago. I think it would make an interesting article basing it on the comments, what us normal people expected from the future and what actually happened. At that time I never thought I would want an expensive Sony camera. Yet here I am saving up to to get one so I can have both high resolution stills and 4K video.
About sufficiency I have been thinking about getting a new camera mounted microphone, and I have been trying to decide between good and better. I know good will serve my needs perfectly, but on some situations better will be very helpful. The thing is I have managed to work without it, using an external mic. But I really want the better one or even the best one wich of course is twice as expensive as the one I should choose.
If we can afford it we want the best, even if we will not requiere it every single time. If I really needed it, I would bite the bullet.
I hope you are feeling much better.

Ramon