Release Date: November 16, 2006
Contact: Alexia Davis
561.832.5196 ext. 1183
davisa@norton.org

Norton Museum of Art Presents the Art of Photography from a Different Perspective
Before the Camera: Remaking Reality and the Make-believe
October 14, 2006 - January 7, 2007

West Palm Beach, FL – The Norton Museum of Art is pleased to announce the upcoming photography exhibition Before the Camera: Remaking Reality and the Make-believe. This edgy exhibition examines the distinction between "taking" and "making", "reality" and "fiction” as it brings together the photo-based artworks of many of the most important and influential international artists and photographers of the past 30 years; James Casebere, Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Demand, David Levinthal, Vik Muniz, Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing.

Before the Camera will present an important and timely re-thinking of how photographs can be seen and understood as something much more than a casual document, from David Levinthal’s seminal work "Hitler Moves East" (1975-76) in which he used plastic toy soldiers to recreate the German army’s invasion of the Eastern Front of Russia, to Gillian Wearing’s recent self-portraits where she takes on the personas of various relatives.

For most of its history, photography has been relegated to the margins of artistic acceptability by the assumption that a captivating photograph was solely about the photographer’s ability to locate an interesting scene or situation, stand behind the camera, look through the viewfinder, and press a button. The act was a simple mechanical documentation of people, places or things "out there" in the world; a surrogate, some might say, for the real thing. George Eastman marketed this ease of taking pictures in the late 19th-century when he began the Eastman Kodak Company by saying: "You press the button, we do the rest."

The photographic medium’s association with a mere utilitarian act was seen in stark contrast to the idea of the exceedingly creative and highly accomplished artist transforming and interpreting the world into an artwork. The labor differential between the "taking" of a photograph—most likely a fraction of a second—and the countless hours, days and even months of “making” a painting or sculpture only highlighted this hierarchical misunderstanding. Over the past few decades, however, these disparate notions of production have merged with countless artists/photographers (whose titles are now interchangeable) moving from behind the camera and fabricating, in essence, the scene, subject or tableaux to be photographed before the camera.

The desire to seek out and document interesting subjects or locales with the camera, as was historically common for "photographers", was essentially rejected by a new generation of artists eager to investigate a new means of artistic production. By simultaneously embracing photography’s most salient property, exacting documentation, while reworking the vocabulary of the photographic image, these artists (and many others) have moved the actual act of producing a photograph from behind the viewfinder to directly in front of the camera.

This realization that one could construct the scene to be photographed, while not new, has become an essential aspect of contemporary art practice. By tweaking the very thing that has been photography’s most essential asset since its invention —photographic veracity—the highly orchestrated photographic artworks in Before the Camera essentially straddle the line between photography’s rich history and the contemporary art world’s ever-increasing acceptance of the photographic image, and more importantly, between what we know as reality and the make-believe.

The Norton Museum of Art’s commitment to photography is evident with a collection that increasingly attracts international attention. In the late Nineties, the Baroness Jeane von Oppenheim donated over 600 photographs to the Museum, making the Norton Museum’s photography collection one of the preeminent collections in the South. More recently, Ray and Carol Merritt contributed a large portion of their extensive and diverse photography collection to the Museum, a generous gift comprised of hundreds of photographs by some of the most important image makers of the last century. The Norton Museum’s photographic acquisitions represent nearly all of the medium's major developments, innovations and practitioners, including works by Clarence H. White, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Man Ray, William Eggleston, Candida Höfer, David Levinthal, Vik Muniz, Cindy Sherman and Zhang Huan.

Organized by the Norton Museum of Art. This exhibition is made possible in part through the generosity of the Michael M. Rea Endowment and the Photography Committee of the Norton Museum of Art. Media support provided by The Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald.

The Norton Museum of Art is open Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. (Closed Mondays from May through October and on major holidays.) General admission is $8 for adults, $3 for visitors ages 13-21, and free for Members and children under 13. West Palm Beach residents receive free admission to the permanent collection every Saturday, with proof of residency. Palm Beach County residents receive free admission to the permanent collection the first Saturday of each month, with proof of residency. An additional charge may apply for special exhibitions. For general information, please call (561) 832-5196