Art; Modern
For over a year I dedicated a lot of my time to a photo project I initially called “Pictures of people taking pictures of pictures,”until I realized how sophomores this sounded and changed the name to Art; Modern… which might sound more pretentious than the original title sounded silly.
The project was what could best be described as a survey of visitors to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. taking photos of works on display, generally in a rather lazy and straight forward manner using a smart phone of one brand or another. Over a period of a little over a year I took several of these photos on the average day amassing a large collection of almost every permanent display being photographed by a different person.
The project which obviously required me to spend a LOT of time in the gallery was only possible because I was in fact already working at the gallery as one of the many security guards. it was that job and the massive amounts of I spent walking the hallways that lead to the idea for this project. I distinctly recall one very slow day an elderly man who appeared to have trouble moving about spending almost the entire day shuffling from our picture frame to the next only to quickly snap a photo on hs phone and quickly (as quickly as he could) move on to the next while scarcely laying eyes on the 400 year old works of the dutch masters and the century old works of the French impressionists. The process of this man turning a leisurely stroll through a museum into a tedious chore that burned away an entire day only to fill his phones memory with what were inevitably pale, out of focus, pixilated forgeries of some of the greatest art the Western world has to offer struck me as a very strange and some what worrying sight. I have no idea what the purpose of the old mans actions were, but I noticed he was not alone in his errand.
This strange act made me take notice and stayed in ming my mind. I started to look for more people and spotted many. I started taking photos with no grand intent, and here they are.