Output details

Curated Exhibition: Whatever Was Splendid - New American Photographs, held March 12 - April 25, 2010 . This was one of the four 2010 FotoFest Biennial Principal Exhibitions.

In 2010 Schuman was invited to curate one of four principal exhibitions for the 2010 FotoFest Biennial, the USAs’ largest and most established international photography festivals, held in Houston Texas.

Research Imperatives

Given the economic, social and political climate in the United States at the time, Schuman began by researching certain historical precedents within both photography and America, specifically focusing upon the Great Depression, to which the contemporary circumstances were often being likened by the media, the government, and the culture at large. One of the most important bodies of photographic work to be produced and exhibited at that time was Walker Evans’ American Photographs (1938), as described by Lincoln Kirstein, curator at The Museum of Modern Art, when it was first published: ‘Here are the records of the age before imminent collapse… [Evans’] pictures exist to testify to the symptoms of waste and selfishness that caused the ruin and to salvage whatever was splendid for the future reference of the survivors.” Inspired by this quote, the large-scale exhibition that Schuman conceived of and curated (within a converted, two-storey warehouse gallery in the heart of the city) – entitled ‘Whatever Was Splendid: New American Photographs” – explored the parallels that exist, both in culture and in photography, between our own time and that of Evans, and the enduring power of American Photographs as discerned through original contemporary American photography. At its heart, ‘Whatever Was Splendid’ – which featured eleven of today’s most important and influential photographic practitioners – highlighted the intelligence, ingenuity, and multiplicity of voices and visions that can be found within current U.S. photographic practice, whilst also considering the legacy of American Photographs and the relationship between America’s past and its present.

Paper Portfolio:

(i) Exhibition Catalogues which contains an accompanying 4000 word essay by Schuman

(ii) Evidence of date of dissemination: print out from PhotoFest website