Exhibitions of photography feed the industry of celebrities by highlighting the image of photographers as well as the way they present their subjects. In this way, they’ve been looked down upon by the upper levels of the world of high culture.
In light of this, the upcoming launch of the Dennis Hopper exhibition at the Royal Academy inevitably causes me to think about my experiences of major photographic exhibitions held that were held at the National Portrait Gallery during the 1990s. The gallery was one of the pioneers of looking at photography as art and, consequently, has been a target of this suspicion. However, it was the 2002 Mario Testino exhibition that caused an outrage.
Let’s set this in context. In the late 1960s, the National Portrait Gallery reinvented itself as a public organization by expanding into taking photographs in the latter half of the 1960s in the late 1960s, when Roy Strong was a young and charismatic director (he was appointed at the age of was just 31 and already had developed dapper tendencies).
Irving Blum and Peggy Moffitt, 1964. Photo, 16.69 in x 24.92 cm. (c) Dennis Hopper, through Hopper Art Trust. Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com
Since 1917, the museum operated a collection of photographs. It was referred to as”the National Photographic Record and was a type of documentary recording of those who were of significance to the public. It was, however, viewed by Strong as dull, filled with pictures of generals and Lord Mayors as a sign of the old system that he and his associates wanted to slash away and replace with a more meritocratic system. They were motivated by the belief that creativity is a talent.
Strong left his National Photographic Record in 1970 and was able to hire Colin Ford as the curator for film, photography, and television. This led to the National Portrait Gallery, one of the first museums to embrace photography seriously as an art medium.
The year 1968 was also the year that Strong was able to put on a stunningly successful exhibit featuring the art that was created by Cecil Beaton, which attracted huge crowds of people and long lines around the block. The museum was inseparably allied with the passion for all things British in the era of. Photography was and remains a popular medium that enjoys distinct levels of public attention and audience than the traditional art form.
When I first began my journey in the National Portrait Gallery in 1994, there was a long-established tradition of holding large-scale monographic exhibitions of the top photographers. The first show I saw during my time at the gallery included the work of Annie Leibovitz exhibition which was carefully staged celebrity photos inspired by her work for American magazines like Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. The photographer presented some of her work in the collection.
The next year, we held an extensive exhibition of work by Richard Avedon, one of the greatest post-war American photographers of the postwar period. The show had been previously displayed at Cologne in the city of Cologne and Milan. I can remember the euphoric feeling of being a part of the mass media, assisted in part by the fact Diana, Princess of Wales Diana, was able to come out of her era of avoiding public appearances to inaugurate it (since it was to be an intimate affair I asked her if she’d prefer to go through the back entrance and she stated she’d rather be in front of the paparazzi).
However, neither of these shows generated any public debate. In fact, they were the opposite. It was a method to reconnect the National Portrait Gallery to a vast audience, and it was extremely successful.
