A Different Kind of Picture: Pinhole Photography by Adam Fuss

A Different Kind of Picture: Pinhole Photography by Adam Fuss brings together Fuss’s pinhole photographs taken at the Met and elsewhere. Representing classical sculpture from three different museums, this selection, like Fuss’s artistic practice, overrides the curatorial authority of these institutions and presents familiar iconographies in an unexpected, intimate way. The exhibition places Fuss in dialogue with the recent widespread acceptance that ancient sculptures would have been polychromed, or covered in pigment and gilding. Contemporary attention to this practice compels modern viewers to recognize that the white marble forms we see today would have represented a variety of skin tones in their original context. The imperative to see these sculptures in color dovetails with Fuss’s desire to give new life and immediacy to his ancient subjects, thus creating “a different kind of picture.” 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.