This month SFMOMA hosts a major symposium on the current state of the field of photography. Thirteen thinkers and practitioners will convene for a two-day state-of-the-medium summit, in advance of which they’ve each been asked to respond to the symposium’s central question: Is photography over? These texts will be used to kick off the opening panel discussion this Thursday, April 22. Throughout the month, we’ve been featuring three additional responses here at Open Space. Very pleased to have a post today from Sandra Phillips, the senior curator of photography here at SFMOMA. Look for day after event reports this Friday and Saturday mornings.

If photography is over, it might be useful to remember when it seemed as though photography had just begun. In 1964 I was a very serious young painting student who had grown up in New York and visiting museums was a part of my life as well as my study. One day I discovered the Steichen Center for Photography at the Museum of Mode... More

One of our current collection exhibitions, The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography presents a number of pictures from that turbulent moment in Japanese history. After the devastation of World War II, Japan entered a period of American military occupation and modernization. Photographers reacted to the drastic sociocultural changes taking plac... More