Perich is an associate curator of the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History. She is the curator on staff for the new exhibit showing at the Ripley Center, titled Pushing Boundaries: Portraits by Robert Weingarten. The exhibit runs through Oct. 14.
What do you enjoy about Weingarten’s work?
Weingarten’s photographs are visually and intellectually stimulating. The experience of looking at them, in all of their 60-by-90-inch glory, is kind of like looking at a storefront window in which multiple images exist on multiple planes on multiple scales. The complexity of Weingarten’s work is not just across two planes, but because of the use of digital technology to control density, opacity and color, components of the image seem to be in a third dimension. This kind of image was not possible with conventional color photography.
From the portraiture side, Weingarten’s photographs seek to express a lifetime. So many explorations emerge!
Is there a common theme to the pieces being shown?
Portraiture is a large genre! Entire museums are dedicated to it. This exhibition teases out several ways in which portraiture might be categorized as they relate to Weingarten’s portraits. Also, in the nontechnical sections, the portraits contain only one subject to heighten the study of portraits that represent individuals.
How did the museum decide to show this particular artist?
Last October, my book “The Changing Face of Portrait Photograph: From Daguerreotype to Digital” was released by the Smithsonian, exploring portraits by nine photographers and one portrait studio from across the history of photography. Weingarten is chapter 10. … Weingarten’s work is today’s state of the art, so I wanted to present it to the public.
What is your favorite part of being a curator?
Photography is a multifunctional medium, and I love working to tease out all the various histories and influences that can be wrapped up in a single object.
– Roxanne Turnbull
