“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all,” wrote Oscar Wilde. We inhabit a time when human atrocity finds us before we’re ready to be found, a time when all the sex in the world is available and all the oppression in the world skulks in behind it. To photograph today is to inevitably capture polarity, and at “Being: New Photography 2018,” the latest presentation in the MoMA’s New Photography series, the whole point is to acknowledge and accept the infinite duality of what it means to be human.
“Being: New Photography” opens on March 18 and remains on view through August 19, 2018. It includes more than 80 new and recent works by 17 artists from eight countries. The images collectively feel like a still version of Netflix’s “Sense8” series, with layers of views existing vertically in the same moment.
While the photographers are at various stages in their careers, all are presenting their work at the MoMA for the first time. The diversity of style, content and context among the included works is a sound snapshot of our time. Some pieces are masked, others fragmented. Some are straightforward examinations of the human form, while others are abstract moments seemingly void of touch.
“Together, they explore how personhood is expressed today, and offer timely perspectives on issues of privacy and exposure; the formation of communities; and gender, heritage, and psychology,” says the MoMA. As you take in this sample of work, ask yourself what it is to be human, and what it means to be thoroughly alive.
