The first of four thematic sections, Constructing a Pose, considers the interplay between the historical and the contemporary, between self-representation and imposed representation, and the relationship between subject and photographer. The second theme, Body and Image, questions the ways in which our contemporary understanding of beauty has been constructed and framed through the body. The last section, Modeling Beauty and Beauty Contests, invites a deeper reading of beauty, its impact on mass culture and individuals and how the display of beauty affects the ways in which we see and interpret the world and ourselves.

Posing Beauty explores contemporary understandings of beauty by framing the notion of aesthetics, race, class, and gender within art, popular culture, and political contexts. This exhibit features approximately 100 works drawn from public and private collections and will be accompanied by a book published by W.W. Norton. Artists in the exhibit include, among others, James VanDerZee, Carrie Mae Weems, Eve Arnold, F. Holland Day, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, Seydou Keita, Joy Gregory, Sheila Pree, Lorna Simpson, Renee Cox, Weegee, Anthony Barboza, Gordon Parks, Doris Ulmann, Arnold Newman, Bruce Davidson, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, and Walker Evans.

Dr. Deborah Willis is a University Professor and Chair of the Photography and Imaging Department at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. Named among the 100 Most Important People in Photography by American Photography Magazine, she also has an affiliated appointment with New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences, Africana Studies. She was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and Fletcher Fellow, and a 2000 MacArthur Fellow, as well as the 1996 Recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation Award.

Deborah Willis, curator