LIVE! Public Symposium: Minor White’s Beginnings - PART 2
1,200 views · Published 21 April 2018 · 3:11:29 · Indexed 25 October 2026
Channel: Portland Art Museum · 2018 · Education
Join curators, art historians, artists, and archivists from around the country for a day-long discussion about Minor White’s early photographic work in Oregon, his influences, and his legacy. In this daylong symposium co-organized by the Portland Art Museum and the Princeton University Art Museum, scholars of art and art history, archivists, and artists will explore Minor White’s early career and works, and discuss the ways that White’s art and archives are being cared for and accessed by the public. Watch LIVE on April 20 for part or all of this free event, which celebrates the museum’s current exhibition In the Beginning: Minor White’s Oregon Photographs. We encourage you, our online audience, to ask questions in the Live Chat and, if time permits, we will relay them to the presenters. SCHEDULE 1:30 p.m. From Expression to Creation: Minor White’s Theater Todd Cronan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Modern Art, Department of Art History, Emory University White provocatively declared “candid” photography a “dead end.” White’s alternative to the subject “caught unawares” was what he called the “camera-conscious” approach. Professor Cronan contends that White’s engagement with theater that began at the Portland Civic Theatre changed the course of his photography. Moving from caught to conscious photography, his staged scenes opened up an influential course for the future of photographic practice. 2:15 p.m. Characteristic Photography for Students of the Art Brendan Fay, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Art and Design, Eastern Michigan University Professor Fay will discuss White’s growing need to provide students a systematic introduction to photography and its possibilities, and his resulting reuse and repackaging of his Oregon pictures at the California School of Fine Arts in the 1940s and 1950s. 3 p.m. Legacy: Minor White’s Relevance to Contemporary Practice Aspen Mays, Artist and Assistant Professor in Graduate Fine Arts and Undergraduate Photography, California College of the Arts Katherine Bussard, Ph.D., Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum This conversation will consider the impact of White’s photographs and teachings on a contemporary artist and photography professor. 4 p.m. Concluding discussion This symposium is supported by the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum.
