Exhibits
Posteriors:
Sitters’ Backs in 19th-Century Photographs
(case outside library entrance)
Part of the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial: Backstories, an ambitious collaboration between FotoFocus and the region’s museums, galleries, universities, and
non-traditional spaces, the FotoFocus Biennial is a month-long celebration of photography and
lens-based art.
The variety of posterior imagery in the late Victorian era is astonishing. Women showcase luxurious long locks and fashionable dresses, while men in briefs flaunt extensive tattoos and muscles. Pairs and trios of homosocial friends, as well as heterosexual couples, link elbows or wrap arms around each other’s waists. Toddlers hug draped studio chairs, get weighed, and wear matching gingham clothing. Double exposures reveal babies’ faces and backs of heads in the same image. Paired prints and double-sided cabinet cards present frontal portraits with matching back portraits. Pictures within pictures depict sitters gazing at photos or in mirrors. A woman bent over on a bicycle offers a racy view of her derrière for cigarette customers.
While some of these photographs are visual jokes, others are sentimental, documenting fleeting youth, beauty, and intimate relationships. Some are nostalgic, as when sitters pose with photos of loved ones, while others, like that of actor Sarah Bernhardt, are promotional and reminiscent of today’s celebrity selfies. The exhibition includes cabinet cards, stereographs, ambrotypes, and tintypes from private collections. Included are works by famous photographers Eadweard Muybridge and Napoleon Sarony, as well as notable female image-makers, such as Mrs. Laura Gaites (Macomb, IL), Mrs. W. Streetman (Abilene, TX), and Susan Spence (Blanchester, OH). By analyzing imagery in terms of what is revealed and concealed, the exhibition seeks to explain why posterior views became so popular and what they express about visual culture in the United States.
For more information.
The Joy of Humanistic Design:
Drawings and Objects by Michael Graves (circulation desk case)
This July, American architect Michael Graves would have turned 90 years old. He was an educator, a prominent figure who contributed to American postmodernist architecture, and an alumnus from the College of Applied Arts at the University of Cincinnati. To celebrate his legacy, DAAP Library is proud to showcase some of the items from its collection that are designed by Graves. With this exhibit, the DAAP library aims to show that good design is a necessary aspect of the user experience and makes the design process democratic in nature. Thinking about design through this lens led Graves to create thoughtful, appealing and affordable products for the masses. For more information.
The Wooden Dolls by Alexander Girard
(entryway cases)
The Wooden Dolls by Alexander Girard are a large family of wooden figures representing human and animal characters. Girard designed them in 1952 for his own use as decorative objects for his home.
Furniture Miniatures Collection
(freestanding cases on first floor of library)
For over two decades, the Vitra Design Museum has been making miniature replicas of milestones in furniture design from its collection. The Furniture Miniatures Collection encapsulates the entire history of industrial furniture design – moving from Historicism and Art Nouveau to the Bauhaus and New Objectivity, from Radical Design and Postmodernism all the way up to the present day.