Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Visit
  • Exhibitions & Events
  • Art & Design
  • Search

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Introduction

Presence Through Process

January 15 - June 20, 2010

The photographs in this exhibition evoke bodily presence, either overtly or abstractly, through a range of technical and conceptual processes. While photography often strives for visual objectivity, these artists emphasize personal perception. Suggestive rather than directive, the images demonstrate the fluidity of seeing and being seen.

As a group, the works on view survey recent photographic history, from artists who register experience directly to those who stage images for the camera in order to call attention more self-consciously to social conventions. Every choice made by the artist contributes to the desired interpretation of the subject, from the type of camera, film, or digital file, to the framing or staging of the image, to its exposure, focus, printing technique, and paper. Using these tools, the photographers presented here explore the political, psychological, spiritual, and perceptual body and make evident the limitless fascination the human form holds for the photographic practitioner and viewer alike.

The Museum would like to thank Isaac Wingfield, RISD Graduate Student in Photography and Art History Fellow in the Museum, and Mazie Harris, Brown University Graduate Student in Art History and Museum Proctor, for jointly conceiving of and organizing this exhibition.

Selected Objects

Ralph Gibson

Man Under Water, 1972

William Larson

The Human Figure in Motion, 1968
No Image Available

Lesley Dill

The Thrill Came Slowly, 1996

Ray Metzker

Untitled, 1968

Aaron Siskind

Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 94, 1961

Aaron Siskind

Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 37, 1953

William Larson

The Human Figure in Motion, 1968

Wendy Snyder MacNeil

My Grandmother's Hand, 1983-1984

Lubomír Stacho

The Touch, 1997

Yasumasa Morimura

Ambiguous Beauty (Aimai-no-bi), 1995

William Larson

The Human Figure in Motion, 1968

William Larson

The Human Figure in Motion, 1968

Joseph David Jachna

Iceland, South Coast (facing Ljomagnupur), 1976
No Image Available

Susan Eve Jahoda

Untitled, 1980

Linda Connor

Dots and Hands, Fourteen Window Ruin, Bluff, Utah, 1987

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Vik Muniz

Chicago, after Aaron Siskind, 1999

Allora & Calzadilla

Land Mark (Foot Prints), 2001

Allora & Calzadilla

Land Mark (Foot Print), 2001

Stephanie Fosnaugh

Scene 1 frame 3 from Domestic Landscapes series, 2005

Ruth Bernhard

In the Box - Horizontal, 1962

Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Waiting for the Snake, Jianfengling Nature Preserve, Hianan Island, China , 2008

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Presence Through Process

January 15 - June 20, 2010
View Checklist PDF

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use