Behind the Curtain: Student-curated exhibition reveals the art of the photo booth
After the first working photo booth debuted on Broadway in New York City in 1925, they began to pop up all over the place—in train and bus stations, stores, arcades, amusement parks and on the street. Anyone from any walk of life could step inside. It was a partnership between human and machine; no photographer told subjects how to hold their heads or where to place their arms or whether to smile. In this intimate space, they could do anything; they could scream, cry, kiss, make silly faces.
For a century now, this environment of accessibility, freedom and privacy has produced countless keepsake squares of memorable moments, but also photos for driver’s licenses and passports, for work and school IDs, and for posterity in yearbooks, newspapers and the like. The photos are a declaration: “I was here.” These quick and easy snapshots might not sound like art, but about two dozen Conn students know better.
This fall, students taking “Perspectives on Photography” with Lucy C. McDannel ’22 Professor of Art History and Anthropology Christopher Steiner and Associate Professor of Art History Karen Gonzalez Rice worked for over a month with 2024 Krane Art History Guest Residents Brian Wallis and Näkki Goranin to interpret and curate an exhibit at the College titled Behind the Curtain. The exhibit, which runs through Dec. 17 in Shain Library, showcases “a seldom seen view of one of the most prolific forms of vernacular photography—small photo booth portraits that reveal poignant moments of self-expression: love, friendship, joy and pride.”
Scholar-in-residence Wallis—who is executive director of The Center for Photography at Woodstock in Kingston, New York, and was deputy director and chief curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City from 2000 to 2015—and collector-in-residence Goranin—a Vermont photographer and writer who owns the more than 100 photo booth portraits, self-portraits and related ephemera featured in Behind the Curtain—are the second pair of distinguished scholars and collectors to be selected for participation in the annual Krane Art History Guest Residency Program, which began in 2023. The Department of Art History and Architectural Studies runs the residency, which is supported by a gift from College Trustee Jonathan Krane ’90.
