Collections Fall 2013 Volume 97 | Page 5
NOW ON VIEW
October 4, 2013 – January 5, 2014
Annie Oakley’s heart target, private collection, Los Angeles, California, 2010.
© Annie Leibovitz. From “Pilgrimage” (Random House, 2011)
Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage
“From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls,
this project was an exercise in renewal. It taught me to see again.” – Annie Leibovitz
Victoria Cooke, curator
In 2009 Annie Leibovitz, one of America’s
best-known living artists, began a journey
of personal and artistic renewal. The
photographs that she took form the
exhibition Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage, an
evocative and deeply personal statement
by a photographer whose career now spans
more than 40 years, encompassing a broad
range of subject matter, history and stylistic
influences.
Leibovitz visited places she could
explore with no agenda. She was not on
assignment and chose subjects simply
because they were personally meaningful
and likewise resonated with a larger
cultural experience. Many of the places she
visited are associated with artists, writers,
legends of American history, and legends of
American pop culture. Some are landscapes
synonymous with American identity
including Niagara Falls and the battlefields
of Gettysburg. For two years she traveled,
photographing images that moved her in
the moment, whether epic and visually
expansive or quiet and evocative.
The current collection of photographs
marks a departure from her staged and
carefully-lit portraits made on assignment
for magazines and advertising clients. In
Pilgrimage she made photographs to meet
her own personal demands and desires. The
photographs reflect moments of private
reflection: whether the sunlight raking
across fallen leaves blown into a front
stoop, or the majestic geyser Old Faithful.
In certain respects these are portraits.
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