From the Collection: Photographs by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons

Cuban artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons created this work – titled Voyeurs & Beholders of . . . – in response to the Iraq War. “When I see what is going on in the world, I feel like crying,” she said in a 2008 interview.

Voyeurs & Beholders of . . . is made up of five photographs in which Campos-Pons subtly confronts the viewer with issues of gender and race. She has outlined the large eyes in the foreground with long strands of frizzy black hair, which reflects her own concern with the voyeuristic perception of women—especially black women. The absence of faces, however, makes the eyes ambivalent. While hair and crying conventionally suggest the “weaker sex,” the act of watching—of being a voyeur—has traditionally masculine connotations.

Voyeurs & Beholders of . . . is on view in the exhibition New Arrivals: Modern and Contemporary Additions to the Collection through June 29.

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Photographs by Frank Paulin

The following photographs by American artist and photographer Frank Paulin joined the Mead’s collection in 2010.

Woman with Arms Crossed, Ridgefield, New Jersey, July 4, 1980

Carousel, New Orleans, 1952 (printed later)

Girl on Steps, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1952

“My interest in photography developed during World War II, when I spent two years in the Signal Corps in Europe, and wandered through the ruins of bombed cities… Following the war, I enrolled at the Chicago Institute of Design where Harry Callahan, Arthur Siegel and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy were among my instructors… My talent for drawing served me well while allowing time to pursue photography, what I really loved most. I also worked for some time as a fashion photographer, but preferred wandering the streets of American and European cities, especially those of New York City and Paris, taking pictures of people doing ordinary things, seeking discovery on every corner.” –Frank Paulin, frankpaulinphotography.com

To see more works from the collection by Frank Paulin, click here.

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