Present Tense: Photographs by JoAnn Verburg

July 15–November 5, 2007 This exhibition of approximately sixty photographs will survey the twenty-five-year career of American photographer JoAnn Verburg (b. 1950), who often works in simultaneous series of different subjects–composed and "found" still lifes, portraits, and landscapes. Verburg slowly explores these subjects' pictorial possibilities. Her methodical process includes the use of diptychs and triptychs that demonstrate how the content of a picture can be enriched by using more than one photograph at a time, while maintaining coherence through the close formal and referential relationship of individual exposures. Verburg's use of a 5 x 7-inch-format camera and a radiant color palette make her photographs pleasurable balancing acts that describe the sensuality and physicality of her subjects, and capture those spaces and moments suspended in the reverie that precedes action. To view images of these artworks, please visit the Online Collection at moma.org/collection.
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