The Multimedia Art Museum, with the support of the Polytechnic Museum, opened an exhibition of photographs of scientific experiments taken by the star of American photography, Berenice Abbott. Her works are being presented to Russian audiences for the first time.
Berenice Abbott was a tireless experimenter. Fame came to her back in the 1920s, in Paris, where she became famous for her photographic portraits. Then there was the famous photo series about New York in the 1930s (MAMM showed it in 2004). However, Berenice Abbott herself considered scientific photographs, balancing on the brink of abstraction and extreme realism, to be her main professional achievement. She has been involved in scientific photography throughout her professional career and has made significant contributions to its development.
Berenice Abbott. A parabolic mirror has a thousand eyes. 1958-61. MIT Museum Collection, gift of Ronald A. Kurtz
In photography, Abbott saw enormous and largely unrealized opportunities associated with the visualization of science and with building communication between science and the general public. In 1939, Abbott wrote that photography should become “a friendly interpreter between science and the layman.” “Photography, the child of science, is essentially related to the science that gave birth to it.”
The most important work Abbott's involvement in scientific photography dates back to the late 1950s. During these years, the United States is extremely concerned about its lag in scientific development and especially in preparing young people for a scientific career. School reform begins curricula. In 1956, the Committee for the Study of Physical Sciences was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In March 1958, the Committee invited Abbott to prepare a series of photographs for her flagship project - a new school textbook on physics. Over the next two and a half years, Abbott, working at MIT, makes his best photos, recording wave motion and other physical phenomena. During this period, Abbott developed special instruments for photographing physical phenomena, some of which are presented in the exhibition.
Berenice Abbott. The ball bounces along a decreasing trajectory. 1958-61. MIT Museum Collection, gift of Ronald A. Kurtz
Selected photographs Abbott took for MIT were shown at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition was called “The Image of Physics” and in 1960 went on a tour of the United States, which lasted six years. For many Americans, it was their first introduction to Abbott's bold modernist photography and new methods of teaching physics.
32 author’s prints from the “Image of Physics” series will form the basis of the exhibition, which will be shown at MAMM. They are accompanied by texts by Elizabeth McCausland (art critic and Photographic League activist), written in collaboration with Institute scientists. The central series, "The Image of Physics," will be presented in the context of Abbott's other work over the years. The exhibition will also include Abbott's photo albums, letters, manuscripts and publications.
This exhibition was originally made possible by the generous support of Ronald A. and Carol Kurtz and was created by the MIT Museum (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) for permanent display in the Kurtz Halls of the MIT Museum.
Polytechnic Museum and Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow for the first time present to the Russian audience photographs of scientific experiments taken by the star of American photography Berenice Abbott.
Berenice Abbott was a tireless experimenter. Fame came to her back in the 1920s, in Paris, where she became famous for her photographic portraits. Then there was the famous photo series about New York in the 1930s (MAMM showed it in 2004). However, Berenice Abbott herself considered scientific photographs, balancing on the brink of abstraction and extreme realism, to be her main professional achievement. She has been involved in scientific photography throughout her professional career and has made significant contributions to its development.
In photography, Abbott saw enormous and largely unrealized opportunities associated with the visualization of science and with building communication between science and the general public. In 1939, Abbott wrote that photography should become “a friendly interpreter between science and the layman.” “Photography, the child of science, is essentially related to the science that gave birth to it.”
Abbott's most important work in scientific photography dates back to the late 1950s. During these years, the United States is extremely concerned about its lag in scientific development and especially in preparing young people for a scientific career. Reform of school curricula begins. In 1956, the Committee for the Study of Physical Sciences was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In March 1958, the Committee invited Abbott to prepare a series of photographs for her flagship project - a new school textbook on physics. Over the next two and a half years, while at MIT, Abbott took his best photographs of wave motion and other physical phenomena. During this period, Abbott developed special instruments for photographing physical phenomena, some of which are presented in the exhibition.
Selected photographs Abbott took for MIT were shown at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition was called “The Image of Physics” and in 1960 went on a tour of the United States, which lasted six years. For many Americans, it was their first introduction to Abbott's bold modernist photography and new methods of teaching physics.
32 author’s prints from the “Image of Physics” series will form the basis of the exhibition, which will be shown at MAMM. They are accompanied by texts by Elizabeth McCausland (art critic and Photographic League activist), written in collaboration with Institute scientists. The central series, "The Image of Physics," will be presented in the context of Abbott's other work over the years. The exhibition will also include Abbott's photo albums, letters, manuscripts and publications.
This exhibition was originally made possible by the generous support of Ronald A. and Carol Kurtz and was created by the MIT Museum (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) for permanent display in the Kurtz Halls of the MIT Museum.
All photographs and original documents courtesy of the MIT Museum.
Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) grew up in a dysfunctional family in Ohio and was accustomed to independence from childhood. After two semesters of college, she briefly moved to New York, and in 1921 emigrated to Paris. In Paris, she intended to study as a sculptor, but discovered the art of photography and the Dadaist Man Ray, who became her mentor. In 1926, Abbott began an independent creative career, and her portraits received no less critical acclaim than the works of Man Ray.
In 1929, Abbott returned to New York. With the support of the Federal Art Project, she has been working on the series “Changing New York” for ten years. The series, which subsequently received high praise from critics, included about 300 photographs.
In the 1940s, Berenice Abbott worked as a photo editor for Science Illustrated magazine. Successful launch of the first artificial satellite, produced by the Soviet Union in late 1957, prompted MIT's Science Education Committee curricular reform. In the reformed Committee, Abbott receives the position of staff photographer.
From March 1958 to September 1960, Abbott took part in the Committee's project to create a new high school physics textbook. In the 1960s, she published some of the photographs she took for the Committee, as well as new photographs, in three science books for young readers.
In the 1950s, Berenice Abbott came to Maine for the first time. She soon moved her studio here and in 1968 published her last book, “Portrait of Maine.” Today Abbott is deservedly considered one of the most brilliant masters of photography and occupies the most worthy place in the history of photography.
Gary Van Zante is the MIT Museum's Curator of Architecture and Design and currently serves as Director of Exhibitions Programming and Planning. As a curator he has prepared more than 50 exhibitions (from architectural graphics of the Renaissance to modern design and photography). The photographic exhibitions that Van Zante curated at the MIT Museum included the work of Gabrielle Basilico, Margaret Morton, Kerwin Robinson, and others. He recently published a study of 19th-century urban photography.
Julia Van Haaften is the first curator of the photographic collection of the New York Public Library, and subsequently the head of the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. A recognized expert on Abbott's work, she curated her first retrospective exhibition in 1989. Currently finishing a detailed biography of the photographer.
National Museum of the History of Science and Technology, one of the oldest and largest science and technology museums in the world.
The Polytechnic Museum is a popularizer of scientific and technical knowledge, ideas and solutions that determined the path of scientific and technological progress; collector and custodian of the unique achievements of mankind, embodied in devices and objects that determined the direction of development of civilization at different stages.
Since 2010, the museum began the process of modernization - in line with the global trend of updating the activities of museums and cultural organizations, a large-scale project is being implemented to create a modern national and international multifunctional museum and educational center, uniting the highest achievements of science, technology and society.
Since 2013, the historical building of the Polytechnic Museum has been closed for reconstruction. Currently, and until the end of reconstruction (2018), the Polytechnic Museum operates at temporary and partner sites, both in Russia and abroad.
The MIT Museum sees its mission as introducing a wide audience to scientific, technological and other areas of research thought. To do this, it uses techniques that best serve national and global interests in the 21st century. The two floors occupied by the museum house permanent exhibitions and temporary exhibitions. In its exhibition program, the museum pays special attention to robotics, photography, holography, the history of the Institute and its current research projects. The museum organizes month-long programs aimed at middle school students and older, and hosts the Cambridge Science Festival every April.
Art at MIT
arts.mit.edu
Art at the Institute is designed to unite creative people working in different disciplines, allowing a person to remain a researcher throughout his life and discover new abilities in himself. Art is inextricably linked with a willingness to experiment and find unexpected and creative ways to solve problems. The presence of art on the territory of the Institute corresponds to its focus on the aesthetic, humanitarian and social dimensions of research and innovation. The motto of the institute - mens et manus (with head and hands) - reflects this principle. The arts are essential to the Institute's mission of building a better society and meeting the challenges of the 21st century.
The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, together with the Experimentanium Museum of Entertaining Sciences, presents an interactive exhibition “Berenice Abbott. Photography and Science.”
Many photographers engage in photography in a separate narrow genre, which best suits their inner worldview and artistic taste. By choosing a specific direction and gradually honing their skills, they achieve serious success. Among such photographers we can safely include the American Berenice Abbott, who devoted herself to the style of direct or documentary photography. Her project, Changing New York, turned Berenice Abbott into a legendary photographer. This project and the book of the same name, published for the World Exhibition in the USA, occupied a special place in the history of not only American, but also world photography.
Berenice Abbott was born in 1898 in Springfield, Ohio. After finishing school I started 
studying journalism at Ohio University. But in 1918, she moved to New York City in Greenwich Village, where she shared an apartment with philosopher Kenneth Barka, literary critic Malcolm Cowley and writer Djuna Barnis. Her first passion, journalism, gradually gave way to a keen interest in theater and sculpture. At the same time, in New York, she worked as a waitress and actress in small roles. In 1919, Berenice Abbott found herself literally on the brink of life and death as a result of the influenza pandemic, which to a certain extent later affected her work. Two years later, she went to Paris, where she began studying painting and sculpture, and also began writing poetry for an experimental literary magazine.
Berenice Abbott began her creative career as an assistant famous photographer and the artist Man Ray in his portrait studio in Montparnasse. Man Ray was considered a master of the abstract style. Her work quickly caught Ray's attention and he allowed Berenice to use his studio to create her own photographs. She made a series of portraits of Parisian bohemia in the 20s, but these works, however, did not win her laurels.
In 1926, her work was exhibited for the first time at the Au Sacre du Printemps gallery. After a short period studying photography in Berlin, Berenice Abbott returned to Paris and founded her own studio. Despite the fact that she never used advertising, never looked for clients on her own and never shot for free, Berenice managed to become an official portrait artist in a short time famous people from the aristocratic and literary worlds. Celebrities such as Jean Cocteau, James Joyce, Andre Gide and many others photographed her. Her work has been exhibited in Paris along with other famous photographers.
The turning point in her creative destiny was her acquaintance with the photographer Eugene Atget, photographs
who attracted the attention of Berenice and she became his great admirer. She owes this acquaintance to Man Ray, who showed photographs of his young assistant Atget. This French photographer was not a revolutionary in art, and his work was never appreciated during his lifetime. He used a rather bulky camera and outdated printing technologies.
But the main thing that set Atget apart from other photographers was his methodical nature and hard work. He walked through all the backstreets and nooks and crannies of old Paris, making thousands of glass negatives. And although the subjects of his photographs seemed simple and unpretentious, they made it possible to detail everything that the photographer sees in the city. This style of photography had a significant influence on the creative path of Berenice Abbott. She even managed to convince Atget to sit for her portrait in 1927, and after his death she bought the rest of the stored negatives. In 1930, she became the photo editor for a book about the Parisian photographer Eugene Atget. Until 1968, she managed his archive, organizing exhibitions and in every possible way promoting the popularization of his work.
In Atget's work, Berenice was drawn to the direct style of photography, characterized by works shot in a realistic, documentary manner. This style involves taking pictures without any artistic settings or poses. The photographer's task is to capture in detail the daily changing spectacle of city life. It was this principle that Berenice Abbott began to follow in her subsequent works, which brought her worldwide fame. In 1929, she visited New York to find an American publisher for Atget's photographs. But the ever-changing appearance of this amazing city caught her attention. She went to Paris to close her studio and returned to New York with a large-format camera. She continued Atget's work in New York, photographing various views of the city with diligence and attention.
Due to the worsening economic situation in 1935, Berenice Abbott was forced to turn to the New York Emergency Relief Fund, which soon after became known as the Federal Art Project. On behalf of this organization, she began her large-scale photographic project called Changing New York. The goal of the project is to capture the changes taking place in the city at a time when New York was rapidly turning into a metropolis. Every day in New York, majestic bridges, grandiose skyscrapers and monuments grew rapidly. Berenice Abbott captured hundreds of details of 1930s New York in stunning black and white photography. She photographed various aspects of city life, in particular the "Means of Life" (transport, communications and services) and the "Material Aspects" (buildings, houses and squares). Unfortunately, another direction of Berenice's photographs - "People and the way they live" - was never fully realized. She believed that simple documentary footage could tell more about the world than carefully staged photographs. In 1939, her work was exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York, and then 97 photographs of Berenice Abbott were published by E. P. Dutton & Co. in a special guide issued for visitors to the New York World's Fair. Her photographs, such as “Night View”, “Under the El”, Texaco gas station, Murray Hotel and many others, brought Berenice wide fame.
During her life, Berenice Abbott not only was creative, but also contributed to the development of new techniques and equipment for photography. For example, she came up with the ideas for new devices for lighting and printing photographs, for which Berenice even received several honorary doctorates. She managed to try her hand at scientific photography, trying to visualize such natural phenomena as electricity or gravity for a school textbook. Berenice Abbott died in 1991, thus going through a very long creative path. Her direct style of photography contributed greatly to further development documentary and scientific photography.
Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio. At an early age, Abbott showed her independent character; in a rebellious impulse, she changed her name from Bernice to Berenice. As a child, she experienced her parents' divorce, stayed to live with her mother, and her brothers moved in with their father; they no longer communicated. It is possible that due to the unhappy marriage of her parents, Berenice never got married and believed that marriage was the end for a woman striving to work. After graduating from high school, she studied at Ohio State University to study journalism.
In her final years, Abbott photographed rural landscapes from Florida to Maine. During this project, she looked for a quiet house in Maine, where she lived until the end of her days. In the 1970s, with the growing popularity of the art of photography, her home became a local pilgrimage for fans, aspiring photographers and journalists.
Abbott photographed a lot, taught photography, wrote books, and invented photographic equipment and techniques. She was one of the first to compete on equal terms with men in receiving orders; many books and exhibitions are dedicated to her. Perhaps her most famous project was “Changing New York,” an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York in 1937.
