May 21, 2011

Look at America

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Look was a popular bi-weekly magazine that ran from 1937 to 1971 and had an emphasis on photography rather than articles, a bit like Life Magazine. In the files, I found a number of photographs from an exhibition titled Look at America, but I have found no other documentation about this exhibition—I can’t even tell with certainty what year it took place in the University Gallery. The introductory wall text reads:

An exhibition of LOOK magazine photographs prepared by the editors of LOOK in co-operation with the American Federation of Arts. Theme titles from the poetry of Archibald MacLeish.

I do know that from 1946-1956, the Look editors published a series of books called Look at America, so I can guess that this exhibition stemmed from the books and eventually made its way as a ready-made show to the University Gallery. (Perhaps we’ll uncover more information on this exhibition in the files we have yet to comb through!)

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Update: The exhibition occurred in 1957 (thanks to Rebecca for finding the date in the Minnesota Daily archives). We also found the poster for this show: another gem:

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Areca Roe is a MFA graduate from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art, with a concentration in photography and minor in Museum Studies. Areca completed her project involvement in Fall 2011, and has subsequently been involved with the University as an artist in residence at the University’s Bell Museum of Natural History.

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