This traveling exhibition from the California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA) features 60 of MacGregor’s dramatic black and white images chronicling the transformation of the American landscape. Paired with the images are entries from the Lewis and Clark journals, which MacGregor used to follow in their footsteps, and maps of the expedition trail. Lewis and Clark Revisited speaks to the legacy of the early explorers who opened up the American west to a young nation’s imagination and settlement.
At the same time, the exhibition provides a rich visual commentary on contemporary American life. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibitions Gallery.
Counterpoint: Anthropology and Photography in New Guinea
February 23 through March 30, 2008
Anthropology is the study of cultures, and often, the study of cultures very different from our own. How much can we learn about ourselves from the way that we look at “the other”? Counterpoint pairs the vivid color photography of Austin Super, a retired American businessman, world traveler and talented amateur photographer, with commentary by Dr. Stuart Kirsch, a University of Pennsylvania-trained anthropologist who has carried out ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea since 1986.
Mr. Super traveled around the island of Papua New Guinea for three weeks in 1988, attending the annual Highlands Show (known in Melanesian Pidgin as a singsing), a regional celebration of cultural identity through costume and dance. Most of the 34 large-scale, full-color photographs in this exhibition were taken at the Highlands Show. Dr. Kirsch’s commentary contextualizes what the viewer sees, explaining some of the complex and varied cultural practices seen in these photographs from Papua New Guinea, a place where more than 700 languages are spoken. Dr. Kirsch also describes some of what the viewer does not see, aspects of the event that were missing from the photographer’s images. 1st floor Merle-Smith Changing Exhibition Gallery.
LONG TERM EXHIBITIONS AND GALLERIES. Penn Museum has three floors of galleries with cultural materials from around the world. Exhibitions include: “Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur”: Selected objects on display, “Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun,” “The Egyptian Mummy: Secrets and Science,” “Worlds Intertwined: Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans,” the Upper and Lower Egyptian galleries, the Chinese Rotunda, “Buddhism: History and Diversity of a Great Tradition,” “Canaan and Ancient Israel,” “Raven’s Journey: The World of Alaska’s Native People,” Living in Balance: The Universe of the Hopi, Zuni, Navajo and Apache,” and galleries with materials from the Islamic World, Mesoamerica, Africa, and Polynesia. -- www.museum.upenn.edu
