Join photo historians Ranu Roychoudhuri (Assistant Professor in Art History at Nalanda University, India) and Leslie Wilson (PhD candidate, Art History) for a lively conversation informed by the documentary photographs on view in There was a whole collection made.

During their dialogue Roychoudhuri and Wilson will explore how a photograph can accumulate new, different, and sometimes contrasting meanings depending on the context within which it is seen. The talk will also investigate how artists have built upon and then expanded the expectations of documentary photography, including those who provoke the ambiguity of images with various strategies that contest ideas about authenticity, spontaneity, and originality.

Free. After the Gallery Conversation, guests are invited to join in a free lunch and continue the dialogue.

Helen Levitt, New York (detail), ca. 1939, Gelatin silver print. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman, 2014.519.