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Why Should Anyone Care About Your Photography? Shana Lopes, E130 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Shana: Everyone is a photographer now.
• 0:01
  Shana: Everyone has a camera in their pocket.
• 0:04
  Shana: What does it mean to make images anymore?
• 0:06
  Shana: And do we even need more images?
• 0:08
  Shana: It's like I've borrowed someone's eyes for like just a second.
• 0:11
  Shana: And you can see the world through this entirely new perspective.
• 0:16
  Shana: And it it makes me lose my breath.
• 0:18
  Matt: This is Shana Lopez, Assistant Curator of Photography at SF Moma, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
• 0:26
  Matt: She helps decide what enters the annals of photography history.
• 0:31
  Shana: It's a little bit of magic when that happens, when when you know that something needs to be part of the canon and needs to be remembered.
• 0:45
  Matt: This conversation is about her as a working curator, on what she looks for, what she passes over, the questions every project has to answer, and advice on how we, as photographers, can succeed in getting our work noticed.
• 1:01
  Shana: Why should other people care about this work?
• 1:03
  Shana: Okay, so it's a work about your grandmother.
• 1:05
  Shana: Why should this other person care about it?
• 1:07
  Shana: When I hear the answer, well, I just thought it looked good, that's actually not like a great answer.
• 1:12
  Shana: And if a work, if I just see a work and never think about it again, that usually means that it wasn't the right thing.
• 1:18
  Shana: It's expensive to make books.
• 1:20
  Shana: It's expensive to live.
• 1:21
  Shana: And it's hard, like as fewer galleries are there and um maybe it's just these larger institutions.
• 1:28
  Shana: Like, how do we get places for artists to be seen?
• 1:32
  Shana: I I worry about that.
• 1:34
  Shana: I worry about how smaller galleries are not able to work and the nonprofit art spaces and art colleges, some of them closing.
• 1:42
  Matt: Hundreds of emails, people going, exhibit me, exhibit me, look at my work, look at my work.
• 1:46
  Shana: And yes, the answer is yes.
• 1:48
  Shana: We do need more images.
• 1:49
  Shana: They do need a community and a community of other artists with which to run their ideas by.
• 1:55
  Shana: Photography is here to stay.
• 1:58
  Matt: What piece of advice can you give us on this side when we're potentially trying to get our work in front of you?
• 2:05
  Shana: So I'm gonna give you a couple of things that I would do.
• 2:21
  Matt: Shayna, welcome so much to the Mood Podcast.
• 2:24
  Matt: Thank you for joining me today.
• 2:27
  Shana: Well, thank you so much for having me here, Matt.
• 2:30
  Matt: Shayna, for those of you who may not know who you are, what you do, please kind of give us um, you know, a nice little bio of uh of your pedigree, uh, what you do, why you do it, and how you kind of got got to where you are today.
• 2:43
  Shana: Hi, my name is Shayna Lopez.
• 2:45
  Shana: I'm an assistant curator of photography at SF MOMA.
• 2:49
  Shana: I was born and raised in San Francisco, and I've worked at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Center for Creative Photography.
• 3:00
  Shana: I have my PhD in art history with a focus on the history of photography.
• 3:06
  Shana: And I've been at SF MoMA for seven years, a little over seven years.
• 3:12
  Shana: Um, I did have an internship there a long time ago.
• 3:16
  Shana: And so it's so wonderful to work at the museum that I grew up at going to.
• 3:22
  Shana: It was in a different location when I was a kid.
• 3:24
  Shana: It was on Ben S Street, but it's pretty spectacular to be able to put on exhibitions now and be able to see, you know, friends from high school, old professors, um, and just people from all uh walks of life uh at the museum.
• 3:42
  Matt: And what does your job entail actually?
• 3:44
  Matt: Give give us a kind of a little bit of description of what your your daily life looks like.
• 3:50
  Shana: Every single day is so different for me.
• 3:52
  Shana: It's exciting, and I'm so lucky to be able to do what I do.
• 3:59
  Shana: I'd say part of my job is part of my day, uh, I do research on upcoming shows.
• 4:07
  Shana: I write the wall texts uh for exhibitions that I'll be putting on.
• 4:13
  Shana: I meet with artists and learn about new projects that they've been engaged with and also previous projects they've worked on.
• 4:23
  Shana: I mean, it's it's everything because I go, I part of my job is also to know what's on view around me.
• 4:30
  Shana: And so uh I try to see all the exhibitions that are happening in the Bay Area.
• 4:36
  Shana: I also have to do the mundane stuff like email, which ends up taking up hours of my time.
• 4:42
  Shana: Um and I project manage my, you know, a lot of the exhibitions I do because there's so many moving parts.
• 4:50
  Shana: And as a curator, you're like the linchpin for all the other departments.
• 4:56
  Shana: It's because they're all working on your idea to help bring it to fruition.
• 5:00
  Shana: And so I may be meeting with an exhibition designer or our interpretive media department and trying to figure out what the goals of the exhibition are, perhaps, and what's the best way to get the narrative or the thesis across of your exhibition.
• 5:17
  Shana: Or I'm meeting with the framer to try to uh make sure we're on the same page about how many works need to be framed and how to make the object look best.
• 5:27
  Shana: Uh or maybe I'm having an installation meeting with the entire team, which would include a registrar, the framer, uh, install point, and so uh a curatorial assistant, the exhibition designer, the graphic designer.
• 5:44
  Shana: And I work on several shows at the same time, but they're all at different points.
• 5:50
  Shana: And so uh have a show that will be uh opening in January.
• 5:56
  Shana: So there's a lot of meetings currently about that exhibition.
• 5:59
  Shana: It's Ponte City with Mikhail Sabotsky and Patrick Waterhouse.
• 6:04
  Shana: It'll open January 23rd.
• 6:07
  Shana: And right now we're in the stage where we will be uh our texts are going to be due in mid-September.
• 6:14
  Shana: And so I'm trying to outline what those will look like and what the point of each text is.
• 6:22
  Shana: Every aspect of an exhibition is intentional, whether it's um the wall color, the the way in which I hang it, the order with which um we install.
• 6:37
  Shana: And so I try to be very uh mindful to not put up text for no reason.
• 6:43
  Shana: And so I'm really trying to think like, do we need text in these rooms?
• 6:46
  Shana: And so that's one of the areas.
• 6:49
  Shana: And we're trying to really we have the design laid out, the exhibition layout ready, but there are a couple little tweaks that we're thinking about.
• 6:58
  Shana: So that's kind of top of mind.
• 7:00
  Shana: But really, my job is to, you know, be inspired by artists and be able to articulate those ideas and that same inspiration that I receive from artists to people above me and around me so that we can put on the best shows, or perhaps we're thinking about acquiring uh a work of art.
• 7:22
  Shana: And I, you know, when I see a work of art that an artist is showing me, I of course don't want to get anybody's expectations up because it's not just me who has to decide when we acquire work.
• 7:35
  Shana: There's uh my supervisor and our director, the chief curator, and then our whole accessions committee.
• 7:43
  Shana: So there's layers um to this.
• 7:46
  Shana: And but when I see something that I truly love and believe that it would add to SF MOMA's collection, that it makes sense for SFMOMA, um, and that I think is really important for the history of photography, it's this, it's a little bit of magic when that happens, when when you know that something needs to be part of the canon and needs to be remembered and part of um future generations understanding of the history of photography.
• 8:14
  Shana: And so I have to feel that passion for an object to be able to then convince all the others that need to um that need to okay and approve what I suggest.
• 8:27
  Matt: You're you're at the forefront and the you know the the ambassadorship of photography itself, right?
• 8:35
  Matt: It's such a you feel that pressure on on the weight of your shoulders to kind of represent um not just artists but uh and SF Momo, but represent photography as a whole in in what you're kind of choosing.
• 8:49
  Matt: And uh gatekeeping is the wrong word, but curating obviously the the works that kind of get filtered through and and which ones don't.
• 8:57
  Shana: It's it's such a privilege to be able to have this job.
• 9:00
  Shana: I didn't even understand what it meant to be a curator until I was 25, 26.
• 9:08
  Shana: It's it is a responsibility.
• 9:11
  Shana: And that's why I'm constantly going to shows, reading uh, you know, any periodical that's just come out on photography.
• 9:21
  Shana: I try to make sure I'm in the know if there's an exhibition within like an hour's radius from if I'm going on vacation or um yeah, in a different city, I try to see everything because that's and that's also the advice that I do give to artists too, is to see as much as you possibly can, because you never know when you're gonna see something that will change the way you think or just shift your vision.
• 9:49
  Shana: And when I when I see something like that, it's like I've borrowed someone's eyes for like just a second.
• 9:57
  Shana: And you can see the world through this entirely new perspective, and it it makes me lose my breath.
• 10:03
  Shana: Like I get so um viscerally and just uh in my body, I can feel it.
• 10:11
  Shana: And so um, yes, it's a responsibility, but I and I don't take it lightly.
• 10:16
  Shana: And I photography, it's something I never get tired of.
• 10:20
  Shana: It's so, it's so funny.
• 10:23
  Shana: Like I, as a kid, I would get tired of things really quickly.
• 10:27
  Shana: I had lots of different hobbies.
• 10:29
  Shana: And it was only when I picked up a photo textbook um when I took a class at City College that after that, like, I couldn't put it down.
• 10:40
  Shana: And it's because I think photography touches on every single discipline out there.
• 10:46
  Shana: There's r there's hardly a discipline that photography hasn't touched in some way.
• 10:51
  Shana: And so every project that I begin and every meeting that I have with an artist, whether it's someone at a portfolio review or someone, you know, who's established and represented by a big, you know, blue chip gallery, it's um, they all have something different that they're interested in.
• 11:10
  Shana: Everyone is interested in different themes, whether it's, you know, um 1950s labor practices or um South African um history of apartheid, like there's just so many different avenues.
• 11:24
  Shana: And so with photography, there's never been a moment where I get bored because it's all about the world around us.
• 11:31
  Shana: It's um even if it's really conceptual, then it's still then perhaps it um it relates to to something else.
• 11:38
  Shana: It's always there's something adjacent or thematically that that is new to me.
• 11:43
  Shana: And so I'm constantly learning, which is probably probably why this is the best job in the world, I think.
• 11:52
  Matt: Sorry to cut away from the episode for a minute, but I wanted to talk to you about something very quickly.
• 11:58
  Matt: Now, I spent a long time thinking that isolation was part of the deal when it came to photography.
• 12:03
  Matt: That if you were serious about the work, you did it alone.
• 12:08
  Matt: You'd consume enough, watch enough, read enough, and eventually it would all cohere into something meaningful.
• 12:15
  Matt: And it sometimes did.
• 12:16
  Matt: But mostly I was just alone with my doubts and no one to push back on them.
• 12:22
  Matt: What changed things for me wasn't a course or a workshop, it was a conversation with someone who was doing the same kind of work and cared about it in exactly the same way I did.
• 12:34
  Matt: The doubts didn't disappear, but they got a little bit smaller and I felt more okay with them.
• 12:40
  Matt: They got named.
• 12:41
  Matt: That's what I'm building with the mood insiders.
• 12:44
  Matt: It's a place where the work is taken seriously, where you can bring your questions and of course your half-finished ideas, and where someone would actually engage with them.
• 12:55
  Matt: We have the ad-free extended podcast episodes with bonus content.
• 13:00
  Matt: We have monthly masterclasses, QA sessions, and of course the weekly book clubs and direct direct access to me and my team because you don't have to do this alone.
• 13:11
  Matt: So the link is in the show notes and hopefully I'll see you inside.
• 13:14
  Matt: Do you feel there's a tr there's there's a not a trend, I guess, but a movement to to more of the conceptual photography and certainly the more introspective uh photography, or do you still see, you know, the the beautiful diversity, or or should I say, is it kind of your uh your goal to make sure there's as much diversity in in the photography kind of exhibited works as possible?
• 13:42
  Shana: That's an interesting question because uh someone was asking me, so do you love like, you know, documentary photography only, or is it photojournalism?
• 13:50
  Shana: And I'm actually a pretty much a generalist.
• 13:53
  Shana: And I think you need to be as a curator at a collecting institution.
• 13:57
  Shana: If you're not, then you're shaping kind of a skewed history of the medium, right?
• 14:04
  Shana: You have to be looking at photography, whether it's commercial photography, um, uh scientific photography, uh, anything.
• 14:13
  Shana: It's anything that relates to image making is fair game to be up uh to be at the museum, I think, um, because we're telling a history of the medium.
• 14:24
  Shana: I was just actually at the BNA, the Victorian Albert Museum in London, and looking at their American photography show, what was fantastic was that they had this one wall case that had records in it.
• 14:39
  Shana: And they were all the photographs that were reproduced on those records were all by famous photographers, like Helen Levitt's uh beautiful color photograph of a girl um kind of uh in this pose in front of a green car.
• 14:54
  Shana: And when I saw that, I was like, oh my God, this is brilliant.
• 14:58
  Shana: Like to show how photography, it's it's never just about the art, the photograph itself.
• 15:05
  Shana: It's it's also about where it circulates and where it's been reproduced and how it filters through all these other avenues.
• 15:11
  Shana: And that to me was like a stroke of brilliance.
• 15:14
  Shana: And um, because of course you see in many, um you see in many museums, you'll see like photo books there.
• 15:21
  Shana: So, and perhaps a poster or an invitation.
• 15:25
  Shana: But when you actually start having the objects that you can buy in a store, um, and how that also relates to the history of photography and how many artists don't just do fine art, right?
• 15:37
  Shana: They also work in uh work in commercial photography or they work uh they teach.
• 15:43
  Shana: And so pedagogy is a really important aspect of many artists' practice because they also have to make a living.
• 15:49
  Shana: And it is difficult to make a living as a photographer, as a fine art photographer, I should say.
• 15:57
  Shana: Yeah.
• 15:58
  Matt: Yeah.
• 15:58
  Matt: The reason I ask, because I uh, you know, you are you going to Paris Photo this year?
• 16:04
  Shana: This will be my first year I go to Periphoto.
• 16:06
  Shana: I have had to install an exhibition uh for the past four or five years at SF Moment in November.
• 16:12
  Shana: Oh no.
• 16:13
  Shana: And so I am so excited.
• 16:15
  Shana: And I it has been my the shows that I've installed during Periphoto have been fantastic.
• 16:20
  Shana: So it's okay.
• 16:22
  Shana: But this will be my first year, and I'm very excited.
• 16:26
  Matt: Me too.
• 16:27
  Matt: So I I will see I look forward to seeing you there.
• 16:29
  Matt: But the reason I bring it up is because I hear a lot of rhetoric from other photographers who've who've either exhibited at uh Pari Photo or have been multiple times, and they feel a little bit disillusioned with what gets displayed there, what gets exhibited, what gets um what gets sold and what gets awarded.
• 16:47
  Matt: And they feel like there's that there is a decline in things like documentary photography and and journalistic photography.
• 16:54
  Matt: And that's kind of where I was uh the the the question I was asking you stems from.
• 16:59
  Shana: So there are trends that you see in museums.
• 17:04
  Shana: And one trend that I've I've noticed is that photojournalism hasn't been uh forward in uh on people's exhibition calendars recently.
• 17:16
  Shana: It's not as common as it was, I believe, in the 80s and 90s.
• 17:21
  Shana: And so I mean, documentary photography has always been, I think, uh not always, but has been popular for a while.
• 17:30
  Shana: Yes, we are seeing an influx of conceptual photography, but I think there's a place for both.
• 17:36
  Shana: And it wouldn't be, I wouldn't be doing my job justice if I wasn't seeing and promoting all kinds of mediums, uh, all kinds of thematic uh branches in the medium.
• 17:51
  Shana: There, there are a lot of artists who are dealing with um almost like metaphotography, they're kind of uh thinking about the medium itself, right?
• 18:02
  Shana: And uh whether it's somebody like Inaaki Bonias and um or or others, or even Tara Cranek and how um her act of reenvisioning other artists' uh practice or or being in conversation with their practices, um there is there is that, I think, strong branch of photography, but there always has been.
• 18:26
  Shana: If you think about the 70s and like Robert Heineken and in LA, there's usually um always this undercurrent of conceptual photography.
• 18:35
  Shana: Uh there's documentary.
• 18:38
  Shana: And it's my job to be able to think about why some, sometimes some are more popular than others.
• 18:47
  Shana: I mean, right now it's it's a struggle for museums uh to get people in the doors.
• 18:54
  Shana: And so there's a lot of pressure to be able to, you know, what's gonna is it a name that's gonna get people in the door?
• 19:02
  Shana: Is it a particular theme?
• 19:04
  Shana: Uh, what is it?
• 19:05
  Shana: Uh is it a geographical location?
• 19:08
  Shana: Is it um I've seen there's two shows about the 90s that are uh on view in different locations right now.
• 19:15
  Shana: I think the Tate has a show about the 90s and um AGO has a show about um uh a musician that was playing in the 90s.
• 19:25
  Shana: And so, you know, what are those trends?
• 19:29
  Shana: And I can see why perhaps lyrical documentary is what people call it, um, why uh that hasn't been as strong of a um of a contender in exhibitions as maybe it was 10 years ago or fifth maybe 15 years ago.
• 19:49
  Shana: Um, but it doesn't mean it won't come right back.
• 19:53
  Matt: Yeah.
• 19:54
  Shana: Like there's always a place for it.
• 19:56
  Matt: Yeah, there's always cycles, and I think there's always a place for all of it.
• 19:59
  Matt: And that's the w the one of the the beauties of photography is that it you know it's not only so many, like you said, so many evolving uh stories and and themes and narratives that that one like as an artist can portray and can tell, but it's always evolving.
• 20:17
  Matt: And we're you know, there's a place for all of this.
• 20:19
  Matt: The beauty of it is that is its diversity in itself.
• 20:22
  Matt: And so yeah, I I imagine your job is is uh extremely exciting, but also well, I have a I have a big part to play here in you know, take parry photo and what I was saying about that, the the curator of or the curators over there, they have a big part to play in in the popularism or the uh the the trends or the the way they want their photography exhibitions to make people feel and to, like you said, bring people through the doors.
• 20:53
  Matt: Almost like a chicken and egg situation.
• 20:56
  Matt: But we see that across all types of museums, we see that across all types of you know physical institutions almost, that there is a huge problem, uh a huge demand problem in in getting people to kind of see this work that isn't in front of their iPhone screen.
• 21:12
  Matt: How do you do you guys do you sit and talk about this this problem at SF Momer?
• 21:18
  Matt: Is this kind of a big kind of ongoing battle that you're you're trying to win?
• 21:25
  Shana: I work with some amazing people at the museum.
• 21:29
  Shana: Uh we have a small but mighty photo department.
• 21:32
  Shana: There are three photo curators and two curatorial assistants and an amazing administrative assistant.
• 21:39
  Shana: And we try to share when we've gone to see exhibitions uh in different places because we're, you know, people are all traveling at different times.
• 21:49
  Shana: And we do try to talk about the state of photography and with technology and AI, I think uh we need to figure out, um, We work often with public programs to try to figure out how do we get these conversations into the public sphere and have panel discussions.
• 22:10
  Shana: And so it's up to us to really keep, you know, really understand who are the big thinkers and talkers.
• 22:19
  Shana: Because yes, of course, we are part of that conversation, but there's always so many voices out there that are so much more experienced.
• 22:29
  Shana: So we look to our colleagues, of course, in art history or the history of photography, but well beyond that, whether it's people in the legal field or people in more the technology field.
• 22:40
  Shana: And museums should be a place where those conversations happen, if we can make them happen.
• 22:48
  Shana: And we have an amazing public programs department, a public engagement department, who's, and Kathleen is the head of it, or and she just she's so wonderful at brainstorming different ways to engage different topics, whether it's about housing in San Francisco, technology in San Francisco, or, you know, what photography is today.
• 23:14
  Matt: Fascinate fascinating.
• 23:15
  Matt: You said, you know, initially when you were younger, you you didn't quite understand truly what a curator does.
• 23:31
  Matt: Educate me, educate my audience, because I still don't feel like, you know, I don't know what you you know.
• 23:37
  Matt: One of my first questions is talking through your day by day.
• 23:39
  Matt: But you know, I kind of generally know what a curator does, obviously.
• 23:42
  Matt: But give give me, give me some real insights as to uh you've already touched upon it, but give you go a little bit deeper for me into what a curator actually does.
• 23:53
  Shana: The basic goal of a or job of a curator is to organize exhibitions, whether from the permanent collection or special exhibitions in which you have to take out loans and uh put on shows.
• 24:10
  Shana: That's my probably number one job.
• 24:14
  Matt: Second to that, just what do you mean take out loans?
• 24:18
  Shana: As in uh and borrow work.
• 24:20
  Shana: Uh so as so there's a permanent collection exhibition and then there's special exhibitions.
• 24:25
  Shana: Special exhibitions means that you need to uh you don't own the work.
• 24:31
  Shana: And so we have to borrow the work either from an institution, from an artist, from a gallery, in order to be able to put on a show.
• 24:40
  Shana: So conceptualizing uh an exhibition, proposing it to supervisor and leadership, once it gets green lit, then you work on that exhibition for anywhere from two to five years.
• 25:00
  Shana: And perhaps there's a catalog.
• 25:04
  Shana: Uh, so you'll be working on a text that goes along with it.
• 25:07
  Shana: Um and so you, depending on if it's a monographic show or thematic show, you'll either be collaborating with a living artist or perhaps it's someone who has passed away.
• 25:17
  Shana: So maybe you'll be collaborating with their estate, but you delve into that topic for years so that you become an expert on it.
• 25:27
  Shana: And then you, you know, of course, as the one-year mark when you're one year away from your exhibition, that's when the checklist has to be final.
• 25:37
  Shana: That's when framing has to be decided.
• 25:41
  Shana: Um, any kind of fabrication of furniture for the exhibitions needs to be decided six months prior to the exhibition.
• 25:49
  Shana: Uh, getting the loans to SFMOMA, if it's a special exhibition, you know, that's a whole process.
• 25:58
  Shana: So you work on a show for a very long time.
• 26:02
  Shana: It's it's like making a bait, like it's um, it becomes super important to you.
• 26:07
  Shana: And and then the best part is when the work arrives, and if it's not part of the permanent collection and you get to install it.
• 26:17
  Shana: And so the work is laid out in the different galleries, and you, you know, you've done a draft layout of the show with an exhibition designer, but the work always looks so different when you see it in person and it's so exciting.
• 26:29
  Shana: And you might change like 10% of it, you know, switching walls and um switching where, you know, where objects hang or the order of something because it just looks better.
• 26:39
  Shana: Uh, but it's it's this culminating moment.
• 26:43
  Shana: And then you give your first tour, which I always think my first tours are awful because it's just like you haven't figured out.
• 26:50
  Shana: It's never right first time.
• 26:51
  Shana: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Shana: No, no, no.
• 26:52
  Shana: It's like the choreography of it, it's never right.
• 26:55
  Shana: And then you the with the questions that people ask you from there, you shift.
• 27:00
  Shana: And you, I think by the third tour, that's like my sweet spot.
• 27:03
  Shana: And then I know how to give a tour of a show.
• 27:05
  Shana: And then you're the spokesperson for it.
• 27:07
  Shana: And so you've written all, you know, the press release, the text for it.
• 27:10
  Shana: You've written perhaps a uh the accompanying catalog.
• 27:14
  Shana: And so you are the expert, and that's what keeps me sane when um when I do a tour, when I think about the fact that I know more about this than you know, anybody, except unless it's for the living artists, and they probably know a lot more than me.
• 27:28
  Shana: Um and so my goal or and responsibilities as a curator is to put on interesting exhibitions that are both for, you know, anyone from like my children's age, like an eight-year-old or a 12-year-old, to my mom's age.
• 27:45
  Shana: She's like 80.
• 27:45
  Shana: And so, uh, but it's also my audience is the photo historian, the photographer, the person who just randomly walks into the exhibition.
• 27:54
  Shana: And so, how can I um interest this broad range of people who, you know, might not know the artists who are on view and think through like what do they actually need to know in order to enjoy and get something out of their experience?
• 28:10
  Shana: And so that's first.
• 28:13
  Shana: Then another large responsibility.
• 28:18
  Matt: How often are you doing those exhibitions?
• 28:20
  Matt: Like on an on a year, uh average per year, how how many are you doing?
• 28:25
  Shana: Uh one to two.
• 28:27
  Shana: So I just it in November, uh, November 2025, Alejandro Kretagena's exhibition opened at SF Melma.
• 28:36
  Shana: In May, I had a three-gallery permanent collection show opened about dance called Feel the Beat.
• 28:45
  Shana: And then in January, I'll have Ponte City, uh, Mikhail Sabotsky, and Patrick Waterhouse open.
• 28:51
  Shana: So they're every six months, but then I also am working on a much larger show um in 2029 about photography and magic that I'll be co-organizing with the MFA Houston.
• 29:04
  Shana: And so that show is in I'm in the research mode for the show.
• 29:08
  Shana: I don't have a checklist for it yet.
• 29:11
  Shana: I'm just trying to understand the landscape of stage magic.
• 29:14
  Shana: So yes, I'm always at different points in the in the exhibition experience.
• 29:20
  Matt: Okay, so that's what that's the one the primary kind of role there.
• 29:24
  Shana: And then and then acquisitions uh are really key.
• 29:31
  Shana: So we um we acquire a few things uh a couple times a year.
• 29:40
  Shana: And that's why I'm I'm always meeting with artists and seeing gallery shows and trying to see group shows and figure out like what do we need to have in the collection and what stories are we trying to tell through the permanent collection?
• 29:54
  Shana: Any museum that is a collecting institution, they it's always shaped by the curators that have uh been at the head of their departments or and the curators underneath them, right?
• 30:07
  Shana: Because all of us are bringing different ideas to the table.
• 30:11
  Shana: We all see different shows, we all are meeting with different people, we all have our interests.
• 30:15
  Shana: And so every, you know, every week I try to see a couple shows, I try to meet with somebody and just see what they're working on.
• 30:24
  Shana: And right now, the goal is when we acquire, it would be that it's going to be in a forthcoming exhibition, but that's not always the case.
• 30:33
  Shana: There's also work that you see and you know that it needs to be part of our collection.
• 30:39
  Shana: And so you argue for it whether it's going to be in an exhibition or not.
• 30:43
  Shana: Um, maybe it's just this lucky moment when something, uh, a donor would like to give something to the ex uh to the museum, because we have both purchases and uh gifts that are given.
• 30:57
  Shana: But it's my job to know what people are working on right now, past projects that are relevant, because maybe I have a colleague who says, you know what, I'm working on a show about X, and I could be like, Oh, you know what?
• 31:12
  Shana: I just met with somebody who is actually thinking about that.
• 31:15
  Shana: That's one of their themes.
• 31:17
  Shana: And and so I have a lot of different ideas and people that are always kind of milling about in my head because I it's it's actually my favorite thing when someone tells me that they're working on some sort of thematic show.
• 31:31
  Shana: And I'm like, oh gosh, I know so many people, or maybe it's a geographic show where they're uh focusing or a particular time period, and then I feel like, oh my gosh, I I just saw the perfect thing.
• 31:40
  Shana: And um, it's this back and forth.
• 31:42
  Shana: And I think so many photo historians love it when they get asked that because it it shows how nerdy we all are, but how much we love, how much we love the medium.
• 31:52
  Shana: So acquisitions are a big part.
• 31:55
  Shana: And uh there's classes that come to visit that would probably be my next thing.
• 32:00
  Shana: So um in my role as a as a curator at the museum, I there are local higher education classes, so from whatever UC for UC Berkeley or Stanford or um San Francisco State that come to visit.
• 32:17
  Shana: We have a study room and we pull uh photographs from the vaults and talk about the history of photography.
• 32:25
  Shana: And whenever I do those classes, I talk about how there's so many different histories of the medium, right?
• 32:32
  Shana: Like there's not just one, and I'm only telling a little sliver of a history through some of the objects and whether it's um through technology so or and the different processes.
• 32:46
  Shana: So maybe I show a daguerreotype, an ambrotype, a tin type, a cyanotype, and just showing how how many things are considered photography, right?
• 32:57
  Shana: That fall under this umbrella.
• 32:59
  Shana: Or maybe it's a class that's focusing on uh Japanese photography, and then I can pull those works from the collection.
• 33:07
  Shana: So many curators have um either some sort of graduate degree, and part of that is teaching.
• 33:18
  Shana: And um and so that part is really fun to be able to share some of the knowledge because I have so many anecdotes about different artists and just things that I had read over time.
• 33:28
  Shana: So it's really fun to actually be able to um share that with a class and have them tell me what they see in pictures because what I've learned over the years is that everyone sees something different when they look at a photograph.
• 33:43
  Shana: They're coming from their own perspective, they're they're honing in on some detail that perhaps I miss.
• 33:50
  Shana: And so it's really fun to be able to have uh students in in the study room and talk through what photographs mean to them.
• 34:00
  Matt: Do you think part of the success of a photograph is is closing this gap between what the artist intended with the image and what is actually received by obviously not everyone, because like you said, it's it's extremely subjective and what we see in an image.
• 34:14
  Matt: But generally speaking, is that kind of what you're looking for is when it just kind of hits that magic mark where you kind of understand what the artist was intending with an image or with a set of images, and you're kind of understanding that as well and meeting the artist in the middle.
• 34:31
  Shana: The big role of a curator is to be a mediator between the artist and the public and to be able to articulate those intentions to the viewer.
• 34:43
  Shana: Sometimes that doesn't happen, right?
• 34:48
  Shana: If if I write a label, how many people are really reading all our labels, right?
• 34:53
  Shana: I I don't know, maybe 20%, 10%?
• 34:55
  Shana: I'm not sure.
• 34:56
  Shana: So you can only do so much.
• 34:59
  Shana: But what I'm the goal, I think, for any artist is that people understand the intention.
• 35:05
  Shana: But I don't, I do my best to guess.
• 35:08
  Shana: And you're thinking about, you know, social history when you're looking at an object.
• 35:11
  Shana: When was the object made?
• 35:12
  Shana: Where was it made?
• 35:13
  Shana: Because it's always culturally and historically specific.
• 35:17
  Shana: And so we try to get like understand the context.
• 35:21
  Shana: Where was the object circulating?
• 35:23
  Shana: That's you know, really important for photography.
• 35:26
  Shana: Um, but intentionality is really tough because it's not like many photographers write a note on the back of their photograph and say, Hey, like this, you know, I would love, yeah, like I I want all audience members, all visitors to be able to understand that this is about um X, Y, and Z.
• 35:48
  Shana: And so, you know, when I was working with Alejandro Cartagena on his on his big mid-career retrospective, that's when, you know, he understood with an artist and being able to understand their intentions and have him properly like walk me through all of his hopes and dreams for a particular series or a particular photograph.
• 36:13
  Shana: And it wasn't always what I read into it, right?
• 36:18
  Shana: Um it's it's different.
• 36:20
  Shana: There's always a bit of a gap.
• 36:22
  Shana: But I think it's in that gap that that it gets exciting and that it gets fun because if it wouldn't be that fun if everyone just said, oh, that's what the artist needs.
• 36:35
  Matt: I talk about this all the time on the people in my private community because they we talk about sequencing and pairing a lot and kind of this this other art form that is putting images together, right?
• 36:45
  Matt: And to kind of express maybe some kind of story and you know, meet in the middle in this beautiful gray area.
• 36:52
  Matt: And I always talk about certainly when you know if we distill it down to pairings, but about this the these pairings being too obvious.
• 37:00
  Matt: Like we we do we you know, there's this there's this beauty in the unknown and the the ambiguity of uh of uh you know images that can raise questions and incite dialogue and discourse.
• 37:12
  Matt: That's really what it's all about.
• 37:14
  Matt: And that they you know, a lot of people ask, you know, what what do you mean by too obvious and why is that a problem?
• 37:18
  Matt: Well, exactly as as you say, well, you're just giving people answers and then it's like oh move on to the next thing, isn't that there isn't really uh an absorption.
• 37:27
  Shana: Yeah, some work can be too on the nose, uh for lack of a better way to describe it.
• 37:33
  Shana: And something I think about when I'm proposing an acquisition and an artist is telling me uh about the work.
• 37:41
  Shana: And if if I can't write about the photograph or the series, you know, however we're thinking about an acquisition or a project, if I can't write that much, that means that I probably don't, it's not the right work.
• 37:58
  Shana: There needs to, I I need it a work, a work to truly for a work to truly excite me, it needs to have layers, conceptual layers, formal layers.
• 38:06
  Shana: It needs to, it needs to have some texture to it, right?
• 38:13
  Shana: And not and not, you know, like I'm not talking about like a physical texture.
• 38:16
  Shana: I'm talking about like what what stories am I gonna tell about this picture to audiences and what will what will keep them reading?
• 38:27
  Shana: And I find that when something is too on the nose and too just straightforward, I just don't have that much to say.
• 38:36
  Shana: And then I and it's and it's the works that I go back to.
• 38:40
  Shana: Uh so if I see a body of work and then a week later it comes to me again, like somehow I all of a sudden I'm doing something and it pops into my head, I know that there's something about it that will keep me interested and stays with me.
• 38:56
  Shana: And if a work, if I just see a work and never think about it again, that usually means that it wasn't the right thing.
• 39:02
  Shana: It wasn't, and I have a really good visual memory.
• 39:05
  Shana: Um, but it it has to be, it has to have some complexity to it.
• 39:12
  Shana: And but not, but not so much so that um that it's too overbearing.
• 39:18
  Shana: It has to be able to to welcome me in a little, right?
• 39:22
  Shana: And if it welcomes me and if I'm open to it, then I know that our viewers can be open to it too.
• 39:28
  Shana: Because of course I I come with a load of um history of photography behind me.
• 39:33
  Shana: And so probably the first thing I do when I look at a work is I think, how does this add to the to the canon?
• 39:39
  Shana: How does this add to what I already know about photography?
• 39:42
  Shana: Does it uh does it have echoes from 1970s, 1950s, where, you know, um photography in New York?
• 39:50
  Shana: Like, where do I see kind of um the ripple effect of of past projects?
• 39:56
  Shana: Um, and so that's usually where I begin.
• 39:59
  Shana: And then then it's about hearing the artist or reading about the artist and kind of thinking through uh what their goals are, if there is such a text or if they would like to share, because some artists don't want to share those things, which is fine.
• 40:13
  Shana: Um but yeah, there is something about that little gray area that is beautiful.
• 40:19
  Matt: I love that you this is the first time I've kind of heard of that approach, that initial approach of understanding where an image or a body of work might fit into the canon of photographic history and the how how you can measure its importance to the history of photography, which is a which is fantastic that that kind of remit of yours is to continue this and to to to evolve and to um you know glorify even more the this the beautiful history of photography and and to sit on the shoulders of it uh with the work that you're choosing to curate and represent.
• 40:56
  Matt: Can you give me an example that comes to mind where just so that we can visualize it a little bit in a body of work that you might have been approached with or you might have found that has done that has kind of achieved that purpose for you?
• 41:12
  Shana: Yeah, like I acquired a work by Dion Lee for the museum maybe in 2022, and it was it's a framed collage of an eye blinking.
• 41:29
  Shana: It has maybe 200 small photographs um of the eye is open at the top, and then it uh maybe it's 10 rows uh by 20, something like that, and uh of this eye blinking.
• 41:50
  Shana: And it speaks to think about Edward Moybridge um and his uh his early photography capturing motion and uh and what an eye and how odd and strange an eye looks like when it's in the process of blinking.
• 42:07
  Shana: Um and she she's somebody who is interested in cinema.
• 42:13
  Shana: She was using a film camera, so those are uh phrases in there.
• 42:18
  Shana: Um the film capturing that.
• 42:21
  Shana: And um, so we think about the history of cinema, the history.
• 42:26
  Shana: So Edward Moybridge, you're thinking about also the black body, um, it's her eye and how it's been uh how it's been captured and to have it be almost, it's a self-portrait, but is it like it's just her eye?
• 42:40
  Shana: Um, but thinking about the gaze.
• 42:42
  Shana: Um, and so that then moves to a whole other topic, right?
• 42:47
  Shana: Um, thinking about how collage and cutting up pictures is becoming a real um big uh a real important topic.
• 42:56
  Shana: Uh so cutting things up, uh collaging, that usually happens in moments of rupture.
• 43:03
  Shana: So you think about Dada, um, you think about interwar photography, um, that was really popular then.
• 43:10
  Shana: And these at these moments of rupture, that's when collage often comes into the fore.
• 43:15
  Shana: It's like because people need to raise the world around them to then reconstruct it.
• 43:20
  Shana: And so um, that was also part of what I was thinking about.
• 43:24
  Shana: And so if you just listen to what I said, it's like it's like Dada, history of cinema, um, the black body, like right.
• 43:31
  Shana: And so when I'm thinking about acquiring work, I have to think about this map or constellation, I guess.
• 43:38
  Shana: It's a constellation of different themes and branches of the history of moving image or of uh the just image of photography and how that relates.
• 43:48
  Shana: So it was that's what happens in my brain.
• 43:53
  Shana: And so sometimes I talk faster than I can.
• 43:55
  Shana: It just it because it's so exciting when you actually start to see the connection.
• 43:59
  Shana: connections between um all the different works.
• 44:03
  Shana: Um and then, you know, I got to know Dion really well.
• 44:06
  Shana: We worked on a project together through Unseen California.
• 44:09
  Shana: And so this um it was a whole other world.
• 44:13
  Shana: And since then she was in the Whitney Biennial.
• 44:15
  Shana: Her work has been acquired by several museums.
• 44:18
  Shana: And it's a, it's really beautiful to be able to get to know these artists and bring their work into fashion.
• 44:25
  Shana: It's such a privilege to get to know them and have them share what they're doing.
• 44:30
  Shana: Cause when I acquire the work, I also have to defend it.
• 44:34
  Shana: Like I have to give a talk about it to our committee, both a written talk, a written um uh argument, but also a you know five to seven minute uh presentation about a work.
• 44:47
  Shana: And so I get, you know, I have a lot of conversations with the artists to make sure like I truly understand not only how the object is made, but why they did it.
• 44:58
  Shana: What was it that inspired this work?
• 45:00
  Shana: Were they what were their influences?
• 45:02
  Shana: Uh were they, you know, how does it relate to past work?
• 45:06
  Shana: What are they thinking about for the future?
• 45:08
  Shana: What are the main themes that excite them?
• 45:10
  Shana: What are the uh books that they're reading?
• 45:12
  Shana: So I really do get to know people um well.
• 45:16
  Shana: And so you know thinking about places like Periphoto or RL, it's like when you see these artists around, it's there's a reason why, you know, that that relationship is really special between a curator and an artist because they're trusting us to be able to tell their stories and to respectfully do so.
• 45:37
  Shana: And you know, I whenever I hang a work of art in a group show and I write an extended label about it, I will always go back to the if an artist is living, I will go back to them and send them my text uh before it goes on the wall because I want to make sure it's appropriate and they feel good about, you know, that I haven't misspoken in any way.
• 46:00
  Shana: I think my worst nightmare would be that I would write something and uh and not send it to them.
• 46:05
  Shana: And then a friend perhaps of theirs would like see the label, send it to them.
• 46:08
  Shana: And then I get a horrible like call or email being like, this is like what did you write?
• 46:13
  Shana: And so that relationship is sacred.
• 46:16
  Shana: Uh and I really uh learn a lot through working with artists.
• 46:22
  Shana: And you know every artist is different.
• 46:23
  Shana: Some artists don't you know don't want to be involved in the writing of those texts.
• 46:28
  Shana: Some really do.
• 46:29
  Shana: And it's exciting to be able to to see how they well to see what they want people to know in a hundred words, right?
• 46:37
  Shana: Fascinating label a hundred to a hundred and eight words.
• 46:44
  Shana: Which is nothing you have three sentences about.
• 46:49
  Matt: Yeah.
• 46:49
  Matt: Yeah.
• 46:50
  Matt: But yeah, I'm not sure many people read those read those labels anyway.
• 46:55
  Matt: I know like I try when I go to to galleries and and museums I'll always try and read the label and then I know like 10 minutes in I'm like just scanning and then by the end I'm not reading them at all, you know?
• 47:05
  Matt: But talk me through that because you know we we know each other kind of more in the photo book world and you know as much as I'm obsessed with photo books and kind of the the art and skill behind creating books and publishing etc as well as curating for that right there's a whole curation process for photo book and that differs so much the curating for museums, galleries, exhibit and exhibitions.
• 47:29
  Matt: So tell me talk to me about those differences.
• 47:31
  Matt: And I mean obviously one is a a lot more um tactile when it comes to you know the the individual experience one is a little bit more uh participatory and involved and kind of th three dimensional with that that experience of walking through an exhibition so kind of those surface those surface layers aside kind of can can see that but as a curator uh going between these two kind of you know mediums of exhibition should it should we say what what are the big differences or big challenges that you have as as a curator certainly when it comes to the exhibition side because you don't have as much control over the experience I guess.
• 48:12
  Matt: Would that be correct?
• 48:14
  Shana: I mean I have a lot of experience with the design of exhibition.
• 48:20
  Shana: So I collaborate with an exhibition designer for every show we have for SFMoma.
• 48:26
  Shana: And for me it's always about choreography.
• 48:31
  Shana: I I try to think about the flow of a space and where I want people's attention to be first and and what stories am I trying to tell on each wall.
• 48:44
  Shana: So I kind of group works together on a wall for reasons, right?
• 48:49
  Shana: It's not just random it's usually thematic um and it's I like I try to listen to music when I uh work with an exhibition designer or um at when I'm looking at the layout after I've done the first draft with an exhibition designer, I really think about it musically.
• 49:07
  Shana: I know that's odd, but it's about choreography and and walking like in your mind's eye before the exhibition is hung, you're walking through the space conceptually you're kind of imagining it and you want people to kind of come forward uh to walk forward to like look up at close details but also to move away to to look at maybe the full ball installation and think about how you do it.
• 49:30
  Shana: And you want to have simple some simple walls, some more complex and um constellation or cloud type hangs maybe you want like a grid or a double hang and so it's all about variation and like um but the work it's all about the work that's on view that will be what what uh inspires the design of the wall um so it's for Alejandro show for example it was a lot by series and so how what is a series about does the series um call for a grid?
• 50:09
  Shana: Does the series call for just single line of photographs?
• 50:13
  Shana: What's the rhythm and the music that I hear in my head when I look at um a project or a series and with that in mind that's kind of what I do then for the wall.
• 50:25
  Shana: And so I just also did a this exhibition on dance called Feel the beat and I was listening to music and trying to think about it.
• 50:32
  Shana: There's um a Malik CD Bay uh portfolio that I included called Molly Twist and it harks back to this song from 1963 with the same title and it's kind of um asyncopated it's like this really fun uh uh rhythm and there was also on the portfolio box there was a twist on it and and so I realized I should try to replicate that that both that lint that twisting lint linearity the name Malay twist but also this song that has some like um back and forth to it and I needed to replicate that somehow on the wall and so I made these lines of of four photographs each there's five lines and they're uh each um shifted their um top to bottoms touch and uh they're two inches uh shifted apart uh to the right and left so they almost look like DNA uh twisting on the wall and so that to me tells its own story and so trying to be able to to get across kind of these ideas about music and dance but within through an installation and so that's really special.
• 51:49
  Shana: Uh doing something like that for a book it's I think I have to say I think I'm probably better at doing wall installations.
• 51:58
  Shana: Um because uh because I'm like the worst photo book um reader I always start at the back if it's forward um I I'm one of those and I know that like all the artists are like oh my gosh why isn't she starting from the beginning and I'm always like I'm just gonna go from the back here.
• 52:15
  Shana: And so I have my own way of looking at books.
• 52:18
  Shana: I always start from the back and then the second time I go to it I start from the beginning.
• 52:22
  Shana: It's just it what's fun for me is like seeing uh when I flip through it from the back it's those bursts of amazingness that like come through all of a sudden like a picture will grab me and I'm like and then like and then I keep going and then I I stop on on this other random picture and it's it's those um little bubbles of of uh of brilliance that come out when you're looking at a photo book from back to front.
• 52:54
  Shana: Whereas the for me the photo book is so much about its objectness and about being able to touch it, the tactility because one thing that I love about the stotography is some photographs I truly love are the ones that make me think of other senses.
• 53:13
  Shana: So like the photograph about dance, it makes me think about music and sound or the photographs, you know, where it's like icy cold it makes me think about temperature and touch and or like textures and um or maybe it's uh a food photograph and then I think about smell.
• 53:30
  Shana: And so I love how it can spark these um the other sensory and experiences.
• 53:37
  Shana: And so with books it's about like looking at this paper stock, looking at the cover, um how uh that to me is really important.
• 53:48
  Shana: Uh the is it matte?
• 53:50
  Shana: Is it glossy?
• 53:51
  Shana: And then and then I'll think about the pacing and you know and how each picture because I know that there is some sort of rhythm that the artist wants me to to glean from it.
• 54:03
  Shana: But for me the uh the actual sequencing of the work it's much harder in book format.
• 54:12
  Shana: I love seeing it on the wall and thinking about walking up to it and how like a like it's architecture and dance combined into one when you're thinking about an installation, right?
• 54:24
  Shana: Because it's all about motion and euro movement and experience of a space.
• 54:30
  Shana: Whereas a book it's so much more intimate and you're looking at the pacing and um I almost wish that artists would have to give me a soundtrack that they want me to listen to when I'm when I'm reading their book because I don't know it's I want to get in their head in many ways I thought about having a QR code or you know in the front of the book you know just scan this listen to this track as you you pace through the book.
• 55:00
  Shana: Totally I would love that I would absolutely adore it.
• 55:05
  Matt: Now when it comes to photography the whole infrastructure of the internet rewards speed.
• 55:09
  Matt: Post more post faster be first be everywhere the algorithm doesn't care whether you went deep it cares whether you showed up yesterday and I guess that's not photography specific.
• 55:20
  Matt: Now for me I built my work around a different bet that there are people who would rather go slowly and understand something fully than go fast and understand probably nothing.
• 55:31
  Matt: That depth is not a liability that the work you make when you take your time is categorically different from the work you make when you're chasing the feed maybe or chasing the algorithm now the Mood Insiders is built on that same bet.
• 55:47
  Matt: It's a private community for photographers and visual artists who are serious about the slow work.
• 55:53
  Matt: We have monthly masterclasses where we actually go deep on craft and thinking we have a weekly book club or monthly QA's we have the podcast of course but ad-free with bonus content and we have direct access to me and my team it's not another newsletter you'll forget about not a Discord server full of noise it's a room with a small number of serious people and a very clear and supportive focus.
• 56:18
  Matt: It's just $19 a month the link is in the show notes and I really hope I can see you inside.
• 56:24
  Matt: Tell me now more about and I really don't want to put you on the spot but I imagine a lot of my audience are thinking as well as you know myself throughout the last few years how do we get how do we get exhibited you know you know the dream the dream of a lot of you know two big dreams of a lot of photographers photo book or published you know published photo book and an exhibition anywhere but at a reputable you know i institution but where where do we you know put the photo book aside um how do we um go about because I imagine you get you know hundreds of emails of people going exhibit me exhibit me look at my work look at my work me being one of them um but you you know what how how how what recommendations should you should I say what advice can you give us to not forcibly try and stand out at all but what are you looking for in terms of I know you have this innate instinct uh feeling when you open a board but what makes you open that but that work to begin with what do you what do you what piece of advice can you give us on this site when we're potentially trying to get our work in front of you sorry to stop you here in the conversation and thank you so much for listening up until this point.
• 57:44
  Matt: Now if you're enjoying it so far and would like to hear more than the remainder of this episode including bonus questions, extra content and conversations I don't release anywhere else lives inside my private community for photographers called the Mood Insiders.
• 58:02
  Matt: So if you would like to listen to the rest you'll find the link in the description to find out more about this community and if not of course thank you so much for listening this far it really does mean a lot and I hope to see you inside.