A mother embraces her son. Friends pose by the seaside. Lovers clutch in the dark corner of a nightclub. All of these images and more are captured in the KMA’s exhibition, Picturing Love: Photography’s Pursuit of Intimacy. By turns disarmingly candid and unabashedly performative, the photographs in the exhibition examine how love is captured – and indeed at times bestowed – by the act of taking a picture. In the present moment of virtual like, love, and swipe, when all aspects of public and private life circulate in seemingly endless supply on the Internet, the exhibition takes a step back to look at the formidable history of this subject from photography’s early days to the present. Picturing Love features some forty renowned and many anonymous artists.

Our spring programming is replete with learning opportunities centered on the history of documentary and narrative photography for both adults and children. Organized by KMA Executive Director, Darsie Alexander, with Dolmatch Fellow, Olga Dekalo, the exhibition features some fifty works from a range of periods and genres.