
Prom: Photographs by Mary Ellen Mark
July 1, 2012 - October 28, 2012

Prom: Photographs by Mary Ellen Mark
July 1, 2012 - October 28, 2012
Between 2006 and 2009, American photographer Mary Ellen Mark visited thirteen
high school proms to create portraits of attendees with a 20-by-24-inch Polaroid
Land Camera. Only five such cameras exist, and they make extraordinary and
unique large-format prints. Mark used the camera previously for her 2003 project
Twins, and in
Prom she applies it to the quintessential American coming-of-age
ritual, selecting high schools from across the country that reflect the regional and
class differences among Americans. Approximately sixty of Mark’s portraits are
included in the exhibition, demonstrating the egalitarian spirit of her project and
the continuing democratic potential of photography.
Prom: Photographs by Mary Ellen Mark is presented in conjunction with the J. Paul
Getty Museum’s publication of the book by the same name, and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art is the first public venue of photographs from this series. Mark’s
husband, filmmaker Martin Bell, produced a 33-minute video about the portrait
subjects at the same time Mark made her photographs. Bell’s film is a touching and
humorous window into the project and a superb complement to the photographs.
Mark (born 1940) is a native Philadelphian and a graduate of the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. One of the schools
represented in this series is her alma mater, Cheltenham High School, in Wyncote,
Pennsylvania.
Curator
Peter Barberie, The Brodsky Curator of Photographs, Alfred Stieglitz Center
Location
Julien Levy Gallery, Perelman Building