The Photography Show Everyone's Talking About
A contemporary exhibition of portrait photography has drawn unusual crowds and unusually pointed debate to a Wilmington gallery.
Every so often an exhibition escapes the art world and becomes a conversation, and a show of contemporary portrait photography now on view in Wilmington has managed exactly that. It has drawn crowds larger than the gallery is used to, along with a level of debate that has surprised its organizers.
The work is the reason. The portraits confront viewers directly, refusing the flattering distance of traditional photography, and their unblinking intimacy has left audiences by turns moved, unsettled, and eager to argue about what they have seen.
The debate has spilled beyond the gallery walls. Local commentary, social media, and word of mouth have turned the show into a minor cultural event, the kind that people feel obliged to see so they can form an opinion of their own.
For a mid-sized city's art scene, that buzz is its own kind of success. Whether visitors leave impressed or provoked, they leave talking — and a photography show that gets a whole city arguing has already done more than most exhibitions dare to attempt.
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