MoCP - Darkroom 2023

Kelli Connell and Natalie Krick (United States, b. 1974 and 1986, respectively), Suits 

In this collaborative project titled O_Man!, Kelli Connell and Natalie Krick investigate and appropriate the work of Edward Steichen (United States, b. Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Connell and Krick consider Steichen’s many contributions to the history of photography, and especially his role as the curator of the famous exhibition The Family of Man, which was presented in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and then toured globally for seven years and was seen by more than ten million people. By appropriating and remixing works that Steichen selected for the exhibition to represent the state of humanity during the mid-twentieth century, Connell and Krick open a dialogue about masculinity and privilege, with a humor at once whimsical and deliberate. This image is a digital collage of many photographs Steichen made of famous male actors, composers, writers, and celebrities. The collage intentionally removes the heads of each figure, resulting in a composite that suggests a patriarchy built on its own power.

Kelli Connell’s work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the J Paul Getty Museum, CA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Columbus Museum of Art, OH; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; the Dallas Museum of Art; and the Milwaukee Art Museum, among others. Connell has received fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography, to name a few. She is a professor at Columbia College Chicago. Natalie Krick was a recipient of an Individual Photographer's Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation and was awarded the Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2017. Her work has recently been included in exhibitions at SF Camerawork; Aperture Foundation, NY; The Museum of Sex, NY; and Blue Sky Gallery, OR, among others. Their collaboration, O_Man!, has been featured in exhibitions at the Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle (2022); Filter (2021); 21c Museum Hotel (2023); and the 2022-2023 MoCP exhibition Refracting Histories.

https://www.kelliconnell.com/
https://www.nataliekrick.com/