In “Face Worth: Superstar Press Pictures,” MoMA curator Ron Magliozzi is making an attempt to overwhelm us. That’s no conjecture; he says as a lot when pressed. However he has targets past bombardment. “Superstar is one thing that’s produced for consumption, and folks devour it,” Magliozzi tells Observer. “I’m hoping guests will devour it with a vital eye. That’s the notion behind this.”
Buying and selling shortage for abundance and framed and matted artifice for easy plexiglass mounting, the images introduced within the museum’s Titus and Morita galleries are lovely however not treasured. The association of 239 pictures mirrors how we encounter superstar tradition, continuously and virtually in all places. Although a lot of the pictures within the present date to the glamorous Classical Hollywood interval, “Face Worth” feels germane within the age of social media, the place superstar is central to our lived experiences. In any case, Magliozzi factors out, the president was a star first.
Within the early days of Magliozzi’s profession at MoMA, he labored within the warehouse, separating press materials from pictures. He recalled a curator commenting that since many pictures had been marked up, they had been spoiled—unfit for exhibiting and uninteresting. However Magliozzi felt that the etchings and drawn-in dimensions added one thing, highlighting the images as working paperwork.
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These “flaws” are certainly probably the most fascinating components of the exhibition. In some pictures, white ink silhouetting provides an eeriness: the heads of the themes appear to drift or hover. In others, strains of tape mark picture croppings, framing a sensual shot of actress Myrna Loy’s legs or a lovers’ kiss. Additionally current are pictures with masking, inpainting and collaging. What outcomes is a metaphorical—but additionally literal—dismemberment of celebrities for mass consumption.
“In comparison with as we speak, with digital applied sciences and A.I., these pictures virtually look precocious,” Magliozzi says with amusing. “They’re so analog, and the modifying provides a appeal to it.”
The backs of the images are equally compelling, he asserts, with their marks, stamps and notations indicating their provenance. The photographs come mainly from two editorial collections: Photoplay (1911-80) and Dell (1921-76), each legendary Hollywood publications whose archives had been acquired by early MoMA movie curator Iris Barry.
The cultural touchpoints within the exhibition are manifold. One month earlier than she overdosed on barbiturates, Marilyn Monroe sat perched on a chair for one among her final photograph shoots in a darkish shirt and heels. Alert and expressive, she appears right here vibrant and alive—no indicators of tension or dread which may trace at her impending demise.
In one other photograph, a mirror doubles the face of Hollywood heroine Carole Lombard, haunting and enigmatic, as if she’s retaining a secret. Pencil-thin eyebrows arc above her upwards-fixed, glassy eyes, and her dark-painted lips press in a slight smile. You may’t take your eyes off of her.
Past Hollywood starlets, there are politicians, socialites, athletes and even a canine. Among the many featured figures are Oprah Winfrey, Anna Might Wong, Clara Bow, Jackie Robinson, Joan Crawford and plenty of, many extra.
However for all of its well-known faces, a lot of what’s so participating about “Face Worth” lies within the subtext. The richly perceptive block of introductory textual content units the stage, after which it’s as much as the viewer to search out the throughline. Whereas some museumgoers might lengthy for supplemental textual content, the dearth of clunky explainers lets the images breathe, opening house for guests to conduct their very own analyses. Race is likely one of the themes on the desk right here—Magliozzi and his curatorial crew mined the archive for underrepresented teams and celebrities of shade. One other is gender, as exaggerated pictures of femininity cling juxtaposed towards their exaggeratedly masculine counterparts. Ladies smile suggestively; males maintain weapons.
As aspirational because it all seems on the floor, these pictures are disconcerting for these conversant in the Classical Hollywood star system, the place performers lacked company. “Celebrities are merchandise,” Magliozzi says. “They had been really properties of the studio they usually had been handled as such—type of dispassionately or as objects.” The highest ground of the exhibition properties in on this objectification with probably the most edited and marked-up of the images on present. On the foot of the escalator, an Andy Warhol display glints throughout the faces of sixties celebrities.
MoMA has lengthy hosted installations centered on stars. In “Face Worth,” the sparkly black flooring and navy-painted partitions evoke Outdated Hollywood. When deciding which images to pick from 16,500 within the museum’s repository, Magliozzi looked for those who had been notably lovely or contained distinctive visible motifs like shadows. “The lighting and the spacing between the images management your expertise,” he provides.
His chosen combos definitely convey alive the trade’s heady mystique, and the sensuality of “Face Worth” is inconceivable to disregard. In what Magliozzi calls the “consuming face” part, {couples} kiss, or are poised to, the romantic stress thick. He famous that the sensuality portrayed on social media as we speak might be traced again to the sexuality of Classical Hollywood, which was preceded by related erotic patterns in earlier theater. Certainly, it’s laborious to look away.
“Face Worth: Superstar Press Pictures” is on view on the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York by means of June 21, 2026.
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