The Online Photographer

Not that I mean to downplay this news at all, but, first of all, I'm getting married!

She's a TOP reader, and has been for the past eight years. She said she has watched my personal peregrinations with interest over the years, and 16 months ago now she decided to introduce herself. Her name is Magda, and she has residences in Budapest, Hungary, and New York City as well as a vacation home in a location she prefers not to disclose. After we get married we'll have two vacation homes, the second one being this little house I've been living in for three and a half years here in the Finger Lakes! I won't be giving this place up.

Now for the relevant part. Magda happens to be the widow of very accomplished and urbane man who was famously successful in business in Hungary. She married him when he was 54 and she was 32; he died five years ago now. She's one year older than I am. We both consider ourselves relatively young, and we're both in good health, so there is still time to do the things we want to do. And neither one of us is terribly interested in merely collecting the conventional trappings of wealth...we want to do something; something useful to society and, specifically, for photography.

Same shows, different audiences
Of course, I have spun my idealistic notions at her gleefully for some time now—a few of them, admittedly, pretty crackpot. (She would say "most," possibly with an exclamation point appended to that. I do get carried away with ideas sometimes.) But because her wealth is essentially limitless and her interest is in public architecture, we've decided on the following plan, which we're pretty well along with already at least in concept.

We've decided to create a series of "mirror" museums—so far, we have plans for three in the United States, one in Canada, and two in Europe—one each in Prague and Budapest. Each building will be proximate to existing museums that already draw crowds—for instance, the one in Corning (local to where I am now) will be a hop, skip, and a jump from the wonderful Corning Museum of Glass, and the one in Chadds Ford will be within an easy drive of the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

Each Museum will have its own architecture, designed to complement its setting and its culture, but all of them will have very similar facilities—three beautiful large galleries and two small ones, an entry atrium and book shop, a number of small offices, several workrooms, and so forth.

Celebrate the new
Here's where it gets interesting. We won't be showing existing art, at least in terms of the actual objects—we'll be making our own. The halo Museum organization, IDPM, will employ master digital printmakers as well as curators. The printmakers and curators will work with living digital photographers to create exhibitions that will then be mirrored in all six locations worldwide. This might be one large exhibit in all five galleries, or several concurrent exhibits split between the various gallery rooms. Since every venue will have its own conservator and framer and presentation specialist, all that's required for coordination between locations will be the shipment of the newly made unframed prints, whether they're made in Europe or America. Pretty simple. Each show will be up for three months, for a total of four "changeovers" per year.

Not only will every print be newly custom-made for each exhibits, but small limited editions of each photograph shown in every show will be available for sale to the public—with all of the proceeds going to the photographers. In that sense our strategy is something of a hybrid between a traditional museum and a gallery, as well as a hybrid of a business and a type of charity called a "grant maker." Oh, and by the way, photographers themselves will not have to bear any expense for their shows.

Here's a big difference from a traditional museum: the IDPM will not maintain a collection. We will keep a record of what we show, but we will not collect and archive work—rather, we will help create it and release it into the world at large, where it may fly on its own wings.

The Mission statement
That's because our overarching mission will be to support active, working photographers of all kinds with these shows. Not only will they receive the intangible honor of having their work shown in six premium venues in North America and Europe, with printed catalogues, but they get to keep all the proceeds from any print sales. (Unsold prints will become their property when the shows are over, too.)

As you can see, this is sort of like TOP's print sales writ large! Very large.  :-)

You would think all this would be a lot of work, but, it turns out, not so much. Magda is used to having "people" doing things for her. And boy, do we have people. We are in the process of hiring directors for every museum, curators, printmakers, architects, builders, you name it. And we already have a core staff of administrators and helpers. After working alone for a decade and more, it's heavenly, let me tell you.

Launch is scheduled for 2023. The initial locations are: Toronto, Canada; Corning, New York; Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Prague, Czech Republic; and Budapest, Hungary.

Magda has plans for more museums—three more in Western U.S. cities, and one each in the UK, France, and Germany.

To say this is all exciting is a vast understatement! Oh, and by the way, my title is Director of Exhibitions. Our curators will work under me and although they will work largely independently, with lots of freedom, I'll have the final word on who, and what, gets shown. I'm chomping at the bit.

I'll keep you posted.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Everything must fade away

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave: "Mike, Congratulations, and congratulations! Wow, that's a lot of news to digest. I'll bet you'll be inundated with requests from photographers who never thought such a museum (with such fair treatment of the artist) would ever exist. From your description, Magda seems fascinating. Best of luck!"

Zack Schindler: "Does this mean that the with your newfound riches that the first ten posters here will be sent one of the new Leica Safari Edition M10-P's with matching lens?"

Mike replies: Since you suggested it, yes!! Unfortunately, you are commenter number 13. Chance is cruel.

Robert Harshman: "What day is it?"

Mike replies: It's Monday.

Jnny: "Magda sounds lovely. Has she asked you to forward expense fees yet?"

Mike replies: Made me laugh....  :-)

Bahi: "Why am I reminded of buried Leicas? That one still hurts. :-) "