Seeing Things (exhibition and publication)

Mark Haworth-Booth was the curator of the exhibition and the author of the related publication 'Things: A Spectrum of Photography 1850-2001'. This exhibition presented a structured overview of the photography of objects through a wide range of genre categories including the photographic still-life, documentary and reportage photography, and art photography. It was intended for the wide and varied V&A audience. An important aspect of the exhibition was to create an introduction to the Museum’s photographic holding as a whole by tracing it back to its origins in the 1850s.

The selection of subdivisions and images involved a systematic review of the Museum’s photographs (including some 300,000 prints) and a consultation process with academics and others through informal seminars. The curating process intentionally included a range of ‘voices’ to be experienced on the exhibition labels including critics and curators, staff who worked on the project as interns or other capacities and the photographers’ own voices in some cases. The exhibition also prompted a number of new acquisitions to be made including three photogravures by Man Ray which represented electricity purchased through the Friends of the V & A and the National Art Collections Fund. The exhibition was housed in the Canon (sponsored) Photography Gallery.

The exhibition was sub-divided into 1. Natural Things, 2. Artefacts, 3. Reinventing Things, 4. Givens, 5. People and Things, 6. Making Things.

The exhibition prompted Jonathan Cape to commission a book of the exhibition under the title Things: A Spectrum of Photography 1850-2001 (ISBN 0 224 07289 7) which Haworth-Booth edited and wrote the majority of the text.