Written 10/12/2003

During one of our whirlwind weekends in New York, Karen and I went to the New York Historical Society (2 West 77th Street New York, NY 10024 http://www.nyhistory.org) to catch the last day of the exhibit, REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN ONES: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF MILTON ROGOVIN.

This proved to be the best photography, most engaging exhibit I have seen in years. “A joint project of the N-YHS, Sound Portraits Production (the Society’s collaborators on the 2001 exhibition Flophouse ), and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo, this remarkable exhibition combines prime examples of 93-year-old Rogovin’s photographs of Buffalo over five decades (including recent work), with audio installations and artifacts. The exhibition is accompanied by a short film, The Forgotten Ones , directed by Harvey Wang (which won the Best Documentary Short award at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival), and a new book, Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones (with Dave Isay, David Miller and Harvey Wang; published by Quantuck Lane Press in June, 2003).” (from the New York Historical Society web site)

Anne and Milton Rogovin (June 2003)

At the heart of the experience was a roomful of triptychs, photos taken of the same family, if not always the same family members spanning three decades. Rogovin combined brief texts by one or more of those pictured and some included audio versions with the authors of the text speaking.

Here are a few images:

Eva and Daughter 1972, 1985, and 1992 (image borrowed without permission from The Getty Museum (http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o112420.html)

 

Grandparents and Baptism Boy 1974, 1985, 1992 (image borrowed without permission from The Getty Museum http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/oz112421.html)

 

And an updated “quartet” extending the one above:

Here are a couple of other pictures gleaned from various web sites:

 

(from the Working People series)

 

There is a Milton Rogovin website.