I'm live blogging today from the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the opening of PROM a wonderful new exhibition of big, black and white photographs by distinguished photographer Mary Ellen Mark who is considered to be one of the greatest American artists of her generation.
Prom is exactly what it says it is -- a very selective chronicle of that great American right of passage, the high school prom.
Everyone can relate to these photographs because practically everyone has been to their prom or thought of going to the prom or knows someone who went to the prom.
These photographs will give you an incisive and high school students and high school's premiere social event as it exists today.
Mary Ellen Mark is from the Philadelphia area (she graduated from Cheltenham High School) and her photographs for this exhibition were taken with a monumental Polaroid Land Camera that produces 24 x 20 prints.
These are not digital photographs.
Mary Ellen includes five photos in this exhibition from her alma mater, Cheltenham High. But you will also find prom photos here from other parts of the country.
Be sure of this: These are not your traditional, highly-polished, four-color ceremonial prom photos. Rather, this is photojournalism as art: straightforward, direct, revealing and often intense.
Accompanying these 41 prints is a video of the prom attendees produced by Filmmaker Martin Bell, Mark's husband. The exhibition at the museum's Perelman Building runs through October 28.
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