As you turn into our newest photography exhibition, you'll find yourself approaching a title wall that places you between an image of the photographer Jefferey Henson Scales and a large reproduction of one of his photographs. This relationship—between the photographer, his subject, and you—embodies the theme of Matter of Record: Photography and the Creation of Meaning. This new exhibition uses the IMA’s collection to talk about how photographs are important documentation and evidence of the world and events around us, but their meaning is shaped by a dialogue between the photographer, subject, and viewer.

To demonstrate, let’s continue considering Jeffrey Henson Scales. Most of his photographs in the exhibition document a highly politicized moment of action by the Black Panther Party in Oakland around the incarceration of the party's cofounder Huey Newton. The careful self-styling and actions of party members and leaders shaped the photographs. So did Scales’ perspective in 1970 as a teenager who looked up to these leaders and took those photographs, and in 2022 as an older activist and mature photographer who published them. When we look at these photographs today, our own culturally determined expectations and knowledge about the Black Panther Party comes together with Scales and his subjects’ agencies to shape how we perceive them.  

Such layers also apply to photographs that might initially seem unprovocative, such as a landscape printed by Ansel Adams' studio for sale at Yosemite National Park. Adams’ famous photographs of pristine natural spaces supported the preservationist vision of the Sierra Club, of which he was a member. There were infinite ways he could have photographed Yosemite but these crisp, unpopulated images became the face of natural spaces for which preservationists advocated, reinforcing viewer expectations about what a national park or a “true” wilderness should look like. Adams’ Yosemite images are paired with a photograph that set that precedent nearly a century earlier. Carleton Watkins’ photograph of the Half Dome was from a series presented to Abraham Lincoln who reserved the land in public trust as a precursor to the National Parks. One persistent element of Watkins’ presentation of Yosemite was that it was unpopulated. Humans had been part of Yosemite’s ecosystem for centuries, until only ten years before this photo was taken, when the Ahwahneechee were forcibly removed by the California Militia. A landscape with no human inhabitants persisted in America’s understanding of significant natural spaces, especially National Parks, through Adams’ day and into our own.  

Carleton Emmons Watkins (American, 1829–1916), Taysayac, Half Dome, 4967 Ft., Yosemite, 1861, mammoth plate albumen print, 15-3/8 × 20-3/8 in. (image); 21 × 27 in.(sheet), Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Delavan Smith Fund, 1994.38. 

Adams and Watkins’ photographs are hung together in a section about the Constructed Environment, and Scales’ in one on Social Justice, part of five thematic sections organizing the forty photographs in the exhibition. Spanning 150 years, there are a lot of different notable photographers, subjects, and historical viewers to explore here. Some images receive special focus moments that provide a deeper dive into their complicated stories, as they deal with important but jarring historical realities. The exhibition team also created a section identifying different parts of the photographic creation and publication process and worked with our own Newfields Labs technology team who designed and built a station where you can edit historic photographs to create different meanings within the image.  

Thinking about the ways that photography has shaped the world, and been shaped by it, made preparing for this exhibition an enthralling experience. We hope you find yourself just as fascinated by these incredible photographs and the stories behind them.

Come to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to see Matter of Record: Photography and the Creation of Meaning in the June M. McCormack Forefront Galleries through April 6, 2025.  

Image Credit: 

Installation view of Matter of Record: Photography and the Creation of Meaning in the June M. McCormack Forefront Galleries, September 13, 2024–April 6, 2025. Artworks © their respective creators.