Ken Ohara: CONTACTS is artist Ken Ohara's (b. 1942) first U.S. institutional solo exhibition. Featuring twenty-two photographs and four accompanying documents from his groundbreaking series CONTACTS (1974–76), this exhibition showcases Ohara’s innovative photographic experiment, where he mailed a preloaded camera to strangers across the U.S., instructing them to document their own lives before passing the camera along. During this process, Ohara relinquished authorship, decentralizing his point of view but rather facilitating and cocreating a uniquely personal and democratic portrait of Americans and American life at a time of economic and political unrest.
The resulting “contact sheets,” a recent acquisition to the Whitney’s collection, are shown in chronological order and offer intimate glimpses into the lives of participants across thirty-six states. The exhibition explores themes of human connection and the collective synchronicities of mundane life utilizing the groundbreaking analog photography of the 1970s and contemporary image-sharing culture.
Ken Ohara: CONTACTS is organized by Eli Harrison, Curatorial Fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art
