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The New York Public Library

presents


 *The Big Picture<http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2013/10/23/josh-sapan-and-luc-sante-big-picture>
***

*Josh Sapan*

*in conversation with*

*Luc Sante*



Wednesday October 23, 2013

6:00 p.m.

Margaret Liebman Berger Forum
Room 227 (2nd Floor)



The New York Public Library

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

5thAvenue at 42nd Street

New York, NY 10018

917-275-6975

 www.nypl.org

*(directions) <http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/36/directions>*

  Room 227 opens to public at 5:30 p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation.

The early 20th century saw a mania for panoramic group photographs, some
encompassing hundreds of people and spanning a full 360 degrees. Celebrated
in a new book, *The Big Picture: America in Panorama*, the panoramic photo
is an ostensibly faithful record that can blur the line between fact and
fiction. *Join editor Josh Sapan and critic Luc Sante as they discuss these
astonishing images and show examples of some of their favorites*.

At the turn of the 20th century, photographic technology and an American
culture of optimism and self-celebration combined to create what Luc Sante
calls the “strange and compelling medium” of panoramic group photography.
Organizations famed and obscure—from the Anti-Saloon League of America and
the troops at Camp Sevier during the Great War to the members of the Midget
Swing Review—commissioned photographers to produce images that sometimes
encompassed a full 360 degrees. The photographs compose a portrait of a
society on the cusp of sweeping change, as their details preserve the
enduring humanity of their subjects: a bathing beauty tosses her curls; a
group of cross-dressing women smile enigmatically at an off-camera friend;
children at play on a summertime lawn appear only as blurs behind an Ohio
town meeting. Compiled by Josh Sapan, *The Big Picture: America in
Panorama*gathers nearly one hundred of these fascinating images, most
never before
published.**

*Copies of the book are available for purchase and signing at the event
after the audience Q&A*.

*Josh Sapan <http://www.amcnetworks.com/about_leader_Sapan>* is the CEO of
Rainbow Media, the company that operates the cable channels AMC, IFC, WEtv,
and the Sundance Channel. The channels, movies, documentaries and series
created under his guidance have won multiple awards including Emmys, Golden
Globes, Oscars, and Peabodys. Sapan serves on the board of trustees of the
New School, People For The American Way, and the Museum of the Moving Image.

*Luc Sante<http://catalog.nypl.org/search%7ES48?/asante%2C+luc/asante+luc/1%2C1%2C15%2CB/exact&FF=asante+luc&1%2C15%2C/indexsort=n#anchor_8>
* is a writer and critic whose books include *Folk Photography*, *Kill All
Your Darlings*, *Walker Evans*, *The Factory of Facts*, and *Low Life*. He
has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a
Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy
Award for album liner notes, and an Infinity Award for writing from the
International Center of Photography.
Sante<http://www.bard.edu/academics/faculty/faculty.php?action=details&id=767>teaches
writing and the history of photography at Bard College.

This event is organized in collaboration with *Arezoo
Moseni*<http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/robert-burley-alison-nordstr%C3%B6m-arezoo-moseni-disappearance-darkness-artist-dialogue-serie>
.


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