Opening Reception of Todd Papageorge: At the Beach + In the Pool: On Influence
MoCA CT will be presenting two complementary major photography exhibitions: Tod Papageorge: At the Beach, alongside In the Pool, composed of work by Papageorge’s former graduate students, from June 26 to October 12, 2025. The exhibitions were organized by photographer Lisa Kereszi, and showcase the work of Tod Papageorge, a Connecticut-based, internationally acclaimed artist and teacher whose contributions to American street photography in the 1960s helped shape the genre, and whose work is held in more than thirty prominent public collections, including the New York and San Francisco Museums of Modern Art.
At the Beach, making its East Coast debut at MoCA CT, will feature work in the form of large-scale black and white photographs that Papageorge produced with medium-format cameras during several trips to the beaches of Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. As he has written about this project: I think that part of what these pictures are about is the difference between our preconceptions of a place and what, when we get there, that place turns out to be. To describe a subject and, at the same time, reinvent it, is a double intention on the part of the photographer that we should be used to by now when we look at photographs. With these pictures, I worked with the belief that the closer I came to describing the literal nature of the place and people I was photographing, the more surprising the pictures might be, all while transforming the casual, unselfconscious physicality of these beachgoers into resonant form and meaning.
The title of the adjacent exhibition, In the Pool, refers to the nickname for the classroom Papageorge taught in for the last third of his teaching career, a renovated swimming pool. As a professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in Photography at the Yale School of Art from 1979 – 2013, Papageorge mentored many future influential photographers and teachers, with 39 of his students going on to receive Guggenheim Fellowships, a significant marker of achievement in the art and photography world. This part of the exhibition will include a photograph from each of those Guggenheim Fellows, and also feature a looped slide show composed of pictures made by virtually all of Papageorge’s former MFA students while they were enrolled at Yale and offered as a portfolio upon his retirement to commemorate his time as director of the program. These nearly 300 photographs will serve to provide some insight into the nature of influence and mentorship in the arts, and to suggest the power of the ongoing moment that is the still-developing history of photography.
—
About the Curator
Photographer Lisa Kereszi organized the companion exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited at numerous major museums and is included in important public collections. Kereszi received her MFA from Yale University, where she is currently a Senior Critic and Assistant Director in Photography. She has also organized a sampling of photographers included in the slide show portion of In the Pool who have donated prints to be sold at MoCA CT. The purchase of these prints will benefit the museum as well as non-profits supporting the Los Angeles wildfire recovery efforts.
Exhibition Programming
• Opening reception: June 26, 6 – 8pm
• Workshop: Teen Photo / Storytelling – Shelli Weiler – July 17, 3 – 5pm
• Film screenings: Brief Encounters (on photographer Gregory Crewdson) folllowed by a Q+A with Angela Strassheim – July 31, 7pm
+ The Audience Will Come (on photographer Tod Papageorge) – ongoing
• Community Conversation: Art Nager, photographer – August 21, 6 – 7pm
• Workshop: Adult Photo / Storytelling – Lewis Derogene – August 28, 6 – 8pm
• Gallery talk: Tod Papageorge + Lisa Kereszi – September 18, 6 – 7:30pm
• Community Conversation: Panel discussion with artist + Yale MFA alums – October 4, 4 – 5:30pm
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2968620-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2968620-2
