Funny Business: Photography and Humor

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This summer, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will explore the use of comedy throughout the history of photography in Funny Business: Photography and Humor. Drawn primarily from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the exhibition presents 70 photographs that showcase the mechanics of photographic humor while examining the reasons for which artists throughout time have employed it as a strategy in their work. Spanning nearly the entire history of the medium, Funny Business offers a compelling view into the ways artists have utilized visual humor not only to provoke laughter and delight, but also as a means of resistance, an antidote to the heaviness of the world, and a way to interrogate and subvert norms and hierarchies. The exhibition features wide-ranging examples of photographic humor that invoke a variety of comedic modes, including slapstick, irony, absurdism, satire, self-deprecation, and parody. Featured works include vernacular snapshots, mid-century street photography, tongue-in-cheek 1970s conceptual imagery, and contemporary works. Included with general admission, $28.

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