Member Hour – Real/UNreal: A view of photography from the Taubman Museum’s permanent collection

Name: Member Hour – Real/UNreal: A view of photography from the Taubman Museum’s permanent collection
Start: 2025-08-08T09:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-08-08T10:00:00-04:00
Location: Taubman Museum of Art

A black-and-white photograph with a blurry figure walking away from a photobooth the the left, with multiple exposures creating a surreal landscape to the right. — Michael Ellison, u003cemu003eMickey Deesu003c/emu003e, 1987, woodcut. Photograph by Reis Birdwhistell. ©Michael Ellison

Event Series (See All)

Aug 08, 2025

9:00 am – 10:00 am

Photography has been closely associated with ideas of objectivity and truth. Yet from the beginning, artists have tested those assumptions, manipulating images through staging, darkroom techniques, or later, digital tools, to bend reality or construct entirely fictitious scenes.

From the Museum’s permanent collection, the photographs in real/UNreal invite viewers to reconsider the trust we often place in them and remind us that every image carries choices, fictions, and the possibility of narrative. The works are not anomalies, but part of a long tradition of using photography to stretch, question, and reinvent what we call reality.

Please check-in at Visitor Services when you arrive, and we will meet in the Atrium and go to the galleries together.

Reminder: Members are encouraged to bring up to two paying guests with them to each Member Hour.

Registration requested.

Members: Free
Member Guests: $10

Not a Member? You can join today for a variety of benefits such as free admission to ticketed exhibitions like this one and free admission to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, to name just a few. Click here to learn more!