Duane Michals

We meet living legend DUANE MICHALS (b. 1932, McKeesport, PA) one of the GREATEST photographic innovators of the last century, widely known for his work with series, multiple exposures, and text. For more than 60 years he has pushed photography and art to new dimensions. Without doubt, so many contemporary artists have been inspired by, and have directly referenced, the groundbreaking work of Duane Michals - he has truly shifted the way we think about art forever!!! Duane Michals is an artist who has been much imitated, highly influential and endlessly re-inventive. He celebrated his 91st birthday the week before this episode was recorded, so a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Duane!!!


Michals first made significant, creative strides in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Michals manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. The sequences, for which he is widely known, appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format. Michals has also incorporated text as a key component in his works. Rather than serving a didactic or explanatory function, his handwritten text adds another dimension to the images’ meaning and gives voice to Michals’ singular musings, which are poetic, tragic, and humorous, often all at once.


Over the past five decades, Michals’ work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, hosted Michals’ first solo exhibition (1970). In 2019, The Morgan Library and Museum in New York exhibited a career retrospective of Michals' work The Illusions of the Photographer: Duane Michals at the Morgan. More recently, he had one-person shows at the Odakyu Museum, Tokyo (1999), and at the International Center of Photography, New York (2005). In 2008, Michals celebrated his 50th anniversary as a photographer with a retrospective exhibition at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece, and the Scavi Scaligeri in Verona, Italy.


Michals's work belongs to numerous permanent collections in the U.S. and abroad, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Michals's archive is housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.


Michals received a BA from the University of Denver in 1953 and worked as a graphic designer until his involvement with photography deepened in the late 1950s. He currently lives and works in New York City, USA.


Follow @TheDuaneMichals on Instagram.

Views more than 50 recent short films at Duane's Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/duanemichals

Learn more at DC Gallery: https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/duane-michals


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