Since the early 1990s, photographer Michael Wesely (German, b. 1963) has been inventing and refining techniques for making photographs with unusually long exposures. For example, some of his pictures of the rebuilding of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, completed in 1999, were exposed over a period of twenty-six months. In August 2001, Wesely installed specially designed cameras at several locations in and around the Museum, chosen for the views they provided of the Museum's ambitious construction and renovation project. Concluded nearly three years later, the exposures render the project's evolution in time as a dense and delicate network in space.

The Museum will be publishing a book featuring the Open Shutter project in the fall, and Wesely's photographs will be on view when the Museum reopens in Manhattan on November 20.

Pictured above, clockwise from top left:
Cameras installed on University Club balcony, May 2003. Photo: Michael Wesely

Wesely adjusting cameras on City Athletic Club roof, June 2001. Photo: Kalle Laar

Cameras during transit in MoMA lobby, June 2001. Photo: Michael Wesely

14 April 1999–11 December 2000 Herrnstrasse, Munich. 1999–2000. Chromogenic color print, 31 1/2 x 43 5/16" (80 x 110 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Howard Stein

29 July 1996–29 July 1997 Office of Helmut Friedel. 1996–97. Gelatin silver print, 16 9/16 x 23" (42.1 x 58.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Susan G. Jacoby in memory of Edward Goldberger