Guggenheim Museum, 1978. Philip Trager, courtesy of the National Building Museum.

The AIA has joined forces with the National Building Museum (NBM) to promote the exhibition “Form and Movement: Photographs by Philip Trager.” During his more than 40 years as a photographer, Trager has established himself among the masters of photographing both architecture and dance. The Trager exhibition opened last July at the National Building Museum, with a companion presentation now on display at AIA national component headquarters in Washington, DC.

“The AIA is very excited for everyone to join with us as we celebrate the first exhibition at the AIA done in partnership with the National Building Museum,” said Chris McEntee, AIA executive vice president/CEO, at an opening-night reception at AIA that featured a book signing by the photographer. “We have a partnership with the National Building Museum and we share their goal of educating the public about the power of architecture in design and transformed communities. The National Building Museum has such a strong competency and reputation in exhibits and reaching the public, and the AIA has the knowledge and expertise about architecture. It is a perfect alignment of interest to be able to partner with the National Building Museum on exhibits like this. We hope it is the first of many.”

Glastonbury, 1976. Philip Trager, courtesy of the National Building Museum.

The NBM exhibition includes new work exhibited publicly for the first time. Most of the 90 photographs in the 3,000-square-foot exhibition are black and white platinum, gelatin silver, or Iris prints, with the exception of Trager’s recent explorations in color. The exhibition includes images of New England, expansive New York cityscapes, the Italian villas of Andrea Palladio, and Paris along the Seine, as well as depictions of modern dance.

Organized by aesthetic categories that span subject matter, the exhibition brings to the forefront the photographer’s formalist eye and desire to capture what he considers to be the essential character of his subjects, whether it is a Palladian villa or a body in flight. Light and perspective, motion and symmetry—rather than specific buildings or dancers—are the subjects under investigation in Form and
Movement.

West 122nd Street, 1979. Philip Trager, courtesy of the National Building Museum.

“I had been photographing architecture when I decided that I also wanted to photograph dancers outdoors in the natural light,” said Trager. “The only photography of architecture that I have done has been in the natural light, and also that is true of dancers. All these photographs are taken as I find the structure. I try to get what I think is the feeling and presence of the structure to try to understand it emotionally, looking at it side to side and up and down, and placing the camera in a way that if I went back there 20 years later I would place it the same way.”

Form and Movement: Photographs by Philip Trager is presented in cooperation with the Library of Congress, which will ultimately house the definitive archive of Trager’s work.