Curated by Susan Kismaric and Eva Respini

Although MoMA has included its collection of fashion work by Steichen, Beaton, Penn, and Avedon in various themed shows, “Fashioning Fiction” is its first exhibition devoted to fashion photography. As such, it makes no attempt to recapitulate the genre’s history, focusing instead on recent, often self-consciously cinematic developments. MoMA’s curators have selected nearly one hundred photographs by a dozen “crossover” artists like Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Tina Barney, Steven Meisel, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, and Larry Sultan to examine the disintegrating line between art and commerce over the past decade. Even if this lineup just scratches the surface, MoMA recognizes that the fashion avant-garde has been crucial to the advancement of staged narrative photography.

— Vince Aletti