MoMA’s “Face Value” Invites Us to Turn a Critical Eye Toward Our Image-Obsessed Culture
In “Face Value: Celebrity Press Photography,” MoMA curator Ron Magliozzi is trying to overwhelm us. That’s no conjecture; he says as much. But he has objectives beyond bombardment. “Celebrity is something that is produced for consumption, and people consume it,” Magliozzi tells Observer. “I’m hoping visitors will consume it with a critical eye. That’s the notion behind this.”
Trading scarcity for abundance and framed and matted artifice for simple plexiglass mounting, the photographs presented in the museum’s Titus and Morita galleries are beautiful but not precious. The arrangement of 239 photographs mirrors how we encounter celebrity culture, constantly and almost everywhere. Though most of the images in the show date to the glamorous Classical Hollywood period, “Face Value” feels germane in the age of social media, where celebrity is central to our lived experiences. After all, Magliozzi points out, the president was a celebrity first.
In the early days of Magliozzi’s career at MoMA, he worked in the warehouse, separating press material from photographs. He recalled a curator commenting that since many photographs were marked up, they were spoiled—unfit for exhibiting and uninteresting. But Magliozzi felt that the etchings and drawn-in dimensions added something, highlighting the photographs as working documents.
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These “flaws” are indeed the most interesting parts of the exhibition. In some photographs, white ink silhouetting adds an eeriness: the heads of the subjects seem to float or hover. In others, lines of tape mark image croppings, framing a sensual shot of actress Myrna Loy’s legs or a lovers’ kiss. Also present are photographs with masking, inpainting and collaging. What results is a metaphorical—but also literal—dismemberment of celebrities for mass consumption.
“Compared to today, with digital technologies and A.I., these photographs almost look precocious,” Magliozzi says with a laugh. “They’re so analog, and the editing adds a charm to it.”
The backs of the photographs are equally compelling, he asserts, with their marks, stamps and notations indicating their provenance. The images come chiefly from two editorial collections: Photoplay (1911-80) and Dell (1921-76), both legendary Hollywood publications whose archives were acquired by early MoMA film curator Iris Barry.
The cultural touchpoints in the exhibition are manifold. One month before she overdosed on barbiturates, Marilyn Monroe sat perched on a chair for one of her last photo shoots in a dark blouse and heels. Alert and expressive, she seems here vibrant and alive—no signs of anxiety or dread that might hint at her impending death.
In another photo, a mirror doubles the face of Hollywood heroine Carole Lombard, haunting and enigmatic, as if she’s keeping a secret. Pencil-thin eyebrows arc above her upwards-fixed, glassy eyes, and her dark-painted lips press in a slight smile. You can’t take your eyes off of her.
Beyond Hollywood starlets, there are politicians, socialites, athletes and even a dog. Among the featured figures are Oprah Winfrey, Anna May Wong, Clara Bow, Jackie Robinson, Joan Crawford and many, many more.
But for all of its famous faces, much of what’s so engaging about “Face Value” lies in the subtext. The richly perceptive block of introductory text sets the stage, and then it’s up to the viewer to find the throughline. While some museumgoers may long for supplemental text, the lack of clunky explainers lets the photos breathe, opening space for visitors to conduct their own analyses. Race is one of the themes on the table here—Magliozzi and his curatorial team mined the archive for underrepresented groups and celebrities of color. Another is gender, as exaggerated images of femininity hang juxtaposed against their exaggeratedly masculine counterparts. Women smile suggestively; men hold guns.
As aspirational as it all appears on the surface, these images are disconcerting for those familiar with the Classical Hollywood star system, where performers lacked agency. “Celebrities are products,” Magliozzi says. “They were actually properties of the studio and they were treated as such—kind of dispassionately or as objects.” The top floor of the exhibition homes in on this objectification with the most edited and marked-up of the photographs on show. At the foot of the escalator, an Andy Warhol screen flickers across the faces of sixties celebrities.
MoMA has long hosted installations centered on stars. In “Face Value,” the sparkly black floors and navy-painted walls evoke Old Hollywood. When deciding which photos to select from 16,500 in the museum’s repository, Magliozzi searched for those that were particularly beautiful or contained unique visual motifs like shadows. “The lighting and the spacing between the photographs control your experience,” he adds.
His chosen combinations certainly bring alive the industry’s heady mystique, and the sensuality of “Face Value” is impossible to ignore. In what Magliozzi calls the “eating face” section, couples kiss, or are poised to, the romantic tension thick. He noted that the sensuality portrayed on social media today can be traced back to the sexuality of Classical Hollywood, which was preceded by similar erotic patterns in earlier theater. Indeed, it’s hard to look away.
“Face Value: Celebrity Press Photography” is on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through June 21, 2026.
Edmund Lowe bites Dolores del Rio's chin." width="970" height="1211" data-caption='<em>Dolores del Rio and Edmund Lowe in The Bad One</em>, 1930; Gelatin silver print, 13 7/8 × 10 15/16″ (35.2 × 27.8 cm). <span class="lazyload media-credit">Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.</span>'>