In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1964 World’s Fair, the Queens Museum of Art presents The Seeing Eye: Art and Industry at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair (July 18 – October 24, 2004), a retrospective focused on the convergence of art and corporate sponsorship in Fair Pavilions. Kodak sponsored one of the most artistically important displays at the Fair – 121 exhibition prints by noted artists including Richard Avedon, Cornell Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Yousuf Karsh, Dorothea Lange, and Irving Penn, originally shown as Photography as Fine Art: Museum Directors’ Selections for the 1965 World’s Fair. This exhibition, intended to elevate photography’s recognition as fine art, is the core of The Seeing Eye. Models, films, documentary pieces and other works of art associated with the Kodak Pavilion, and the World’s Fair as a whole, provide context and reveal the exciting interplay between art and industry that existed, uncovering a crucial element in photography’s ascendancy to the realm of fine art.

The Seeing Eye is curated by BBQ Productions’ Terri Marlowe and Curtis Cates.