In this week’s issue of the magazine, Adam Gopnik writes about the assassination of J.F.K, fifty years later.
The events of November 22, 1963, have been pored over endlessly, and Abraham Zapruder’s infamous footage of the shooting remains one of the most studied pieces of film in the world. Shot innocuously at a time when it was still novel to own a camera, it emphasized questions about individuals’ documentation of historic events, and about the role that these materials play in cultural narratives, especially those as significant J.F.K.’s death.
In conjunction with the upcoming anniversary, the I.C.P. has mounted an exhibition, “JFK November 22, 1963: A Bystander’s View of History,” that focusses on the visual records of the event captured by people who bore witness to it from the sidelines. Many of the photographs in the show remain uncredited, adding to the mystery of a story that has fascinated us for half a century, creating state of what Gopnik, quoting a researcher, calls “hyperperspicacity”: “The tendency to look harder for pattern than the thing looked at will ever provide.”
“A Bystander’s View of History” runs through January 19, 2014.
Top: John F. Kennedy. Unidentified Photographer, ca. 1963. All images courtesy International Center of Photography.
