Gallery Talk: Hauntology, Death Discs, and the Specter of Postwar America
Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Explore photographs through the lens of teen tragedy songs (known as “death discs”), hauntology, and postwar American nostalgia. In her talk, marketing assistant and artist Krystle Brown will pair images by Joseph Janney Steinmetz and Terry Wood with the emotional atmosphere of 1950s and 1960s death discs, such as “Leader of the Pack,” “Teen Angel,” and “Last Kiss,” examining how photography can preserve and haunt cultural fantasies of innocence, romance, suburban adolescence, and loss. This talk is offered in conjunction with the exhibition The Way We Never Were: The American Professional Photographers Collection, on view from August 29, 2026 to May 9, 2027. Led by: Krystle Brown, Marketing Assistant, Harvard Art Museums Funding for the exhibition and related programming was provided by the John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Fund for Photography and the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. , Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.