Duane Michals, Maker of Enigmatic Sequences of Images That Defied Photography’s Conventions, Dies at 94
Photographer Duane Michals died at age 94 on Tuesday, June 9, in a Manhattan hospital, according to confirmation from DC Moore Gallery, which had represented him since 2013. Michals was known for narrative photographic sequences—often five to nine images—that challenged conventional single-image photography, a practice he articulated in his 1987 BOMB magazine remark, “My photographs are about questions. They are not about answers.” Key works cited include “The Spirit Leaves the Body” (1968), “Death Comes to the Old Lady” (1969), and the nine-part “Things Are Queer” (1973), which used staged, surreal scenarios to explore time, mortality, and perception. Curator Linda Benedict-Jones wrote in a 2014 Carnegie Museum of Art retrospective catalog that Michals did not aim to capture the external world but instead staged and recorded “the corners of his mind.”
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This story was covered in Repatriation Reckonings and Museums Under Siege