New Photography Exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum Explores the Role of Comedy throughout the Medium’s History

Mar, 26, 2025

Photography

New Photography Exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum Explores the Role of Comedy throughout the Medium’s History

Funny Business: Photography and Humor opens June 2025 with more than 70 whimsical, comedic works from John Baldessari, Zig Jackson, Helen Levitt, William Wegman, and Garry Winograd, among others

PHOENIX, AZ (March 26, 2025) – This summer, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will explore the use of comedy throughout the history of photography in Funny Business: Photography and Humor. Drawn primarily from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the exhibition presents 70 photographs that showcase the mechanics of photographic humor, while examining the reasons for which artists throughout time have employed it as a strategy in their work. Funny Business: Photography and Humor will be on view at the Museum from June 14, 2025, through January 4, 2026.

Spanning nearly the entire history of the medium, Funny Business offers a compelling view into the ways artists have utilized visual humor not only to provoke laughter and delight, but also as a means of resistance, an antidote to the heaviness of the world, and a way to interrogate and subvert norms and hierarchies. The exhibition features wide-ranging examples of photographic humor that invoke a variety of comedic modes, including slapstick, irony, absurdism, satire, self-deprecation, and parody. Featured works include vernacular snapshots, mid-century street photography, tongue-in-cheek 1970s conceptual imagery, and contemporary works by the following artists:

• John Baldessari
• Tom Barrow
• Jo Ann Callis
• Liz Cohen
• Robert Cumming
• Judy Dater
• Steffi Faircloth
• Jacques-Henri Lartigue
• Zig Jackson
• Kenneth Josephson
• Tommy Kha
• Tseng Kwong Chi
• Helen Levitt
• Jeff Mermelstein
• Bucky Miller
• Reynier Leyva Novo
• Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan
• Lisette Model
• Clare Strand
• William Wegman
• Garry Winogrand
• Guanyu Xu

“As the first original exhibition from Emilia Mickevicius, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography, Funny Business: Photography and Humor embodies a creative, clever, and innovative approach to viewing photography from a new perspective,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Funny Business personifies unique ways exhibitions can engage visitors and provoke delight, exemplifying that humor is oftentimes the best remedy for a challenging world.”

Funny Business is arranged in four thematic sections:

• All the World’s a Stage highlights slapstick and observational comedy through a constellation of early 20^th-century gelatin silver prints and snapshots displayed in conversation with examples of canonical mid-20th century street photography. Viewers consider photographs as a source of joy and discover how successful street photography—like observational comedy—is fundamentally rooted in the photographer being keenly attuned to the theater or “raw material” of their surroundings.
• Inside Jokes charts the medium’s evolution in the 1970s, when art institutions began accepting and exhibiting photography as a legitimate art form. Featured works highlight photographers’ adoption of a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward their predecessors and the conventions and aesthetics of the medium itself. This approach to photography resulted in visually mischievous works that use humor to poke fun at photographic meaning.
• Context is Everything explores how subjects and photographic images can become absurd, ironic, and nonsensical when shown outside of their original contexts or in unexpected juxtaposition with one another.
• Comic Relief features the work of contemporary artists who use humor in a critical or subversive manner to explore issues of identity and belonging, politics, and general dimensions of contemporary life. Humor operates in their work as a means of resistance, a coping mechanism, a refusal to become cynical, or a way to subvert power structures and challenge stereotypes. These artists use varying degrees of comedy to question the status quo and consider how we relate to the world and one another.

“In my practice, I am always looking for ways to make photography more accessible to wider audiences,” said Emilia Mickevicius, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. “Humor is a fun and approachable lens for visitors to consider the history of photography and explore the sophisticated dimensions of how we perceive images. I hope people come away learning something new about the medium and the role it plays in our perceptions and everyday lives.”

High-resolution photography for Funny Business: Photography and Humor can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About the Exhibition
Funny Business: Photography and Humor is co-organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. The exhibition is curated by Emilia Mickevicius, PhD, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography. 

All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin.

Admission is free for Museum Members; youth aged 5 and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion design, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, an art+music festival, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About the Center for Creative Photography (CCP)
Celebrating 50 years in 2025, the Center for Creative Photography is the largest institution in North America devoted to the research and exhibition of photography. At the heart of CCP’s holdings are more than 300 archives of photographers, scholars, galleries, and organizations, complemented by an unparalleled collection of some 120,000 fine prints. In addition, CCP focuses on preserving and stewarding its holdings through a robust conservation program and digital imaging unit. The Center owns and manages copyrights for a selection of archive artists and supports licensing and image file delivery to publishers, authors, educators, and filmmakers worldwide. As unit of Arizona Arts at the University of Arizona, the Center maintains a robust calendar of free exhibitions and programs for the public, serves students and faculty through curricular engagements, and awards several international research fellowships annually.