PRINCETON, NJ.- American cities underwent seismic transformations in the 1960s and 1970s, from shifting demographics and political protests to reshaping through highways and urban renewal. Amid this climate of upheaval, photographers, architects, activists, performance artists, and filmmakers turned conditions of crisis into sites for civic discourse and artistic expression. A collaboration between the Art Institute of Chicago and the Princeton University Art Museum, The City Lost and Found explores photographic and cinematic responses to the changing fabric of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles that contributed to a reconsideration of cities in popular media and urban policy during this period. This exhibition and publication raise timely questions about the role of art within the social, political, and physical landscape of cities.

The exhibition brings together works by major artists such as Ed Ruscha and Garry Winogrand and newly rediscovered projects, including works by Allan Kaprow and Shadrach Woods. The publication will feature contributions from more than twenty noted scholars in fields including art history, urban planning, architecture, and cultural studies. The City Lost and Found is the first project to address an important shift in photographic, cinematic, and planning practices based on close observations of streets, neighborhoods, and seminal events in the country’s three largest cities.

Katherine A. Bussard is Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum. Alison Fisher is Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design, The Art Institute of Chicago. Greg Foster-Rice is associate professor of the history of photography, Columbia College Chicago.

The City Lost and Found: Capturing New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, 1960-1980 has been organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Princeton University Art Museum.