PURCHASE COLLEGE, NEW YORK.-The Neuberger Museum of Art presents today Acting Out: The Invented Melodrama in Contemporary Photography, on view through December 31, 2005. In recent years, a new manner of contemporary photography has evolved that takes its lead from the ubiquitous melodrama seen in cinema, comic strips, television (soap operas, reality TV), advertising, film stills and photojournalism. This exhibition features 33 photographs by 13 artists that make use of the long-standing language of melodrama to explore and comment on how we create meaning from a single photographic image.

Artists include Tina Barney, Gregory Crewdson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Anna Gaskell, Tom Hunter, Simen Johan, Justine Kurland, Laura Letinsky, Sharon Lockhart, Adi Nes, Yinka Shonibare, and Janaina Tschape, among others.

A 50-page color catalogue, distributed by University of Washington Press, accompanies the exhibition, which is curated by Kathleen Edwards, Curator of Prints, Drawings, Photographs, and New Media, University of Iowa Museum of Art, and has been organized for the Neuberger Museum of Art by Dede Young, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.