By Kathy Wang
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

PROSPECT HEIGHTS—The Brooklyn Museum’s “Click!� is bound to be a crowd-pleaser — after all, it was curated by the crowd.

The recently opened photography exhibition is modest in all ways but one — its 75 photos were carefully chosen by 3,344 evaluators through an online survey.

The project was inspired by New Yorker business and financial columnist James Surowiecki’s popular book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,� in which he argues “that a diverse crowd� — here, online evaluators — “is often wiser at making decisions than expert individuals� — in this case, museum curators. Putting a spin on the idea, the exhibit applies it to the field of art, with “Click!� as the result.

“The whole concept behind this is fascinating, and I think the photos really make the viewer think about the impact behind Brooklyn’s development on everyday individuals,� said Angela Lee of Park Slope, one visitor to the exhibit.

The process behind the exhibit was threefold: first, anyone was allowed to electronically submit a photograph along with an artist’s statement relevant to the exhibit’s theme of “Changing Faces of Brooklyn� during a month-long open call period this past March.

Next, museum visitors, art aficionados and pretty much anyone with Internet access were invited to participate in an audience evaluation on the museum’s web site. A total of 389 submitted photos were displayed randomly and anonymously for evaluators to judge on a sliding scale. Finally, the most highly ranked 20 percent of images were printed, in size order according to their rank, and put on display at the museum.

“Because art is a subjective subject and there is no right or wrong answer, we said, here’s the process and this is the result, but we’re leaving the question open to the visitor to interpret on their own,� said “Click!� organizer Shelley Bernstein.

The photos are hung in a single medium-size room, which is also equipped with Surowiecki’s book for visitors to peruse as well as two laptops on which visitors can view and leave blog comments on individual works and browse through the exhibit’s web site.

The photographs themselves are unabashed portrayals of the good and the bad of a Brooklyn in progress. Recurring themes include a nostalgic Coney Island, the demolition of a portion of the Domino Sugar Factory and a changing Red Hook. The images showcase everything from a spirited Bed-Stuy block party to an abandoned Greenpoint warehouse yard piled high with mountains of old clothing rags.

Some photos are striking — “Just Girls� captures three Muslim women in traditional head scarves laughing mid-flight aboard an Astroland roller coaster. Others hint at the amusing — a speedboat is parked on a street corner as a city bus speeds past in “Nausea on Myrtle Avenue.� There are particularly poignant images, including of two women sitting on a graffiti-covered bench on a perfect blue day, looking towards billows of black smoke emanating from the Twin Towers — a photo that hauntingly captures contrast at its most extreme with its juxtaposition of blue sky and black smoke, calm and panic, Brooklyn’s flourishing and Manhattan’s destruction.

“We wanted a theme that would lend itself to a variety of interpretations,� said Bernstein. “It’s a good opportunity to survey the landscape of changes in Brooklyn certainly.� Bernstein added that the museum also did not want to “get flooded with the number of entries, so keeping it local was sort of a good idea there.�

The exhibit’s web site, accessible through the museum’s homepage, is another exhibit in and of itself. Visitors who can’t make it to the museum can take a virtual tour of the exhibit as well as view all 389 submitted photos. They can also view the top 10 images and those that received the most discussion.

Because the nature of the exhibit draws so much from public participation, it would have proved useful or at least revealing to present accompanying artist statements and bios next to photos — another plus the online gallery offers.

Among the web site’s more interesting features are statistics comparing the location and knowledge level of evaluators. All online evaluators were asked about their level of art knowledge and expertise, and one page allows viewers to see how groups of people with different knowledge compare in their selections of the same pieces.

“Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition� is on display at Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, until August 10. For more information, call (718) 638-5000 or visit www.brooklynmuseum/exhibitions/click.

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