Splitting a Gallery in Half To Focus on Social Strife.

The Museum of Modern Art's annual ''New Photography'' exhibitions have tended to resemble a reality-show competition. Usually one artist stands out from a group of three or four (last year it was Tanyth Berkeley, whose portraits of unconventionally beautiful albino and transgendered women easily trumped earnest but dull projects by Scott McFarland and Berni Searle). This time around there are only two photographers, and they come from opposite ends of the discipline, making it difficult to judge them by the same scale. Josephine Meckseper, a German-born, CalArts-trained artist in her 40s, makes sleek-looking installations that mix photography and film -- often scenes of political protest -- with consumer objects. The South African Mikhael Subotzky, who at 26 is the youngest photographer to have been invited to join the Magnum Group, explores his country's prison system in vivid color and unflinching detail. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]