But Still, It Turns Photography from the World

International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) Ceremony (BDC Annex, 364 E. 151st St.) Introduction by co-curator Kathy Gannon, followed by words from Associated Press Senior Vice President, Jessica Bruce, co-curator Ami Beckmann, Anja's sister Elke Niedringhaus-Haasper, Christine Longiere, and BDC Founder/Creative Director, Mike Kamber. The IWMF will then announce the winner of the 2024 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. Q&A to follow with co-curator/photographer Muhammed Muheisen and the awardee. “I do my job simply to report people’s courage with my camera and with my heart.” Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Anja Niedringhaus died on April 4, 2014, killed by an Afghan police commander, who emptied his AK-47 rifle into the car in which she was sitting. It occurred in eastern Afghanistan on the eve of a critical vote for president, an event Anja knew would test the courage of Afghans. She was ready with her camera and with her heart. A collection of Anja’s powerful images from Afghanistan and Pakistan will be on display at the Bronx Documentary Center from April 4, 2024, 10 years to the day since her death. They will also be featured in a book accompanying the exhibition. In the course of her work, Anja traveled through some of the most difficult years of the protracted Afghan war, reaching deep into the soul of Afghans, her pictures often serving to remind us of our own humanity. The exhibition offers rare glimpses into lives seen by few, such as pictures taken during a first-ever embed with the Pakistan army in the freezing Hindu Kush Mountain peaks on the border with Afghanistan. Among the images to be displayed is a simple, yet powerful reminder of the innocence of children, even as war surrounds them. In the photograph, children play amid mesh-encased blast-proof Hesco bags, designed to protect them from feared terrorist attacks against an election commission office in the eastern Afghanistan town of Khost. The picture was taken the day before Anja died. The exhibition and the book serve to remind us of the extraordinary sacrifices journalists make to keep us all informed. This is a particularly powerful lesson at a time when journalists are dying, suffering life-changing injuries, being targeted, or being imprisoned at an alarming rate. v Anja received the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) Courage in Journalism award in 2005. After her death, through a generous grant from the Howard G Buffett Foundation, the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Journalism Award was established and is awarded annually to an extraordinary woman photojournalist, whose images reflect Anja’s commitment to reporting the courage of others. The exhibition is curated by Ami Beckmann, Kathy Gannon, and Muhammed Muheisen.

Framing the Domestic Sea: photographs by Jeffery C. Becton presents a new body of work by this celebrated Maine artist. His digital photographic collages are surreal and panoramic in scope. The layered visual images evoke the past, New England’s varied histories, the maritime world, and contemporary environmental concerns. Inspired by the intertidal spaces and atmospheric weather conditions surrounding his home on Deer Isle off the Maine Coast, Becton creates densely layered digital photographs that probe boundaries between dream and reality, interior and exterior, abstraction and representation. His montages frequently contain architectural elements and objects from surrounding antique New England homes; many are part of his personal history. They invite close looking and quiet contemplative study. Their subjects feel familiar and vernacular, but the scale of the prints and their uncanny qualities – they often present ruptures between what we see and what we expect – puncture the quietude and introduce a level of anxiety: about the passage of time, the work of history, and the indomitable forces of the natural world. In this way, Becton’s work engages with many of the pressing issues of today, including intergenerational legacies, the inadequacies of and absences within traditional histories, and the widespread impacts of climate change, especially rising sea levels and changing coastlines. As an Islander, Becton is ideally suited to raise such questions and imagine startling outcomes, if we don’t turn the tide and change course. In his photographic dream worlds, Becton captures certain moods via visual effects – fog, rain, reflections – to create an in-between world. Domestic spaces merge with the sea; the landscape is encrusted with oceanic materials; places appear simultaneously both timeless – as if they were and always will be there – and under imminent threat of destruction. Scenes in Becton’s works feel eternal and, also, fleeting and ephemeral. This makes them deeply fascinating and mesmerizing in turn. There is a sense of the impending in most of Becton’s oeuvre, something reaching around the corner – just out of sight, but there -- watching. Intimacy pervades his visual lexicon, yet each work carries a vestige of the uncanny. What is real? How do we hold onto memory, legacies, time, youth, or history? In pieces where the sea reaches the threshold, or invades an interior, the frightening outcomes of rising sea levels and climate change are forcefully made visible. In other works, the crowns of ancient pine forests rise above a sea of mist, hinting at an Atlantis of New England, a place beyond the impact of humankind, a sort of Eden. The destruction of both mythic lands – Atlantis and Eden – lends a sense of foreboding that connects deeply with environmental narratives and maritime concerns. How do we hold on? To a landscape, a history, a culture – in the face of changing cultural values and catastrophic environmental change? About the Artist: A pioneer in fine-art photography, Becton (b. 1947) received an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1976. He worked on the mainframe computer at Yale’s computer science lab—an experience that primed Becton to welcome the new digital tools in the mid-1980s. By the early 1990s, Becton was experimenting with the layering of visual information, living year-round in Maine, and creating surreal scenarios evocative of that in-between milieu one inhabits when living by the sea. Becton’s work has been in numerous solo, group, and juried exhibitions, and highlighted in national and international publications, including the Royal Academy 2022 Summer Exhibition in London. In 2015, Marshall Wilkes (Ellsworth) published a monograph on Becton’s work, and in 2016, the Bates College Museum of Art held a solo exhibition of Becton’s large-scale monographs that traveled to Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia. Becton’s work is in the museum collections of Bates College Museum of Art, Farnsworth Museum of Art, and Portland Museum of Art. Becton lives in Deer Isle, Maine, where he maintains a studio. Image: Waking Up, 2021. © Jeffery C. Becton

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s. Here the Earth Grows Gold, Sanzgiri’s first solo museum exhibition, pairs the film with a 16 mm projection and new sculptural work. Modeled on bamboo structures seen across South Asia, the assemblage features family photos, 3D renderings, anti-colonial publications, and images of water and red clay soil from Goa that are drawn from his research. Together these works present the concept of diaspora as a way to reconfigure our understanding of history and belonging. Image: Still from My Memory Is Again in the Way of Your History (After Agha Shahid Ali), 2023 © Suneil Sanzgiri

CP's survey of the work of David Seidner (1957–1999) reintroduces this important and rarely exhibited artist of the 1980s and 1990s whose work has largely faded from view since his passing from AIDS-related illnesses in 1999. Primarily drawn from Seidner's archive, which has been a part of ICP’s collection since 2001, highlights include David Seidner’s early fine art photography and fragmented portrait studies, vibrant fashion and editorial photography, images of groundbreaking dancers and choreographers, portraits of well-known contemporary artists and their studios, and works from his final project, abstracted studies of orchids. During his life, David Seidner was a notable fashion photographer, photographing for designers like Yves Saint Laurent--with whom he had an exclusive contract at the age of just 22—Azzedine Alaïa and Madame Grès among many others. David Seidner also was a prolific editorial photographer for publications such as Harper's Bazaar, Harper's & Queen, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and international editions of Vogue. His magazine work crossed over into the art world, where Seidner frequently contributed to BOMB Magazine as a photographer, interviewer, and guest editor. Much of David Seidner's photography and subjects defy easy categorization, like Seidner himself, who now might be referred to as multi-hyphenate for his work across different fields. Similar to many young artists working today, David Seidner pushed the boundaries of the photography industry, collapsing the often unnecessary distinctions between disciplines. In addition to images made for fashion houses and editorial assignments, Seidner maintained a robust personal practice throughout his career. His interest in visual experimentation through techniques like fragmentation, reflection, and double exposures are often seen in both his personal work and his commissions. Join us at the International Center of Photography to explore the versatile and boundary-pushing work of famous fashion photographer, David Seidner.

Kicking off ICP's 50th anniversary year, ICP at 50: From the Collection, 1845–2019 is a thematic exploration of the many photographic processes that comprise the medium’s history, presenting works from ICP’s deep holdings of photography collected over 50 years since ICP was established in 1974. As a renowned NYC historical museum and one of the top photography galleries in NYC, the exhibition includes work from the 19th century to the present, featuring photographs by well-known artists that ICP has in-depth holdings of—such as Robert Capa, Weegee, Francesco Scavullo, and Gerda Taro among many others—as well as lesser-known and vernacular works and recent acquisitions including images by Jess T. Dugan, Nona Faustine, Deana Lawson, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Guanyu Xu. Other photographers featured include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Samuel Fosso, Robert Mapplethorpe, Susan Meiselas, Louise Lawler, Gordon Parks, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and more. The exhibition will also offer insight into the breadth and depth of ICP’s collection with historically critical images and media that include images taken of the surface of the moon by NASA in 1966, as well as activist posters from the 1980s and ‘90s groups ACT UP, Gran Fury, and fierce pussy. ICP’s founder Cornell Capa created ICP in 1974 in honor of his brother Robert Capa, a preeminent photojournalist of his day, who died in 1954. Robert's archive became a key early piece of ICP’s collection, alongside work by other important photojournalists and documentarians. In the ensuing five decades, the collection has expanded to include early photographic works, vernacular images, fashion photography, and fine art photography among many other types of photographic production, leading ICP to become one of the many famous museums in NYC. Dissolving and challenging boundaries between categories—technological, aesthetic, conceptual, and beyond—the collection is a celebration of image culture and the medium’s ability to reflect the values and interests of its time. ICP at 50 is not only a significant milestone for the institution but also stands as a must-see art exhibit in NYC. It's the first overview collections show since the institution’s move to 79 Essex Street in January 2020. The exhibition will reintroduce the depth and breadth of the ICP holdings to audiences, celebrating 50 years of photography’s evolution.

Edwynn Houk Gallery presents “Mona Kuhn: Between Modernism and Surrealism,” an exhibition of 7 solarized photographs by Mona Kuhn from her series Kings Road in dialogue with artworks by masters exploring surreal representation, including Man Ray, Láslzó Moholy-Nagy, Dora Maar, Erwin Blumenfeld, and Bill Brandt. The show is on view from April 4 - May 11, with an opening reception with the artist on Saturday, April 6 from 3-5pm. A walk-through of the exhibition with the artist and Darius Himes, International Head of Photographs at Christie’s, will begin at 4pm. Mona Kuhn’s portraits visualize an uncanny love story. Kuhn’s solarized photographs in this exhibition follow a young woman throughout the groundbreaking mid-century modernist home designed by architect Rudolph Schindler in West Hollywood. In this mysterious narrative, Kuhn explores the core themes of Surrealism — dreams, desire, creation, and a challenge to conventional modes — through this autonomous woman. An active subject, she seeks formal and spiritual union with the King’s Road House, an avant-garde center of its day and a symbol of community and creativity. Kuhn’s solarization pushes these scenes further into the otherworldly, dissolving the aesthetic distinction between the human body, and its presence within the building. Rendered in layers of oxidized silver, body parts and architectural elements mirror and dissolve into each other, and the woman’s silver shadow cast on the building creates a literal space of integration. The breakthrough of Surreal explorations in photography are widely traced to Man Ray’s experimentations, which radically expanded the horizons of photography beyond straight representation. This show presents two of the artist’s solarized gelatin silver prints, a technique that he discovered with Lee Miller in 1931: a nude portrait of Meret Oppenheim posing in front of Salvador Dalí’s painting, printed on a carte-postale, as well as a portrait. Both the figure of the mysterious woman and architecture were key motifs used by Surrealists and artists influenced by the movement, and photographs by László Moholy-Nagy, Dora Maar, Erwin Blumenfeld, and Bill Brandt open a historical dialogue with Kuhn’s practice. Image: SILHOUETTE from Kings Road series © Mona Kuhn

The Provocateur is Ellen von Unwerth’s fifth solo exhibition at Staley-Wise Gallery. The photographs included in this exhibition, several of which have never been seen before, reflect a liberated and irrepressible engagement with her subjects that the photographer has championed for her entire career. Von Unwerth notes “I know what it’s like when you feel really uncomfortable, so I do everything in my power to make them feel at ease – and to live and laugh and move.” These exhibition images reflect a winking provocateur; not so much the object of lust but the playful instigator - both innocent and naughty. While eroticism is in the forefront of many of these images, fantasy and humor unite von Unwerth’s vision of her subjects simply having fun - with each other, and with the viewer who they tease, taunt, and provoke. Ellen von Unwerth was born in Germany. She worked in the circus as an assistant to the knife-thrower before being discovered as a model in Munich and beginning her interest in photography. Her work has been published in the world’s leading magazines and she has photographed the album cover artwork or directed music videos for artists including Rihanna, Janet Jackson, Courtney Love, Duran Duran, and Beyoncé, as well as commercials and campaigns for brands including Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, L’Oréal, Thierry Mugler, Uniqlo, and most notably, Guess (featuring a young Claudia Schiffer). In 2018, she launched Ellen von Unwerth’s VON, a creative magazine to express her modern and edgy approach to photography. Nine books of her work have been published and a solo exhibition of her work inaugurated the New York space of Fotografiska in 2020. Most recently, the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film in Atlanta, Georgia opened her retrospective exhibition in 2023. Image: Tête-à-Tête, Paris, 2008 © Ellen von Unwerth

Catherine Couturier Gallery is thrilled to announce Reverie, an exhibition of new work by gallery artist Michael Kenna opening Saturday, April 13th, from 4pm-6pm. Renowned for his black-and-white landscape photography, Kenna employs prolonged exposure times, sometimes up to 10 hours, to capture ethereal scenes. Often working at dawn or under the cover of night, he reveals hidden dimensions beyond the ordinary gaze. Inspired by fellow British photographer Bill Brandt and enchanted by the landscapes of Japan, Kenna's oeuvre reflects a poetic sensibility akin to haiku. His work has been shown at the Tacoma Art Museum, 2012; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2011; Palazzo Magnani Museum in Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2010; and Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2009. Kenna's photographs are included in many public collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Shanghai Art Museum; the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Born in Widnes, England in 1953, Kenna currently lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Don't miss the chance to meet the artist in person for a book signing event on May 4th, 2024, from 4pm-6pm!

As we develop an interest in a place or subject matter, the application of parameters helps to guide our curiosities. Just as a body of water is contained by physical barriers, our attention to detail is concentrated when we opt to confine it, either geographically or conceptually. We are always guided by curiosity, but when we funnel that into a defined subject, it transforms into deep and thorough investigation, revealing ever more about the chosen subject. Ross Kiah often follows rivers to guide him when photographing new places, providing structure to the exploration of unfamiliar surroundings. Shown here are images made along the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts, the Quinebaug River in Eastern Connecticut, the Mohawk River in New York State, and the historic Charles River in Eastern Massachusetts. Mae Whitmore traverses the perimeter and interior of expansive fields in Southern Vermont where they utilize property lines to guide them in their exploration of confines of fragmented land. Image: Ross Kiah, Madi, Near the Mohawk River, NY, 2019 © Ross Kiah

We had moved to our home in Concord in 1975 where I was regularly struck by the tragedy of the demise of the elm tree; reading about the potential devastation of palm trees in Florida I became obsessed with them. Palm Press first came into being when I made an 8 day shooting trip to Miami in 1976, determined to photograph a place peopled with palm trees; at the time I was the founding photography department chair at MassArt and possessed by an obsession to make pictures unlike my earlier work, driven by curiosity with no specific expectation. The Miami work was transformative for me, and I decided I should publish it (a very different prospect than today). My friend Lee Friedlander had Haywire Press, I imagined Palm Press. The desire for more description led to an exploration of larger cameras, frustration with them, and the ultimate development of 6x9cm and 6x12cm handheld cameras that I designed and manufactured (something useful from a couple years at MIT in mechanical engineering). Then, in 1977 I produced a portfolio of Harold Edgerton’s photographs that became a harbinger of the future. After leaving MassArt, I incorporated Palm Press (1980) and began the photographic atelier and portfolio publishing. It’s been a terrifically interesting obsessive journey - my employees coming from internships, my need to teach continually fulfilled... in nearly 5 decades we’ve produced more than 60 portfolios, collaborated with thousands of artists, museums, galleries and other organizations in meaningful and fruitful ways. Palm Press has been dependent upon the skills, insight and commitment of its dedicated interns and workers. These exhibits explore some of Palm Press’ history, publications, projects, and current staff work. Image: Zero Line Boundary © Robert Lyons

The photography of Robert Smith offers a new context to the tradition of classical Chiaroscuro. He shows us a different, dynamic way of capturing Chiaroscuro through a series of close-up photographic images of curtains taken during the last half decade. With a simple, natural fiber cotton curtain and a window opening, a developing breeze begins to create movement against the wooden sash. Of course, the play of light being such a fundamental touchstone, the accompanying darks and shadows in ephemeral folds are revelatory, creating all manner of expressive, visual possibilities. In effect, Smith is creating a connection of the human centric world of fabric to the natural world of air, in movement, in a symbiotic relationship that becomes a fascinating, visual landscape. At that, his oeuvre has focused mainly on the close-up, undisturbed natural landscape, yet he sees this tangent as a logical extension of interest as he ages with accompanying physical limitations. It’s an example we may take to heart. The images themselves range from the simple to the complex, from the bold and dramatic to the lyrical and sublime. Encompassing powerfully evocative blacks measured against mysterious and magical shadows, they bring to mind abstract expressionist compositions akin to Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell paintings and Aaron Siskind photographs. Historically, Siskind and Minor White are two of his favorite creators, good company. Smith lives in New York and has a summer studio on Monhegan Island off midcoast Maine, steeped in landscape art history, and where these photographs were taken. There he leads “Steps to Seeing” walks opening eyes to the richness of the natural landscape while acknowledging the importance of the practice of Sensory Awareness, a discipline of living more in the present moment that has given him a special way of seeing, informing his vision. Smith has a deep body of work from Monhegan and Point Lobos, California. His photographs are in numerous private and corporate collections in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Africa and throughout Europe. One final point, Robert has a good sense of humor and insists there is no truth to the rumor that he is, in some way, related to Lamont Cranston! Enjoy this exhibition. Image: It's Curtain! 3035 © Robert Smith

A photographic diptych is a work of art that consists of two photographs that are arranged side by side. Diptychs can convey a story by connecting seemingly unrelated images. The use of two photographs side by side can allow the photographer to experiment with different compositions and to create a sense of balance or symmetry. The two images in a diptych can represent duality or opposites. They allow the photographer to explore different themes, narratives, compositions, and contrasts. Praxis presents photographic art that explores these concepts; creating new meanings and aesthetic engagement by juxtaposing two images side by side. Juried by: Sandrine Hermand-Grisel