Ingeborg Gerdes, Out West

L’Space Gallery proudly presents TIME CAPSULE, the first U.S. solo exhibition by Israeli artist Ronit Porat, on view from April 10 to May 31, 2025. The exhibition will be accompanied by a curated selection of 1920s-era vintage photographs by Man Ray. TIME CAPSULE opens with a public reception on Thursday, April 10. Porat’s work delves into Germany’s interwar period (1919–1933), a time of intense social transformation and photographic experimentation. Through an intricate process of collecting, layering, and reassembling archival materials—including postcards, newspapers, and historical documents—she constructs poetic collages and immersive installations that blur the boundaries between personal memory and historical narrative. Deeply influenced by the Weimar Republic era, Porat explores a period when photography both empowered and objectified, shaping new representations of the human body in advertising, art, and surveillance. This era’s themes resonate with her own personal history and the communal life of the kibbutz where she was born. TIME CAPSULE draws from her most significant series of the past decade, offering a layered visual dialogue on identity, power structures, and the intersection of personal and collective memory. At the heart of the exhibition is Porat’s exploration of crime photography—specifically, a chilling 1931 murder case in Berlin. A sixteen-year-old girl, Lieschen Neumann, along with two accomplices, killed a watchmaker named Fritz Ulbrich. The investigation revealed that Ulbrich had been operating a secret photography studio in the back of his shop, where he took exploitative images of young women, including Neumann. These photographs, produced in an era when photography was increasingly used for surveillance and social control, serve as a foundation for Porat’s examination of visual manipulation and historical power dynamics. Porat’s artistic practice is inherently fragmented and non-linear, incorporating forensic imagery, historical documentation, and elements of investigative storytelling. Her process begins in photo archives, where she gathers and recontextualizes images, merging disparate histories with personal autobiographical references. She first assembles these into “index sheets,” which then take shape as intricate collages and large-scale mural installations. Rather than recounting history in a traditional sense, Porat seeks to map human behavioral patterns and the shifting roles of victim and perpetrator—where the photographic gaze plays a pivotal role in constructing power and identity. TIME CAPSULE compels viewers to question the truthfulness of images and the narratives they shape. Alongside Porat’s work, the exhibition features a selection of Man Ray’s photographs from the 1920s and 1930s, a period of radical artistic exploration after his move to Paris in 1921. His avant-garde approach to the female form—oscillating between objectification and creative liberation—parallels Porat’s interrogation of gender, power, and representation. Both Porat and Man Ray navigate the complexities of sexuality, identity, and perception. Where Man Ray’s poetic depictions of desire and fantasy examine the fluidity of the human form, Porat’s archival compositions deconstruct the mechanisms that define and control it. Together, their works create a compelling dialogue about the evolving portrayal of women in photography—one that examines the tension between objectification and agency, history and reinvention. Image: Ronit Porat, Untititled, 2023, Photographic Collage © Ronit Porat

The Centurion refers to a fabled and exclusive credit card only available to a select few of the ultra wealthy. It’s also the title of Brian Ulrich’s newest photographic series, which examines the lure of exclusivity in the world of extreme luxury. Ulrich has photographed the American culture of commerce and consumption for over a decade. The Centurion turns to the country’s fascination with wealth and all its promises.

Jack Shainman Gallery is thrilled to announce Regardez-moi, an exhibition of photographs by the Malian photographer Malick Sidibé. The exhibition, the title of which translates to "Look at Me", marks the gallery's latest celebration of Sidibé’s unparalleled ability to capture the heartbeat of Bamako, Mali following the country’s liberation from colonial rule in 1960. Featuring a vibrant selection of photographs — some of which have never before been exhibited — this presentation invites viewers into the bustling parties, joyous gatherings, and tender moments that defined the transformative era of a young nation relishing to establish its own national identity. In today’s cultural climate, where visibility and representation hold immense weight, Sidibé’s work and legacy remain as significant as ever. Presented in conjunction with this exhibition is the publication of Painted Frames, a monograph by Loose Joints, and the first exploration of Sidibé’s synergistic painted frame photographs. In these works, Sidibe collaborated with local Malian artists to blend his iconic photography with the traditional West African art of reverse-glass painting. Regardez-moi presents a selection of these painted frames; reaffirming the sanctity of African photography as a medium of memory and identity. The publication also features an essay by writer, independent researcher, and collector-archivist Amy Sall, in which she makes a case for the continued and ever-expanding importance of Sidibé’s oeuvre: “Malick Sidibé was witness to, and preserver of, a nascent, burgeoning postcolonial society in which a new modernity was being constructed by way of transcultural osmosis. From his studio to the soirées, and even to the banks of the Niger River, Sidibé and his camera were at the center of it all. He was not only chronicling Malian history and culture, but making pivotal contributions to it…. The night clubs, living rooms, and courtyards he photographed were spaces of freedom and community. Sidibé’s oeuvre reflects dialectic expressions of being because he captured his subjects as their imagined and authentic selves. From his widely recognized Nuit de Noël (Christmas Eve, Happy Club) (1963) to his series Vues de dos, the framed images carry the same undercurrents of power and rebellion, tenderness and joy that flow throughout Sidibé’s entire archive.” Regardez-moi underscores Sidibé’s role as a pioneer who sculpted the visual identity of the African diaspora, offering a window into a Malian nation that boldly joined a global youth movement. His photographs transcend their historical context, speaking to contemporary dialogues about identity, agency, and the power of being seen. Sidibé's photographs don’t just freeze time, they transform these scenes into vibrant stages where his subjects — young couples excited to be married, or older men or women reclaiming their freedom of expression — assert their presence and identity. In Dansez le Twist (1963-2010), Sidibé captures a young man and a woman in a state of joy while dancing the twist, an American rock ‘n’ roll dance that became a global cultural phenomenon from 1959 to the early 1960s, which was known for its simple yet lively steps that encouraged freedom of movement and expression. By providing his subjects with ways to be seen and celebrated, Sidibé’s lens offers a powerful counterpoint to our tech-filtered world, reminding viewers of the raw, unscripted joy of human connection. One of Sidibé most celebrated series, Vues de Dos — with examples from the series held in the collections of numerous museums such as the Getty Museum, The National Gallery of Art, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art — provides viewers with a deeper understanding of the photographer’s curatorial eye, depicting women in his studio with their bare backs to the camera against a signature backdrop of striped walls. Sidibé’s photography serves as both a reflector and a loudspeaker, magnifying the vibrant, intimate essence of Bamako’s people in the wake of gaining independence from French colonial rule. The works capture a liberated people that resonates with a contemporary urgency now more than ever.

Emerging from Micah Cash’s photography series and photo book of the same name, this exhibition focuses on the built and natural environments as seen through the windows of Waffle House restaurants. Captured from locations across the southeastern United States, these images contemplate the physical and social environments and commerce that surround each location of the southern cultural icon. The natural landscapes beyond the windowpanes are as diverse as the perspectives and stories of each guest at the tables. Yet the similarities of the restaurants’ interiors echo across states and time zones. The images look out from the restaurant’s iconic booths, past the signature midcentury pendant lamps and make viewers newly conscious of buildings so commonplace they often go unseen. Each guest, waiting for their hashbrowns, becomes witness to the intertwined narratives of economic stability, transience and politics. The familiar, well-worn interiors make us think about what we have in common. Yet the differences in environment call to mind the different ways we experience structures built and felt. This exhibition will premiere a newly commissioned time-based media component of the series. This video realizes Cash’s directive to “look up” through prolonged footage of views and sounds from three Waffle Houses. The video and its soundscape disrupt the nostalgia of the still photographs, which the audience animates with actual or imagined memories of a Waffle House meal. Instead, they emphasize a long, time-based vision of the surrounding landscape and architecture.

The Center for Photographic Art is pleased to present the work of the 2024 CPA Artist Grant Recipients. Visit the gallery to see new photographs, installations, and mixed media pieces by grantees Debra Achen, Matthew Finley, Maria Isabel LeBlanc, and Katie Shapiro. All four artists will be speaking about their projects prior to the opening reception in a special artist talk in Carpenter Hall at 3pm, so don't miss this opportunity to hear these fearless photographic artists talk about their processes and their journeys. We are honored and excited to support these talented artists and bring their work to Carmel. Image: Maria Isabel LeBlanc, Sweet Kiwi

Echoes of Resilience: Reclaiming History presents a powerful exhibition featuring the work of Bay Area photographers Harvey Castro and Izzi Valencia. Their photography documents the enduring spirit of communities facing climate disasters, cultural preservation, and the dignity of labor often overlooked in mainstream narratives. Harvey Castro’s “Los Olvidados” series captures the profound impact of natural disasters on marginalized populations. His photographs from Guatemala and Puerto Rico vividly depict communities in the aftermath of environmental catastrophes, highlighting their perseverance and the critical need for ecological accountability. Izzi Valencia’s work focuses on the unification and organization efforts of Maya Mam, Mixteca, Chatino, Wixárica, and Nahua communities. Through his lens, he portrays the strength and solidarity of these groups as they strive to preserve their cultural heritage and rights amidst external pressure. Valencia’s recent project “Native Sun Leaves” turns a spotlight on the contribution of agricultural workers to the wine industry in Napa and Sonoma Counties. In these portraits, Valencia uses a chlorophyll printing process on grape leaves to honor workers from Oaxaca, Mexico, whose labor is integral to the region’s agricultural economy. This exhibition offers an intimate look into the lives of people overcoming adversity, emphasizing their strength and solidarity. Through the eyes of two artists deeply connected to their roots, visitors are invited to engage with stories of resistance in existence. Image: Untitled from the series Los Olvidados Guatemala, 2021 © Harvey Castro

The Gallery at Leica Store San Francisco is proud to present The First Years by Bay Area artist Josh Smith. This ongoing series explores family and how its structure shapes identity. Rooted in personal experience, Smith uses photography to navigate the complexities of parenthood—balancing presence with individuality. His images create an open space for viewers to reflect on their own histories. The First Years serves as an attempt to hold onto what cannot be preserved. Acting as both a personal archive and a poetic interpretation, these images capture fleeting moments, offering a connection to the intangible emotions of family life.

“While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding, and very thirsty civilization, we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways. In this new and powerful role over the planet, we are also capable of engineering our own demise. We have to learn to think more long-term about the consequences of what we are doing, while we are doing it. My hope is that these pictures will stimulate a process of thinking about something essential to our survival; something we often take for granted—until it’s gone.” – Edward Burtynsky "I wanted to understand water: what it is, and what it leaves behind when we're gone. I wanted to understand our use and misuse of it. I wanted to trace the evidence of global thirst and threatened sources. Water is part of a pattern I've watched unfold throughout my career. I document landscapes that, whether you think of them as beautiful or monstrous, or as some strange combination of the two, are clearly not vistas of an inexhaustible, sustainable world." – Edward Burtynsky (Walrus, October 2013) "The project takes us over gouged landscapes, fractal patterned delta regions, ominously coloured biomorphic shapes, rigid and rectilinear stepwells, massive circular pivot irrigation plots, aquaculture and social, cultural and ritual gatherings. Water is intermittently introduced as a victim, a partner, a protagonist, a lure, a source, an end, a threat and a pleasure. Water is also often completely absent from the pictures. Burtynsky instead focusses on the visual and physical effects of the lack of water, giving its absence an even more powerful presence." — Russell Lord, Curator of Photographs, NOMA

After nearly a 35-year career, Carol Carlisle retired as Managing Editor of Popular Photography magazine, where she was celebrated for her keen eye and ruthless sense of perfection. It was her reputation as an insightful and meticulous editor that brought both her, and the magazine, such an outstanding reputation. She was also acclaimed for her work as a photographer, with her images published many times in the magazine and on the cover. What the photography world did not know about Carol during her lifetime, however, was that she was an avid collector of almost anything that delighted her eye. She saw beauty and artistic significance, often where others did not. In that spirit, she sometimes ‘rescued’ images that were submitted to the magazine, but impractical to return and headed for destruction. She amassed more than 1200 such prized prints. Each represents a rare piece and specific moment in time, mostly from the 60s and 70s that, if not for her collector’s and conservationist’s eye, might have been lost forever. These images embody the spirit of the woman whose ‘waste not, want not’ approach to life and impressive aesthetic sense led her to save these prints from oblivion. Carol reveled in spotting and saving each important image for posterity, but she also made the people she worked with a high priority, always reaching out to make a difference. For many years, she served with Volunteer Service Photographers, a non-profit organization that was set up in hospitals, youth groups, and senior citizen centers to teach photography for rehabilitation, career development or just for fun. Carol dedicated her life to educating her readers about photography, and by sharing this art with the broader public. She devoted every other waking minute to her children: the late Claudia Lapierre, Jaye and Lee Smith and her 11 grandchildren and great grandchildren all of whom are grateful for having shared in the gift of her passion. Image: Sven-Cösta Johansson (Sweden, 1913-1997), Anita Ekberg, 1959

The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Art in City Hall program, in partnership with PhotoAlliance, are proud to present Metaphors of Recent Times: A Dialogue of the Personal, the Political and the Cultural, an exhibition that features artwork from PhotoAlliance’s INSIGHT/INCITE 20/20 portfolio, alongside works by 24 artists who have created work in response to the portfolio. Metaphors of Recent Times will be on display on the Ground Floor and North Light Court at City Hall through June 20, 2025. The exhibition features a wide range of incisive visual perspectives from artists of diverse identities and backgrounds, each responding to the issues of our times.. A public reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibition will be held on the Ground Floor of City Hall on Thursday, January 16, 2025, from 5 – 7 p.m.. “PhotoAlliance has been a vital force in the local arts community for over 20 years, providing a platform for photographers to engage with and reflect on the world around them,” said Ralph Remington, Director of Cultural Affairs. “The Arts Commission is proud to collaborate with PhotoAlliance to present this timely and thought-provoking exhibition at City Hall. Metaphors of Recent Times highlights how art can serve as both a mirror to our current socio-political landscape and a powerful catalyst for activism and change.”. The exhibition’s themes are rooted in PhotoAlliance’s 20th Anniversary portfolio of limited edition prints by local, regional, and international photographers. Curated by PhotoAlliance founder and creative director Linda Connor, the set of 20 prints was conceived as a distillation of the creative responses artists have made to the upheaval seen in our political, cultural, environmental, and personal spheres in recent years. INSIGHT/INCITE captured images of hope, challenges, resilience, and humanity and included work from renowned photographers such as Binh Danh, Mercedes Dorame, Lewis Watts, J. John Priola, Amanda Marchand, Adrian Burrell, among many others.. Metaphors of Recent Times expands on the themes of INSIGHT/INCITE and includes new work that respond to the themes explored in the portfolio. The artists included were juried by photographers Linda Connor, Lewis Watts, and exhibition curator Beth Davila Waldman from a pool of 128 artists who responded to a call for artists held in the fall of 2024. Artists were asked to submit a trio of images that would expand and deepen the dialogues provoked in INSIGHT/INCITE.. “The inspiration behind Metaphors of Recent Times was compelled by the desire to provide an extended platform for the various themes and concerns voiced by the INSIGHT/INCITE 20/20 portfolio,” says exhibition curator Beth Davila Waldman. “The call for artists really showed how resonant these themes are, and we are excited to highlight the spirit of our city’s inclusivity with a group of emerging and established artists, combined with the impact of presenting this selection of work in San Francisco’s City Hall.”. “We are thrilled to collaborate with PhotoAlliance on this exhibition,” states Carolina Aranibar-Fernandez, SFAC Director of Galleries and Public Programs. “Metaphors of Recent Times provides a lens into the complexities of our time, capturing the turbulence of recent years while simultaneously highlighting hope and resilience. Through the camera, eyes of local, regional, and international artists, the work reminds us of the importance of capturing these stories.”. The exhibition will feature work by Pablo Tapay Bautista, Renee Billingslea, Barbara Boissevain, Kennedi Carter, Mima Cataldo, Yu-Chen Chiu, Katie Cofer, Mark Coggins, Izzy Cosentino, Kelly Fogel, David Gardner, Stuart Goldstein, Christine Huhn, Judi Iranyi, Strele Laurin, Anni Lopponen, Darcy Padilla, Eric Robertson, Lance Shields, Nina Sidneva, William Mark Sommer, Liz Steketee, Rusty Weston, and Harry Williams.. Works from the INSIGHT/INCITE 20/20 folio are by Wesaam Al-Badry, Lisa K. Blatt, Leon Borensztein, Adrian Burrell, Jessica Chen, Sarah Christianson, Marna Clarke, Linda Connor, Binh Danh, Mercedes Dorame, Ed Drew, Germán Herrera, Marie-Luise Klotz, Wayne Levin, Amak Mahmoodian, Amanda Marchand, Paccarik Orue, J. John Priola, Zack Schomp, and Lewis Watts.

David Zwirner and Fraenkel Gallery are pleased to announce Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited, on view at David Zwirner’s 606 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. Organized by both galleries, the exhibition debuted at David Zwirner New York in September 2022 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the artist’s momentous 1972 posthumous retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Cataclysm re-creates that iconic exhibition’s checklist of 113 photographs, underscoring the subversive poignancy of Arbus’s work even today while highlighting the popular and critical upheaval the original exhibition precipitated. This will be the first major survey of the artist’s work in Los Angeles since Diane Arbus: Revelations, which was presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art over twenty years ago. In the fall of 1971, in the aftermath of Arbus’s death in July, her friend, colleague, and fellow artist Marvin Israel approached John Szarkowski, the legendary director of photography at The Museum of Modern Art, about the prospect of a retrospective exhibition of her work. Szarkowski, who had begun championing Arbus’s photographs in the late 1960s, quickly agreed to do the show. Though widely admired and respected by other photographers and artists, Arbus was not well known at the time of her death. When the exhibition opened, on November 7, 1972, no one, not even Arbus’s most fervent supporters, could have predicted its profound impact on museum visitors, nor the impassioned—at times vitriolic—critical response the exhibition would generate among writers and thinkers. It was the most highly attended one-person exhibition in the museum’s history, with lines down the block to see it. Szarkowski later recalled, “People went through that exhibition as though they were in line for communion.”1 Even at the time, the retrospective was recognized for almost single-handedly helping to elevate photography to the status of fine art, paving the way for museums, collectors, and the public to embrace a previously unrecognized innate authority and power within the medium. As New York Times critic Hilton Kramer wrote of the exhibition, “What Diane Arbus brought to photography was an ambition to deal with the kind of experience that had long been the province of the fictional arts—the novel, painting, poetry and films—but had traditionally been ‘off limits’ to the nonfiction documentary art of the still camera.”2 John Perreault, writing in The Village Voice, noted, “I don’t usually write about photography … but just this once I can’t resist. Diane Arbus was such a great photographer that her work breaks out of all categories. Her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art should be of interest even to those who are not usually at all interested in photography.”3 Such praise from some critics was countered with derision and ridicule by others. Susan Sontag disparaged the exhibition in the pages of The New York Review of Books: “Arbus’s work shows people who are pathetic, pitiable, as well as horrible, repulsive, but it does not arouse any compassionate feelings.”4 Jane Allen, writing for the Chicago Tribune, attacked the show: “[Arbus] shows us people, so locked into their physical and mental limitations, that their movements are meaningless charades. They are losers almost to a man.”5 What seems to have enthralled some and enraged others about Arbus’s work was how she unflinchingly captured the singularity of her subjects, which—paradoxically—linked them to one another and by extension to the viewer. “This is what I love,” wrote Arbus at the age of sixteen, “the differentness, the uniqueness of all things and the importance of life.… I see the divineness in ordinary things.”6 The exhibition’s title, Cataclysm, alludes to the immensity of the uproar spawned by the retrospective and the ferocity of the critical discourse around the artist that emerged then and continues to the present day. Image: Diane Arbus, A very young baby, N.Y.C. [Anderson Hays Cooper] 1968 © The Estate of Diane Arbus 1 Quoted in Who Is Marvin Israel?, directed by Neil Selkirk and Doon Arbus (2005; www.neilselkirk.com/films). 2 Hilton Kramer, “From Fashion to Freaks,” The New York Times Magazine, November 5, 1972, p. 38. 3 John Perreault, “Art,” The Village Voice, November 23, 1972, p. 40. 4 Susan Sontag, “Freak Show,” The New York Review of Books, November 15, 1973, p. 14. 5 Jane Allen, “Charade of Losers in the Arbus World,” Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1973, p. 8. 6 Diane Arbus, high school essay on Plato, 1939. Quoted in Diane Arbus Revelations (New York: Random House, 2003), p. 70.

Echoes of Injustice features three contemporary photographers who explore the traumatic legacy and lasting reverberations of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Echoes of Injustice brings together the work of three contemporary photographers—Renee Billingslea, Jerry Takigawa, and Dean K. Terasaki—who explore the traumatic legacy and lasting reverberations of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Through deeply personal and visually layered approaches, each artist offers a distinct perspective on this dark chapter of U.S. history, urging us to confront what has been forgotten, concealed, or left unresolved. Renee Billingslea’s Ten Japanese American Concentration Camps revisits the landscapes of incarceration through contemporary photography, stitching them together with historical images from the War Relocation Photographs. Through this juxtaposition, she reveals the tension between visibility and erasure. Her use of gold thread, referencing the Japanese art of Kintsugi, and her inclusion of earth from the sites, create a connection to the landscape and histories of lives disrupted and communities displaced. The series documents all ten camps located in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. In his series Balancing Cultures, Jerry Takigawa uses family photographs and memorabilia to interpret the injustice of his family’s incarceration at the Jerome camp in Arkansas. Born in Chicago after their release, Takigawa grapples with the tension between his parent’s silence around their experience in the camp and his own inherited trauma which is still being processed. This series seeks to preserve his parents honor while speaking for a generation that remained silent. Dean K. Terasaki’s Veiled Inscriptions are photomontages of camp locations as they appear today with personal letters sent by those incarcerated. The archive of 350 letters was discovered in Denver’s historic T.K. Pharmacy in 2012. The pharmacy had been operated by Terasaki’s uncle and his images are about loss and the lives torn apart by the forced incarceration. Together, these artists call attention to a chapter of American history that remains relevant and urgent. At a time when the erosion of civil liberties continues to echo across political and cultural landscapes, Echoes of Injustice calls us to reflect: Has America changed? Have our values? And how do we ensure that this history does not repeat? — Samantha Johnston, CPAC Executive Director & Curator Image: EO 9066, ©Jerry Takigawa