Horst P. Horst: Essence of the Times

A Breathtaking holds a peculiar power in its unfinished nature. On one hand, it speaks to the majestic and sublime, suggesting visions of grandeur that take the breath away in awe and admiration. On the other, it hints at a sudden interruption, a gasp at realizing the meaning of fragility. The unfinished phrase becomes a lens into emotional landscapes that leave us suspended between beauty and the unknown. ​ Julien Chatelin’s exhibition reflects this very tension, offering a poetic exploration of the ephemeral, the delicate, and inevitable transformations. His images carve out spaces of openness and suspense, leaving room for infinite possibilities while subtly hinting at loss or silence. ​ The works on view delve into territories in transition, where contrasting forces collide. Topographies are charged with opposing energies, revealing a silent battle between cities and nature, humanity and its environment. These spaces carry a profound ambivalence, suggesting both fecundity and sterility, promise and emptiness. In this interplay, Chatelin explores the tension between stillness and movement, the visible and the invisible, the vast and the intimate, capturing the fractured realities of contemporary society. Through the dual display of vernacular and the distress of fragmented societies, A Breathtaking offers a singular reading into capitalist development, inviting reflection on the complexities of growth and decay. Meaning, in this exhibition, is not made through completion but through the spaces in between, where contradictions find their voic

Penumbra Foundation proudly presents The Puppet Master, a solo exhibition by Diana Michener. This evocative series delves into the complex dynamics between a father and daughter, exploring themes of control, intimacy, and silent understanding. Michener describes the project as a mysterious collaboration between the two figures: “The daughter became the puppet, the father the puppeteer. They worked in silence, each following an unspoken script. They had their own intentions—just as I had mine.” These enigmatic photographs invite viewers to reflect on the unseen forces shaping relationships, leaving space for personal interpretation. “Photography thrives on open narratives,” Michener explains. “You may not see my story, but perhaps you will see your own—and that excites me.” The Puppet Master will be on view from February 27 through May 15, 2025. About the Artist Diana Michener (b. 1940, Boston) is an acclaimed photographer known for her introspective and poetic imagery. Based in Paris and Walla Walla, Washington, she studied at Barnard College in New York before refining her craft under the mentorship of Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including the retrospective Silence Me at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris (2001), Morning After Morning at the Photo Museum of Ireland (2001), Dogs, Fires, Me at Pace/MacGill in New York (2005), Figure Studies at Nature Morte in Berlin (2010), and Anima, Animals at MEP (2016–2017). Michener’s photographs are held in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She has published extensively with Steidl, producing numerous books such as Silence Me (2001), Dogs, Fires, Me (2005), Figure Studies (2011), A Song of Life (2018), Trance (2020), Bones (2022), Mortes (2023), and Mirror (2024).

Lisa Elmaleh’s Tierra Prometida is more urgent than ever. In a media landscape that often reduces migration to fleeting images of crisis, her work offers an essential counternarrative—one that restores humanity, dignity, and depth to those in motion. Consider Maichol (2023), whose family fled political persecution in Venezuela, surviving the treacherous Darién Gap, or Marisela (2022), who escaped Guerrero, Mexico, with her three children after cartel extortion left them no choice. Their stories, deeply personal, reflect a larger collective reality. In 2023 alone, seven million Venezuelans left their homeland, while over 700,000 Mexicans sought refuge elsewhere. Yet statistics alone fail to convey the weight of displacement. Instead, they are often weaponized, turning real lives into numbers that fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies—like renewed efforts to expand the border wall. Elmaleh began this project during the first Trump administration, seeking to cut through the political noise and explore migration beyond partisan divides. Over time, she has witnessed how xenophobia and restrictive border policies transcend party lines. Her stark photograph Border Patrol dragging tires to search for footprints, West Texas, United States (2020) confronts Prevention Through Deterrence—a strategy from the 1994 Border Patrol Strategic Plan under the Clinton administration that forces migrants into the most unforgiving desert terrain, where survival becomes a deadly gamble. Along Arizona’s 400-mile border, humanitarian groups work to identify the remains of those who never made it to safety. Organizations like Humane Borders collaborate with medical examiners in Pima and Maricopa counties to give names to the lost. Yet many will never be recovered. As of early 2025, 1,578 unidentified bodies remain—evidence of the brutal reality faced by those in search of refuge. Still, as Tierra Prometida makes clear, no wall, no desert, no policy can deter those fighting for their lives and the future of their families. Poet Warsan Shire encapsulates this truth: “Anywhere is better than home, if home is the mouth of the shark.” What is not immediately visible in Elmaleh’s images is her deep-rooted commitment to the communities she documents. Since 2020, she has volunteered with humanitarian groups along the border, including Águilas del Desierto, a search-and-rescue team that scours the Sonoran Desert for missing loved ones; Kino Border Initiative, a binational humanitarian aid organization; and shelters like Casa de la Misericordia and Casa de la Esperanza. In 13 Crosses (2024), she commemorates the tragic story of thirteen migrants who were found near death in the Sonoran Desert—one of countless losses in an ongoing humanitarian crisis. More than a documentary project, Tierra Prometida stands as a tribute—to resilience, to the fight for dignity, to the lives too often forgotten. It is a call to bear witness, to listen, and to recognize that our stories are more connected than we realize. Image: Braids, House of Mercy, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico; Trenzas, Casa de la Misericordia, Nogales, Sonora, México, 2023 © Lisa Elmaleh

Sebastião Salgado, reflecting on his experience with the Nenets during his Genesis project, said, "There is so much love in their lives: wife to husband, husband to wife, for their children. Everything around them makes their life very rich, and they tell each other such nice stories." This captures his deep admiration for their connection to nature and to each other, reinforcing the spiritual and essential nature of their existence. Sebastião Salgado’s passion for the Nenets stems from his broader quest to reconnect with untouched territories and communities deeply rooted in nature. After witnessing profound human suffering in his previous projects, such as Exodus, Salgado embarked on Genesis to restore his faith in humanity and nature. The Nenets, a nomadic people of northern Siberia, live in harmony with their environment, dependent on reindeer for survival and maintaining traditions despite the harsh Arctic climate. Their life, defined by reindeer herding, is one of simplicity but rich with love, spirituality, and connection to the land—elements that deeply resonated with Salgado. During his time with the Nenets, Salgado was struck by their resilience, adaptability, and intelligence, particularly the symbiotic relationship between them and their reindeer. He admired how they endured extreme cold, managed to navigate vast white landscapes, and preserved their culture in a rapidly modernizing world. Through his lens, Salgado captured the beauty of their way of life, which he saw as a powerful reminder of humanity's lost connection to nature and the land. This project renewed his sense of hope and purpose, showcasing the importance of preserving the world's untouched cultures and ecosystems, while highlighting the Nenets’ deep spiritual ties to the natural world, something Salgado believes is essential for our own survival.

Luke Oppenheimer is a documentary photographer and visual storyteller from rural Oklahoma, with a background in agroforestry and sustainable farming. His work explores the relationships between rural communities, the landscapes they inhabit, and the wildlife they coexist with, revealing how these forces shape each other’s destinies. Having lived and worked extensively across Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, Luke’s photography is deeply rooted in personal connections and immersive storytelling. Ottuk chronicles life in a small shepherding village in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. What began as a month-long project in 2020 grew into a five-year immersion, during which Luke was welcomed into the community and adopted by a local family. The series captures the villagers’ struggles and joys, shaped by their dependence on livestock, resilience against unforgiving winters, and the enduring traditions that guide their way of life.

For Shore|Lines, Chicago-based artist Regina Agu (b. Houston, Texas) presents a large-scale panoramic installation at the Museum of Contemporary Photography as part of an exploration of placemaking and community memory—tracing sites and legacies of historical Black North American migration through an expansive tradition of the panoramic form. This Joyce Foundation Award (2023) special project and collaboration, focuses on connecting the landscapes, materiality, and human histories of the Gulf South region to the Great Lakes. Drawing on methods of field work and landscape photography, Shore|Lines examines waterways and natural environments as defining sites of Black life and belonging. This investigation grounds itself in close conversation with Chicago-area land and Great Lakes region environmental advocates and ecologists of color—community historians and academics, members of sailing clubs, librarians, archivists, geographers, and families that live and work along these long-storied bodies of water. The exhibition includes an artist book” documentation that Agu refers to as a “field guide,” connecting her Midwest and Gulf South experiences of the landscapes. Shore|Lines is proud to bring together discourses of Black geographies, landscape photography, and site-specific land histories, using the methodology of landscape panorama as a format for relating ideas and themes of Black cultural memory connected to place. This project uniquely explores and documents a nuanced assemblage of sociocultural geographies and cultures that connect to the Great Migration of the 20th century, in a way that is rarely considered within the wider visual lore or heritage narrative of the Great Lakes. Asha Iman Veal, MoCP Associate Curator. Regina Agu (American, b. Houston) is a visual artist, writer, and researcher based in Chicago, IL. Agu was raised between the United States, the Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, and Switzerland. Her interdisciplinary practice includes conceptual and material inquiries into memory, history, representation, and Black geographies. Her work has been exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Museum, The Drawing Center, the High Line, Project Row Houses, FotoFest, the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, among other venues. Agu is a 2023 Joyce Award winner with the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Agu has received an Artadia Houston award, grants from Houston Arts Alliance, The Idea Fund, a SEED grant from The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Center for Art and Social Engagement at the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts and Project Row Houses fellowship at the University of Houston for her research project Friends of Emancipation Park. Agu holds a BS from Cornell University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Five years after the start of Broadway’s Great Intermission—the 18-month period when the Covid pandemic forced theaters to close—Mark S. Kornbluth has released new images in his historic portrait series DARK. DARK comprises large-format photographs of Broadway theaters that quickly became symbols of the resilience of New York City, and a poetic tribute to the power of the arts for healing and human connection. While the buildings themselves awaited the return of actors and audiences, Kornbluth saw the opportunity to shift the spotlight to these sentinels of Times Square, many of them architectural marvels who play understudy to the incredible talents they house. Trained as a professional actor, with close friends affected by the unprecedented interruption of live performances, Kornbluth began the series as his own artistic homage to the age-old mantra “the show must go on.” ENCORE is a reprise of Kornbluth’s 2023 solo exhibition that features beloved photographs from the original collection as well as several new releases on view for the first time. Collector favorites like Richard Rodgers, in which the Hamilton marquee poignantly declares “History is Happening in Manhattan,” are on view alongside The Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre, nearing the end of its record-setting run. Kornbluth took his photographs at night, with streetlights serving as stagecraft, and theater signage as dialogue. There are no passersby in the images, but each artwork nevertheless comes alive with its own sort of humanity. Kornbluth succeeds in capturing the presence of absence, and in doing so, reflects a shared and profound experience. Theaters depicted in ENCORE include Ambassador, Barrymore, Belasco, Booth, Kerr, Lyceum, Lunt-Fontanne, Music Box, New Amsterdam, Radio City Music Hall, Shubert, and more. Broadway productions include legendary shows such as Chicago, Moulin Rouge, The Music Man, and West Side Story. The large-format photographs, printed as dye sublimations on aluminum, are immersive and luminous testaments to the grandeur and indomitable spirit of New York. This is an encore performance not to be missed.

Long before the term “power couple” found its way into English lexicon, dynamic duos had been making their mark on U.S. history. “Powerful Partnerships: Civil War-Era Couples” sheds light on the stories and faces of five couples whose work and lives shaped the nation around them during tumultuous times. Featuring photography by the iconic Mathew Brady Studio, the exhibition introduces visitors to the exploits of Nathaniel and Mary Banks, John and Jessie Frémont, Ulysses and Julia Grant, George and Ellen McClellan, and Charles and Lavinia Stratton (better known to the public as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb).

Yancey Richardson is proud to present Sawubona, an exhibition bringing together work from five different series made between 2002–2013 by South African artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi. Their fifth exhibition with the gallery, Sawubona reveals both the historical depth and visual complexity of Muholi’s overarching project of empowering the Black LGTBQIA+ community in South Africa through a collaborative process of representation. Sawubona will also be the first gallery exhibition outside of Africa to feature their early work. The exhibition will be on view from April 17 through May 23, 2025. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 17 from 6–8PM. For more than twenty years Muholi has studied the multifarious and ever-evolving nature of Black, queer life in South Africa, specifically through a group of projects centered around forms of portraiture both intimate and disarming, personally descriptive and socially incisive. Though widely-known and celebrated for their ongoing series of self-portraiture titled Somnyama Ngonyama (“Hail, the Dark Lioness”), which they began in 2012, Muholi had by that point either completed or begun several other bodies of work that addressed the discrete circumstances and challenges—including for basic civil rights and for visibility and recognition free from stereotypes—being faced by different members of the queer community in South Africa. These early projects, including Only Half the Picture (2002–2006), Being (2006), Beulahs (2006), Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing) and Miss Lesbian (2009), each seek to empower Muholi’s participants and by extension the queer community at large, with images defined by affirmation, dignity and joy rather than struggle, tragedy or trauma. Muholi’s first project, Only Half the Picture, grew out of their work with the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, which works with survivors of hate crimes living across South Africa and its townships and which Muholi co-founded in 2002. Rather than emphasize the visceral details that would attest to the suffering endured by each participant (a term Muholi uses in place of “subject”), these photographs instead show fragments of bodies at rest or in repose and faces that are contemplative rather than vindictive. Muholi often isolates body parts and garments as well, creating pictures that complicate whatever normative assumptions about gender and identity we may hold. The challenge to stereotypical and queerphobic representations was further developed by Muholi with their series’ Being and Beulahs. For the former, Muholi made portraits of queer couples in settings and circumstances at times intimate and domestic, in others casual and public. Each photograph demonstrates the bond of love between two people regardless of personal difference or public challenge. If the Being photographs were largely situated in private spaces, those Muholi made for the series Beulahs were just as often situated outdoors and in public spaces. In South Africa the term “beulah” refers to a gay man that the queer community deems beautiful. The “beulahs” that Muholi photographed demonstrate how malleable masculinity can be—their self-presentation is their own as opposed to being socially prescribed. In their Miss Lesbian series Muholi used the conventions of pageantry as the aesthetic and conceptual framework to critique social definitions of beauty and success. These self-portraits take the staging and presentation used by beauty pageants as a pretext for exploring how they have historically expressed gender as a social construct and how that has defined what “success” or “acceptance” so often looks like. Muholi’s project Faces and Phases is a vast collective portrait that both commemorates and archives the lives of Black LGBTQIA+ people in South Africa. Many of these portraits are the result of long and sustained relationships and collaboration, as Muholi often returns to photograph the same person over time. In the title, “Faces” refers to the person being photographed, while “Phases” can signify the transition from one stage of sexuality or gender expression to another, while also marking the changes to the participants’ daily lives. As with so much of their work, Faces and Phases acts as a living archive that visualizes Muholi’s belief that “we express our gendered, racialized and classed selves in rich and diverse ways.” Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, South Africa and currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. They studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg and in 2009 completed an MFA: Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto. Their work has been exhibited at the 2020 Biennale of Sydney; the 58th International Venice Biennale; Documenta 13; the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and the 29th São Paulo Biennale. They are currently the subject of a mid-career survey at the Instituto Moreira Salles, Sao Paolo. In 2024 they were the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in 2020, the Tate Modern mounted a major mid-career survey which traveled to Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris and Bildmuseet, Sweden. Other notable solo exhibitions have taken place at the Tate Modern, London; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kulturhistorek Museum, Oslo; Schwules Museum, Berlin and Brooklyn Museum, New York. They received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in 2016, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2018, and the Spectrum International Prize for Photography in 2021. Their work is included in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Brooklyn Museum; the High Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art; the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Modern, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among many others. Image: Zanele Muholi, Zol, 2002, from the series Only Half the Picture. Gelatin silver print, image: 27 1/2 x 20 inches, paper: 31 1/2 x 24 inches.

"Reflections" marks the first solo exhibition of photographer Rahim Fortune, a Texas native whose work examines the visual and cultural narratives of the American South. Over the past decade, Fortune has blended documentary and personal storytelling to investigate themes of collective history, migration, and identity. This exhibition presents two major series: *I Can't Stand to See You Cry* (2021) and *Hardtack* (2024), offering a deep dive into the landscapes, communities, and traditions that shape his artistic vision. Born in 1994 and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, Fortune uses photography to explore fundamental questions of American identity. His images, often centered on individual families and communities, trace the shifting geographies of migration and resettlement, revealing how history is inscribed onto the landscapes of Texas and the broader South. His 2021 book, *I Can’t Stand to See You Cry*, published by Loose Joints, was shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture Photobook of the Year Award and won the Rencontres d'Arles Louis Roederer Discovery Award in 2022. His latest monograph, *Hardtack* (2024), has received international recognition, earning a nomination for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2025. Fortune’s work is held in prestigious collections, including the High Museum of Art, LUMA Arles, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is represented by Sasha Wolf Projects in New York. *I Can’t Stand to See You Cry* captures life across Texas and its neighboring states, portraying individuals navigating personal and societal challenges amid environmental and health crises. Fortune’s approach, grounded in intimate encounters, explores the tension between public and private life while reflecting on themes of loss, resilience, and self-discovery. The series is a deeply autobiographical meditation on a transformative period in the artist’s life—marked by a cross-country move, the loss of a parent, and a shifting sense of identity. In *Hardtack*, Fortune examines his community’s historical relationship with photography by drawing from the aesthetics of vernacular and archival imagery. Rather than focusing solely on historic sites, he engages with the cultural and emotional weight these places carry, illustrating the resilience of Black communities in the face of adversity and joy. A key theme in the series is the portrayal of coming-of-age traditions—young bull riders, praise dancers, and pageant queens—all embodying a sense of continuity and pride. Fortune’s lens dignifies these cultural rites, highlighting the discipline, creativity, and intergenerational exchange that sustain them. Through his work, he bridges past and present, revealing the depth and complexity of Black life in the American South. Image: © Rahim Fortune

Daniel Cooney Fine Art is beyond thrilled to announce our third solo exhibition (our first in Santa Fe) by Christopher Makos titled PARTY. The exhibition features unseen vintage work from the artist’s early career. PARTY features a selection of over 40 unique vintage photographs, that celebrate the artist’s ethos: daring, climactic and outrageous. Makos has spent the past five decades in the company of legendary cultural icons, most famously as confidant to Andy Warhol and as a key member of the Factory from 1976-86. His position in this notorious circle gained him access to everyone that was anyone including models, celebrities and underground royalty. The likes of Divine, Steven Tyler, Debbie Harry, Peter Berlin, Richard Gallo, Georgia O’Keefe and other tantalizing figures mingle on the gallery walls. Never satisfied as just an observer Makos brazenly includes multiple self-portraits in this exhibition. Young surfer boy Makos can be seen in languid repose with long blonde hair, loyal dog “Snake” at his side, sporting a pair of cowboy boots and nothing else. In another image, the photographer is positioned bare-assed between two mirrors, camera in hand, admiring himself from behind. In a photograph titled Self-Portrait I, 1970s, a nude Makos, seen from the chest down “tucks” exploring his androgynous side in a mirrored hotel room. Perhaps even more exciting are numerous one of a kind darkroom compositions including double portraits of hustlers, artists, drag queens, nude muscle boys and more. Equally compelling is the original contact sheet from Makos’s infamous “Andy in Drag” photoshoot revealing the Father of Pop Art in a curly wig and white bedsheet complete with Makos’s mark ups in grease pencil. Makos is the author of 18 books including White Trash (1977), Warhol/Makos In Context (2007), Christopher Makos Polaroids (2009) and Everything: The Black and White Monograph (2014). His work has been published in Interview, Rolling Stone, House & Garden, Connoisseur, New York Magazine, Esquire, Genre and People. His works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Tate Modern, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery and The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.

Renowned artists Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett present a previously unseen photo series from the early 1990s at the Alice Austen House. McCarty and Moffett's creative partnership began within the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury, which was the graphic arm of ACTUP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The collective’s public art interventions used the language of advertising and art to expose the AIDS epidemic as both a health crisis and a political disaster. This shared experience sparked the duo to establish Bureau, a cross-disciplinary design studio in New York City that operated from 1989 to 2001. Bureau's work spanned print design, film titles, and educational initiatives. In 1992, McCarty and Moffett were invited by Princeton University School of Architecture to design the university's Lecture Series Calendar. Princeton's long history, dating back to 1746 and its status as one of the original colonial colleges, inspired the artists to reconsider and queer early American history. For their project, McCarty and Moffett, dressed as pilgrims and women, ventured to the North Fork of Long Island with Bureau colleagues for a photo session, using unstable Polaroid 35mm positive film. While only two images were selected for the Princeton calendar, the remainder of the photos, hundreds of slides in total, were stored away. Over time, the film emulsion naturally deteriorated, becoming a dynamic participant in the artwork itself. For the first time since that 1992 photoshoot, new archival pigment prints of ten performative tableaux from the series will be on display at the Alice Austen House Museum, offering a unique glimpse into McCarty and Moffett’s visionary work. Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett: One Day is supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, Lily Auchincloss Foundation and the Teiger Foundation. Image: © Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett