Face and Figure: Recent Acquisitions in Photography

Dutch photographer Ruud van Empel (b. 1958) invites viewers to see the world anew, blurring the line between reality and illusion. His images, saturated with vivid color and intricate detail, create an almost surreal experience—scenes that feel both familiar and entirely imagined. Van Empel’s process is meticulous and time-intensive, often taking hundreds or even thousands of hours to complete a single image. Using a digital collage technique he has refined since the mid-1990s, he assembles fragments of his own photographs to construct compositions that exist outside traditional photography. These layered, hyper-detailed landscapes celebrate the beauty of nature while also reflecting its tensions, as elements compete for space and attention. While Van Empel is best known for his portraits of children set within lush environments, this exhibition shifts focus to the landscapes themselves. Drawing from source images captured during his travels—from botanical gardens in the Netherlands to California’s Joshua Tree National Park—he presents both daylight and nocturnal scenes that feel dreamlike yet tangible. These constructed worlds challenge perceptions of photography’s role in truth-telling, encouraging viewers to step inside and explore a realm of wonder, memory, and mystery. Image: Ruud van Empel, Theatre #8 (detail), 2013. Archival pigment print. Gift of the artist in honor of Deborah Klochko. © Ruud van Empel

Stephen Daiter Gallery proudly presents Chicago: Mark Steinmetz, on view from February 7 to April 27, 2025. This marks Steinmetz’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, showcasing selections from his newly released book, Chicago. Nearly thirty-five years ago, Steinmetz lived in a modest apartment in Wrigleyville, where he transformed his bedroom into a makeshift darkroom. It was during this time that he developed some of his most well-known series—The Players, Summertime, and Carnival—alongside a lesser-known body of work made in Chicago, now coming to light for the first time. “The gestures of these men and the expressions on their faces are observed with delicate precision,” writes Peter Galassi in the book’s introduction (Chicago: Nazraeli Press, 2025). “Elsewhere, with the same gentle eye, Steinmetz is alert to people in the act of adjusting a sandal or a sneaker, reading, giving the thumbs-up, lifting weights, flying a kite, lighting a cigarette, focusing a long lens, leaning against a rickety bus stop, fishing, counting change, talking on a pay phone—and a woman scratching her back.” Steinmetz’s photography is defined by its compassion, curiosity, and quiet respect. His images do not impose meaning but allow subjects to simply exist—capturing them with a sensitivity that is both rare and deeply human. His lens reveals Chicagoans in their element, embracing everyday moments that, in his hands, become profound reflections of the city’s unique rhythm and soul. Image: © Mark Steinmetz

“It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person, in its first meaning, is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously, playing a role . . . It is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves.” -Robert Ezra Park, 1950 Casemore Gallery is pleased to present You, the performer, a group exhibition that brings together eight contemporary artists —Sophronia Cook, Jim Goldberg, Todd Hido, Whitney Hubbs, Jim Jocoy, Steve Kahn, Rachelle Mozman Solano, Larry Sultan, and Lindsey White— whose works explore the theatrical impulse embedded in both the act of image-making and the staging of the scenes documented within the frame. Drawing upon the aesthetics of performance, illusion, and mise-en-scène, these artists delve into the personal and collective unconscious, blurring the lines between documentary and fantasy, observer and participant, and fiction and reality. In his 1960 work Leap into the Void, Yves Klein subverted the notion of photography as a purely documentary medium. His photograph, a staged leap from a Paris rooftop, offered a fantastical image that questioned the relationship between reality and illusion. As curator Mia Fineman writes, Klein’s work “symbolically enacts the leap of faith we make in accepting the truth of any photograph.” This moment marked the beginning of an era in which photography began investigating truth through a conceptual and performative lens. You, the performer continues this exploration, with works spanning from the 1970s to the present, questioning and playing with the validity of the oft-repeated "quintessential American life" narrative through the use of models, the stage, and acute directorial and editorial interventions. Whether set in the suburbs of Los Angeles, the gated communities of Panama, the streets of Hollywood, a dive bar in San Francisco, or the artist’s studio, these images underscore the shifting and often surreal underpinnings between the self, the other, and the interiors we inhabit—physically and psychologically. As much about the stage as it is about the characters who perform upon it, this exhibition reveals how easily the boundaries between the two can become porous. The models in the photos of Todd Hido, Larry Sultan, and Rachelle Mozman Solano become fairytale-like femme-fatales, the stars of their own movies unfolding in real-time within the image and in collaboration with the photographer’s investigation of their personal inner subconscious landscape. Lindsey’s White’s You, the performer, the exhibition's titular piece, allows the viewer to choose whether they want to be the performer or remain part of the audience. Jim Jocoy’s double-exposure plays within a similarly temporal space, as the photographer becomes a bridge between performer and audience, evoking the energy of a performance through the physical abstraction of the scene. Other artists’ works offer a seemingly “empty” stage scattered with remnants—teddy bears, seashells, mylar curtains, ropes, swaddled organs—prompting the audience to mentally reconstruct an implied narrative. In the works of Steve Kahn, Larry Sultan, and Whitney Hubbs, interior spaces transform into psychological containers. The physicality of the printed image becomes performative in Jim Goldberg’s photograph of a stage curtain, printed on paint-embellished fabric and hung as a curtain, and in Sophronia Cook’s aluminum mold of her studio floor. With the aid of these photographers’ perspectives and directorial embellishments, stages and backdrops morph into characters in their own right. In an era where image-making is second nature, we find ourselves deeper than ever in Foucault’s epoch of simultaneity, reassessing and redesigning the everyday architecture and backdrops that shape our own lives. The works in You, the performer offer both a reflection and a means of escape from the prescribed “American life”—a portal into alternate dimensions that are, perhaps, more honest depictions of our true feelings about the world.

Jackson Fine Art is delighted to present the rich visual storytelling of acclaimed artist Cig Harvey in our spring exhibition. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Harvey explores themes of female identity, familial relationships, memory, and connection to home. She practices photography as theater, alluring the viewer into a world of fantasy. An opening reception for the artist will take place April 16 from 5–7 p.m., with signed copies of Harvey’s latest monograph Emerald Drifters (Monacelli/Phaidon, 2025) available for purchase. This is her second solo exhibition at the gallery. Photographer and writer Cig Harvey’s newest body of work, Emerald Drifters, is a poetic, richly saturated exploration of life through color. Her exhibition presents dreamlike tableaux of her signature subjects — flowers, cakes, and the human figure in landscape. Taken in and around her home in Rockport, Maine, Harvey’s photographs focus on the ephemeral nature of light, pigment, and vision — bright yellow maple pollen against the dark hues of a country road; clematis flowers captured in the light of the full moon; rainbow sprinkle donuts and pink frosted cakes piled among a vivid heap of decomposing dahlias. Harvey’s eye for color and its interaction with the environment creates photographs filled with emotion and beauty. In the book, her images are accompanied by hand-painted color wheel diagrams and writings on her experience and memory of color. Image: Cig Harvey, Emerald Eye, Rockport, Maine, 2024

In a story that bridges survival, serendipity, and soaring ambition, Robert Mann Gallery is proud to present Coming Home the debut New York City exhibition of Isaac “Drift” Wright, the U.S. Army veteran turned urban explorer whose gravity-defying rooftop photography has stunned both digital audiences and the international art world.
 Wright, known globally as “Drift,” rose to prominence not through the traditional art world but through silence, steel, and the skyline. After serving in the military and confronting profound personal challenges, Wright began documenting his solitary climbs atop skyscrapers, capturing breathtaking images from vantage points few ever reach. His work, which gained viral traction online was first introduced to the wider public in a powerful 2021 New York Times profile by David Phillips, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. That story changed everything.
 Four years later, that moment of recognition comes full circle. Wright’s first physical exhibition in New York City opens this spring in the heart of Chelsea, curated to reflect the city that has defined, challenged, and inspired him. The show will include the first-ever public display of his photograph taken from the spire of the Empire State Building, among a series of large-format images exploring the architectural intimacy and soaring tension of New York’s skyline. While centered on NYC, the exhibition also includes select works from across the U.S. and around the world, reflecting Wright’s evolution into a globally recognized artist with a singular point of view.
 “For me, climbing isn’t about adrenaline, it’s clarity,” said Wright. “Above the noise, you feel invisible and infinite. I’ve been hunted, locked up, written off, but my art gave me a way forward. This show is my first time putting that journey on a wall.”
 To properly showcase the breadth and scale of Wright’s vision, Robert Mann Gallery has expanded its exhibition space within its Chelsea location. The larger venue allows for a powerful cross-section of Wright’s work across his signature formats and will better accommodate the strong, loyal following he’s cultivated through social media and digital art platforms.
 This exhibition is more than a gallery debut, it’s the culmination of a life reclaimed, a city reimagined, and a lens fixed firmly on the impossible. Image: And When We Die It Will Feel Like This, 2023

Robert LeBlanc in collaboration with Carhartt WIP announces TIN LIZARDS a photography monograph. Tin Lizards celebrates the timeless romance of train travel. Immersed in a monochromatic dreamscape of surrealism. In this evocative world crafted by Robert LeBlanc, reality blurs with fiction, as memories crystallize in silver halides, transforming the world into a canvas of wonder and introspection. From the quiet solitude of a sleeper car to the whispered charm of small towns, LeBlanc’s lens captures the poetry of diverse landscapes, revealing beauty in life’s quietest moments. Each destination in this collection was reached by train. Propelled by the rhythmic hum of steel on tracks, LeBlanc distills the spirit of exploration, crafting a series of photographs that dance between stillness and motion. His work invites viewers on a soulful journey, where the heart of America’s quieter corners unfurls through the gentle cadence of the train. LeBlanc partnered with Carhartt WIP and fine-art publisher Nazraeli Press to unveil the Tin Lizards monograph. Accompanying this is a limited-edition capsule collection exclusive to Carhartt WIP Los Angeles. Image: Tin Lizards, Untitled #65, 2022

All About Photo presents 'Reverie of the Unseen' by Rory J Lewis, on view throughout June 2025. REVERIE OF THE UNSEEN From the antlers of a stag beetle, to the multi-directional flight of a dragonfly, or the iconic markings of a ladybird beetle, there are very few forms not afforded the arthropod by evolution. Reverie of the Unseen is a collection of my works from the last 3 years, which seeks to elevate these oft overlooked animals by capturing the unseen ‘personality’ so many of these beautiful creatures appear to possess. Through specific angles, lighting techniques or capturing certain behaviours, these tiny invertebrates can suddenly seem so much more relatable to us, as if waving good morning, playing games with one another, or tilting their head in silent communication- like perhaps, the pet puppy we once had. All of the images are of live and completely unharmed subjects, taken in the wild, as being able to photograph them at their most vibrant is what provides so much of the magic, If there is an unnaturally colourful backdrop in the image, it is purely created by placing a physical object behind the subject. so shooting during the night or very early hours of the morning, as they’re sleeping or just waking up, is nearly always imperative. This also helps in keeping their disturbance to an absolute minimum, ethics are also as important to me as the art itself, as I seek to do nothing more than celebrate these remarkable animals, and I invite others through this work, especially those that may find them fearful, to celebrate them with me.

THE DOG & PONY SHOW! 1. A group photography exhibition that celebrates two endearing species that offer us unconditional friendship and support in times of need. 2. Some artful, and occasionally comedic relief from intelligent and creative human beings. 2 (alt.) Some artful, and occasionally comedic relief from the actual s***show that’s going on in Washington. Photographers: Elliott McDowell, Tony Bonanno, Glen Wexler, Patricia Galagan, Eric McCollum, Renee Lynn, Yvette Roman, Mark Berndt, Victoria Stamm, Brad Stamm, Jennifer Schlessinger, Kate Lindsey, Walter Nelson, Jane Phillips, John Chiodo, Dolores Smart, and Scott Wilson.

CLAMP is pleased to present “My Life as a Flower,” an exhibition of unique Polaroids produced by Dietmar Busse nearly twenty-five years ago, at the turn of the 21st century in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Coated from head to toe in matte, chalky pigments, Busse transforms his own body into a living canvas. Onto his skin he carefully pressed petals, blossoms, stems, and leaves, crafting self portraits that feel both fantastical and haunting. These images, rich with texture and fragility, suggest a deep intimacy with nature and a performative merging of subject and medium. Busse assembles parts from a wide range of botanical species—anemone blossoms paired with carnation leaves on a stalk of aloe—to create impossible new blooms that exist solely within his imagination. Once complete, these fleeting arrangements are photographed before they vanish, emphasizing the ephemerality at the heart of the work. Through this singular series, Busse collapses the boundaries between painting, sculpture, photography, and performance. His process foregrounds impermanence and transformation while quietly invoking our shared dependency on the natural world—an uneasy tether made more precarious in an age increasingly defined by technological acceleration and impending climate catastrophe. “My Life as a Flower” coincides with an exhibition at FIERMAN of Busse’s camera-less chemical paintings as well as newer digital floral self portraits running from May 8 – June 22, 2025. Dietmar Busse (b. 1966) lives and works in New York. He was born in Stolzenau, Germany, and as a young man learned the world of photography in Madrid before relocating to New York in 1991. His recent solo museum exhibition titled “Dietmar Busse | Fairy Tales 1991-1999” at Amant, Brooklyn, NY, was reviewed in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Cultured, The Guardian, and Paper Magazine. His work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York; CLAMP, New York; FIERMAN, New York; Halsey McKay Gallery, New York; the Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, Germany; Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam; Invisible-Exports, New York; Museum Sinclair Haus, Bad Homburg; the Leslie Lohman Museum, New York, among other venues. His work has been publicized in The New Yorker, TIME, The London Independent, New York Times Magazine and Interview, among other publications.

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is proud to present Lauren Greenfield: Social Studies, a new photographic exhibition that revisits the terrain of youth culture and identity formation in the digital age. Expanding on her acclaimed five-part docuseries of the same name, Social Studies (FX/Hulu) marks Greenfield’s return to a subject she has explored since her groundbreaking 1997 debut, Fast Forward: Growing Up in the Shadow of Hollywood. Shot during the 2021–2022 school year across Los Angeles—a city synonymous with image and aspiration—Social Studies follows a diverse group of teens navigating high school, home life, and relationships under the influence of ever-present social media. This new body of work builds on Greenfield’s legacy as a visual sociologist, capturing the tensions between online performance and private identity, aspiration and anxiety, vulnerability and self-curation. Lauren Greenfield’s photographic approach parallels her immersive filmmaking: both document a reality that is evolving in real-time. Lauren Greenfield: Social Studies is a continuation and an evolution of the artist’s decades-long interrogation of American culture. Through the raw honesty of her subjects and the clarity of her vision, Greenfield creates a powerful meditation on adolescence, what she calls “comparison culture”, and the search for authenticity in a curated world. As she continues to investigate the themes of status, beauty, identity, and power, this new series reflects her ongoing commitment to making the invisible visible—revealing how young people see themselves and how we construct and consume those images. Lauren Greenfield is an Emmy-award-winning photographer and filmmaker and has been a preeminent chronicler of youth culture, gender, and consumerism for over twenty-five years. Her documentary The Queen of Versailles won the Best Documentary Director Award at Sundance in 2012 (coming to Broadway as a musical this fall, starring Kristin Chenoweth with music by Stephen Schwartz), and her films The Kingmaker, Generation Wealth, and THIN have garnered Emmy, Critics Choice, WGA, & DGA recognition. Greenfield’s award-winning books include Fast Forward (1997), Girl Culture (2002), THIN (2006). In recent years, she directed the ambitious documentary Generation Wealth (2018) and published a retrospective monograph, a global investigation of materialism and social status that synthesizes decades of her photographic work. In partnership with the Annenberg Foundation, who also collaborated with Greenfield on the Social Studies docuseries, the Generation Wealth exhibition toured museums around the world opening at the Annenberg Space for Photography, and traveling to the ICP, the Nobel Peace Center, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the Hague Fotomuseum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen), and Fotografiska. Greenfield’s photographs—including entire bodies of work such as Fast Forward, Girl Culture, THIN, and Generation Wealth—are held in major institutional collections, including the Harvard Art Museums, the Center for Creative Photography (Tucson), Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the International Center of Photography, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, among others. Image: Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, 2025 © Lauren Greenfield, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles

Zanele Muholi, a pioneering visual activist and artist, has spent two decades using photography, film, and sculpture to document and celebrate Black Queer lives in South Africa and beyond. Their work challenges gender stereotypes, elevates personal narratives, and underscores the urgent need for visibility, respect, and recognition within the LGBTQIA+ community. This exhibition highlights several key series from Muholi’s prolific practice. *Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness)*, an ongoing self-portrait series, features striking black-and-white images in which the artist assumes various personas. Using everyday objects like clothespins, rugs, and plastic bags as adornments, Muholi transforms the ordinary into potent symbols of personal and political commentary. Also on view are selections from *Brave Beauties*, a series that captures trans women and nonbinary individuals in bold, empowered poses, and *Faces and Phases*, a living archive of Black lesbians, gender-nonconforming individuals, and trans men. Initiated in response to the discrimination and violence faced by these communities in South Africa, *Faces and Phases* serves as both documentation and defiance. A never-before-seen selection of portraits from *Somnyama Ngonyama*, presented in lightbox format, intensifies the interplay of light and shadow, further amplifying the series’ dramatic impact. Across these bodies of work, Muholi redefines Black Queer representation, disrupting dominant narratives while offering a powerful and deeply human perspective. Image: Zanele Muholi, "Phila I, Parktown," 2016, edition of 8 + 2 artist’s proofs. Courtesy of Southern Guild and Yancey Richardson. © Zanele Muholi

Nearly 60 years after The Beatles performed their final concert at Candlestick Park, Beatlemania is back in the Bay. Featuring more than 250 personal photographs by Paul McCartney, along with video clips and archival materials, this exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes look at the meteoric rise of the world’s most celebrated band. The images capture the period from December 1963 through February 1964 and the band’s journey to superstardom, from local venues in Liverpool to The Ed Sullivan Show and worldwide acclaim. Photographs of screaming crowds and paparazzi show the sheer magnitude of the group’s fame and the cultural change they represented. More intimate images of the band on their days off highlight the humor and individuality of McCartney and bandmates John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Rediscovered in the artist’s personal archive in 2020, these images offer new perspectives on the band, their fans, and the early 1960s, as seen through the eyes of Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–1964: Eyes of the Storm is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London, in collaboration with Paul McCartney. It is curated by Paul McCartney with Sarah Brown for MPL Communications and Rosie Broadley for the National Portrait Gallery, London. The presentation at the de Young museum is organized by Sally Martin Katz.