Jen Davis: Eleven years
ClampArt Gallery, New York, NY, May 22 – July 3 clampart.com
Jen Davis’s investigation of her identity and struggles in relation to the perception of her body bravely reveal her desire for intimacy and her search for self-acceptance. Challenging typical representations of female beauty and sexuality, this autobiographical work invites us to consider the deepest reaches of the artist’s interior life and insecurities. Shot over more than a decade, the series includes images of Davis grappling with her physicality alone and in scenarios involving fantasies with men or in the company of other women. Her self-portraits reflect basic human longings to be loved, desired, and valued. The show is accompanied by a monograph, Eleven Years (Kehrer Verlag).

Touching Strangers: Photographs by Richard Renaldi
_

Aperture Gallery, New York, NY, through May 15 aperture.org_
Renaldi’s portraits result from unlikely unions of strangers whom he has asked to pose in a temporary embrace. The objective, Renaldi notes, is “to introduce an unpredictable variable into a traditional photographic formula and to create spontaneous, fleeting relationships between complete strangers.” This exhibition of 71 images, made throughout the U.S. since 2007, is accompanied by a book of the same title (Aperture).

Caleb Cain Marcus: A Portrait of Ice

National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, through July 7 cpnas.org
A New Yorker who was born in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Caleb Cain Marcus has traveled from Patagonia to Alaska to Iceland making “portraits” of glaciers. His minimalist yet grandiose compositions focus on ice and sky with no traces of human presence or interference. Poetic and timeless, these ethereal images are seductive through their serene grandeur and subtle variations of color.

Posing Beauty in African American Culture

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, April 26 – July 27 vmfa.state.va.us
This group show of more than 80 images explores ways in which African and African American beauty has been represented in historical and contemporary contexts. Highlights include self-portraits by Carrie Mae Weems; environmental studies of urban communities by Charles “Teenie” Harris, Jamel Shabazz, and David Heath; and studio portraits of women in the early 1900s by Thomas Askew.

PhotoEspana, 2014

Various venues, Madrid, Spain, June 4 – July 27 phe.es
This year Madrid’s photo festival expands both outward and inward: Several curators share the artistic direction, while the imagery itself focuses on work by Spanish artists. Highlights range from historic forerunners such as José Ortiz Echagüe to 1970s documenters like Cristina García Rodero to contemporary digital innovators, including 30and30, a roundup of young visual artists.

In Focus: Ansel Adams
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, through July 20 getty.edu
Thirty years after the death of Ansel Adams, the Getty presents its first exhibition of his work. The show includes selections from one of Adams’s Museum Sets—limited edition portfolios printed by the photographer for collectors on the condition that the work be donated to a museum or school—and prints from the Getty’s collection.

**Fidel and Che’s Cuba: A Revolution in Pictures **
Rebekah Jacob Gallery, Charleston, SC, May 20 – June 30 rebekahjacobgallery.com
This exhibition spotlights work by Cuban and foreign photo­journalists—photographs that documented and, in some cases, even helped to incite the revolutionary movement in Cuba. Included are images by Alberto Korda, Roberto Salas, Osvaldo Salas, Raul Corrales, and others.

Bull City Summer
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, through Aug. 31 ncartmuseum.org
Ten artists, including Alec Soth and Hank Willis Thomas, portray the culture of minor league baseball—from fans and ballplayers to bright lights and green grass—in a show saluting the 25th anniversary of the film Bull Durham.

Another America: A Testimonial to the Amish
Eastman House, Rochester, NY, through May 25 eastmanhouse.org
Photographer Robert Weingarten portrays Amish communities in Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. His simple, elegant compositions respectfully convey the values and everyday lives of his subjects.

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The relationship between a photographer and a mentor can be a significant one. To understand more about how the dynamic informs and inspires, we asked Brooklyn-based photographer Tema Stauffer, whose work portrays American people and spaces, to interview a mentor of hers. She chose Victoria Sambunaris, who has traveled extensively across the country documenting the changing American landscape. In the conversation below, they talk about shared influences, challenges, and inspirations.

Tema Stauffer: We met in the fall of 2009 at a gathering organized by Women in Photography. In our first conversation, you mentioned that you were inspired by Wim Wenders’s brilliant film Paris, Texas (1984), which made a big impression on me as well. During your lecture at the International Center of Photography in 2011, you also talked about American photographers who shaped your work, particularly those who traveled across the country. Can you say more about them?

Victoria Sambunaris: Yes! Paris, Texas was a huge influence. Wim Wenders—maybe because he’s not American—captures so much about what I’ve come to love about being on the road. I know those characters and landscapes well. Being on the road is a passion. When I’m not on it, I’m thinking about it. Watching this film is as close as it gets: the relentless desert light, the infinite roads, the run-down motels, the complicated lives. And I guess I’ve looked for something similar in photographers.

The photographers who have inspired me the most are the ones whose work has been about
the land and people; many of them made a life for themselves on the road—I call them “road warriors”—starting with the U.S. Geological Survey photographers in the late 1800s and the Farm Security Administration (FSA)/Office of War Information photographers in the 1930s and ’40s. There are the photographers from the New Topographics movement, including Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, whose style and philosophies I have embraced. And even though they’re German, I have to mention Bernd and Hilla Becher, who drove around the country with a ladder on top of their VW bus! And then up to the present, there are photographers like Joel Sternfeld, whose work I admire and who has also offered advice, like how to camp for free. I’ve been shaped by the folks in the Center for Land Use Interpretation, who go
to crazy lengths to get their photographs—devising innovative methods to get their cameras over fences to get the shot. All of them have been out there driving, or flying, riding, galloping, hauling—whatever they need to do—to get that one photograph. And if you get it, it’s complete ecstasy. These photographers, among others, have modeled a way of life as much as an aesthetic.

T.S.: Last spring, you wrote to me that you are “finding few photographers who are actually exposing the reality of this country.” You talked about the ways that we both evidently found the world to be absolutely fascinating, and asked: “Where would we be without the FSA work that revealed the hardships of the country at a particularly troubled time in our history?” Can you elaborate on why you think it is important, especially now, for contemporary photographers to continue working in this documentary tradition?

V.S.: Over the years, I began learning about the issues that were reflected in my work and how they impact the lives of people I’ve encountered. So I’ve gotten to know miners, geologists, pipe layers, park rangers, sheriffs, campers, ecologists, conservationists—people on both sides of the border and from all realms. They have been my teachers and guides and informed my work. I guess I could see how it might seem as though I’m part of a documentary tradition, but it didn’t start that way, and the process has been more organic and not so specific. I do feel passionate about encouraging others to consider and cultivate what is important to them personally and, in the process, to hold out for something richer than whatever the current trend in photography and art is.

T.S.: As someone who spends much of her life on the road, photographs the landscape with a large- format camera, and travels alone to some places that might be considered dangerous, you’ve made choices in your lifestyle and even the kind of photographs you make that would still be considered bold and unconventional for a woman.

V.S.: Having Greek immigrant parents, it was difficult for me to move away from the expectations placed on me—as their child and as a girl. The plan when I was younger was that I’d be educated, choose a practical profession, and have a family. This was their idea of the American dream.

Photography was not part of the plan. The gender issue was subsumed by the overarching goal that I’d have a better life than they had.

On the road, many people I meet are perplexed to discover that I’m traveling alone for months on end and that I am not married and don’t have children. And that’s when I’m reminded that it could seem unconventional. It is a long conversation trying to explain what I do and why to a stranger. They are surprised that I camp out by myself; it doesn’t faze me. I’m used to it at this point. I’ve had women who are camping with their husbands come and ask me what the hell I’m doing by myself and that they were worried all night!

I imagine it’s hard—whether you’re a woman or a man—to be in your own head for so long, to forge into the unknown, to wonder where you will stay at night or whether you will find what you want to photograph or gain access to it. Those are my concerns. And being a woman on the road solo has worked in my favor. I am not perceived as a threat, and I think this has helped me gain trust and access to difficult sites.

Of course I am conscious that I am in a male- dominated genre of photography that favors its own; it can be discouraging to feel male photographers being taken more seriously by virtue of their gender. Having said that, I think there’s been an increased consciousness of that kind of chauvinism. I am proud to be part of an increasing presence of women photographers on the road, like Justine Kurland and Katy Grannan. We share a camaraderie having gone to school together, crossed paths on the road, shared motels and campsites.

T.S.: I have this opportunity to ask you questions since I’ve identified you as a photographer whom I deeply admire and who has taken the time to meet with me, correspond in e-mails, and give me some feedback and encouragement. I’m curious about any notable figures in your own path as a photographer. Are there teachers, photographers, or other mentors you’d like to mention?

V.S.: Tema, thank you for your admiration and support. This sentiment is mutual. Where do I be- gin? I’ve been most grateful to the people who have believed in me more than I have. Several years ago, when I’d experienced a profound loss and was reel- ing in its aftermath, I questioned my resolve to be a photographer. María Millán, a fellow photographer and friend, put the camera back in my hands. This I will never forget. The artist David Deutsch has been a longtime mentor and has taught me the meaning of commitment and work ethic. And my close friend, writer and educator Maria Jerskey, has pushed me in profound ways personally and professionally. There’s a wonderful story that when I was applying to graduate school, she refused to read over my application essays unless I applied to Yale. We fought, she won, I cried. But I also ended up getting my MFA from Yale, where I met photographer friends I’m still close to; they engage me in talks about the state of photography and are there for me every step of the way. I think we encourage and challenge each other. And keep each other questioning.

And finally there have been organizations that support the arts and take risks on unknown artists. You know the importance of this as well, Tema. For me, the Lannan Foundation has been a vital support, even connecting me to writers, poets, and activists whose work is relevant to my own.

T.S.: You’ve been shooting your most recent body of work on the United States–Mexico border. Can you tell us a story?

V.S.: I have so many stories about the people I meet that help me along the way. I am very open and find myself in many odd predicaments. People on the road have been remarkably generous. They house me, feed me, and connect me to friends and colleagues who help me access interesting areas and businesses. And I have gotten out of confrontations with the law by knowing the right per- son in a town. I stay in touch with most of these people while back east.

I’ll keep this story short, but I was working on the Mexican side of the border and someone offered me a little place to stay on the Rio Grande. I guess it was ripe for trafficking, so he told me to lock my- self in with metal gates. I’d camped along the border before, so this concept was totally foreign to me. Just before he left, my friend asked, “You know how to use a gun, right?” I don’t. Fortunately, I made it through the night without incident.

Victoria Sambunaris will be giving a talk on Thursday, March 20th, at the School of Visual Arts Amphitheater in New York City (address in link). This event is sponsored by the Camera Club of New York. For more info, head here.

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_**American Cool **_

_National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, through Sept. 7 _npg.si.edu

Jazz saxophonist Lester Young coined the word cool in the early 1940s to describe maintaining a state of calm amid social and economic pressures and racial oppression. It came to represent an attitude of stoicism and nonconformity that manifested in music, film, literature, and art. This photo survey of musicians, actors, artists, writers, and rebels explores the roots and defining characteristics of what it means to be cool in American culture, tracing the camera’s role in shaping the legacies of these iconic figures. Among the honorees: James Dean, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna, Audrey Hepburn, Miles Davis, Steve McQueen, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit

The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, July 8 – Oct. 19 getty.edu

The first major exhibition of White’s work since 1989, this overview salutes one of the most influential (yet often overlooked) American photographers of the 20th century. White sought spirituality and simplicity in nature and everyday objects: doorways, peeling paint, and other commonplace scenes elevated by his masterful use of light and exposure. The show is accompanied by Paul Martineau’s lavish book of the same title (Getty, $40).

Invisible Migrations

Alice Austen House, Staten Island, NY, through Aug. 31 aliceausten.org

At a time when immigration is a hot-button political topic, this is a showcase of work by 11 contemporary documentary photographers alongside Alice Austen’s historic images of U.S. immigrants at the turn of the 19th century. The collected work considers themes of dislocation, danger, and the quest for freedom and prosperity—from Seba Kurtis’s survey of Hispanic immigrants to Jim Goldberg’s collaborations with refugees from war-torn and impoverished nations.

_**Urbers Mutantes: Latin American Photography **_

International Center of Photography, New York, NY, through Sept. 7 icp.org

This survey of photography from 1944 through 2013 focuses on the street culture and sociopolitical climate of Latin American urban areas. Divided into sections reflecting different aspects of public space such as poverty and protest, the exhibition documents decades of turbulence and change. First shown in Bogotá, Colombia, the collection reflects the depth and richness of the region’s art and documentary photography.

_**New Pictures 9: Rinko Kawauchi **_

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN, through Aug. 10 artsmia.org

Kawauchi’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States features 42 photographs selected from her series Illuminance. One of Japan’s most prominent contemporary photographers, Kawauchi transforms ordinary moments into whimsical, vibrant, and lush visual poetry.

Lewis Hine

George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, through Sept. 7 eastmanhouse.org

This retrospective, featuring more than 150 photos made from 1905 to 1937 by documentary photographer and reformer Lewis Hine, ends its international tour at Eastman House. The exhibition and accompanying monograph include iconic images as well as work exhibited for the first time along with publications and posters of the period.

_**Phantoms in the Dirt **_

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, July 25 – Oct. 5 mocp.org

Curated by Karsten Lund, this group exhibition brings together 10 contemporary artists—including Richard Mosse, Arthur Ou, and Greg Stimac—whose enigmatic photographic and sculptural works explore elements of the earth and unseen forces that affect our surroundings.

Hard Art, DC 1979

Duke Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, NC,

June 2 – Oct. 11 documentarystudies.duke.edu

An exhibition and book of the same title present Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Lucian Perkin’s documentation of the early punk rock music scene in Washington, D.C. Perkin’s gritty, flash-lit, black-and-white photographs capture performances by Bad Brains and other seminal bands of the era and shots of their frenzied fans.

Image Search: Photography from the Collection

Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, through July 27 pamm.org

The inaugural photo show at Miami’s new contemporary art museum draws from its own collection and features more than 100 works by artists such as Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cindy Sherman, and Joel-Peter Witkin.

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“Human-Altered Landscapes” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, on view through July 19, 2015, explores the significance of “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape,” an exhibition originally presented at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY in 1975. The current exhibition presents works by artists who were included in this landmark show 40 years ago—Bernd & Hilla Becher, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, and Stephen Shore—alongside works by contemporary artists Pieter Hugo, Richard Misrach, Edward Burtynsky, John Divola, Elena Dorfman, and Lucas Foglia. Seen together, these prints shape our understanding of how photographers document the human impact on the landscape. We spoke to Brian Sholis, Associate Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum, about what has and hasn’t changed in four decades of looking at the land through a lens.

The cool, analytical style of the New Topographic photographers was not immediately embraced, and yet its influence has been lasting and profound. What do you perceive as the continued relevance of this approach to photographing the landscape and what inspired you to organize this exhibition?

New Topographics is so influential that the exhibition was even reconstructed, to brilliant effect, several years ago. That doesn’t happen often. My exhibition takes the 40th anniversary as a reason to look at how that influence descends through subsequent generations of photographers. The Cincinnati Art Museum holds work by several artists in the original show, and I was eager to put beautiful photographs by Robert Adams, the late Lewis Baltz, and Stephen Shore on view. While the other photographers I included have not all claimed New Topographics as a direct influence on their work, I believe they have in common a desire to reveal that you cannot separate “nature” from human presence. At the same time, certain combinations of pictures in the show tell particular stories. The Edward Burtynsky photograph of a copper mine in western Australia suggests one end of the production spectrum; Pieter Hugo’s portrait of a scavenger in an electronics-recycling dump outside Accra, Ghana, highlights the other.

The “New Topographics” photographers primarily focused on themes of human intervention in the American landscape. However, you chose to also exhibit work by international photographers, such as Pieter Hugo’s photographs of the Agbogbloshie dump in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where foragers mine for useful scraps of discarded computers. What motivated your decision to consider artists working beyond the United States?

While we think of New Topographics as an American phenomenon, it’s important to remember that German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher were included in the original exhibition. Additionally, one of the chief developments of the last 40 years has been the increasing globalization of production and consumption. The industrial outposts and residential developments that appear so frequently in the New Topographics artists’ photographs are today usually the product of global supply chains. It makes sense that photographers tracking the impact of these developments on the landscape would work in—and hail from—places beyond America’s borders.

The artists in the exhibition collectively examine man-made artifacts and architecture in the landscape as well as industry’s impact on nature. What are some of the specific environmental and ecological issues raised by this exhibition?

People in Cincinnati hold differing opinions about our changing environment, so I tried not to be didactic or politically hectoring when describing the show and its photographs. To that end I’ll simply list some of the things people can see in the pictures on view: a rock quarry in Kentucky that has been repurposed as the site of a suburban-style housing development; a major copper-mining operation in Australia; a flooded Salton Sea, a place that is currently in the news because it is disappearing; the water produced as a byproduct of oil drilling being pumped into a natural watershed.

The process of producing work about the landscape suggests that most of these photographers travel extensively, and many shoot with large-format cameras and present their work as large-scale prints. In researching and communicating with the various artists included in the exhibition, what else have you learned about some of their experiences and artistic concerns?

Since all of the photographs in this exhibition are drawn from the Art Museum’s collection, I did not speak directly with most of the included photographers. I did, however, interview Lucas Foglia, and several things he said resound with me: “I don’t think of myself as a quintessential road-trip photographer. People I meet tend to know more about their home and community than I do, and so I stay and listen, and look for scenes in everyday life that seem extraordinary.”

New Topographics–style photographs were described at the time as “cool,” “analytical,” and “dispassionate.” Forty years have taught us to distinguish the individual styles of the participating photographers, and to realize that our original terms for their work were incomplete or even wrong. Foglia brings up another point: even if the photographers were dispassionate, the people who live in these places are not. As he says, “I hope ‘Frontcountry’ [the series from which Foglia’s picture is drawn] is a portrait, not an indictment, of the contemporary, rural American West, because everyone I photographed talked about caring about the landscape they live in.”

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Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, April 18 – July 3 mocp.org

Curated by Susan Bright and previously exhibited at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, this group show defies traditional representations of motherhood. Among the predominantly autobiographical pieces are images by Elinor Carucci revealing intimate interactions with her children, quietly eloquent nude mother-and-child studies by Hannah Putz, as well as Leigh Ledare’s more provocative pictures of his mother that explore boundaries and taboos through the interplay of exhibitionism and voyeurism. Collectively, the eight artists—six women and two men—question cultural ideals and assumptions as they reimagine the identity and role of “mother” through their own nuanced experiences.

A beautifully illustrated hardcover volume, Home Truths: Photography and Motherhood (Art/Books, $35), accompanies the traveling exhibition.

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In the spring of 2013, photographer Elena Dorfman embarked on a six-month journey to document the Syrian refugee crisis for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The shattered dreams, hardships, and longings of teenage refugees captured her attention, inspiring intimate portraits and audio recordings of young subjects throughout northern Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey. A multimedia installation of “Syria’s Lost Generation” is currently on view at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum through January 2016. From her home in Los Angeles, Dorfman reflected on her experiences traveling abroad and producing this compelling body of work.

You’ve worked extensively both as an editorial photographer and as an artist addressing a diverse range of subjects such as the culture of horse-racing and jockeys, the unconventional emotional and sexual bonds men and women form with synthetic dolls, the fantasy world of the “cosplay” subculture, and more recently, the rock quarries of the Midwest. How did your relationship to the UNHCR evolve and ultimately lead to a commission of social documentary work about Syrian refugees?

Many years ago I worked in Europe with a woman who is now the Chief Spokesperson for the UNHCR. In 2013 we reconnected and she invited me to work with the agency on a project in the Middle East helping to shed light on the Syrian refugee crisis through pictures. Because of my work as an editorial and fine art photographer, she believed my approach to the subject matter could offer a different sensibility to the imagery being produced in the region. Although my fine art work over the last decade has focused on non-traditional subjects, I always strive to tell a story that respects the individual—or, more recently, the landscape. Also, I began my career as a documentary photographer so this was a return, of sorts, to my roots.

Once you understood that you wanted to focus on the experiences of teenagers, how did you find your subjects and encourage them to share their stories?

Once I realized that the young refugees had important things to convey about their experiences, their current physical surroundings and emotional lives, I reached out to the UNHCR network to help connect me. I also found my subjects more informally–while walking down the street in Beirut, at a community center in southern Turkey, in vast refugee camps, and simply by following leads. There were several key UN information and registrations officers who, once I put the word out, worked tirelessly to track down subjects, arrange interviews, translate, and even help me with my gear. I really have them to thank. Once I established a relationship with the teens they were all eager to open up. They had been sitting in silence, overwhelmed by the traumatic shift in their lives and they needed to tell their stories.

Can you describe the kinds of situations or dwellings in which these young refugees are living? What’s a typical day like for some of them?

It’s an understatement to state that the Syrian war and subsequent displacement of more than ten million people is a tragedy. I found the subjects that make up “Syria’s Lost Generation” are in myriad living situations and states of emotional distress. All of these kids were normal teens doing normal teenage things before the war began. Now, having lost track of their friends and often their families, they are scattered across the region that is buckling under the weight of refugees whose needs are dire.

The majority of the teenagers took nothing with them when they fled. With slight variations, their days consisted of helping their families find food and work, watching over their siblings, and staring out of the window—if they had one. Mostly, they worried. They were bored and despondent. Not one of the kids was in school and only two had been able to bring their books with them. They all told me that their futures were lost.

For those who view these portraits and listen to the stories told by these teenagers, and who are moved to help, what are some concrete steps they can take to make a difference in the lives of Syrian refugees?

Donations can be made to the UNHCR and Doctors Without Borders.

World Vision is helping in Lebanon with projects to give refugees access to clean water and sanitation. They are also in Jordan, providing basic emergency supplies, water, sanitation, and education for refugees. In Syria, they are delivering water and health services. You can support them with an online donation or by calling 1-800-562-4453.

In August, the World Food Programme provided food to more than 2 million people inside Syria. They have also fed more than 1 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey. Their hope is to provide food assistance to 6 and a half million Syrians by the end of the year. You can help them achieve this goal with an online donation.

International Rescue Committee is helping refugees inside Syria and in the bordering countries with medical and emergency supplies. In refugee camps they are providing water, sanitation and education services. They are also offering counseling, safety and support for women and girls at risk. You can help by donating online or by phone at 1-855-9RESCUE.

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From Here 
to There: 
Alec Soth’s America


Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI, 
Sept. 14 – Jan. 4, 2015 mmoca.org

This survey shows 
the trajectory of Soth’s career from early black-and-white through large-scale color scenes of everyday America, including work on view for the first time. Soth’s noted Lothlorien Series depicts life in a shared-cost housing cooperative in Madison.

_Michael 
Schmelling: Your Blues
 _

Museum of Contemporary 
Photography, Chicago, IL, 
Oct. 16 – Dec. 20 mocp.org

Following Atlanta, his book project about that city’s hip-hop scene, Schmelling turns his lens on the diverse sonic culture of his native Chicago. His images document performers, fans, and ephemera in the Midwest music hub, focusing on underground indie bands and house parties from the viewpoint of an insider.

Sebastião Salgado: Genesis

International Center of Photography, New York, NY, Sept. 19 – Jan. 11, 2015 icp.org

This long-term project by legendary Argentine photographer Sebastião Salgado is an epic tribute to the preservation of Earth in its natural state— at least in those places where it can still be found. Raised on a cattle ranch in Brazil, Salgado’s reverence for nature inspired an eight-year journey to discover mountains, deserts, jungles, oceans, wildlife, and indigenous peoples in the primordial regions of the world. The riveting collection of more than 200 large-scale black-and-white photographs, described by Salgado as “my love letter to the planet,” portray untouched environments that astound the modern eye. In 32 voyages since 2004, Salgado writes, his intent was “not to photograph what is destroyed but what is still pristine, to show what we must hold and protect.” Taschen’s lush 2013 monograph documents the project geographically—but with grand prints of up to 36×48 inches, this work is best seen on the wall.

Convergences: Selected 
Photographs from the 
Permanent Collection


J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, through Oct.19 getty.edu

Saluting the 30th anniversary of the Getty’s Department of Photo-graphs, this show blends contemporary and historic works in conversation with one another. Artists include Loretta Lux, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Man Ray, and other masters.

**Also Showing: **

Self-Processing — Instant Photography

Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA, 
Oct. 4 – Jan. 4, 2015 ogdenmuseum.org

This group show celebrates spontaneous imagery shot with instant film before digital technology rendered Polaroids and the like obsolete. It includes work by Alabama’s Pinky Bass and Georgia’s Michael McCraw, among many others.

Robert Voit: New Trees and The Alphabet of 
New Plants

ClampArt Gallery, New York, NY, 
Oct. 11 – Nov. 15 clampart.org

Coinciding with Steidl’s book New Trees, ClampArt presents the German lensman’s series on man-made phone towers camouflaged as huge trees. Voit’s stark and whimsical black-and-white depictions of artificial plants are in a companion show.

Shai Kremer: World Trade Center: Concrete Abstract


Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, Sept. 4 – Oct. 25
 saulgallery.com

Kramer’s work presents detailed semi-abstractions mixing images of the former World Trade Center with those made during its reconstruction through layers in a single frame. The show coincides with the 13th anniversary of 9/11 and the completion of the new World Trade Center.

Janelle Lynch: Presence

Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY, 
through Nov. 2 burchfieldpenney.org

As artist-in-residence at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Lynch established her own kinship with artist Charles Burchfield, as evidenced in atmospheric scenes of woodlands and the Catskill Mountains.

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Our selection of five unique and outstanding photography exhibitions on view this January and February around the country.

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Timothy Eastman, a 34-year-old photographer based in Brooklyn, traveled to Ukraine in August 2015 for a seven-week journey through small villages ravaged by recent conflict. Using his own resources and navigating the country with the support of connections established through social media, Eastman explored the impact of the War in Donbass on everyday lives in Pisky, Ardiivka, Chermalyk and other villages through portraits of ordinary people and their surroundings. Eastman spoke with American Photo about the impressions this experience left on him and his plan to return to Ukraine in June 2016.

After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 2011, you photographed political protests in the eastern United States, including the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and then made your first trip to Ukraine to photograph the Euromaidan Protests in 2013. What about your initial experiences there motivated you to return to country two years later?

The conflict in Ukraine is interesting because it isn’t fully active, due to a series of ceasefires that have been put in place, but even with the ceasefires it isn’t quiet either. Fighting still occurs along the line that separates Ukrainian-held territory from territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists. I was looking for a place that I could go to do stories. I’m interested in conflict, but not photographing combat. I’m interested in the effects war has on people, more conflict-adjacent than pure conflict photography. Because of my experience photographing the Euromaidan protests in Kiev, I felt some level of familiarity and comfort with Ukraine, and I already knew some people there. It seemed like a natural choice.

You used Facebook as a tool to connect to “fixers” who traveled with you to villages and facilitated your conversations with locals whom you sought to photograph. Can you describe the various roles these individuals performed in taking you to locations and mediating your interactions with your subjects?

The fixers I worked with had a grasp of local culture that helped me negotiate interactions with the people I encountered. I worked by going to villages and approaching people I met in public places or outside around their homes. One of the biggest obstacles I encountered was an aversion to being photographed. People are living in an incredibly difficult situation. The daily fear and uncertainty of living in a conflict zone can translate into a mistrust of strangers, among other things. The fixers I worked with were incredibly helpful not just in translating but in helping put people at ease during our interactions. The vast majority still did not want to be photographed, but that number would have been even higher without the aid of someone who was skilled at dealing with people. I was required to inform the Ukrainian military of my movements a day ahead of time every day, and the fixers I worked with handled that communication. They also helped with driving, moving through military checkpoints, finding places to stay and eat and many other things.

What are your impressions of the effect of the war on the people you met and photographed in terms of their daily lives, employment and or lack of employment and general morale? Can you tell us about the one individual whose story particularly stayed with you?

People are living in a very difficult situation. Food can be hard to come by because suppliers don’t want to make their way to conflict zones. For the same reason, food that does get through can be very expensive. Inflation is high so that makes it even worse. Many people are living on pensions that haven’t risen at the same level as inflation. A lot of people have lost their jobs due to no longer being able to get to where they once worked, working in a particularly dangerous area or the general drying up of the economy in a conflict zone. People who are willing and able have fled the conflict areas, leaving behind those who can’t leave for health or economic reasons and those who insist on staying. Boredom is rampant. Many have seen their friends and loved ones killed by the fighting. There is the ever-present threat of continued fighting. Morale is very low and most people just want the fighting to end.

One man’s story particularly affected me. Alexander, an 80-year-old man in Avdiivka, was outside working in his garden when a shell landed nearby. It killed his wife, who was also outside, and a piece of shrapnel took off the front of Alexander’s face. He was taken to emergency surgery to have it reattached, and while he was in the hospital thieves broke into his apartment and stole everything of value. He lives on a small pension and can barely afford the medicine he needs. Alexander told me that he wished the shell had killed him too, and I think he was telling the truth.

Besides photographing people in their homes or neighborhoods, you’ve also incorporated images of the landscape and various sites. Where are some of these places and what is significant about what took place there – for instance, the abandoned green car left in the grass near a building and the billowing smoke engulfing trees at the side of an unpaved road in a rural landscape?

The green car and building are from a town called Pisky. That apartment building has taken incredible damage during the conflict. It’s been shelled numerous times and is completely torn up outside and in. It’s a huge building, and when I visited there were only nine people still living there. The explosion is from a training being done by volunteer Ukrainian soldiers. It’s an improvised explosive device they set off.

When you return to the Ukraine in June, what do you hope to accomplish? Do you intend to revisit some of the people and places you previously photographed?

I plan to revisit some of the people I met before and see how they’re doing. If I’m able to get into the village of Avdiivka then I hope to see Alexander again, who I mentioned before. I want to expand the story when I go, to meet new people and learn how people are continuing to cope with an awful situation.

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Sparky and Cowboy (Gary Rogues), Schererville, Indiana, 1966

The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto is currently hosting a provocative and historical exhibition, Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s – 1980s, as the centerpiece of the AGO’s Year of Photography and the 2016 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

Co-curated by Sophie Hackett and Jim Shedden, this extraordinary large-scale exhibition brings together work by photographers and filmmakers that collectively transformed representations and perceptions of American lives and identities. Their powerful and penetrating still and moving images portray bikers, protestors, poets, cross-dressers, outcasts, eccentrics and others at the edges of society who challenged norms and conventions, searched for personal authenticity, and fought for social equality.

Cal, Elkhorn, Wisconsin, 1966

The AGO’s Associate Curator of Photography Sophie Hackett focused on photographs, some of which actually were recently given to or acquired by the gallery, such as Danny Lyon’s first major body of work, The Bikeriders, and a substantial collection of prints by Garry Winogrand. In fact, these and other works sparked the idea of the exhibition, which she developed with Shedden, to include work by other seminal photographers like Diane Arbus and Gordon Parks whose visions radically redefined notions of who merits attention, who is before the camera and what a picture is for.

Cookie at Tin Pan Alley, New York City 1983

According to Hackett, the exhibition is also about “those who find each other,” for instance, Nan Goldin’s wide circle of bohemian friends whose lives and relationships unfold in her legendary visual diary and slide show The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

Jim Shedden, Manager of Publishing, drew from his prior curatorial experience and expertise in film and video to feature filmmakers Robert Frank, Kenneth Anger, Shirley Clarke and Marie Menken, among others. Both curators described the selection of artists as those working in “a documentary impulse” who left a clear mark. While the exhibition examines the experiences and attitudes of “outsiders,” the curators emphasized that it equally considers “insiders” who formed diverse subcultures, communities, and chosen families, in Shedden’s words, “against the background of conservatism, complacency, and conformity of American culture.”

Picnic on the Esplanade, Boston 1973

While many of these artists rejected mainstream media as an outlet for the dissemination of their work, Gordon Parks used his unique position as Life magazine’s first African American staff photographer to bring attention to disenfranchised black communities and engender empathy from primarily white middle-class readers. Published in 1968, The Cycle of Despair: The Negro and the Cities special issue included Park’s photo essay, A Harlem Family, which documents the struggles of Bessie and Norman Fontenelle, living with their eight children in a decaying, roach-invested apartment on Eighth Avenue.

Rosie Fontenelle Cleans the Bathtub, Harlem, New York, 1967

Outsiders displays both prints and the original magazine story, as well as a documentary produced for televised public broadcasting in which Parks narrates his photographs, frankly describing the daily lives and hardships of the family during a brutal month after Norman has lost his railway job. One of the most poignant and searing images reveals an expression of profound worry and weariness on the face of Bessie, surrounded by four of her children at the Poverty Board in Harlem.

Bessie and Little Richard the Morning After She Scalded Her Husband, Harlem, New York, 1967

Along with work by well-known photographers and filmmakers spanning these four decades, Outsiders incorporates a collection of snapshots credited to Casa Susanna, a resort in upstate New York where male cross-dressers congregated in the 1960s. Candid portraits capture guests who found a sense of freedom and community within which to express femininity and non-conformity. The subjects of these images, some of whom later identified as trans women, playfully photographed themselves or one another at the resort or in their own domestic spaces performing various female roles from decorous housewife to glamorous diva. The snapshots were shared and admired at the resort, fostering an atmosphere of camaraderie and acceptance. “There is a documentary impulse even in amateur photographers,” according to Shedden. Also acquired last year by the AGO, the collection records an early exploration of gender identity and celebration of queer lives in the years leading up to the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and the first Gay Pride marches in American cities in 1970.

Susanna in a pink, green and yellow dress, sitting with friends, 1960s

The remarkable impact of Outsiders is evident from a palpable excitement and an exceptional turnout for the exhibition. “Toronto is a city that loves photography and photography shows,” says Hackett, who speculated that the show is especially resonant now in light of the United States presidential election campaign, Black Lives Matter activism and growing visibility for the trans community. While the time-line of the work in the show ends just before the emergence of digital photography and the Internet, the social and political issues and questions of identity and equality raised by the exhibition remain vital and relevant today. Outsiders is on view through May 29 with upcoming talks and screenings, including a lecture on Gordon Parks by LaToya Ruby Frazier, on Friday, May 27.

Susanna and a friend in the kitchen, 1955-1963

The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers, N.Y., 1962-1963

A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C., 1965

Centennial Ball, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1969.

Central Park Zoo, New York City 1967

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