Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015

Nov 7, 2015–Mar 20, 2016

MoMA

Installation view of Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 7, 2015–March 20, 2016. © 2016 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Thomas Griesel
  • MoMA, Floor 3, Exhibition Galleries The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries

New Photography, MoMA’s longstanding exhibition series of recent work in photography, returns this fall in an expanded, biannual format. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, New Photography is expanding to 19 artists and artist collectives from 14 countries, and includes works made specifically for this exhibition.

Probing the effects of an image-based post-Internet reality, Ocean of Images examines various ways of experiencing the world: through images that are born digitally, made with scanners or lenses in the studio or the real world, presented as still or moving pictures, distributed as zines, morphed into three-dimensional objects, or remixed online. The exhibition’s title refers to the Internet as a vortex of images, a site of piracy, and a system of networks. Ocean of Images presents bodies of work that critically redefine photography as a field of experimentation and intellectual inquiry, where digital and analog, virtual and real dimensions cross over. These artists explore contemporary photo-based culture, specifically focusing on connectivity, the circulation of images, information networks, and communication models.

Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition, MoMA will also launch an online platform featuring selections from the archive of the New Photography series, including documents and images from the series’ 30-year history.

The artists included are:

  • Ilit Azoulay (Israeli, b. 1972)
  • Zbyněk Baladrán (Czech, b. 1973)
  • Lucas Blalock (American, b. 1978)
  • Edson Chagas (Angolan, b. 1977)
  • Natalie Czech (German, b. 1976)
  • DIS (Collective, founded U.S., 2010)
  • Katharina Gaenssler (German, b. 1974)
  • David Hartt (Canadian, b. 1967)
  • Mishka Henner (British, b. Belgium 1976)
  • David Horvitz (American, b. 1982)
  • John Houck (American, b. 1977)
  • Yuki Kimura (Japanese, b. 1971)
  • Anouk Kruithof (Dutch, b. 1981)
  • Basim Magdy (Egyptian, b. 1977)
  • Katja Novitskova (Estonian, b. 1984)
  • Marina Pinsky (Russian, b. 1986)
  • Lele Saveri (Italian, b. 1980)
  • Indrė Šerpytytė (Lithuanian, b. 1983)
  • Lieko Shiga (Japanese, b. 1980)

 
Related classes:

  • New Photography: Navigating an Ocean of Images
  • Nothing Is Ever New: Histories of Contemporary Art

Organized by Quentin Bajac, The Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator, Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, and Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator; with the assistance of Kristen Gaylord, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow, Department of Photography.

  • This exhibition is part of New Photography.

    Major support for the exhibition is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation and by The William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund.

    Generous funding is provided by the Annenberg Foundation, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, David Dechman and Michel Mercure, and Courtney Finch Taylor.

    Publication

    • Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now Hardcover, 368 pages

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    Installation images

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