Since its inception in 1985, the New Photography series has featured more than 80 artists from 17 countries, presenting significant bodies of work in small group shows every fall.
From diverse points of view, the artists in this exhibition—Michele Abeles, Birdhead, Anne Collier, Zoe Crosher, and Shirana Shahbazi—collectively examine and expand the conventional definitions of photography. They challenge the assumption that photography is solely a representational medium, explore the process of picture making, exploit the proliferation of images in a media-saturated world, and blur the lines between photography and other artistic disciplines. As the medium transforms rapidly, these artists question what it means to make a photograph in the 21st century.
The five artists have different working methods and pictorial modes, ranging from abstract to representational, but relationships inevitably suggest themselves among the separate bodies of work on view here. Collier and Crosher make pictures from other pictures to examine the ways meaning and cultural values are embedded in photographs. The studio photographs of Abeles and Shahbazi are the result of assembly and in-camera manipulation. Birdhead’s obsessive photographic chronicles resonate with Crosher’s reconsideration of an existing archive. These connections, among many others, reveal the artists’ common strategies and their individual approaches to related ideas.
The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography.
The exhibition is made possible by Polaroid Eyewear (by Safilo Group).