Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light)

The career of photographer Weegee (born Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968) is often divided into two distinct phases, one gritty, the other glamorous. Celebrated for his sensationalist images of crime scenes, fires, car crashes, and the onlookers who witnessed these harrowing events across New York City in the 1930s and ‘40s, Weegee also spent time in his career documenting the joyful crowds, premieres, and celebrities of Hollywood. His documentary images on both coasts gave way to experimental portraits late in his life, which were distorted using a kaleidoscope and other tricks from his technical toolbox. Weegee: Society of the Spectacle aims to reconcile these two sides of Weegee through an investigation of his focus, throughout his career, on a critique of 20th century popular culture and its insatiable appetite for spectacle. Weegee: Society of the Spectacle is curated by Clément Chéroux, Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (FHCB), Paris, in collaboration with the Weegee Archive at the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York. The exhibition opens at ICP after a run at the FHCB and the Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid. The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication Weegee: Society of the Spectacle (Thames & Hudson).

Curated by Sara Ickow, Associate Director of Exhibitions, Keisha Scarville Guest Curator, and Elisabeth Sherman, Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at ICP, To Conjure: New Archives in Recent Photography brings together the work of seven artists primarily working in photography—Widline Cadet, Koyoltzintli, Tarrah Krajnak, Shala Miller, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Keisha Scarville, and Sasha Wortzel. The exhibition reimagines what an archive can be or might look like—more than just a means of recuperating the past, these artists utilize the archive as a form for imagining new futures. Moving away from the centrality of the institutional archive, the artists in To Conjure expand its parameters by engaging with materials—clothing, instruments, the landscape and more—beyond photographs and documents alone. By working with a myriad of contemporary materials, these artists create new histories and material sensibilities.

Drawing from works by more than 40 photographers in the ICP collection, with the addition of exhibition prints from contemporary photographers, American Job: 1940-2011 highlights the collection’s breadth and contemporary relevance by surveying the photographic response to labor organizing and strike activity, race and gender discrimination in labor, organized labor’s role in politics, labor and activism, and the intersection of labor and the social changes wrought by the economic restructurings of the twentieth century. This exhibition is guest curated by Makeda Best, photography historian.and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California. Organized chronologically in five sections, the exhibition explores the transformation of work in America, and with it the rise of activism and new forms of solidarity in pursuit of humane working conditions and economic equity. Including over 130 photographs, along with photobooks and a wide range of ephemera that underscore text and image based storytelling, American Job: 1940-2011 introduces lesser-known images from the ICP collection, provides new contexts for celebrated bodies of work, illustrates the contributions of professional photojournalists and community-based documentarians to the historical record of the twentieth century, and demonstrates the breadth of ICP’s collection of works from across the country. This exhibition features works by photographers including Cornell Capa, Chien-Chi Chang, Arnold Eagle, Robert Frank, Otto Hagel, Bettye Lane, Freda Leinwand, Ken Light, Danny Lyon, Susan Meiselas, Charles Moore, Barbara Norfleet, Gordon Parks, Sophie Rivera, Accra Shepp, Eugene Smith, Dylan Vitone, Todd Webb, Dan Weiner, Bill Wood, and many more.

The upcoming four years promise significant shifts in political, social, economic, and identity politics. These changes demand a reevaluation of how we define and interact with geographic and interpersonal boundaries at all levels. The exhibition "Beyond Boundaries" invited artists to explore the multifaceted nature of these lines. It prompts us to consider not only the limitations boundaries impose, but also their potential as catalysts for innovation and change. The works presented represent a diverse range of perspectives, challenging assumptions and encouraging dialogue about where boundaries are defined, how they are enforced, and what happens when they are crossed or redrawn. Are these lines static or dynamic? Are they inclusive or exclusive? And how can artistic expression help us imagine a future where boundaries are redefined to create a more just and equitable world, especially in the context of evolving political landscapes? The more than 40 works included in this exhibition serve as a platform for reflection and conversation, a space where we can grapple with the complex realities of a rapidly changing world and explore the potential for transformative action in the face of uncertainty. The artists featured offer potent visual and conceptual narratives that reveal the transformative power of art in reimagining our relationships with the boundaries that shape our lives. Juror, Demetri Broxton, is a Bay Area artist, independent curator, and the Executive Director of Root Division in San Francisco. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, he earned a BFA at UC Berkeley with an emphasis in painting and an MA in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and most recently at the Chinese Historical Society of America, Art Gallery of Alberta, de Young Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Kala Art Institute, and the Norton Museum of Art. Broxton’s artwork is held in several private and public collections including the Monterey Art Museum, de Young Museum, and Crocker Art Museum. He is represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

Obscura Gallery presents IAN MARKUS: Fragments of the Frontier, a photographic exploration of the fading culture of ranching in Montana. With imagery created from a 4 x 5” film camera, Ian composites two or more negatives in the darkroom to create ethereal, large-format gelatin silver prints. The resulting ghostly images give a visceral interpretation of the fading cowboy culture that Ian has encountered in the contemporary ranches of Montana. Santa Fean Ian Markus is the son of the late Obscura Gallery photographer Kurt Markus, who had a long storied career including photographing cowboy culture, and publishing three cowboy monographs since the 1980s. Ian has witnessed this subject matter since he was a young boy accompanying his father on photographic expeditions in the West and assisting Kurt for many long hours in the darkroom. This work provides an insightful perspective into the current state of ranching, showing the juxtaposition of a practice that is facing numerous challenges in our contemporary climate. "’So, you're here to photograph the end?’ a couple of cowboys asked me without any prompting. At the time, I didn’t know how to respond. My father’s photographs of the West and cowboy culture had always inspired me. They made me curious about what it was really like—not staged, not polished. I didn’t want to dress anyone in new, starched clothes or have them stare meaningfully into the sunset. I wanted to capture life as it is now. That was why I was there.” -IM “It wasn’t until I began reviewing contact sheets with Jennifer Schlesinger [Director, Obscura Gallery] that I realized there was more to my work at those ranches. The fading traditions of cowboy culture—the shift from horses to ATVs (or ’ram and jam,’ as one legendary cowboy put it)—mirrored my own journey with photography. Like the cowboys adjusting to a new way of life, I was navigating my practice using film cameras, tools that require patience and a connection to the past.” - IM “The Graflex camera became the perfect medium to reflect this duality. It bridged the time between the cowboys my father photographed and the ones I met—generations still deeply connected to their heritage. To them, wearing that hat still means something.” –IM Ian Markus (b. 1988) grew up in Kalispell, Montana and graduated from Montana State University with a focus on Graphic Design. The son of the late Kurt Markus widely known for his Cowboy and fashion photography, Ian was immersed in the world of photography at a very early age as he spent most of his life working alongside Kurt—whether in the darkroom or out on photo shoots—and those experiences shaped the artist that he is today. In 2009, Ian and Kurt collaborated on the documentary It's About You, a Super 8 film chronicling John Mellencamp's tour of baseball fields across America while recording his latest album. Celebrated for its creativity, the film was featured at SXSW and the Tribeca Film Festival. Ian has been working on his own photographic documentary about the fading Cowboy culture the past several years, and the show at Obscura Gallery is the debut of his first solo photographic exhibition.

This ongoing exhibition celebrates the diverse perspectives artists have brought to the medium of photography, featuring a varied presentation of works from the Museum’s holdings. The latest selection of photographs, on view through spring 2025, focuses on music, from community bands to Tina Turner. Works by Ernest Withers offer a glimpse of the vibrant Memphis music scene of the 1950s and 1960s, while Henry Horenstein captures country music performers and fans alike. With works by seven artists that range across five decades, this installation attests to music’s power to offer us joy, community, and catharsis.

Endicott College is excited to host Fran Forman – Suspended Realities: A 20-Year Journey through Whimsy to Noir, an exhibition showcasing two decades of the artist’s imaginative work. The exhibition will run from January 21 to March 14, 2025, at the Heftler Visiting Artist Gallery in the Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts. Closing Reception: Join us on March 12, 2025, from 4:00–6:00 PM for a closing reception to meet the artist and explore her work. Fran Forman combines photography, digital painting, and AI techniques to create stunning, layered visual narratives that explore themes of longing, disconnection, and hidden emotions. With 25 years of experience in graphic design and an MFA, Fran’s work blends technical skill with emotional depth. The exhibition highlights her evolution from whimsical imagery to darker, noir-inspired themes, drawing inspiration from Caravaggio, Edward Hopper, Hammerschøi, and Gregory Crewdson. Over 35 images are on display, plus some recent short experimental videos.

Born in 1947 in Douglas, Arizona, and based in Tucson, Louis Carlos Bernal was a pioneering Chicano photographer, among the very first to envision his work in the medium not as documentation, but as an art form. He began his career in the early 1970s in the wake of the Chicano civil rights movement, articulating a quietly political approach to photography with the aim of heralding the strength, spiritual and cultural values, and profound family ties that marked the lives of Mexican Americans who were marginalized and little seen. Initially focusing on the people of modest means he encountered in the barrios of Tucson, the city where he lived and taught, Bernal eventually traveled to small towns throughout the Southwest, where he portrayed individuals and families in outdoor settings or in their homes surrounded by belongings, tabletops filled with religious statuary and curios, and at times, rooms absent of people that nevertheless express the tenor of the lives lived within them. In a relatively short career that spanned the 1970s and 1980s, Bernal demonstrated his profound gift for magnifying the lives of his subjects and for capturing the essence of their character in a single image. In addition to the photographs made in Southwestern barrio communities, the exhibition will also include examples of Bernal’s early experimental work, photographs he made during his frequent trips to Mexico, and a selection of never-seen images he produced in Cuba. It is curated by Elizabeth Ferrer, a specialist in the history of Latinx photography, and will be accompanied by a catalog to be co-published by the Center for Creative Photography and Aperture. Image: ​​Louis Carlos Bernal, El Gato, Canutillo, New Mexico, ​1979, Gift of Morrie Camhi, ​© Lisa Bernal Brethour and Katrina Bernal

Haines Gallery proudly presents State Shift, our second solo exhibition with artist MEGHANN RIEPENHOFF. Opening in tandem with SF Art Week 2025, this highly anticipated show debuts a poetic, visceral, and personal body of work that expands Riepenhoff’s collaboration with both the cyanotype and the environment. Riepenhoff creates her cyanotypes directly within the landscape, allowing the elements to leave physical inscriptions on paper coated with photographic materials. Marking an important breakthrough in her practice, State Shift sees the introduction of new pigments and gestures into Riepenhoff’s process. The signature inky indigos and glacial blues of her cyanotypes are transformed with vivid flashes of green, coral, magenta, and shimmering metallic hues, the result of organic materials (mica, mushroom ink, and ginkgo chlorophyll) and manufactured pigments (a nod to the human presence in the landscape). The title State Shift, which names both the exhibition and the series on view, is a geological term describing dramatic and sudden changes to ecosystems — often when critical thresholds are crossed. “The physical nature of my work, where photography-based media come in contact with rain, waves, wind, and wintry environments, is a call to be in closer contact with our environment, in a time of deep separation between humans and our ecosystems,” Riepenhoff has said. In issuing this call — both to herself and to viewers — the artist invites us all to consider the personal and collective shifts we might make to preserve our shared home. State Shift emerged from difficulty and explores sites of climate devastation, but is rooted in the possibilities of transformation and hope. “Hope,” the author and activist Rebecca Solnit has written, “is a belief that what we do might matter, an understanding that the future is not yet written.” State Shift coincides with Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene, a major group exhibition opening at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in February 2025 that features Riepenhoff's work. Originating at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, Second Nature will travel to the Anchorage Museum, AK following its presentation at the Cantor.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the apexart Fellowship Program, we're presenting 30 Days of Culture Shock, a group exhibition of photography and video works by current and former Fellows from the U.S. and abroad. The apexart Fellowship is an alternative educational program that invites creative individuals to step far outside their comfort zones and engage with unfamiliar cultures, ideas, people and experiences. Differing from residencies that focus on production, the apexart fellowship asks artists to pause their creative endeavors and immerse themselves for thirty days in a city they have never been to. Instead of networking and art tourism, Fellows engage in a rigorous itinerary of activities including: hands-on workshops, lectures, dance classes, and community focused volunteering. Unlike most artist residency programs, the apexart Fellowship provides a rich, 30-day schedule of non-art activities, while requiring Fellows to refrain from producing creative works. The apexart Fellowship schedule prioritizes educational experiences that are outside of the Fellow's stated interests. This diversity of activities leaves Fellows with new ideas, approaches, and content to incorporate into their creative practices. Our NYC fellowship is for internationally based artists to travel to New York City, and our INTL fellowship is for NYC-based artists to travel outside of the USA. In doing new and interesting things, and having time away from their usual responsibilities, apexart Fellows can reflect on what they do with greater perspective. apexart Fellows keep a public journal for the duration of their program, and participate in a recorded exit interview at the end of their Fellowship, which can be found online. By providing a space for contemplation and exposure to new experiences, the apexart Fellowship is designed to be a catalyst for creativity. 30 Days of Culture Shock is a reflection on the transformative power of the program, showcasing how these diverse experiences influence and inspire the Fellows' work. For some of the artists in the exhibition it has been years while for others it has only been months, but all of the work featured is in some way in response to their time in the fellowship. Join us.

An exhibition of photography by the acclaimed German filmmaker Wim Wenders will be on view from January 28 through March 15, 2025 at Howard Greenberg Gallery. Written Once will showcase images made in the 1970s and 1980s when Wenders was researching locations for his films in the American West or traveling the country for film events. A key element of the exhibition is text written by Wenders to accompany a number of the photographs, which will be featured together with the images in the gallery. Wenders’ poetic stories surrounding the images give the viewer an extraordinary window into his filmmaking as well as his day-to-day life in the film world. The title of the exhibition, Written Once, is a nod to the two photographic series on view: Written in the West (1983-1987) and Once (1977-1984). Written in the West In 1983, Wenders set out on a road trip of the American West, photographing the unique light and desolate landscape in preparation for his iconic film Paris, Texas (1984). Wenders’ images from Texas, Arizonia, New Mexico and California are transformed by the filmmaker’s cinematic vision as he searches for the mythology of the frontier in the vast landscape. The trip resulted in the series, Written in the West, which was first exhibited in 1986 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. “It was another way of preparing for the film, too, a different kind of research that had less to do with locations than with the light in the West. I had never made a film in that landscape and was hoping that taking photographs would sharpen my understanding of the light and landscape, my sense of empathy with it. So although these photos were taken in connection with the film we made in that part of the country, they are quite independent of it, despite the fact that a lot of the photos were taken in Houston, Los Angeles, and other locations in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico where we did in fact shoot the film. But these large-format photos were my own personal, private way of preparing for the film,” Wenders noted in an interview in his 2015 photography book, Written in the West Revisited (Schirmer/Mosel & D.A.P.) Once In the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, Wenders photographed his travels and encounters in Hollywood. Using the same command of the art of storytelling found in his films, Wenders presents a written anecdote with each image that often starts out with “Once, I…..” These behind-the-scenes accounts feature stories about his travel experiences often with the extraordinary group of actors and directors that have crossed his path including John Lurie, Jim Jarmusch, Dennis Hopper, Claire Denis, Elia Kazan, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton. Among the highlights is a 1977 photograph, When Martin Scorsese had a flat tire II. Wenders is both the imagemaker and the narrator of an unpredictable moment: while traveling in the remote landscape of the Valley of the Gods in Utah, he encountered a car pulled over by the side of the road with a flat tire. The man underneath the car was Martin Scorsese, who subsequently discovered that the rental car did not have a spare tire! Autobiographical in scope with a literary tradition found in his filmmaking, the narrated texts and photographic trajectories provide an intimate look at the making of picture stills and their relationship to moving images. About Wim Wenders Wim Wenders (born 1945 in Düsseldorf) became internationally known as one of the protagonists of the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Today, he is considered as one of the most important figures of contemporary world cinema. The work of the screenwriter, director, producer, photographer and author includes multiple award-winning feature and documentary films, photo exhibitions presented worldwide, as well as numerous photo books, film books and text collections. He lives and works in Berlin with his wife Donata Wenders. His films Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987) are today part of the international canon of film heritage, as are his innovative documentaries Pina, Buena Vista Social Club and The Salt of the Earth. His two most recent films had their world premiere at the Festival de Cannes in 2023: Anselm, his documentary film in 3D about Anselm Kiefer, and his Japanese feature film Perfect Days, for which lead actor Kōji Yakusho received the award for Best Actor in Cannes. Perfect Days, became his internationally most successful film and was nominated for an Oscar in the “Best International Feature Film” category in 2024. In 2012, Wim and Donata Wenders established the Wenders Foundation in Wenders' native city Düsseldorf. The non-profit foundation brings together the artist's cinematic, photographic and literary lifework and makes it permanently accessible to the public. In the process, the films are restored to state-of-the-art digital masters. The Wim Wenders Foundation is also engaged in film education for schools and supports (in cooperation with the Film und Medienstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen) the promotion of young talent in the field of innovative cinematic storytelling with the Wim Wenders Scholarship. Image: Sun Dries, Las Vegas, New Mexico from the series 'Writen in the West' 1983 © Win Wenders

The Norton is proud to welcome Mexican artist Fabiola Menchelli as the 2024-25 Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence. Her solo exhibition, certain silence, features photographs through which Menchelli questions how risk and risk-taking impacts our understanding of photography and representation. Created in complete darkness and without the use of a camera, Menchelli relies upon touch and sound to guide her gestures. Each atmospheric work is not only the result of Menchelli’s physical movements, but also her total embrace of chance and accident, allowing streams of color-filtered light to reach each piece of light-sensitive paper.