Ten photography shows to start off 2024
Plus three museum photography solo-shows opening this Spring
Kinding Sindaw: In Honor of the Ancestors— Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora, La MaMa Galleria
On view through 1.26
I learned about this exhibition from my friend Emma Callahan who shared some of the 25 installed, previously unseen, Corky Lee photographs. The exhibition presents the archive of Kinding Sindaw, the New York City-based nonprofit dance theater company, "composed of indigenous tradition-bearers, Filipino American artists" for the first time since its founding in 1992. Inside the exhibition, you’ll find a range of materials including video projections, sound installations, and original clothing from performances, accompanied by Lee’s rich and thorough photo-documentation.
(In)directions: Queerness in Chinese Contemporary Photography, Eli Klein Gallery
On view through 1.31
My entry point to this group show was Tommy Kha’s inclusion but soon realized there were many familiar names including Pixy Liao, Ren Hang, and Leonard Suryajaya. With 21 artists, there’s plenty to see with a few pieces from each contributor. While the exhibit is accompanied by a catalog release, the non-traditional form of some of the artworks demands that you make time to see them in person at the gallery including printed fabric by Kha and a unique photobook by Liao Jiaming.
Saul Leiter: Centennial, Howard Greenberg Gallery
On view through 2.10
Having seen Leiter’s work shared online and even in some nostalgic New York City Facebook groups, seeing his prints for the first time in person was a special experience. Centennial, a retrospective exhibit on Leiter’s would-be 100th birthday, showcases a wide spectrum of Leiter’s works including black and white, color, and painted prints. The exhibition is accompanied by the publication release of Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective (Thames and Hudson, 2023), a hefty book to say the least.
Lora Webb Nichols: Heap-O-Livin, Alice Austen House
On view through 2.17
This is an exhibit I’ve yet to visit but is on my watchlist; I just need to decide when I’m willing to make the schlep to Staten Island. My introduction to Webb Nichols’s photographs was through her monograph, Encampment, Wyoming: Selections from the Lora Webb Nichols Archive 1899-1948 (Fw:Books, 2020). Webb Nichols’s portraits ought to be a continuing inspiration and motivation for contemporary photographers looking to portray the everyday person in their comfort; she died in 1962.
2023 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards Exhibition, Printed Matter Chelsea
On view through 2.24
I missed the opening reception of this group photography book exhibition, but looking forward to spending a lot of time flipping through the shortlisted titles. Some notable inclusions are Keisha Scarville: lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound (MACK, 2023) and Kristof Titeca: Nasser Road – Political Posters in Uganda (The Eriskay Connection, 2023), two books I listed in my top photography books of 2023. You can check out my full list below.
Julian Charrière: Buried Sunshine, Sean Kelly Gallery
On view through 3.2
Another exhibition that I haven’t seen but want to— I saw the exhibition, like others, listed on New York Photography Diary’s list of current exhibitions and registered similarities between Charrière’s prints and that of Aaron Siskind and Walker Evans’s in their subtle gestural qualities and attention to everyday marks, stains, and imprints. Yet, what distinguishes Charrière is his heliograph process, an early 19th-century photography process. “Shot from a bird’s eye perspective … [Charrière] creates photographic imprints of local oil fields.”
Through Our Eyes: Youth Photography at the Bronx Documentary Center, 2013-2023, BDC
On view 1.26 — 3.3
Opening reception 1.26 6-9pm
This exhibition focuses on the work of the Bronx Documentary Center, a nonprofit gallery and educational space that is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its youth photography program which has “provided more than 400 middle school and high school students from the South Bronx with free documentary photography and multimedia classes as well as a year-round college success program.”
I remember visiting the BDC when I was an underclassman in college to see student presentations; one young girl presented on her black and white photographs of a houseless man outside her local corner store that she befriended and gained trust from. I’m eager to know if her photographs are included in this show, and the accompanied catalog, Through Our Eyes: Youth Photography at the Bronx Documentary Center, 2013-2023 (The Bronx Documentary Center, 2023).
Justine Kurland: This Train, 2005-2011, Higher Pictures
On view through 3.15
Opening reception 1.27 4-6pm
This solo exhibition revisits a period, and a little later, Kurland made her photographs in her American road trip monograph Highway Kind (Aperture, 2016) and the older, rarer out-of-print monograph This Train is Bound for Glory (Ecstatic Peace Library, 2009) [Currently for sale at Strand Books for $350] of the same-titled Fall 2009 exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York. Yet, any of these prints will stick out from the 2016 printing in Kurland’s mounting of prints on aluminum in the exhibit and the hidden paired photographs:
“Forming a parallel track, each framed work in This Train contains two back-to-back photographs, one appearing in plain sight and the other about-face. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, upon the viewer’s request, the gallery will reveal the hidden sides.”
Almost a decade later from Highway Kind’s printing, this exhibition seems a reflection on the time Kurland spent traveling the American landscape with her young son, Casper. Recently, Kurland has focused on her collage-making in her recent monograph SCUMB Manifesto (MACK, 2022) which was shortlisted in Aperture Paris Photo’s PhotoBook awards the same year. This exhibition accompanies the publication of Kurland’s upcoming monograph This Train (MACK, 2024), set to release in March.
Godzilla: Echoes from the 1990s Asian American Arts Network, Eric Firestone Gallery
On view through 3.16
I learned about this two-gallery group exhibition from Ming Lin, co-founder of New York City based group Canal Street Research Association and Shanzhai Lyric, who shared the late Martin Wong’s shrine inclusion in the exhibition. While the 39-person group includes no traditional photography, the group show feels welcoming to all from any discipline. In addition to Wong’s sculpture, you’ll find sound sculptures/installations, Tony Wong’s recontextualized wrestling ring, and also more traditional forms.
Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines, Brooklyn Museum
On view through 3.31
While this extensive group show on the phenomena of fanzines and zine-making doesn’t allow you to flip through its many, many contributions, it’s still worthwhile sifting through the many, many vitrines of zine-maker artists including the late Barbara Ess, Jamacia, Queens-based group BlackMass Publishing, among many more. The catalog Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines (Phaidon, 2023) was published on the occasion of the exhibition, and may offer you a deeper insight into the zines that sit behind glass.
Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love, Queens Museum
On view 5.19 — 9.22
Ashton Harris’s upcoming solo exhibition at the Queens Museum follows a touring schedule, most recently at Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and before at Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. His large-format Polaroid prints of notable individuals including Studio Museum Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden are currently on view at the Guggenheim’s group exhibition Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility until April 7.
LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity, MoMA
On view 5.12 — 9.7
I had seen Ruby Frazier’s solo show last Spring at Gladstone Gallery where she presented in an installation of portraits of Baltimore community healthcare workers, paired with anonymous photos taken by community healthcare workers as part of a workshop taught by Ruby Frazier at John Hopkins. Since then, I’ve been looking forward to when I’d see more of her work, and this seems like it’ll be a rich opportunity, bringing together various bodies of work focusing on the laborer and worker from the Rust Belt, Flint, Michigan, and the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.
Nona Faustine: White Shoes, Brooklyn Museum
On view 3.8 — 7.7
Artist Talk: Nona Faustine and Queen Ming 1.27 3-5pm
This will be the first museum exhibition dedicated to Faustine’s series, originally published as a monograph in October 2021 in White Shoes (MACK, 2021). I remember watching Faustine’s 2022 Brooklyn Museum panel discussion on her White Shoes series with Jessica Lanay, Pamela Sneed, and Seph Rodney, and appreciating the expansion on the series even in the broadest sense of speaking about it. I’m looking forward to learning how the exhibition will expand the work into an installation as the press release specifies. An artist talk between Faustine and her daughter, Queen Ming will happen on Saturday, January 27 in-person at the museum, focusing in on Faustine’s Mitochondria series, an intergenerational women photography series which includes her daughter.