NEW YORK, NY (April 20, 2023)—The International Center of Photography (ICP) explores love and desire through intimate images taken by lovers in a group exhibition this summer. On view from June 2 through September 11, 2023, Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy features over 250 works throughout ICP’s galleries, presenting photographic projects that read as personal stories by 16 international artists, including Nobuyoshi Araki, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Motoyuki Daifu, Fouad Elkoury, Aikaterini Gegisian, Nan Goldin, René Groebli, Hervé Guibert, Sheree Hovsepian, Clifford Prince King, Leigh Ledare, Lin Zhipeng (No. 223), Sally Mann, RongRong&inri, Collier Schorr, and Karla Hiraldo Voleau. 

Revealing private and powerful intimate relationships, Love Songs includes series dating from 1952 to 2022 by some of the leading and emerging photographers of our time that express complex, elusive, and contradictory entanglements. Taking us through personal, often unseen stories between different couples—from the first days of an affair through marriages, honeymoons, domestic bliss and the pain of separation, even to death and the last days shared between loves—the intimacies depicted by these artists are rarely seen in the history of photography and offer images of love that range from poetic, to romantic, to raw. 

“This summer, ICP will turn over the entirety of our exhibition spaces to powerful, intergenerational stories of love in the exhibition Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy,” said David E. Little, Executive Director of ICP. “This major exhibition offers a unique viewpoint into how relationships are photographed and presents images of intimacy rarely represented in photographic history with such openness and directness. We look forward to welcoming audiences to explore and connect with Love Songs, which is an international collaboration with our friends at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, and curator Sara Raza, who remixed the international show at ICP.” 

Love Songs explores the history of photography through the lens of love, inspired in part by the canonical work of Nobuyoshi Araki and Nan Goldin. The exhibition features work from Araki’s landmark books Sentimental Journey (1971), a visual diary of his honeymoon with his wife, Yoko; and Winter Journey (1989-1990), which documents the final months of Yoko’s life until her death at age forty-two. Placing his own life at the center of the work, Araki blurs the lines between moments of intimacy and insignificance, as the love story transforms into a tragedy. A selection of raw, color-saturated, yet tender photographs from Goldin’s The Ballad of SexualDependency (1973-1986) are also included. Originally presented as a slideshow accompanied by a soundtrack of music by Nico, Maria Callas, and James Brown, Goldin recorded the spontaneous and unfiltered daily life of her friends, showing the vulnerability and sometimes brutality of romantic relationships.  

Personal Letters (2000) marks the first chapter of the love story of RongRong&inri, the working name of two artists. The lovers embarked on an impassioned correspondence from September through November 2000, mailing each other photographs with promises of eternal love handwritten with ardor on the borders of the prints, expressing the intensity of their emotions and their desire to be together forever. Hervé Guibert met Thierry Jouno in 1976; his series Thierry (1976–1991) chronicles their passionate 15-year relationship. Guibert’s photographs of Jouno in hotel rooms during their travels are sensual portraits in which he reveres his lover’s nude body.  

L’oeil de l’amour (The eye of love) (1952) by René Groebli is radically intimate, bringing the viewer inside the domestic and romantic space of a Paris honeymoon. Groebli chronicles lazy days in a hotel room with deep and loving closeness, as if he wished to remember every second of time spent together—his wife dressing and undressing, the unmade bed, a bottle of wine on a table, her hand holding a lit cigarette. Filled with joy, tenderness, and a tinge of melancholy, Motoyuki Daifu’s Lovesody (2008) candidly captures his experience of falling in love with a single mother of a two-year-old boy while she was pregnant with her second child. An unvarnished portrait of their daily lives, the photographs show their small, chaotic apartment cluttered with toys, piles of clothes, and half-eaten food, displaying the vulnerability and uncertainty of the moment. 

Clifford Prince King’s 2019 works celebrate queer Black love and Black liberation, disrupting norms of culture, gender, identity, and race. His intimate color photographs, some staged, depict private spaces inspired by and drawn from real and imagined moments in his life and community. Lin Zhipeng (No. 223)’s Photographed Colors of Love (2005-2021) documents the defiant youth of China exploring their sexuality and freedom in the face of an authoritarian regime. His colorful and pattern-filled images feature his friends and lovers, and depict a generation trying to live authentically, free from taboos around gender, homosexuality and desire. 

Collier Schorr’s Angel Z (2020-2021) is a collaborative project made with her artistic and romantic partner Angel Zinovieff, who writes: “When I look at you with the camera in your hand looking at me, there is a difference between that and what I see when the camera is not present. It is different because the camera is a third presence, a witness.” Schorr invites us to penetrate the intimate space of their relationship, questioning the tension between private and professional relationships. In Proud Flesh (2003–2009), Sally Mann documents her husband Larry’s late-onset muscular dystrophy, creating images of great vulnerability, frailty, tenderness, and mortality. In Hephaestus (titled for the Greek god of blacksmiths, Larry’s profession), marks on the image evoke scars, and other works have a feeling of forensic documents. 

Aikaterini Gegisian’s 2019 series of photographic collages on paper and book titled Handbook of the Spontaneous Other include found pop culture materials from the 1960s and 1970s, such as adult magazines, travel journals, and National Geographic. Gegisian’s process of “de-collaging” rebels against and emancipates commodified and fetishized images. A 2021-2022 series of mixed-media assemblage works by Sheree Hovsepian evoke fragmented and abstract contours of the female body. Using her sister as her model and a stand-in for herself, Hovsepian plays with ideas of kinship, resemblance, self-love, eroticism, subjugation, and mythology of the female form.  

Silent Glide (2008), a three-screen video installation by Ergin Çavuşoğlu, offers a fractured narrative about the imminent separation of a pair of lovers, set against the backdrop of the picturesque sea and industrial landscape of Hereke, Turkey. Çavuşoğlu explores the inner turmoil and the quest for meaning that leads to the couple’s breakup. Fouad Elkoury’s series On War and Love (2006) depicts the demise of an intergenerational romantic relationship, overlapping with the thirty-day period of war in Lebanon from July 13 to August 14, 2006. Featuring daily diary entries of photographic montages layered with handwritten notes, the work reveals the wounds of personal and political life.  

For his 2010 project Double Bind, Leigh Ledare photographed his ex-wife in a country cabin, then asked her current partner to do the same, producing two sets of near-identical images. Ledare juxtaposes the photographs with a large collection of printed ephemera, exploring the psychology of how one “reads” images and comparing a broken marriage to a burgeoning love. In Another Love Story (2021), Karla Hiraldo Voleau restages photographs from a former relationship with a man known, in this context, only as X. After discovering that he had been leading a double life and living with another woman, Voleau cast a model to play the role of X and visited locations they had spent time together to reenact intimate moments from their relationship before the moment of betrayal.  

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), Paris, based upon an original idea by Simon Baker, and was curated at MEP by Frédérique Dolivet and Pascal Hoël. The exhibition includes 118 works on loan from the MEP’s collection. The New York presentation of Love Songs is organized by curator and writer Sara Raza, who remixed the show to feature new work. The English-language catalogue for the exhibition is published by ICP and DAP. 

“I’ve recut and reordered the original visual playlist of the Love Songs exhibition to include bodies of work by artists whose subversive photographic and filmic practices rely on the montage technique of interweaving art and ideas of our time,” said curator Sara Raza. “These works offer a window into the themes of aftermath, contradiction, collision, desire, distortion, and reality.” 

About the Curator

Sara Raza is an award-winning curator and writer specializing in global art and visual cultures from a post-colonial, post-Soviet perspective. She is the author of Punk Orientalism: The Art of Rebellion (Black Dog Press, London 2022). Raza has curated for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Mathaf: Modern Arab Art Museum (Doha, Qatar), and the 55th Venice Biennale, among others. Formerly, she was the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator for the Middle East and North Africa at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Curator of Public Programs at Tate Modern, London. Sara holds a BA and an MA, both from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and pursued studies towards her PhD at the Royal College of Art, London. She lives and works in New York City, where she teaches at the School of Visual Arts and New York University. 

Exhibition Access 

ICP is open every day except Tuesday from 11 AM to 7 PM, and until 9 PM on Thursdays. Admission: $18 for adults; $14 for seniors (62 and over), military, and visitors with disabilities (caregivers are free); $12 for students (with valid ID); $3 for SNAP/EBT card holders; free for ICP members, ICP students, and all visitors 14 years and under. Admission is by suggested donation on Thursdays from 6 to 9 PM. Tickets can be reserved online at icp.org/tickets. Visitors are asked to arrive during the 30-minute window of their timed ticket to help ensure a safe flow in the lobby. For more information, read ICP’s updated Visitor Information and Accessibility guidelines and policies. 

Exhibition Support

Exhibition support has been generously provided by the ICP Exhibitions Committee. Exhibitions at ICP are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Zenfolio has published its 2023 State of Photography Industry Report that seeks to answer questions about how photographers are doing and how the industry is evolving.

The report is the result of a survey that Zenfolio conducted with a set of 2,248 photographers across 78 countries that primarily specialize in the portrait, landscape, wedding, sports, and family genres. The company adds that the respondents to the survey were also mostly part-time or full-time self-employed photographers with more than 10 years of experience.

The main takeaways from the survey surround the overall health of the industry as well as the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) in workflows and how photographers feel about the technology.

Almost 20% of the photographers surveyed reported their business had increased from a year ago. Photographers who are making at least $100,000 report that they are seeing clear revenue increases over the past year, and across all other brackets 40% report that revenue has decreased. 66.6% of photographers reported that their businesses were either slower or performing as expected.

While that sounds bad, it’s actually an improvement over last year when 76.2% of all surveyed photographers had reported a negative impact on their revenue. Still, a majority of photographers saying business is not growing isn’t great.

Many say they are still dealing with the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of rising inflation.

AI is taking a bigger role in photographers’ workflows, which should come as no surprise. Almost 50% of survey respondents say that they have integrated AI into their photography workflows, and only 11% see AI developments as having a negative impact on photographers.

The survey found that if photographers could choose one thing to spend less time doing, 41% of photographers want to spend less time editing. 34% say they are using AI to help them reduce the tedium of the task. AI use overall is spread out over various tasks, but employing it for editing was the most common. That percentage is likely to go up over the next couple of years, especially as more platforms come to market that do an increasingly better job at mimicking a photographer’s specific style.

Zenfolio’s full 2023 State of Photography Industry Report can be read on the company’s website.

Image credits: Zenfolio

A show at the Currier Museum of Art.

One of the current exhibits at the Currier right now is  Seeing is Not Believing: Ambiguity in Photography.

This is a timely look at ambiguity and the question “How do we know, what we hear and see is real?”  As in so much of what we consume for media these days, knowing the backstory and knowing the context is critical to a fair and accurate evaluation.

This is the Currier’s Member Appreciation Week and we were treated to a members-only tour by Kurt Sundstrom, senior curator of collections. Sundstrom selected for deeper inspection and discussion a dozen or so images from a full gallery show of photographic prints all but one of which is owned by the Currier.

To see such an assembled collection made me, as a photographer, very appreciative of the work behind the scenes by the people responsible for the framing and preservation of these great works that span more than  100 years.  I recognized the amount of work that had to be done to mount and mat the individual photos into a uniform set of frames. While subtle, this consistency eliminated any background distraction or favoritism. The viewer is left to enjoy and explore the combinations and juxtapositions that the curators chose to assemble.

This presentation also makes a bold statement about the changes within the Currier during its re-imagining of the galleries. No longer are we subjected to a chronological display of work. Rather, this show makes the point of positioning images to enhance our opportunity to question time and the message of ambiguity. Time is literally woven into the very first piece you see upon entering the gallery.

Persistence of memory #12  By Dinh Q. Le, American, born Vietnam, 1968 is a chromogenic print and linen tape assemblage created in 2000. The work is composed of two images which have been woven together using a traditional grass mat weaving technique. One is a photograph of the Vietnam War taken in 1962, the other is of Tom Cruise in the 1989 movie Born on the 4^th of July. The work allows you to question whose war and what is historic reality or a pop culture interpretation.

Likewise in a completely different set of images was a print on loan of the famous Eddie Adams, Saigon Execution (1968)  also from the Vietnam War. This most misunderstood image was taken out of context and became a photo that Adams later regretted ever taking. But in this show, each of these photos elicit a more modern questioning of, can you trust what you are being shown, and what is real?

There is a different set of images that has the viewer questioning pattern repetition. Positioned differently, these images might otherwise send your thinking towards sensuality or some other passion.

The Currier continues to re-imagine itself.  The galleries take a refreshing new approach to presenting items from the collection. There are lively Art After Work programs on Thursdays with live entertainment, musical numbers, and storytelling. There is a lot going on and something for everyone. This photography exhibit will be up for another month or so. After that, the photos will be put into storage and given a rest from all the light.  If you’d like to see the show in a curator led tour, there is at least one more chance this Saturday, April 22^nd. The tour will be led by curator Rachael Kane and you need to register in advance.

… a little east of Page Springs at 5304 feet above mean sea level and Page Springs is at 3514 feet above mean sea level, so we’re about 1800 feet above the ground and looking over the Page Springs area … this is where a lot of my wildlife photos are from.

Looking from the bottom to the top of the photo we have Oak Creek flowing through the photo inside the green ribbon that is coming at us. Above the green ribbon there is a triangle peak on the horizon and that is Bill Williams Mountain (the first volcano in the San Francisco Volcanic Field) and directly below that is the gap into Sycamore Canyon with Black Mountain on the left and Casner Mountain on the right of the gap.

The red roof right of center and near the bottom cover the fish hatchery where trout are raised and above them, Bubbling Ponds, the rectangular ponds which is where the game fish are put until mature and ready to be placed in lakes and rivers. The pathways around the ponds are where we walk and get a lot of great shots (some not so good too). The trees that surround the ponds are frequented by Osprey, Black Hawks, Eagles and more as they survey the source of their meals and target them before leaving their perches to collect it.

SR89A is a very thin line above the west end of the green area and runs left to right … Cottonwood is to the left and Sedona to the right. The red rocks on the right side of the image are the break off from the Colorado Plateau running west from roughly the end of Long Canyon … it turns NW and ends up near Ash Fork on I-40 west of Williams. The Village of Oak Creek where I live is about 4 miles to the right of my current position over House Mountain, a thirteen million year old Shield Volcano that used to be part of the Colorado Plateau.

Below we have a beautiful Great Blue Heron launching from the shoreline of Watson Lake in the granite dells part of the lake … it is totally unconcerned with where on the planet he is … he lives his life as it is and where he is.

Into the weekend for me … have beautiful days, keep breathing and smile at those you meet and greet … you may be rewarded with a smile that lights you up!

Cheers,

Ted

Occasionally permit self-abandonment to the
caprice of beauty; rush past the sentinel that keeps
you in the prisoned city, and live for an hour in the
house of the world, acquainting yourself with the still
people of the air.

Learn the music of a summer night by the restless
wave of the sea, or surrender to the sunlight of an
open country where the illimitable sky at last meets
to kiss the sweet green earth and stay till the crimson
shafts burn the western world;

And something will rise in you that is not connected
with the tiring routine of your trade—something
strange and calm.

Something Will Rise In You by Max Ehrmann

###

The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com

In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.

Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses.  By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.

More about Ted Grussing …

A new exhibition at Columbia College’s Museum of Contemporary Photography is exploring the constantly changing role of music, asking visitors to think about how music relates and interacts with everyday life.

Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj is inspired by club cultures and hybrid sounds.

“Some people like to think of Hassan as the Andy Warhol of Morocco,” says Asha Iman Veal, associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

“He takes these amazing portraits of all sorts of artists and musicians and friends of his, and these amazing settings he hand styles himself,” Veal said.

Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh, who lives in Germany, created a sound installation entitled, “The Song of the Germans”.  There are ten speakers playing Germany’s national anthem, which is sung by ten African singers in their native languages.

Leah Gallant, program curator at Goethe-Institut Chicago, a presenting partner,  says,

“It’s sort of commenting on discussions around race and immigration in Germany, and sort of the ongoing question of who and what is considered German,” Goethe-Institut Chicago program curator Leah Gallant said.

There is also an installation by artist Tony Cokes, which looks at the U.S. military’s use of unbearably loud music as a form of torture. 

“I feel like it connects to a lot of current discussions around cultural ownership and the political implications of music,” Gallant told NBC 5.

Overall, 10 artists from the Columbia College community and around the world are raising questions about the impact music has on ritual, power and play.

“So many of the exhibition pieces are thinking about nationalism, they are thinking about politics and belonging in these really heavy ways, but I think music makes it accessible. And also, really digestible for people,” Veal said.

“Shift: Music Meaning Context” is up at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College through Aug. 6.