Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum
This fall, the International Center of Photography (ICP) will present the exhibition Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum, which offers unique viewpoints on the extraordinary relationships that photographers forge with global situations, communities, and individual subjects. As part of the exhibition, each of the contributing photographers openly reflects upon their intentions and practices, creating a timely chorus of creative voices responding to enduring and urgent human experiences.
On view from September 30, 2022, through January 9, 2023, Close Enough takes its title from Magnum Photos co-founder Robert Capa’s well-known quote “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
The ICP exhibition presents distinct vantage points that are shaping the scope of the pioneering photography collective Magnum Photos, with pivotal projects by 12 emerging and established contemporary women photographers: Olivia Arthur, Myriam Boulos, Sabiha Çimen, Cristina de Middel, Bieke Depoorter, Carolyn Drake, Nanna Heitmann, Susan Meiselas, Hannah Price, Lua Ribeira, Alessandra Sanguinetti, and Newsha Tavakolian. Together, they move and challenge the photography collective’s boundaries, deepening Magnum’s photographic quest to explore the human realm.
Close Enough features more than 150 works, each telling diverse, unexpected, and personal visual stories. Taken together, the works encompass an array of highly relatable accounts of the artists’ individual perspectives, their relationships with their chosen subjects, and, in the context of this exhibition, their relationships with each other.
Showcasing three generations of Magnum women, each revealing a point on her own creative journey, the exhibition includes the first showing of newly completed photographic projects; reflections on and re-animations of earlier projects drawn from the photographers’ own archives; and installations that reveal the working processes within long-term and ongoing personal projects.
Curated by Charlotte Cotton, Close Enough coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of Magnum Photos. “Close Enough presents a selection of critical projects by a truly extraordinary group of Magnum photographers spanning multiple generations and cultures,” said ICP executive director David E. Little. “Each project points to the contemporary evolution of concerned photography around the globe and reflects on the complexity of politics and representation today.”
“Collectively, the 12 photographers’ work in Close Enough presents inspirational narratives about the practice of photography, with surprising turns in each artist’s deliberations and actions in response to the challenges they navigate,” said exhibition curator Charlotte Cotton. “I commend all of the contributing photographers for being open and honest about their working practices and speaking intentionally and directly to their fellow photographers who will come to see this exhibition about the practices of humanist photography today. Through the combination of newly made work, reflections on previous projects, and works-in-progress in this exhibition, we gain insight into this group’s determination, urgency, and resourcefulness, with each photographer taking account of her practice, inviting us to get close enough.”
About the Curator
Charlotte Cotton is a curator, writer, and creative consultant who has explored photographic culture for over 25 years. She has held positions including curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum; head of programming at The Photographers’ Gallery, London; curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and curator-in-residence at the Katonah Museum of Art, NY. She has also held positions at ICP and the California Museum of Photography, Riverside. Her book, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, has been published in more than 10 languages and has been a key text in charting the rise of photography as an undisputed art form in the 21st century. The fourth edition was published in September 2020.
Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum
Sep 30, 2022 – Jan 09, 2023
International Center of Photography – New York
More info on:
https://www.icp.org/
cover picture by Sabiha Çimen
