Since 2012, ICP’s annual Spotlights Benefit has celebrated women in the visual arts, particularly those working in photography and film. Through engaging and intimate conversations addressing critical contemporary issues, this benefit highlights diverse voices and generates essential funding for ICP's education and exhibition programs.This year, we are proud to honor the legendary photographer Graciela Iturbide, whose profound and poetic work has shaped the way we see the world. Graciela will be in conversation with Karla Martínez de Salas, Editor in Chief of Vogue Mexico and Latin America. The benefit will coincide with the opening of her much-anticipated retrospective at ICP this fall.Graciela Iturbide is known for her black-and-white images of the local communities in her native Mexico. In 1979, she published Juchitán de las Mujeres, a book of photographs that inspired her lifelong support of feminist causes. Iturbide has photographed in the Sonoran Desert and Juchitán de Zaragoza (Mexico), as well as in Cuba, Panama, India, Argentina, and the United States. Born in 1942 in Mexico City, Mexico, she studied film at the Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1969, where she was influenced by the acclaimed Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. She has received several awards, including the Hasselblad and the William Klein Award. This year, she received the Premio Princesa de Asturias 2025.For any inquiries, please reach out to [email protected]. Past EventsICP Spotlights 2024: Kathy RyanICP Spotlights 2022: Zanele MuholiCP Spotlights 2021: Catherine OpieICP Spotlights 2020: Nadia Hallgren, Deana Lawson, Lindsay Peoples WagnerICP Spotlights 2018: Mickalene ThomasICP Spotlights 2017: Lynsey AddarioICP Spotlights 2016 (November): Laurie SimmonsICP Spotlights 2016 (January): Lauren GreenfieldICP Spotlights 2015: Carrie Mae WeemsICP Spotlights 2014: Shirin NeshatICP Spotlights 2013: Fashion PhotographyICP Spotlights 2012: Creating a Better World Image of Graciela Iturbide, Mujer ángel, Desierto de Sonora, México, 1979.

Join ICP and Art21 in the ICP Library for special screenings of Art21 films featuring the work of Graciela Iturbide, currently on view in Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play.Learn more about Iturbide’s practice through Art21's short form documentaries and take time before or after the screenings to stroll through Serious Play. The films will be screened at 6 PM and 7 PM. Tickets to attend in person are $5 and include access to ICP’s galleries.Art21 is the world’s leading source to learn directly from the artists of our time. As a nonprofit, the organization’s mission is to educate and expand access to contemporary art through the production of documentary films, resources, and public programs. For more information about Art21, visit art21.org.Graciela Iturbide was featured in the Investigation episode of Art in the Twenty-First Century, which premiered in 2014. She was also the focus of a second short film Photographing Mexico released a year later. About the ExhibitionThe International Center of Photography presents Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play, the first ever retrospective of Iturbide’s work in New York City. This landmark exhibition, organized in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE and curated by Carlos Gollonet, Chief Curator of Photography at Fundación MAPFRE, features nearly 200 photographs spanning five decades of her groundbreaking career.Iturbide learned photography under renowned Mexican modernist Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Throughout her career, Iturbide traveled extensively throughout Mexico–and beyond–turning her attention to communal life, indigenous communities, and the interactions between nature and culture.About Graciela IturbideGraciela Iturbide is known for her black-and-white images of the local communities in her native Mexico. In 1979, she published Juchitán de las Mujeres, a book of photographs that inspired her lifelong support of feminist causes. Iturbide has photographed in the Sonoran Desert and Juchitán de Zaragoza (Mexico), as well as in Cuba, Panama, India, Argentina, and the United States. Born in 1942 in Mexico City, Mexico, she studied film at the Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1969, where she was influenced by the acclaimed Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. She has received several awards, including the Hasselblad and the William Klein Award. This year, she received the Premio Princesa de Asturias 2025. Graciela Iturbide, Mujer ángel, desierto de Sonora, México, 1979. Collection Fundación MAPFRE ©Graciela Iturbide

Visit ICP and meet our alumni to learn about the Onsite One-Year Certificate Program in Creative Practices and Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism. Hear firsthand about their experiences as ICP students and alumni, and what it’s like to be part of the ICP community.Explore the program structure, curriculum highlights, faculty, student life, admissions process, our vibrant community, and more. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions directly to the alumni and the Admissions team.At the end of the info session, enjoy a campus tour of the International Center of Photography’s Lower East Side facilities, including studios, state-of-the-art labs and darkrooms, the equipment room, and more. You can ask questions about the facilities and learn what it’s like to be an ICP student.All attendees will receive a complimentary museum ticket to view the current exhibition at the ICP Museum prior to the info session. For questions about the event, contact [email protected]. Applications for Fall 2026 are now open!Apply by March 1, 2026 for priority consideration and merit-based scholarship opportunities. ICP’s On-Site One-Year Certificate Programs will begin in mid-August 2026 at our New York City campus.About the Event Format This is an onsite event held ICP's Studio. Please register in advance for this free event. If you have questions about the event, please contact [email protected]. Image by Gabrielle Ravet

This event is free with museum admission.Join us for a guided walking tour of the exhibitions Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play, Naima Green: Instead, I spin fantasies, and Sergio Larrain: Wanderings, led by a museum educator. About the ExhibitionsGraciela Iturbide: Serious PlayThe first ever retrospective of Iturbide’s work in New York City. This landmark exhibition, organized in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE and curated by Carlos Gollonet, Chief Curator of Photography at Fundación MAPFRE, features nearly 200 photographs spanning five decades of her groundbreaking career.Iturbide learned photography under renowned Mexican modernist Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Throughout her career, Iturbide traveled extensively throughout Mexico–and beyond–turning her attention to communal life, indigenous communities, and the interactions between nature and culture.Naima Green: Instead, I spin fantasiesThe exhibition grapples with the concept of pregnancy through constructed self-portraits, landscapes and still-lifes—blurring the line between documentary and performance. Green probes the conventional expectations and representational tropes of motherhood, while also creating an expanded space for considering the experience of pregnancy in America.Curated by Guest Curator Elisabeth Sherman, Instead, I spin fantasies brings together dozens of new works, including photographs printed using the historical technologies of albumen and lumen printing processes, along with a site-specific vinyl installation that utilizes the architecture of ICP’s third floor galleries.Sergio Larrain: WanderingsAn exhibition consisting of prints drawn entirely from the Magnum Photos archive. Curated by Agnès Sire, former Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, the exhibition primarily highlights the work Larrain made during the first twenty years of his career, in cities such as Valparaíso, Santiago, Paris and London.Wanderings provides a new perspective on Larrain’s inventive and humanist photography that for decades has remained little seen and seldom exhibited, looking at both the material and spiritual drama of rural and urban life while also charting the subtle evolution of Larrain’s style. Program Format/Accessibility InformationThis is a walking tour of the gallery; no seating is provided. For accessibility questions or requests, please email [email protected]. Image © Gabrielle Ravet

Join us in the ICP Shop for a special signing of Graciela Iturbide’s self-titled survey (MAPFRE, $75) in celebration of the artist’s exhibition, Serious Play, on view through January 12th. This event is free to attend and does not include admission to the ICP Galleries. About the BookAn expanded edition of the most comprehensive survey to date on the work of iconic Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide.Published with MAPFRE.Mexico City-born Graciela Iturbide (born 1942) is one of Latin America's most acclaimed photographers and the only Latin American woman to have received the prestigious Hasselblad Award. With a focus on identity, sexuality, festivals, rituals, daily life, death and the roles of women, Iturbide's photographs share visual stories of cultures in constant transitional periods.Featuring over 200 photographs, this expanded edition book comprises one of the most comprehensive explorations of Iturbide's career to date, gathering an impressive and widespread selection of her work, curated by Marta Dah . It includes some of her best-known images, such as Frida Kahlo's Bedroom (2005), Those Who Live in the Sand (1979) and Juchit n (1979), as well as many lesser-known works. She pays special attention to her most iconic images and offers a cross-sectional journey from her earliest projects to her most recent creations. Over the course of her four-decade career, Iturbide has built up a poetic language of images and symbols; a consistent preoccupation is the juxtaposition between urban and rural life. The subjects of her black-and-white photography mostly reside in Latin America but encompass India, Europe and Asia as well. This volume provides an essential overview of her accomplishments.About Graciela IturbideGraciela Iturbide is known for her black-and-white images of the local communities in her native Mexico. In 1979, she published Juchitán de las Mujeres, a book of photographs that inspired her lifelong support of feminist causes. Iturbide has photographed in the Sonoran Desert and Juchitán de Zaragoza (Mexico), as well as in Cuba, Panama, India, Argentina, and the United States. Born in 1942 in Mexico City, Mexico, she studied film at the Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1969, where she was influenced by the acclaimed Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. She has received several awards, including the Hasselblad and the William Klein Award. This year, she received the Premio Princesa de Asturias 2025. Graciela Iturbide, Mujer ángel, desierto de Sonora, México, 1979. Collection Fundación MAPFRE ©Graciela Iturbide

Join us for our annual ICP Holiday Market! Finish your holiday shopping with local vendors and have your portrait made by legendary photographer Polo Silk while visiting our exhibitions: Graciela Iturbide: Serious Play, Naima Green: Instead, I spin fantasies, and Sergio Larrain: Wanderings. Polo Silk's pop-up portrait studio will take place in ICP galleries during 12-1:30 PM. Limited free RSVPs are available here on a first come, first serve basis. Meet The VendorsAlicja Zakpear wareChinatown Basketball Clubsequence giftshopTenshin Flames The ICP Holiday Market will take place in the ICP Café from 10:30 AM - 3 PM. No admission required. About Polo SilkFor over 30 years Selwhyn Sthaddeus “Polo Silk” Terrell has used his camera to capture New Orleans nightlife, hip hop and bounce culture, Mardi Gras Indian traditions, and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs. His work is an intimate record of Black New Orleanians--their music and clothing, their joy and humor, and their ways of coming together to celebrate and grieve.His practice has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Antenna in 2017 (New Orleans); the New Orleans Jazz Museum in 2022; the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2022; Sibyl Gallery in 2025 (New Orleans); in a long term installation at the legendary historic Dew Drop Inn (New Orleans); and in a permanent installation at the Sportsman's Corner Bar and Daiquiri Shop ongoing since 2015 (New Orleans). His photographs have been featured in group exhibitions such as Where They At: New Orleans Bounce and Hip Hop at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans); Legacy of Central City at the Tulane University Small Center for Collaborative Design (New Orleans); Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers at the New Orleans Museum of Art; Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center; and Southern Democratic curated by Phillip March Jones at the Carnegie Museum of Art for the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial in Cincinnati. Polo Silk's practice has been featured in The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip Hop and Rap published in 2021 by the National Museum of African American History and Culture; The Black Utopia: Volume 1; New Orleans & the World: 1718-2018 Tricentennial Anthology; Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice by Krista Thompson published in 2015 by Duke University Press; Cashew Co. Journal Volume 2: New Orleans; Documenting the Nameplate published in 2022 by Clarkson Potter; Artforum, and Burnaway among others. He has published two books of his photography, Pop That Thang and Polo Silk Presents: Cash Money Records from the '99-2000. He collaborated with Foot Locker and Reebok on the 3:AM Series custom shoes and apparel, with Jordan Brand on the Stunting + Shining Campaign for the 2017 NBA All Stars Game, with Paper Planes Apparel on the #WhereImFrom NOLA Capsule Collection, and on the Street Corner campaign for Denim Tears in 2025. His photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Historic New Orleans Collection. Image credits: © Jenna Bascom for ICP, © Polo Silk

Connect with ICP's community during our monthly Cameras and Coffee social meet-up for photographers, collectors, and camera enthusiasts! During the event, grab a Deadbeat coffee and pastries, available in the ICP café. Cameras and Coffee is held at ICP the second Saturday of each month. The event is free to attend with RSVP. Image by Scott Rudd