What Is a Photograph?

Organized by ICP Curator Carol Squiers, What Is a Photograph? explores the range of creative experimentation that has occurred in photography since the 1970s. This major exhibition brings together 21 emerging and established artists who have reconsidered and reinvented the role of light, color, composition, materiality, and the subject in the art of photography. In the process, they have also confronted an unexpected revolution in the medium with the rise of digital technology, which has resulted in imaginative reexaminations of the art of analog photography, the new world of digital images, and the hybrid creations of both systems as they come together.

“Artists around the globe have been experimenting with and redrawing the boundaries of traditional photography for decades,” said ICP Curator Carol Squiers, who organized the exhibit. “Although digital photography seems to have made analog obsolete, artists continue to make works that are photographic objects, using both old technologies and new, crisscrossing boundaries and blending techniques.”

What Is a Photograph? brings together these artists, who reinvented photography.

Featured Artists

Matthew Brandt, Marco Breuer, Liz Deschenes, Adam Fuss, Owen Kydd, Floris Neusüss, Marlo Pascual, Sigmar Polke, Eileen Quinlan, Jon Rafman, Gerhard Richter, Mariah Robertson, Alison Rossiter, Lucas Samaras, Travess Smalley, David Benjamin Sherry, Kate Steciw, Artie Vierkant, James Welling, Christopher Williams, and Letha Wilson

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Warped and distorted film negatives.
Mariah Robertson
Mariah Robertson, 154 [detail], 2010. © Mariah Robertson, courtesy American Contemporary, New York.
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Side by side pictures of a painting
Liz Deschenes
Liz Deschenes, Untitled (zoetrope) #1 and Untitled (zoetrope) #2, 2013. © Liz Deschenes, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.
Image
A painting with a light fixture attached to it
Marlo Pascual
Marlo Pascual, Untitled, 2010. © Marlo Pascual, courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York; Photo: Jean Vong.
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An image of abstract purple art
Letha Wilson
Letha Wilson, Colorado Purple, 2012. © Letha Wilson, courtesy Higher Pictures, New York.
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A black leather sheet wrinkled, shining with blue and orange lights.
Eileen Quinlan
Eileen Quinlan, The Drink, 2011. © Eileen Quinlan, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.
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Image of an antique sculpture
Jon Rafman
Jon Rafman, New Age Demanded (The heart was a place made fast), 2013. © Jon Rafman, courtesy the artist and Zach Feuer Galery, New York.
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A black and white mountain landscape overlapped with red.
Matthew Brandt
Matthew Brandt, Grays Lake, ID 7, 2013. © Matthew Brandt, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
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An abstract shade of black and another shade of grey overlapping, the background is a faded yellow.
Alison Rossiter
Alison Rossiter, Kilborn Acme Kruxo, exact expiration date unknown, ca. 1940s, processed in 2013 (#1). © Alison Rossiter, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
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Image of a waterfall
David Benjamin Sherry
David Benjamin Sherry, Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite, California, 2013. © David Benjamin Sherry, courtesy the artist and Salon 94, New York.
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Colorful abstract art
Travess Smalley
Travess Smalley, Capture Physical Presence #15, 2011. © Travess Smalley, courtesy Higher Pictures, New York.
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Image of artistic glass
Owen Kydd
Owen Kydd, Pico Boulevard (Nocturne), 2012. Courtesy the artist and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. © Owen Kydd.
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Two framed avante garde paintings mirroring one another, featuring stripes of yellow and white overlayed with a black and dark red blob.
Kate Steciw
Kate Steciw, Armchair, Background, Basic, Beauty, Bed, Bedside, Bread, Breakfast, Bright, Cereal, Closeup, Cloth, Color, Contemporary, Couch, Crust, Day, Decor, Fox, Frame, Grain, Ingredient, Interior, Invitation, Irregular, Juice, Life, Living, Loaf, Luxury, Macro, Sofa, Speed, Style, Sweet, Texture. 2013. 1 and 2 of infinite. © Kate Steciw. Photo: Mark Woods.
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An abstract painting in black and white
Floris Neusüss
Floris Neusüss, Nachtbild (48), 1991. © Floris Neusüss, courtesy the artist and Von Lintel Gallery, New York.
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Christopher Williams
Christopher Williams, Supplement ‘13 (Mixed Typologies) #3 [detail], 2013. © Christopher Williams, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne.
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Image of the inside of an art exhibition

Museum

1133 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY
Jan 31, 2014 - May 04, 2014

Special Thanks

What Is a Photograph? is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Deborah Jerome and Peter Guggenheimer, the Consulate General of Germany New York, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.