DAVID GOLDBLATT – NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE

Posted on 2024-03-18

This exhibition spans the seven decades of Goldblatt’s career, demonstrating his commitment to showing the realities of daily life in his country without pretense. Showing early black-and-white work alongside color photographs made after the end of apartheid, this presentation highlights how Goldblatt’s perspective shifted over time, responding not only to South Africa’s political upheavals but also his drive towards self-examination that he achieved by revisiting past subjects. The show’s title, No Ulterior Motive, borrows language that Goldblatt used in a newspaper ad seeking subjects for his photographs, gesturing to the artist’s promise of a fully transparent and straightforward photographic encounter and his dedication to impartial observation.

Opposite – In the office of the funeral parlour, Orlando West, Soweto, 1972

Exhibition runs through to March 25th, 2024

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago
IL 60603

www.artic.edu

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ANDRÉS MARIO DE VARONA + CRISTÓBAL ASCENCIO

Posted on 2024-03-18

The upcoming exhibition at Pictura explores the complex relationship of a child to a deceased parent. The show features two different projects, Contact by Andrés Mario de Varona, and Las flores mueren dos veces by Cristobal Ascencio.

Both projects are built from the artist’s efforts to connect with the lost parent. Ascencio creates a haunting virtual garden, honoring his father’s vocation as a gardener. De Varona works with personal relics, family members, and the mysterious properties of light to reach back towards his mother.

Opposite – Work by Cristóbal Ascencio

Exhibition runs through to March 25th, 2024

Pictura Gallery
122 W Sixth Street
Bloomington
IN 47404

thefar.org

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ILLUMINATING THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF RAY FRANCIS

Posted on 2024-03-11

A photographer and educator who served as an editor of The Black Photographer’s Annual, Francis, alongside Louis Draper, was responsible for the early formation of The Kamoinge Workshop. Featuring a selection of over thirty never-before-seen early vintage prints taken between 1950-90, this exhibition considers the role of the camera and photography in creating a new black visual culture during a period characterized by activism and the struggle for equality. Questioning the monolithic canon of Western Art History, Ray Francis situates himself as having a rightful place within this lineage of greats, highlighting the complex, multidimensional qualities of the black artistic experience, one not limited to Western perceptions of “black art.” Inspired by Johannes Vermeer, his work evokes the style of Dutch golden-age genre painting with a subtle interplay of light and shadow and balanced, careful compositions; Francis creates a sense of intimacy and narrative ambiguity in his photographs.

Opposite – Gamin, 1980

Exhibition runs through to March 22nd, 2024

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York
NY 10011

brucesilverstein.com

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WOLFGANG TILLMANS – TO LOOK WITHOUT FEAR

Posted on 2024-03-11

Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear is the most comprehensive exhibition of the influential artist’s work to date, charting the development of his practice from the 1980s through the present, across every genre of photography imaginable. From early experiments with a photocopier to ecstatic nightlife images, intimate portraits, incisive documentation of social movements, and innovative cameraless abstractions, Tillmans’s broad subject matter reveals his steadfast commitment to engage unflinchingly with the world.

Opposite – Icestorm, 2001

Exhibition runs through to March 23rd, 2024

San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art – SFMOMA
151 Third Street
San Francisco
CA 94103

www.sfmoma.org

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IN THE VAULT – ADA TRILLO

Posted on 2024-03-11

Trillo is a first-generation, Queer Mexican American artist who combines documentary and fine art elements in her photography. A native of the US-Mexican border raised in the Juarez-El Paso binational metroplex, her work is informed by a deep interest in national and metaphorical borders and modernization processes. She has focused on walls of inclusion and exclusion, such as forced prostitution, climate, and violence-related international migration, and US internal exclusions resulting from long-standing barriers of race and class. Trillo’s goal is to bring attention to the impact of these borders on exploited and marginalized people and amplify their voices.

Opposite – The most beautiful place in the Desert, 2023

Exhibition runs through to March 23rd, 2024

Bridgette Mayer Gallery
709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor
Philadelphia
PA 19106

www.bridgettemayergallery.com

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DIANE TUFT – ENTROPY

Posted on 2024-03-04

Tuft’s “Entropy” series captures the sublime and awe-inspiring beauty of nature as it is radically transformed under the unrelenting pressures of climate change. Focusing on water as her subject, Tuft contrasts global sea-level rise with water depletion in Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

In her new book “Entropy”, Tuft says “throughout my years of documenting the effects of climate change on our Earth, I have come to appreciate the immense influence that water holds over its destiny.

Opposite – Chopin

Exhibition runs through to March 22nd, 2024

Leila Heller Gallery
22 East 80th Street
New York
NY 10075

higherpictures.com

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