Showing posts with label Kamoinge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kamoinge. Show all posts

3.02.2020

VISIONS 1020: Curated by Beuford Smith


Visions 1020 Curated by Beuford Smith
March 8 to May 2
Opening Reception: March 8, 3-6PM
Panel Discussion: Saturday, March 28, 3-6PM

Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba House
214 East 2nd Street at Avenue B
New York, NY 10009

Curator Beuford Smith is well known as the Founder of Césaire Photo Agency; a founding member and past president of the Kamoinge Workshop (the pioneering photographic collective of New York based African-American photographers founded in 1963 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement); cofounder of the Black Photographer's Annual and recipient of the “Culture of Legacy” Focus Award from the Griffin Museum of Photography. 

So many great photographers included. I hope to see you there!!
 
Kenkeleba House is a non-profit art gallery dedicated to celebrating and presenting the visual aesthetic and cultural legacy of African American artists and other artists of color that have been historically overlooked by the art world establishment and cultural mainstream. Kenkeleba has been at the forefront of positive change in New York City’s East Village for more than 30 years. (212) 674-3939 | kenkeleba@msn.com

Snapshot of Curator Beuford Smith (far right) with photographers Herb Robinson and Leslie Jean-Bart. BTW: Herb Robinson was the co-editor of "Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge" (Schiffer Publishing). Both photographers work is included in Visions 1020.

9.21.2017

BEUFORD SMITH: FlashPoint Boston Festival

© Beuford Smith 
"Acting Together: Photographing Black Lives” 

BEUFORD SMITH
October 20 / 7:00 PM
Marran Theatre @ Lesley University, Boston

Part of FlashPoint Boston Festival and recipient the 2017 “Culture of Legacy” Focus Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Beuford Smith will speak about his photographic work and his role as a key figure in promoting the work of Black photographers through his role as founder of Cesaire Photo Agency and a founder and chief photo editor of the Black Photographers Annual (1973-1981). Smith is one of the great social documentary photographers that emerged from the 1960s. Smith was a founding member, and later served as president, of the group Kamoinge. In explaining this unprecedented organization, Smith said, “Kamoinge exists, as a forum of African-American photographers, to view and critique each other’s work in an honest and understanding atmosphere, to nurture and challenge each other in order to attain the highest creative level. The name comes from the Kikuyu language of Kenya, and means a group of people acting together. Its aim is to seek out the truth inherent in our cultural roots, to create and communicate these truths with insight and integrity.”

Among Smith’s work is an emotional set of photographs exploring the Black community’s anguish the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Never shying away from deep shadows, Smith allows these figures especially to be enveloped by darkness. Another series conveys the energy of jazz musicians mid-performance, with the subjects often silhouetted and blurred by movement amidst dramatic lighting. The photographer often seems to be grappling with the ideas of patriotism and heritage as he features various flags in many of his street scenes.

FRIDAY:
BEUFORD SMITH
Speaking as part of the Focus Awards
October 20 / 7:00 PM
Marran Theatre @ Lesley University
$10 General Admission
Free for BU + Lesley Univ. Faculty + Students
34 Mellen St. at Wolfard Hall 
may be accessed via the Quad.
The theater is just past the 
Office of Public Safety Wolfard Hall
Tickets

SATURDAY:
FLASHPOINT BOSTON
Deadline to Enter: Oct 1
October 21, 2017
Boston University
Boston University at 808 Commonwealth Avenue.
Entrance on Essex St
Corner of Essex St. x Commonwealth Ave.
The reviews are on the 4th floor.
More Info

SUNDAY
FOCUS AWARDS 2017
October 22 / 11:00 AM–2:00 PM
Griffin Museum
67 Shore Road,
Winchester MA 01890
$85 (includes brunch)
http://griffinmuseum.org/event/focus-awards-2017/


6.04.2017

VMFA: Beuford Smith and Shawn Walker June 7


 Lower East Side, New York City. 1969
Photograph © Beuford Smith

 Photograph © Beuford Smith

 Photograph © Beuford Smith

 117th Street, Harlem. Ca. 1960
Photograph © Shawn Walker 

 Family on Easter, Harlem, NY, March 30th, 1975
Photograph © Shawn Walker 

Focus Series Celebration

A special Focus Series Celebration of Photography with Beuford Smith, Shawn Walker, and Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts June 7, 2017, 6-8pm! 

Dr. Sarah Eckhardt will have a conversation with photographers Beuford Smith and Shawn Walker, whose works are featured in the current exhibition, A Commitment to the Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I (through Oct. 3) Smith, the founder and chief photography editor of The Black Photographers Annual, worked closely with Walker who served as a picture editor for this key publication that ran from 1973 through 1980. Together they will discuss the Annual, their participation in the New York photography collective, The Kamoinge Workshop, and the role of jazz as a metaphor and subject in photography.

Following the lecture, join us in the Cochrane Atrium for cocktails and live music by the Kelli Strawbridge Quartet including favorites from John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach and other jazz greats.

The Focus Series is open to all members beginning at the Friends level. As space is limited, the conversation with Dr. Eckhardt will be offered at 6 pm in the Cheek Theater and will be simulcast in the Marble Hall.

Focus Series Celebration:
Beuford Smith and Shawn Walker
Wed, Jun 7, 6–8 pm 
Leslie Cheek Theater
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
200 N. Boulevard
Richmond, Virginia 

Links:



9.17.2016

KAMOINGE: "Breaking Point" at Photoville

'R.I.P. Mike Brown'
Photo by Radcliffe Roye

'American Seen'
Photo by Ming Murray Smith

'Negroes Unite'
Photo by Albert Fennar

Kamoinge at Photoville
Join the photographers of KAMOINGE Wednesday, September 21st from 4-10pm for the opening of their exhibit "Breaking Point" at Photoville in Brooklyn. The work showcasing will be forty-four photographs bringing into focus our pride, love and the state of emergency America has been in for almost sixty years.  
 
Presented by Kamoinge / United Photo Industries
Curated by Russell Frederick

Featuring KAMOINGE Photographers: Eli Reed, Russell K. Frederick, Adger Cowans, Shawn Walker, Ming Murray Smith, Albert Fennar, Daniel Dawson, Radcilffe Roye, Salimah Ali, John Pinderhughes, A.D. Minter, Frank Stewart, Gerald Cyrus, Ray Francis, Lou Draper, Herb Randall, and June DeLairre Truesdale

"On November 4, 2008, a nation divided for centuries came together to make history by electing America’s first black president. This achievement has proven to be more symbolic than substantive. The United States is at a breaking point as people of good conscience and clearer consciousness demand real change, while others mobilize to maintain a power structure that continues to produce inequality, injustice, separation and xenophobia. The African diaspora has often not been represented fairly in media, with diversity on the rise in our infrastructures, mobile technology and social media platforms expanding, opportunities to author our stories are slowly starting to increase. As the world sees more unfiltered imagery change is being demanded. While committed to the image, Kamoinge has been inspired visually by jazz, soul, rhythm & blues, reggae and rap musicians to document or create fine art that reflects the African diaspora in a dignified manner. The work exhibited in ‘Breaking Point’ brings into focus our love and the state of emergency we are living in America for almost sixty years." KAMOINGE, Inc. was founded as a collective of African-American photographers seeking artistic equality and empowerment. It works as a forum in which members view, nurture, critique and challenge each other’s work in an honest and understanding atmosphere. 

www.photoville.com/breakingpoint


9.11.2016

RUDDY ROYE: When Living Is A Protest

  Colours (Marlon Jones) (Immigrant Series)
New York, NY, July 4, 2014

Black Today (When Living is a Protest Series)
Union Square, New York, NY, May 1, 2015

Facing the Darkness, Bedford-Stuyvesant
Brooklyn, NY, January 18, 2016

Ruddy Roye: When Living Is A Protest
Exhibition: September 16th – October 29th, 2016
Steven Kasher Gallery 515 W. 26 St., New York, NY

The world’s first solo exhibition of photographer Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye opens at Steven Kasher Gallery September 16th. The exhibition features 20 large scale photographs, many taken in Roye’s neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Roye’s images give visibility to the usually invisible members of his community. His portraits are infused with dignity and integrity. Each photograph is accompanied by a text written by the artist, often quoting the subjects. Roye spends significant time with each person he approaches, listening to their stories. For Roye, narrating the stories of his “collaborators” is as important as the images they produce together.  Roye’s is a unique voice in street photography, one full of anger, resistance and compassion.

Roye spends his days walking the streets and photographing the people he encounters. He is no stranger to walking. In 2000, Roye walked 121 miles in his native Jamaica, from Montego Bay to Kingston, photographing squatters alongside an abandoned train line. He pays close attention to the way people move through the environment, acutely aware of those that we usually ignore. He is closer to his subjects than is typical in street photography, both emotionally and physically. This intimacy is augmented by his complex compositions of colors, lights, lines, signage and symbols.

Ruddy Roye has amassed over 250,000 Instagram followers, and uploaded over 4,000 posts. He is a leading figure on Instagram among documentary photographer showcasing an interest in their communities. He began his social media work with a series of haunting posts of the devastation that followed Hurricane Sandy. For Roye, social media is a powerful outlet to get his message to a mass audience. “The media has a way of deleting the stories of people who society does not want to deal with. This is my humble way of putting these stories back in people’s faces — forming a real and active dialogue about these issues.” Online, Roye adds to each posted image an incisive retelling of the stories he has heard from his subjects. These captions will be reproduced in full for the exhibition.
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Radcliffe Roye (b. 1969) is a Jamaican photographer living and working Brooklyn. He has photographed dancehall musicians and fans, sapeurs of the Congo, the Caribbean Carnival J’ouvert and recent political protests in Ferguson, New York and Dallas. After moving to New York in 2001, Roye worked as a freelance photographer for the Associated Press. His photography has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, Ebony, Fast Company, BET and ESPN. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts; Silver Eye Center for Photography; Chastain Arts Center; the Vermont Feick Fine Arts Center; Alice Austen House and Photoville. He has held teaching positions at New York University and the School of Visual Arts and is an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University. Roye is one of the youngest members of the Kamoinge Workshop, the seminal and enduring black photography collective founded in 1963. Text above Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery



Ruddy Roye: When Living Is A Protest
Exhibition: September 16th – October 29th, 2016
Steven Kasher Gallery 515 W. 26 St., New York, NY

1.19.2016

KAMOINGE: 50th Anniversary Book + Exhibition

 Judeen. Nigga Beach Series, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 2012
Photograph © Ruddy Roye

Students with Teacher. New York, 1990
Photograph © Toni Parks

Toukie Smith, model. New York, 1980
Photograph © Anthony Barboza 


Group photograph, "Portrait of Kamoinge, The Members, 1963–2014. September 21, 2014, photograph by Ronald Herard”: 1. Anthony Barboza (President), 2. Adger W. Cowans (Vice President), 3. Herb Robinson (Treasurer), 4. Ronald Herard, 5. Herbert Randall (Founder), 6. Collette V. Fournier, 7. John Pinderhughes, 8. Salimah Ali, 9. Ming Smith, 10. Beuford Smith (President Emeritus), 11. Russell Frederick, 12. Gerald Cyrus, 13. June Truesdale, 14. Mark Blackshear, 15. C. Daniel Dawson, 16. Shawn Walker (Founder), 17. Ruddy Roye, Framed: 18. Louis Draper (Founder)*, 19. James Ray Frances (Founder)*, 20. Steve Martin*, 21. Jerry Jack*, 22. Herman Howard*, 23. Calvin Wilson*, 24. Albert Fennar (Founder), 25. Toni Parks*, 26. Darryl Sivad, 27. Budd Williams, 28. Jimmie Mannas, 29. Eli Reed, 30. Frank Stewart (* Deceased) Members Jamel Shabazz and Leslie Jean-Bart not shown.



The release of the new book, "Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge,” commemorates the 50th year of the oldest collaborative group of photographers in the nation. Kamoinge is a pioneering photographic collective of New York based African-American photographers, founded in 1963 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. The name basically means, “A group of people working together” in Kikuyu. This collection of over 280 photographs taken around the world, includes the groups history, along with insights and thoughts from Kamoinge’s 30 members, who include many of the nation’s most acclaimed photographers. With no particular sequencing by subject matter and not in chronological order, I found myself lost in a magical world of fine art photography dating from the early 1960’s though today.   

A brief history of the group begins with photographer Louis Draper (1835 – 2002), who played a principle role in founding this collective in New York in 1963 to address the under-representation of black photographers in the art world. Roy DeCarava (1919 – 2009), the first black photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, was invited to be their Director. Herbert Randall, another founding member, had earlier studied photography under Harold Feinstein in 1957 before he documented Mississippi's Freedom Summer of 1964. Edward Steichen invited Roy DeCarava in 1964, who in turn invited the Kamoinge group, to exhibit at Danbury Academy of Art in Connecticut. The founding group included Draper, Albert Fennar, Ray Francis, Herbert Randall, Shawn Walker, with Roy DeCarava serving as its first director; later expanded to include several new members including Anthony Barboza, the current president and editor of this book; and Ming Smith, the first female member. Beuford Smith joined Kamoinge in 1965, and helped the group achieve non-profit status in 1998. “Timeless” includes an in-depth history by decade by the editor with excerpts from the writings of Louis Draper. 

In addition, a great exhibition, "Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge,” is currently at the Wilmer Jenning Gallery, 219 East 2nd St (Ave. B), New York, NY. A lot of great images, too many to point out, of Harlem Jazz in the 90’s and Beuford Smith’s nude pregnant woman under the rain on a city rooftop. Through February 20, 2016.  


Book: Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge (Schiffer Publishing) Edited by Anthony Barboza and Herb Robinson, Coedited by Vincent Alabiso, Foreword by Quincy Troupe, Essay by Deborah Willis. 288 b/w and color photos | 384 pp

Exhibition: “Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge”  Wilmer Jennings Gallery, 219 East 2nd Street, (Avenue B x C), NYC Hours: Wed-Sat 11am-6pm thru February 20th, 2016.

12.26.2015

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS of 2015....and Some Honorable Mentions

 click on images to enlarge
FACING CHANGE: DOCUMENTING AMERICA a collection of images by award-­winning photographers Maggie Steber, Donna Ferrato, Carlos Javier Ortiz, David Burnett, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Stanley Greene, Andrew Lichtenstein, Darcy Padilla and Lucian Perkins, authored by Leah Bendavid-Val. It includes a wealth of images and important documentary stories that tell the story of today’s America....www.facingchangeusa.org/book

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 Bil. Sandusky, Ohio. Photograph Alec Soth

SONGBOOK by Alec Soth. Known for his haunting portraits of solitary Americans in Sleeping by the Mississippi and Broken Manual, Alec Soth has recently turned his lens toward community life in the country read more here.
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Mrs. Jefferson, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950
Photograph by Gordon Parks 

GORDON PARKS: BACK TO FORT SCOTT by Karen Hass. Photographs by Gordon Parks (Steidl). The first African American photographer to be hired full time by Life magazine, Gordon Parks was often sent on assignments involving social issues that his white colleagues were not asked to cover. In 1950 he returned on one such assignment to his hometown of Fort Scott in southeastern Kansas: he was to provide photographs for a piece on segregated schools and their impact on black children...read more here
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DETROIT: UNBROKEN DOWN Photographs: Dave Jordano; Text by Nancy Watson Barr, Dawoud Bey and Sharon Zukin (powerHouse Books). Dave Jordano returned to his hometown of Detroit to document the people who still live in what has become one of the country’s most economically challenging cities....read more here

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CHARTH VADER Photographs by Ashly Stohl. Follow the journey of the the photographer's visually impaired son, Charth Vader, as he battles his way through childhood. Profits from this book benefit the Vision Center at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, published by Peanut Press.

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THE PHONE BOOK by Robert Herman (Schiffer). Known for his award winning street photography, Herman used Hipstamatic's square format to create this unique collection of iPhone photographs made while traveling across the world. The New York Times Review here

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Black #14, as seen at The Marlborough Gallery, 2011


POULTRY SUITE: Photographs by Jean Pagliuso (Hirmer Publications). Fashion photographer Jean Pagliuso created an homage to her childhood in Southern California, where she helped her father breed and show Bantam Cochins. POULTRY SUITE showcases more than twenty breeds of chickens—from Sebrights to Spangled Hamburgs—as they have never before been seen. 

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"Shrouds/Sudarios" haunting images of women either in agony or ecstasy—the viewer doesn’t know which until he learns that these women were forced to witness the torture of their loved ones––are printed on linen in an effect that resembles the Shroud of Turin.

"Drifting Away/Rio Abajo" images of artifacts of the hundreds of people who have “disappeared" without a trace in Columbia ––a shirt, a shoe, or a pair of eyeglasses–– are photographed in water and then suspended in glass.  

A tribute to the more than 250,000 
"disappeared" in Colombia...

MEMENTO MORI: TESTIMENT TO LIFE (George F. Thompson Publishing) Photographs and text by Columbian photographer Erika Diettes. With an Interview by Anne Wilkes Tucker. Essay by Ileana Diéguez. "MEMENTO MORI: Testament to Life" presents four bodies of work in two volumes in a transparent slipcase. The first volume contains installation shots of the work in cathedrals, churches, museums, exhibitions, and memorials in Latin America, Europe, Australia, and the United States. The second volume contains the plates of the three series: Drifting Away/Rio Abajo, Relics/Relicarios, Shrouds/Sudarios.
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 Photograph by Ming Murray Smith


TIMELESS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY KAMOINGE Edited by Anthony Barboza and Herb Robinson, Coedited by Vincent Alabiso, Foreword by Quincy Troup (Schiffer). Kamoinge is the oldest collaborative group of photographers in the nation, a pioneering Photographic Collective of NY-based African-American Photographers founded in 1963 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Roy DeCarava was their first Director. To commemorate it’s 50th year, this book includes over 280 stunning photos interspersed with insights and thoughts from Kamoinge’s 30 members, who include many of the nation’s most acclaimed photographers; Anthony Barboza, Adger W. Cowans, Salimah Ali, Mark Lee Blackshear, Spencer Anthony Burnett, Gerald Cyrus, C. Daniel Dawson, Albert Fennar, Collette Fournier, Russell K. Frederick, Jerry Jack, Wayne Lawrence, Ming Murray Smith, Toni Parks, John Pinderhughes, Radcliffe Roye, Herbert Randall, Eli Reed, Herb Robinson, June DeLairre Truesdale, Jamel Shabazz, Frank Stewart, Shawn Walker, Budd Williams.

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INDECENT EXPOSURES: Eadweard Muybridge's "Animal Locomotion” Nudes" by Sarah Gordon (Yale University Press). Photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) presented his iconic Animal Locomotion series in 1887. He made thousands of photographs of humans and animals in motion, including more than 300 plates of nude men and women engaged in activities such as swinging a baseball bat, playing leapfrog, and performing housework—an astonishing fact given the period’s standards of propriety. This book includes many lesser-known photographs published for the first time.

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JULIA MARGARET CAMERON: Photographs to Electrify You with Delight and Startle the World by Curator Marta Weiss (MACK Books). Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. Criticized in her lifetime for her unconventional techniques, she is now celebrated as a pioneering portraitist. 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of her first museum exhibition – the only one in her lifetime – held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865. Drawing on the V&A’s significant collection, which includes photographs acquired directly from Cameron and letters she wrote to the museum’s founding director, Curator Marta Weiss tells the story of Cameron’s artistic development. She presents, for the first time, a group of photographs recently revealed to have belonged to Cameron’s friend and mentor the artist G.F. Watts. This discovery sheds light on previously unacknowledged aspects of Cameron’s experimental approach.
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 A is for Angels


In her new book, ALPHABET by Debbie Fleming Caffery (Fall Line Press), inspired by her grandchildren created a children’s book disguised as an art book (or vice versa). Caffery, one of my favorite photographers, extraordinary photographs are full of shadows and secrets. In this book she chose 26 black and white photographs of her work to illustrate the letters of the alphabet; creating some new images for the book, while pulling others from her extensive archive. This collection will warm both your eye and your heart. 

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 Fur from Daughter
Photograph © Aline Smithson

SELF + OTHERS: PORTRAIT AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY Photographs by Aline Smithson (Magenta Foundation) Aline Smithson's first monograph includes photographs spanning over twenty years. A gorgeous must-have photography book, with a foreword by Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography; an introduction by Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and some very interesting, revealing text from the photographer about her photographic series, opens each chapter.

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Joni Sternbach/Courtesy of Rick Wester Fine Art

Joni Sternbach: Surf Site Tin Type (Damiani) texts by noted photo critic and historian Lyle Rexer, curator April M. Watson, and Chris Malloy and Johnny Abegg, both well-known surfers and filmmakers. Over the past decade Brooklyn-based photographer Joni Sternbach has traveled around the world, creating tintype portraits of contemporary surfers using the nineteenth-century wet-plate collodion process. Stunning in their detail, these one-of-a-kind images evoke the romance and adventure of surfing, and the bold individualism of the men and women who live to ride the waves. 

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THE WATCHERS: Photographs by Haley Morris-Cafiero, Text by Amanda de Cadenet (The Magenta Foundation). Haley Morris-Cafiero has travelled the world to capture how people judge one another. Working with an assistant, she photographs herself in various locations being leered at, laughed at or ignored by people on the street. Each frame is chosen based on the strangers in the background, if they have a critical or questioning look, or if there is a gesture in their body language. By reversing the gaze back on the strangers, the collection begins a conversation about nonverbal interaction and the view society has on body image.

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EVERY BREATHE WE DREW: Photographs by Jess T. Dugan; Text by curator Amy Galpin; interview by Dawoud Bey, (Daylight Books). Over the past decade, Jess T. Dugan (born 1986) has created intimate portraits that engage with issues of identity, sexuality, gender and community. Her first book, Every Breath We Drew, compiles color portraits of the artist and others….read more here

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Honorable Mentions


Irving Penn "Beyond Beauty” by Curator Merry A. Foresta (Yale University Press). Drawing from the extensive holdings of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, including a major gift from The Irving Penn Foundation, this magnificent catalogue compiles 161 of Penn’s iconic images, including a number of unpublished works.
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That Day: Pictures in the American West. Photographs by Laura Wilson; Essay by Curator John Rohrbach (Yale University Press). Wilson’s subjects range from legendary West Texas cattle ranches to impoverished Plains Indian reservations to lavish border-town cotillions. Also featured are compelling portraits of artists who are associated with the region, including Donald Judd, Ed Ruscha, and Sam Shepard.
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COSPLAY IN AMERICA, Volume 2 by Ejen Chuang. Cosplay in America V2 takes a reader on a visual journey through the culture of cosplay in the United States. Photographer Ejen Chuang spent two years visiting 20 cities to gather images for this book... read more here

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FINDING HOME: SHELTER DOGS AND THEIR STORIES by Traer Scott (Princeton Architectural Press). Scott began photographing these dogs in 2005 as a volunteer at animal shelters. Her first book, Shelter Dogs, was a runaway success, and in this follow-up, Scott introduces a new collection of canine subjects, each with indomitable character and spirit: