We are pleased to present an exhibition of images by photographers who chronicle and celebrate the world around us with acute sensitivity. They are united by a global perspective, crafting and capturing visual narratives that explore our shared humanity and the fragile beauty of the natural world.
Karen Knorr, Steve McCurry and Sebastião Salgado are part of the robust photography program the gallery launched in 2008. The exhibition also features work by Will Wilson, an artist featured in Native American Art Now, the 2023 exhibition of contemporary North American Indigenous art at the New York gallery.
This exhibition is being held in conjunction with the Photo London art fair, May 16 –19, 2024, where we will have work by gallery photographers on view.
THE ARTISTS
American/British artist Karen Knorr (b. 1954, Germany) is known for her sumptuous photographs that employ the opulent palaces, museums and temples of Western Europe and Asia to frame issues of power rooted in cultural heritage. Knorr digitally imposes images of tigers, elephants, peacocks and monkeys within these lavish spaces, which she photographs in reserves and zoos. The settings are symbolic of wealth and social hierarchies and the animals who wander through them disrupt and disturb the power dynamics.
Knorr’s work is in the collections of Tate London, Victoria & Albert Museum and United Kingdom Government Art Collection, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, among others.
Sebastião Salgado (b. 1944), the Brazilian-born photographer and artist-activist based in Paris, has made it his life’s work to document humankind and nature on photographic expeditions around the globe. His hauntingly beautiful black-and-white prints capture the unspoiled beauty of the world’s most biodiverse regions and their inhabitants.
Salgado has been honored with numerous accolades over his forty-decade career, including the 2024 Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award from the Sony World Photography Awards. A recent exhibition, curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado at Sotheby’s, the largest curated solo exhibition of photography in the auction house’s history, raised $1 million for Instituto Terra, the Salgados’ nonprofit devoted to reforestation and environmental education.
Magnum photographer Steve McCurry (b. 1950, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is known for his evocative images capturing the human condition, many of which have become modern icons. He has travelled the globe for his photographic projects, covering areas of international and civil conflict and documenting ancient traditions, vanishing cultures and contemporary life. His exquisite sense of color and unwavering commitment to retain the human element has made his images timelessly captivating.
McCurry’s work is represented in the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; The International Center of Photography, New York; The George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, among others.
Santa Fe-based, Diné (Navajo) photographer Will Wilson (b. 1969) demonstrates the vitality of diverse Native people and their thriving cultural traditions through his project, the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CPIX). Wilson uses historical and digital photographic processes, performance and installation to explore the impact of colonization on Indigenous people with the purpose of cultural renewal. CPIX is a critique of the non-Native photographer Edward Curtis, who, from 1907 to 1930, created the twenty-volume set of books featuring 2,234 photogravures of Indigenous peoples, called The North American Indian.
Wilson, who recently led an artist workshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has exhibited in museums and cultural centers across the United States. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Native American Fine Art Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Sculpture and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for Photography.