Corita Kent, “Untitled, Red Shoes, Los Angeles” (1967), 35 mm slide, Corita Slide Collection (photo courtesy Corita Art Center) from Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images in Los Angeles.
NEW YORK—To remember that photography was even once a fresher medium than it is today. I mean, jolting. In the last century, when photo stories in major publications like LIFE had far-reaching effects on culture. In fact, the “photo essay,” a slipping, heroic art form from such publications’ heydays, wasn’t as it was today: a mix of angles chosen from a maxed-out memory card. I believe the technological barrier as well as the cost and tactility and sensitivity of film processing, forced photographers to spend an ungodly amount of time honing the art.
Remembering the ebbing preciousness of photography is not only very inspiring, but certainly as useful as it is to peruse the Classics of literature, or the greatest deep cuts of music’s past. This fall, New York presents a range of photo exhibits, from archival street life to conceptual identity projects.
NEW YORK—To remember that photography was even once a fresher medium than it is today. I mean, jolting. In the last century, when photo stories in major publications like LIFE had far-reaching effects on culture. In fact, the “photo essay,” a slipping, heroic art form from such publications’ heydays, wasn’t as it was today: a mix of angles chosen from a maxed-out memory card. I believe the technological barrier as well as the cost and tactility and sensitivity of film processing, forced photographers to spend an ungodly amount of time honing the art.
Remembering the ebbing preciousness of photography is not only very inspiring, but certainly as useful as it is to peruse the Classics of literature, or the greatest deep cuts of music’s past. This fall, New York presents a range of photo exhibits, from archival street life to conceptual identity projects.
Sure you could just look at the photos online, but you would miss out on seeing all those other weirdos like yourself, hunched over little frames. And you’d miss the joy of meandering around great galleries and institutions where drinks are sometimes served.
1. Robert Rauschenberg: New York, Pictures from the Real World at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave at 103rd St.
In celebration of Rauschenberg’s centennial, the Museum of the City of New York is foregrounding his photography-driven works as a mode of “real world” engagement. The exhibition explores how he integrated found imagery, everyday scenes, and photographic fragments into a broader visual vocabulary.
2. Ricky Powell: New York Photographs 1980–1990 at Whaam! Elizabeth Center, 15 Elizabeth Street.
Ricky Powell (1961–2021) was a well-known scene photographer of New York City, early Hip-Hop, Madonna, Basquiat (a film about him is currently being shot in the East Village), and the Beastie Boys. This gallery show returns to Powell’s foundational decade, before his more widely known portraits. The images document everyday life in downtown New York, with subjects including Basquiat, local storefronts, and street traffic. His trajectory—from selling Frozade on the street to chronicling urban youth culture—is integral to reading these pictures.
3. Mexican Photographer Graciela Iturbide at ICP, 84 Ludlow Street.
Graciela Iturbide is a Mexican photographer and feminist known for her black-and-white images of local communities in Mexico. She has received several awards, including the Hasselblad and the William Klein Award.
Opens 16 October 2025 and goes until 12 January 2026.
4. Upcoming: Between Two Worlds: Photography’s Unfixed Future at ICP 84 Ludlow Street.
A glorified mulling over of the nature of contemporary photography hosted by the likes of Charlie Engman and Gideon Jacobs, The Messy Truth podcast hosts a one-day salon on November 1st that promises to look into the future of photography.
Opens and closes 1 November 2025.
5. Elsewhere.
For those in Los Angeles, see Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images, at Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Boulevard, Windsor Square, Los Angeles through 24 January 2026.
For those in Paris, don’t miss an exhibit on minimalist photography, Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce, opening today and showing until 18 January 2026.
For those in Berlin, see Newton, Riviera at the Helmut Newton Foundation running until 15 February 2026.
For those in London Town, see Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record at the Photographers’ Gallery, opening October 10th and showing until 22 February 2026. Or Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World at National Portrait Gallery, from 9 October 2025 until 11 January 2026. Or last but not least, Yorkton Workshops’ Wonderland – The Joy of Analogue: Portraits from 1955–1995, part of the PhotoMonth 2025 festival of 50 pop-up photography exhibitions across east and south-east London.
Corita Kent, “Untitled, Red Shoes, Los Angeles” (1967), 35 mm slide, Corita Slide Collection (photo courtesy Corita Art Center) from Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images in Los Angeles.Brigitte Bardot on the set of Les Petroleuses, Spain, 1971. Part of the PhotoMonth 2025 festival of 50 pop-up photography exhibitions across east and south-east London.
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Venere de Medici, 2022, pink onyx. Edition 1/1. Photo by Nicola Gnesi. Courtesy of Galerie Bayart, Paris.
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Raphael, Self-portrait (1506–08). Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Gallery of Statues and Paintings. Photographic Cabinet of the Uffizi Galleries – Courtesy of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
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Auguste Renoir, Study for The Great Bathers (1884 to 1887). Photo: The Morgan Library & Museum.
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Photograph by Erich Höhne. Courtesy of Deutsche Fotothek.
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Franco Maria Ricci in 1984, at the launch of FMR U.S.A. at the New York Public Library.
Caverns were probably the first labyrinthine structures human beings came into contact with, in a distant past. And I, too, rummaged through my own past, finding a version of myself as the guise of a young amateur speleologist, equipped with the right clothes, flashlights, ropes, and climbing-irons. I was a second-year student at the Faculty of Geology and, with some friends, I had founded a so-called Cavern Society. My weekdays moved along on the surface, in the sunlight, while my weekends were usually devoted to the dark bowels of the earth. Text by fmr. Read More
