The Future Perfect at ICP and Photoville

The Future Perfect at ICP and Photoville by Aline SmithsonSeptember 12, 2016

©Katherine Akey, MFA 2014

“Like writing, photography is a tool adaptable to literary and prosaic ends, suited to eulogize, lambaste, control, scandalize, foster intimacy, or remind us of our shared ethical core.” – Yola Monakhov Stockton, Lead Curator of The Future Perfect

The Future Perfect, a new exhibition featuring work from five of the most recent graduating classes at the International Center of Photography School, opened on September 6 and runs through November 20, 2016 at the ICP School’s Rita K. Hillman Education Gallery (1114 Avenue of the Americas). This exhibition curated by Yola Monakhov Stockton (Lead Curator), Joana P. Cardozo, Elena Hermosa, and Rick Schatzberg, features 128 works from 26 artists and explores the role of photography and imaging technology in marking time, expressing authority and reach, and addressing human, social, and personal concerns. A companion show of The Future Perfect will be exhibited during Photoville in New York on September 21-25th with a panel discussion at Photoville entitled Art Education and the Uses of Photography moderated by Yola Monakhov Stockton. Panelists will be Fred Ritchin (representing ICP); Elinor Carucci (representing SVA); Stephen Hilger (representing Pratt).

©Ana Baumann, General Studies 2011

The alumni artists and photographers in this show—all former participants in the General Studies, Documentary Practice & Visual Journalism, and the ICP-Bard MFA programs—tackle the technical, aesthetic, and ethical questions surrounding photography in novel and compelling ways.

©Karen Arango, General Studies, 2012

Photographs are written in the future perfect tense: this will have been. As relic and document, ourphotographic images may become meaningful artifacts, instruments of storytelling and memory, a form of poetry and literature wrought from history and cultural discourse. This ability gives photography, in its broadest sense, its importance amidst abounding media contexts. Even as a flawed record-keeper, digital, translated, appropriated, redacted, retouched, and collaged, it speaks the language of change. Its imperfection and provisional, happenstance plurality, its cut frame and layered production, its multiple light sources—scanner, sun, enlarger, light table, screen, exhibition lighting—charge it with a spirit of participation and accountability. Its parcels of time still pool from the flood of life.

©Esther Boesche, MFA 2015

Featured Artists

643 Collective, Katherine Akey, Karen Arango, Ana Baumann, Alejandra Ugarte Bedwell, Esther Boesche, Joana P. Cardozo, Stephanie Colgan, Joseph Desler Costa, Tara Cronin, Tom Curcuruto, Kristen Dorata, Elena Hermosa, Sara Hylton, Marily Konstantinopoulou, Alexandre Morvan, Loubna Mrie & Miguel Winograd, Júlia Pontes, Fabiana Sala, Liz Sales, Rick Schatzberg, Giovana Schluter, Daniel Temkin, Daniel Tepper & Vittoria Mentasti, Jessica Thalmann, and Jiaxi Yang.