New York Times – To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the International Center of Photography has mounted “ICP at 50: From the Collection, 1845-2019,” a palate-whetting smorgasbord of a show, with 170 pictures that illustrate the history and breadth of the medium, from 19th-century daguerreotypes to 21st-century Conceptual art.
Wide ranging as it is, the show tilts toward the photojournalistic. Considering the center’s origins, that’s not surprising. In 1966, the photographer Cornell Capa — the younger brother of Robert Capa, the pre-eminent war photojournalist — founded the International Fund for Concerned Photography as a traveling museum without a building. In 1974, he transformed it into the International Center of Photography, the first New York museum dedicated to the art.
His devotion to “concerned photography” bucked a trend. In 1967, the Museum of Modern Art staged “New Documents,” an exhibition that welcomed a new generation of photographers who aimed, in the words of its curator John Szarkowski, “not to persuade but to understand.” Capa instead celebrated photographers who sought to change minds in the pursuit of social progress. Read the full review.
Image: “Baby Preaches, Soweto, South Africa” (1962) by Peter Magubane. Credit…Peter Magubane, via PMHA and the Magubane Family