The 2023 calendar of photography exhibitions pictures a world that walks the line of history, experimentation, and social investigation. When it comes to Paris, exhibitions never fail to leave their mark. In 2023 that will be no different! France will focus on historical reinterpretation – the Centre Pompidou will devote a major retrospective to Lithuanian photographer Moï Ver, and the Jeu de Paume, after last year’s success, will welcome Frank Horvat again – one of the greatest experimenters of the 20th century – with an exhibition devoted to his reportages from the East. New York’s MoMA is also in the spotlight with its much-anticipated New Photography 2023 – an event that every year brings together the works of seven artists selected by the museum’s photography department.
Photography exhibitions not to miss in 2023
A year of photography between history and experimentation – from Frank Horvat in Paris to Lee Jeffries in Milan. The Pompidou displays the never-before-seen works of Moï Ver, and in New York, a new edition of MoMA’s New Photography awaits.
From January 27 to April 16, 2023
From February 9 to July 16, 2023
From March 17 to July 15, 2023
From March 4 to July 2, 2023
End of March to June 25, 2023
From June 13 to September 17, 2023
From April 12 to August 28, 2023
From May 28 to September 16, 2023
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- Enrico Ratto
- 20 January 2023
In Italy, an important exhibition by Lee Jeffries has just opened at Milan’s Diocesan Museum, while next March a retrospective dedicated to Man Ray’s black and white will arrive at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.
Venice will display Inge Morath, while in Turin, the Musei Reali will exhibit the works of American photographer Ruth Orkin and Gallerie d’Italia that of JR Artist, one of the photographers who in the last fifteen years has most explored the contradictions of our society. As for Festivals, it is worth mentioning Maria Vittoria Backhaus, whose work goes far beyond the world of fashion – she will be exhibited from the end of March at the Biennale di Fotografia in Casale Monferrato.
Lee Jeffries is the photographer who gave voice to the poor and the outcast. Self-taught, he began photographing during the 2008 London Marathon, when by chance he met a homeless girl sitting at the entrance of a London shop. From that moment, the world of the homeless became the focus of his research. The Milan exhibition is curated by Barbara Silbe and Nadia Righi and features fifty images – in black and white – that capture the many faces of humanity, photographed on the streets of European and American metropolises.
The dates for the exhibition of Parisian artist and photographer JR Artist are still to be confirmed. Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, inaugurated by Intesa San Paolo in May 2022 and dedicated to photographic research, will host a major retrospective of JR’s work, along with a new project created especially for the event. His work fully matches the Gallerie d’Italia approach - through the eyes of great photographers, the museum intends to focus on contemporary global issues. JR Artist fits perfectly into this way of interpreting photography.
Ruth Orkin was one of the most interesting photojournalists of the 20th century. This exhibition, curated by Anne Morin, will showcase more than two hundred of her works, mostly original, tracing a journey through society, cinema, and fashion across Europe and the United States. Some of the most iconic portraits of Robert Capa, Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, and other celebrities of the last century are by Ruth Orkin.
Over two hundred photographs produced from the 1920s onwards by French artist and photographer Man Ray will be collected in this exhibition curated by Walter Guadagnini. Unafraid to experiment and always in the spotlight of the interwar European avant-gardes, in particular Dadaism and Surrealism – Man Ray reinvented the language of photography by freeing it from the alternative technical approach to painting. Faces, bodies, objects, materials, use of light, and double exposure are the subjects of Man Ray’s explorations – an approach that transcends photography as a mere documentation of reality.
Maria Vittoria Backhaus is among the Italian – Milan-based – photographers who left their indelible mark on the 1970s and 1980s. Her work is related to fashion but goes far beyond that. Ranging from black and white to color, Maria Vittoria Backhaus’ research has been a vehicle for advertising and design. This exhibition, curated by Luciano Bobba and Angelo Ferrillo, will offer a fresh reinterpretation of the photographer’s extremely rich – and, for those who have seen it, surprising – archive.
One year after the 2022 exhibition’s success, Frank Horvat’s work will return to the Jeu de Paume in Paris with a focus on his 1960s travels to the East. Known for his fashion photography, Frank Horvat was a great experimenter (he was among the first to favor the use of Photoshop to process images, which led to a rift with Cartier-Bresson). After his death in 2018, the archive is now curated by his daughter Fiammetta Horvat, who has reorganized and brought to light some of the lesser-known works from her father’s vast photographic journey.
Photographer, Bauhaus-trained graphic artist, and painter close to Fernand Léger, Moï Ver was one of the most complex artists of the last century. This retrospective hosted by the Centre Pompidou, which is partially closed for restoration until 2027, will bring together more than 300 works and mostly unpublished documents by the Lithuanian artist born at the beginning of the last century. His work is an example of modernist photography, which flourished in the 1930s, bringing together the rigorous grammar of shapes and the experimental technical approach of interwar photography.
Seven photographers have been selected by MoMA’s Department of Photography for the 2023 New Photography edition. This year’s focus will be on the city of Lagos, its sites, social dynamics, and the historical memory of the complex Nigerian metropolis. This will be the first group exhibition hosted by MoMA to involve living West African photographers. Since 1985, the “New Photography” series has presented the works of more than 150 artists worldwide.