The current president of Magnum Photos reflects on her life, work, and the state of photojournalism today

Currently based between Mexico and Brazil, Cristina de Middel is the president of Magnum Photos, where she has been a full member since last year. Born in Alicante, Spain, she worked as a photojournalist for 10 years before widening her practice to challenge ideas of photographic truth and narrative.

Her self-published book The Afronauts retells the history of a failed space programme in Zambia, while her ongoing series Gentlemen’s Club investigates male clients in brothels around the world. 

Here, she reflects on her career trajectory and the development of the photographic medium.

Portrait by Anna Selle

The curator spent over a decade at the Whitney Museum of American Art before joining the International Center of Photography earlier this year – here she discusses her career with BJP’s editor

Seeing the Louise Bourgeois retrospective at Tate Modern in 2007 made me want to pursue curatorial work. I was studying for my MA at The Courtauld at the time, and saw it again at the Guggenheim, New York, in 2008. It was the first time I’d seen the same exhibition twice, at two institutions with very different histories and architecture. Beyond internships and the curatorial work I’d studied in school, it was the first time I really understood the work of a curator as the steward of an artist’s vision at a particular place in a particular time.

Working on Paul Thek’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2010–11 was a formative experience. It was early in my time at the museum, and I was able to work intimately with Thek’s archive and, because of the role Peter Hujar played in Thek’s life and work, spend significant time at the Peter Hujar archive too. Seeing his work in person, in this casual research environment rather than framed and glazed on the walls of a museum, was a foundational education. The dialogue between these two artists, who are formally quite distinct, was beautiful and complicated and to see it play out on the pages of their journals and through their camera lenses was magic.

I believe strongly that how we do our work as curators – and, really, all work – should be inseparable from the values we want to see in the world around us. I keep my feminist principles and advocacy for all marginalised voices at the centre of what I do. It will take sustained effort by all of those who support artists – including collectors, galleries, scholars, auction houses, foundations, residences and beyond – over a long time to counteract the weight of history written by and for men.

I love to read, almost anything and everything. I subscribe to far too many print periodicals. I recently subscribed to Jewish Currents, a longrunning magazine that was relaunched in 2018 and features incredibly thought-provoking writing in many areas, including on art. I also love novels, memoirs and non-fiction – I just tore through Hua Hsu’s Stay True: A Memoir, which uses and refers to photography in an innovative and extraordinary way. I also read a lot of children’s books, as my kids (who are truly my favourite pastime) are newly into chapter books and we’re loving exploring both the series that I grew up with as well as stories new to all of us.

There are so many questions I get asked about my work and philosophy where the answer is always: follow the artist. If the artist/maker wants their work seen a certain way and in a certain context, then that’s the prime context for the work. That doesn’t mean one can’t view the work in another format. Reconsidering and recontextualising work can often help elicit understanding that is harder to see in other situations.

Physical prints are no more worthy of serious consideration than natively digital work. It’s all crucial to our conversations around the understanding of image-making today.

I don’t subscribe to the idea of a national aesthetic in art, especially not in contemporary art. However, I think most aspects of an artist’s biography that they share with the public are relevant to their work, not least of which is their birthplace, where they were raised and where they lived when making it. The specifics of place are of utmost importance, but not because they inform a collective and unified sensibility. In fact, it is the multivalent voices that give texture to any particular place, and are often contradictory of one another, that make the most interesting reflection of a location.

There’s no question that photography is art. And a lot of other things too. That’s what is so beautiful and constantly exciting about photography; its ability to be applied in so many ways.

@elisabethfsherman.

Portrait by Jannell Adufo

After 16 years at the helm of The Photographers Gallery in London, expanding its exhibition programme to be more diverse and inclusive, Brett Rogers steps down at the end of this year. Here, she reflects on her life and career.

Brett Rogers OBE was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1954. In 1980, she moved to London to study at The Courtauld. After 20 years – from 1985 to 2005 – as deputy director of visual arts at the British Council, she became director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London, the first public gallery dedicated to photography.

Under her leadership, it developed an international and inclusive exhibition programme, established youth and digital schemes, launched the outdoor Soho Photography Quarter, and has grown the reputation of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.

After 16 years at the helm, Rogers steps down at the end of the year.

As a teenager growing up in Australia in the 1960s, I became excited by photography through reading UK fashion magazines. Nova, with its innovative design and commitment to unmasking women’s issues; and Vogue, which celebrated the famous East End trio – Bailey, Duffy and Donovan – alongside Peter Knapp, Ronald Traeger and Saul Leiter. Their reinvention of what fashion photography could achieve led me to discover the wider field.

Working for the Australian Gallery Directors’ Council [1976–80] was an unrivalled opportunity to develop my skills in exhibition organisation and curation. I can see now how fortunate I was to also learn on the job. 

I moved to London because I missed the intensity and rewards associated with academic research. When I discovered the cultural diversity and richness of this city, I simply had to stay.

I look back at my time at the British Council with great gusto. I joined at a period when what it did truly mattered. It was before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when presenting exhibitions of British art and photography in the Baltic states, Hungary, Romania, then Czechoslovakia and East Germany really counted for something and influenced lives – and perceptions of Britain.

I recall an argument we had with an ambassador who wrote to say that we couldn’t possibly show Martin Parr’s The Last Resort in his country. Picturing rubbish on New Brighton Beach was, ‘not the sort of image Britain should be promoting abroad’. But we did. We weren’t the British Tourist Authority so the photographic culture we promoted was purposely selected to represent a very broad, diverse and critically engaged response from artists.

I react strongly against the ‘uniform’ of the art world. The unrelenting black and the preference for certain designer labels. I find it hard to understand how creative people aren’t inspired to experiment with the clothes they wear every day but prefer to conform to the art world convention of dressing.

The most ambitious photographic project I undertook, which I feel will stand the test of time, was The World In London. It was shown outside, along Oxford Street and Victoria Park, during the Olympics. I commissioned 204 photographers to make a portrait of a Londoner who was born in one of the 204 countries participating in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

One of the best ways to relax is visiting other galleries. In London, I love the way the Wellcome Collection marries science, moving image, archives and contemporary art. Since it reopened, I have enjoyed nearly everything I have seen at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery. Further abroad, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania, is always full of surprises due to the very particular approach of its founder, David Walsh. And in Sydney I always enjoy White Rabbit, the gallery established by collector Judith Neilson to show superbly curated shows of Chinese contemporary art. 

The biggest challenge for galleries today is staying afloat and remaining relevant to audiences. We are facing one of the worst times economically, which will lead to a reduction in public funding at the same time as a cost-of-living crisis. We will need to be even more mindful of our audiences’ capacity to support us – which is why at The Photographers’ Gallery, we have extended our free-entry period: 5 to 8pm every Friday.

I cannot bear the thought of not retaining my involvement in the photography world. I am working on a new way to continue contributing, while not stepping on anyone’s toes. I will need to learn new skills so I am not prepared to say exactly what it is yet. Watch this space.

@brettrogerstpg

Since starting out as an intern 25 years ago, Aperture foundation’s creative director Lesley A Martin has edited scores of photobooks, including cultural touchstones by artists like Rinko Kawauchi, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Antwaun Sargent

Lesley A Martin began her career at Aperture as an intern, 25 years ago. Now the foundation’s creative director, she has edited scores of photobooks, including cultural touchstones such as On the Beach by Richard Misrach, Illuminance by Rinko Kawauchi, The Notion of Family by LaToya Ruby Frazier, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness by Zanele Muholi and The New Black Vanguard by Antwaun Sargent.

Martin’s practice is dedicated to evolving the critical and creative dialogue surrounding the photobook. In 2011 she founded The PhotoBook Review, a biannual newsprint dedicated to the appreciation of the photobook, and in 2012 she co-founded the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards. 

Here, she reflects on her life, career trajectory, and the evolving discourse surrounding the photobook.

Cultural complexity and the need for an expansive worldview were baked into the day-to-day of my childhood. I grew up overseas and attended school with kids from all over the world. My parents gave me the gift of an international perspective on the world. 

My dad once told me to do the hardest things first. The stuff you really don’t want to do at all, get it out of the way. Start your day there. I’m not always good about following that advice. 

I like photography where it feels as if something is at stake. I’ve always loved the idea that photographs contain secrets. The idea that images can be powerful or even dangerous has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. 

I’m not sure that what I do is defined by ‘big breaks’. As a behind-the-scenes art worker, it’s about the slow and steady accumulation of experience and committed collaborative hard work. Getting the internship at Aperture was critical to who I am and what I do now. 

Despite its share of difficulties, New York is amazing. The city has not yet returned to the full-throttle momentum it had pre-pandemic, but it’s still incredibly stimulating and inspiring with odd little happenings that you just stumble into. 

There are so many challenges for photobook-makers today. Some of them are very familiar and somewhat basic, like how to raise the money and how to get books out into the world. 

Other challenges are more directly linked and responsive to issues that have become progressively critical in the past few years. How to work towards a community that is more inclusive at all levels, for example, or how to deal with the terrible impact of the paper and printing industries on climate change. 

The industry is becoming more decentralised while becoming increasingly networked online. Without engaged makers and audiences in smaller communities, it’s a very thin and narrow field. Review groups and darkroom shares, local zine makers and Risograph printers, book festival and workshop hosts, crit groups and book clubs – we need all of these to make up a healthy ecosystem. 

I believe in self-publishing as a creative, artistic practice, but publishing is also fundamentally transactional. You make something for someone – for an imagined reader and audience. I think it’s a mistake not to try to put yourself in the place of someone who chances upon your book without any prior knowledge of you or the images. 

The digital context of viewing can be stimulating and incredibly informative. But personally I find it less intimate and more about the speed of consumption and exchange. I like being able to go at my own pace, spending time and not worrying about the immediate gratification or pressure of ‘likes’ and number of views. 

The discourse around the photobook is still evolving. We know that we’ve experienced some kind of a boom in the last decade; the pace of making and writing about the photobook has been tremendous. But we haven’t had time to process and assess what it all means. Nor have we really developed a critical approach to the form of the photobook. Having a shared language and taxonomy to describe and evaluate what we make is an essential part of the evolution of the field. 

@la.martin

With the launch of Ones to Watch 2022, Magnum Photos’ editor-in-chief and former British Journal of Photography editor Simon Bainbridge, who co-edited the issue, reflects on his life and career to date

My dad would bring back small stacks of coloured paper from work when I was a kid. I’d make them into little books or stories with words and pictures. I was learning through play to become an editor.

The Face first turned me on to magazines. Everything in it seemed thrilling yet impossibly distant from small-town northern England. The cutting-edge photography and design, and its mix of articles on society and popular culture, remain an inspiration.

I studied history of modern art, design and film. The course taught me to question given truths; that not everything was as it seemed.

I left college with a passion for culture. But I also had a suspicion of art speak and the closed loop of academia. Photography and journalism appealed. I valued their ability to communicate complex ideas to a wide public. And how they are of the world, instead of withdrawn from it.

I got a job at The Crack, an irreverent arts and listings magazine. Within months, I was the editor. My first edition was the Easter issue. I put Andre Serrano’s Piss Christ on the cover.

Art seemed relevant for the first time. From Karen Finley and Annie Sprinkle at Burning the Flag or DV8’s Strange Fish (still the most powerful artwork I’ve ever seen) to the burgeoning club and comedy scenes. I responded to the provocative streak in early 1990s culture. But it was a talk by Larry Sultan that awoke my attention to the possibilities of photography.

I moved to London 25 years ago. I didn’t know anyone working in photography, and I’m quite shy. But I put in the hours. I was a wallflower at every opening in town.

Arles is my happy place. I first went to the festival in 2003 but couldn’t figure it out. So I just followed Martin Parr around at a distance. (He’s quite tall, and he seemed to know where to go.) Then, over the years, it’s where I met everyone I know in photography.

BJP’s first talent issue was a decade ago. It included Ricardo Cases, Sohrab Hura, Erik Madigan Heck and a cover by Sylwana Zybura. The aim was to reach beyond the established centres of power in photography, building a network of nominators from around the globe. A few years in, we started to get there.

I became a father 11 years ago. And now I have two daughters. It changes how you look at photography. Certain images become more real, more painful. Diana Markosian’s School No 1 felt personal instead of another tragic story from a faraway place.

Recently, I joined Magnum. I have always been fascinated with the agency and its mix of people, approaches and ideas. I get to work with photographers as diverse as Josef Koudelka, Cristina de Middel, Martin Parr, Elliott Erwitt, Alec Soth, Gilles Peress and Susan Meiselas. However, a commitment to the continued idea of what Henri Cartier-Bresson described as “a curiosity about what is going on in the world… and a desire to transcribe it visually,” continues to unite everyone.

People say that photography is still a new art form. But I think we’re beyond that now. There is a continued trajectory, a way of seeing the world. And I love that. But images exist in a different orbit now. One that is often divorced from their original meaning or intention.

@simon__bainbridge

Portrait by Isabel Muñoz.

Kyotographie’s co-founders reflect on their partnership, and their joint-success of building an international photography festival in Kyoto, the cultural capital of Japan

French photographer Lucille Reyboz and Japanese lighting artist Yusuke Nakanishi met in 2011, and by 2013 they had launched the first edition of Kyotographie.

The citywide event hosts exhibitions in unconventional venues, such as temples, teahouses, and traditional gardens. Its 10th anniversary edition opens this weekend, including tributes to two masters of photography, and a landmark exhibition celebrating a new guard of women photographers in Japan.

As co-directors and life partners, Reyboz and Nakanishi are guided by a mutual passion for photography and a mission to nurture an international hub for the medium in Japan.

Here, they share their story.

We met at a party in Tokyo in 2011. By chance, we were both reading the same book about Japanese ghost stories: Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn.

Our first collaboration was a series of photographs inspired by these narratives, titled Kyo-kaï. The power of nature had a strong impact on us.

Soon after we met, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck. This propelled our desire to support the photography scene.

We exhibited our work in Paris the following summer, and made a trip to Rencontres d’Arles. The festival has become a mecca for photographers worldwide, but we were surprised that there were barely any Japanese people, and little information about it in Japan.

Japan has a rich and influential photographic history; it needed a festival like Arles. We wanted to create a place to exchange ideas and information, and give local photographers a stage to connect and show work.

Kyoto is renowned as the cultural capital of Japan, and is home to some 2000 temples and shrines. It was the perfect stage to convey our message, nationally and internationally.

In 2013, we launched the first edition of Kyotographie. This wouldn’t have been possible without the special setting of Kyoto; we were so inspired by the beauty and spirit of the place.

We got married at our local Shinto shrine in Kyoto, in 2016. It was a simple and intimate ceremony with just our beautiful children, Eden and Yuzen, and a couple of dear friends. It was a precious moment.

Our biggest strength as a partnership is that we understand each other without words. From the very beginning we felt it was natural to create together.

The main difference between French and Japanese culture is its approach to education. The French tend to consider situations broadly, whereas the Japanese are more particular on the details. Together, we are complete.

When we were children, there was a greater sense of surprise in our lives. Now, there is an overload of information; less opportunities for us to encounter what we haven’t seen before. We want to move people, leave an impression, and surprise them.

Photography transcends the barriers of language with a strong and direct message. It is the perfect medium to share stories that address social and cultural issues.

Music is our other mutual passion. At home, we are always listening to music, and while travelling we try to attend live concerts and jazz festivals. We would love to reconnect to music and collaborate on a project together.

The Benrido Atelier is our favourite photographic destination in Kyoto. It is a champion in the collotype process and has been a good friend of the festival since the start.

This city is like a treasure box – when you open it, you discover new things every day. The combination of tradition and innovation, the omnipresence of nature, and celebration of the shifting seasons is a daily joy.

“People always assume my work is about the landscape – about Black people in the landscape. They try to push whatever I do into that small subject area. There is little close observation of what is actually in the photograph”

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942. Initially, her interest lay in film-making and it was only after meeting her mentor Manuel Álvarez Bravo that she embraced photography, a passion she turned to following the death of her six-year-old daughter, Claudia. Her image Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas, included in her breakthrough photo essay Juchitán of the Women (1979-86), is iconic. She is regarded as one of the most influential Latin American photographers of the past four decades.

My childhood was very happy. But as the eldest of 13 siblings, I had to be the responsible one, even though I didn’t have the responsibility per se.

My family expected me to be everything I am not. They were very religious and conservative. They expected me to get married and be happy. I faced many problems in seeking freedom and becoming who I am today.

When my daughter died, I almost went crazy. It is a wound that I have healed little by little. My work as a photographer and studying cinema were therapies to help me accept my daughter’s death.

Ritual and religion, specifically Catholic paraphernalia, compel me. I love religious music and Gregorian chants. As a child, I was surrounded by bishops and archbishops, but when I was 20, I decided that I did not believe in anything. The church’s rules are like a prison: they become a threat if you do something ‘unordinary’.

I wanted to be a writer. But I didn’t have the opportunity because of my conservative family. However, my father took photographs and those made me very curious. I loved to look at them.

My big break was a small exhibition in Paris at the Casa de México. Centre Pompidou’s director at the time, the late Dominique Bozo, came. It was a group exhibition, but he wanted to include my work in a show at the museum in 1982.

In 1979, the great artist and my friend Francisco Toledo invited me to photograph the people of Juchitán de Zaragoza [an indigenous town in the south-east of the Mexican state of Oaxaca]. I did not know anything about the culture of this place [which is historically a Zapotec matriarchal society]. I had no idea how strong the women are. They are economically and socially independent.

I did not know my country that well at first. I got to know Mexico through the various trips I took with Manuel Álvarez Bravo. These made me more aware of my country, and the marginalised communities who inhabit it. I love the culture of Mexico, but I dislike other aspects of it, like the government.

In 2005, Hilda Trujill, the director of Museo Frida Kahlo, invited me to photograph Frida Kahlo’s huipiles [traditional tunics made from simple panels of fabric]. When Frida died in 1954 her husband Diego Rivera shuttered the bathroom where Frida kept some of her belongings. After 50 years it was possible to open this bathroom, where I, by chance, noticed the objects that Frida had there.

I am not a Frida-maniac. In many places, such as Europe or the United States, Frida Kahlo is like a saint. However, while working on the bathroom project, I encountered the objects that helped alleviate her suffering. I saw the inner strength that helped Frida overcome so much pain.

I am sad about what is happening in the world. Personally, the pandemic has not affected me. However, we would all like to do something to make it disappear. Because of it, I am taking the opportunity to review my files, negatives, documents and photographs.

I would advise younger photographers to have discipline. And to be imaginative and passionate about what they do.

Surprise always operates within me. So let us hope that something comes along to surprise me soon.

gracielaiturbide.org

One of the four artists nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021, the multimedia artist Fei reflects on her life and practice to date

Cao Fei (曹斐) was born in Guangzhou, China, two years after the Cultural Revolution ended. Today, she lives and works in Beijing. The multimedia artist’s surreal and often humorous work explores the rapid social, cultural and technological developments in contemporary China. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at the Serpentine Gallery, London, and UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

Fei is nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021 for her 2020 exhibition Blueprints at the Serpentine Gallery — a multi-faceted exhibition comprising new and existing works, which collectively explore the effect of technological advances on society, specifically in her native China. Her work is on show alongside that of the other three nominees — Poulomi Basu, Alejandro Cartagena and Zineb Sedira — at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, until 26 September 2021.

Here, she reflects on her life and practice to date.

I was locked down in Singapore during the pandemic. I missed my home in Beijing – I wanted to go back to China.

I don’t care about the art world’s attitude to my work. I don’t pay attention to it. I use technology in my work because it interests me and not because of any art world trends. 

Some artists develop their style through studies. Others are born with a ‘stylistic’ personality, like a sense of humour. Perhaps I am a mixture of the two. 

Mediums do not limit me. I am interested in multimedia. When I have an idea, I assemble a team to help make it happen. 

If I wasn’t an artist, perhaps I would be a writer. But writing does not intrigue me as much as creating art. Or maybe I would be a film director. Perhaps every moving-image artist has a film-making dream. However, you realise the dream is not so wonderful when you get close to it. 

Art does not answer questions of reality. And that is not my aim. Instead, art offers multiple paths for how we understand the world. Sometimes it helps us transcend it. 

Chinese audiences have experienced the stories and emotions in my work. I was excited to see how a Chinese audience would respond to my most recent show, Staging the Era, at UCCA. To my surprise, the exhibition was popular on social media. It attracted the young generation, many of whom are not usually museum-goers.

Imagine the exhibition at UCCA as a stage or a city. The audience’s experience and their emotional responses were important. They could meet with people, and explore spaces and stories. Then stay in the moment that interests them. I think that is the most beautiful relationship between the viewer and art.

During the 1980s, when I was growing up, Guangzhou was at the forefront of reform. Hong Kong pop culture poured in, and that of other cultures outside Mainland China. I could watch MTV from Hong Kong – the singing and dancing fascinated me. 

Guangzhou has undergone tremendous changes. My work discusses different aspects of pop culture and urbanisation. I’m especially interested in the experiences of human beings amid the rapid developments.

Compared to Guangzhou, Beijing is [China’s] political centre. I can deal with more substantial themes and grand narratives now that I live there. I have been working on the project HX for the last few years. It explores the history of the Chinese electronics industry through my research of a Beijing neighbourhood. 

The boundary between the virtual and the real is becoming obscure. As we accept that virtuality is also part of reality, it will be the multiverse of our future existence and perception. We will have a broader understanding of reality, space and temporality. 

Reality is too heavy and time is too long. The surrealism in my practice allows people to escape. 

Art probably shouldn’t do anything. And we shouldn’t expect it to. Its uselessness is a reflection of our utilitarian and meritocratic society. 

caofei.com

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021 is on show at The Photographers’ Gallery until 26 September 2021. 

“In my projects, I always start with questions”