This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve walked into an exhibit at ICP and was sincerely, deeply excited. Sometimes, the amount of reflections they have on their photos makes it feel like I’m in a mirror-maze of sorts. And in many ways, that’s still the case here. Following in Fotografiska’s footsteps, they’ve done an exhibition of street photography. But this is a big group exhibit, giving lots of different artists space to show off who they are. Let me restate that: they’re giving some of the best street photographers that space. While this is rather exciting, I truly have to say that I wish they had more.
By that, I mean a few different things. I crave more images the way one craves cream but gets low-fat evaporated milk instead. I crave fewer reflections — and for that, they did a better job than they normally have. You, as the viewer, need to play around and find the best viewing distance. But that creates another problem in and of itself because the captions for the photos are all super small and segregated onto the side. I purposely use the word segregated because I truly believe they should all be together.
Of course, this wouldn’t be an article about ICP’s photographs without my talking about the reflections. As another journalist mentioned to me, there’s no reason to put glass over pigment prints. And yet they do. At times, the curation I also feel is lacking — thought I’m not sure of the politics behind how they got the photos they did, I don’t think that all of these photographers have their best work on display. What that means is that the work isn’t going to do much to inspire others who haven’t really gotten into photography. This is, at times, a big question to keep in mind. As I went through the galleries, I could hear my friend, who calls himself a photographer and has 7 Million TikTok followers, saying that he could’ve shot all of these photos himself. In his mind, doesn’t he belong in a museum too? This is something I genuinely feel curators need to bear in mind as they make their selections.
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The exhibit features photographers who are bound to be heroes for many. Jamel Shabazz, Melissa O’Shaughnessy, Diado Mooriyama, and Corky Lee are some of mine. Yet, at the same time, I wish that I could see more work from them. This is partially countered by the fact that the exhibit takes up two floors, and the prints are rather large. Where I feel one floor is lacking, the other makes up for it. However, I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say that these four photographers could have taken up an entire floor by themselves.
Next to the exhibit is the ICP at 50 exhibit, separated by a more gray-blue wall. The shift is very subtle, and I think they should’ve gotten rid of this for We are Here. At times, you can walk into a set of prints and not realize who shot them partially because the captions are so segregated away from the artist’s photos. I really think that ICP could’ve put captions under each photo instead of putting them all on the sides.
So I’ve done a lot of complaining. I’ll balance this out by saying that Martha Cooper’s prints perhaps look the best — and that’s because of the viewing angle and the lack of glass on them. And that the curation focuses on international street photography while also emphasizing ICP’s mission of urgent photography, as they call it. There’s a lot of very telling protest work like that of Josue Rivas; though I wish that they talked more about the causes. Otherwise, folks could easily just look at it as documentary porn and voyeurism.
I’m glad this exhibit exists, but I feel like ICP didn’t use its full potential. At this point, it really needs to spread its wings more in what feels like the largest space it’s ever been in.
We are Here: Scenes from the Streets is on exhibit until January 6th, 2025, at ICP in NYC. You can find out more at this link.