By Elin Spring
If you’re in NYC anytime soon, there are some photography exhibits we’d like to recommend. Shows that calm our jitters with reassuring historical references. Exhibits that offer spirit-lifting perspectives. Series that are very clever, probing, and sometimes amusing at the same time. Here’s our admittedly brief take on some transporting imagery on view now.
“Perfect Timing, 2023” by Drift, courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, NYC.
If you are up for a thrill, Robert Mann Gallery is showing Drift: Coming Home. Daredevil “urban explorer” Isaac “Drift” Wright achieves a feeling of exhilaration and freedom by ascending and photographing himself from the highest points of cities around the world. These feats often land him on the wrong side of the law, heightening the sensation of risk, even for viewers. His sweeping, often dizzying scenes are sensational, complete with an adrenalin rush.
“Heartbeat, 2023” by Drift, courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, NYC.
On view through June 28th, 2025: https://www.robertmann.com/drift-coming-home-press-release
“Natural Man, 2021” by Maria Antelman, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC.
If you admire B&W photography and witty women, head to Yancey Richardson Gallery. Maria Antelman’s Conjurer integrates human forms and environmental elements into pensive composite images. Their contrasts in structure, shape and texture foster questioning about our relationship with the natural world, with generous infusions of magical thinking. Antelman’s intertwining of sensuous photographs, beguiling compositions and inventively handcrafted wooden frames is at once spirited and spiritual.
“Conjurer, 2024” by Maria Antelman, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC.
“Self-Portrait While Buried #11, 2021” by Jenny Calivas, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC.
Also at Yancey Richardson Gallery, Jenny Calivas’ Self-Portraits While Buried describes the artist’s method and alludes to the meaning of her large-format photographs. Both suffocating and amusing, her big, grainy B&W images juggle feelings of escaping society and searching for refuge in nature. The act of burying herself conveys that she feels overwhelmed, and in every shot, we see her fist clenched on the shutter release, as though desperate to stay alive. At the same time, her images recall a common childhood pastime at the beach. Calivas’ images cunningly express a double-edged, relatable conundrum of modern life.
“Self-Portrait While Buried #2, 2021” by Jenny Calivas, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, NYC.
Both Yancey Richardson Gallery exhibits on view through July 3rd, 2025: https://www.yanceyrichardson.com/exhibitions
“Herbarium Plate 35 – Delphinium, 2023” by Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey, courtesy of the artists and Rick Wester Fine Art, NYC.
If you love gardens and Emily Dickinson, Rick Wester Fine Art is exhibiting a selection of the colorful collaboration between Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey, This Earthen Door. Before Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) gained her reputation as a leading American poet of the 19th century, she was known by family and friends for her passion in gardening. Marchand and Sobsey have re-created Dickinson’s herbarium (flower scrapbook) using anthotypes, a plant and cameraless, light-based photographic process. Their single images of pressed plants re-imagine 66 pages found in Dickinson’s herbarium. Complementing the anthotypes is a series of chromotaxys, or color classifications, composed of grids of pigment from the juices of 66 flowers, which have delightful titles or lines from Dickinson’s poems. If all this seems academic, it doesn’t feel that way. Marchand and Sobsey have created gorgeous, ethereal anthotypes whose joyful installation is the very definition of sublime.
“Wild nights – Wild nights!” 2023, by Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey, courtesy of the artists and Rick Wester Fine Art, NYC.
On view through July 25th, 2025: https://www.rickwesterfineart.com/this-earthen-door-2
“The Worst Is Yet to Come, New York, 1966” by Steve Schapiro, courtesy of the artist’s estate and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC.
In midtown, Howard Greenberg Gallery’s summer group show, Sign of the Times, features three photographs selected by each gallery staff member. With a decided lean toward photojournalism, many images feature the written word and actual signs. Not surprisingly, many are poignant or downright sad, which can be interpreted a couple of ways: “the more things change, the more they stay the same” or if you’re feeling a bit rosier, “this too shall pass.” Either way, these stellar prints by renowned photographers offer long-range perspectives, which feels steadying during times like these.
“Marion, Arkansas” 1985/2023, by Baldwin Lee, courtesy of the artist and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC.
On view through August 1st, 2025: https://www.howardgreenberg.com/exhibitions/sign-of-the-times
Uptown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there are two exhibits whose imagery addresses photographic processes, one ancient and one au courant. The New Art: American Photography, 1839 – 1910 presents photography from its inception to the wide use of what we now consider to be analog photography, using negative film and paper prints. A wonderfully accessible explainer of early techniques such as Daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite and stereographs, the images on view, drawn from a promised gift to The Met, are truly exquisite examples of each technique.
Installation view of Daguerreotypes in The New Art exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. (Photo by Elin Spring)
On view through July 20th, 2025: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/the-new-art-american-photography-1839-1910
“Nightfall” 2023, ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, by Lorna Simpson, courtesy of the artist, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Hauser & Wirth, NYC.
Lorna Simpson: Source Notes is officially an exhibit of her “painting practice to date.” However, her “sources” are usually photographs from Ebony and Jet magazines, as well as vernacular images from the Associated Press and Library of Congress. From there, Simpson builds evocative and layered bodies of work, “probing the nature of images and how they construct meaning.” Her continued exploration of gender, racial identity and representation is expressed here as a fluid blending of screen-printed collages with washes of ink and acrylic on fiberglass, wood or Claybord. Simpson’s fusion of figures and abstractions are powerful and just plain gorgeous.
On view through November 2nd, 2025: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/lorna-simpson-source-notes
Feature Image: “Tribute, 2021” by Drift, courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, NYC.
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