The Worldwide Heart of Images (ICP) presents Immersion: Gregory Halpern, Raymond Meeks, and Vasantha Yogananthan, an exhibition showcasing three initiatives created by the artists throughout their respective residencies—Halpern’s in Guadeloupe, Yogananthan’s in New Orleans, and Meeks’s in France, first close to the Spanish border after which alongside the coast of the English Channel. On view September 29, 2023, by way of January 8, 2024, the initiatives are a part of Immersion, a French-American Images Fee created by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and offered in collaboration with ICP and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris. Consisting of alternating residencies between France and america, the Immersion program helps up to date pictures. Every laureate creates an unique sequence to be shared with a large viewers by way of exhibitions at ICP and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, in addition to by way of publications. Gregory Halpern’s ebook Let the Solar Beheaded Be (2020) is revealed by Aperture; Vasantha Yogananthan’s Thriller Avenue (2023) is revealed by Selected Commune; and Raymond Meek’s The Inhabitants (2023) is revealed by MACK. The exhibition marks the debut presentation of The Inhabitants.
“We’re so happy to collaborate with Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson on this challenge, during which three up to date photographers additional the understanding of socially and politically engaged photos that’s on the core of ICP’s mission,” stated ICP Govt Director David E. Little. “This presentation not solely introduces new photographic work however can be strengthened by the publication of every challenge as a photobook, permitting for additional perception into the artists’ processes.”
The Tasks
Let the Solar Beheaded Be by Gregory Halpern (USA) is an ensemble of pictures taken throughout his 2019 residency within the archipelago of Guadeloupe, an abroad area of France with a violent colonial previous. Guided by the area’s wealthy range and vernacular tradition, Halpern’s photos embrace and develop the Caribbean Surrealism of Martinican author Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), from whose work the challenge’s title is borrowed. Gradual and intimate, Halpern’s pictures select small particulars during which the tremors of historical past could be felt.
Vasantha Yogananthan (France) made Thriller Avenue in New Orleans in the course of the spring and summer time of 2022. Following a gaggle of youngsters as they play and discover collectively, Yogananthan’s photos are alert to the subtleties of place, friendship, and progress. Replete with the artist’s celebrated consideration to gentle and opulent use of coloration, Thriller Avenue is a visible poem advised in fragments, vigorous, gentle, and the chances of youth.
Raymond Meeks (USA), an artist famend for the unhurried nuance and contemplative intelligence of his pictures, spent a lot of 2022 in two areas of France—the southern border with Spain and the northern coast alongside the English Channel—which might be essential crossings for asylum seekers making their strategy to the UK. The Inhabitants, infused with care and deep empathy, appears to be like to the land itself—its traces and pathways—as a silent witness to unsure futures. What are the consequences of the sort of migrant life, when one is compelled to depart behind one’s tradition, to really feel unseen and unvoiced, to not really feel at dwelling on the earth? This debut presentation of The Inhabitants options pictures interspersed with fragmentary texts by George Weld, in a deeply empathetic exploration of the terrain that bears witness to the areas of non permanent dwelling and fraught transit of so many who’re in search of higher lives.
Immersion: Gregory Halpern, Raymond Meeks, and Vasantha Yogananthan is curated by David Campany, Curator-at-Massive at ICP. Campany has labored all around the world, with cultural establishments together with Tate Fashionable and the Whitechapel Gallery, in London; the Centre Pompidou and Le Bal, in Paris; and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He has additionally collaborated with main photographic establishments and publishers comparable to Aperture, Steidl, MIT Press, Thames & Hudson, MACK, and Frieze.
“All artists need to have the option push themselves, to work in new conditions, to take dangers,” stated David Campany, Curator-at-Massive at ICP. “Immersion permits this to occur with full help, mentorship and suggestions. Having the ability to make exhibitions within the USA and France, in addition to publishing a ebook of their challenge, grants the Immersion artists essential new ranges of publicity and expression.”
Immersion
Launched in 2014, Immersion, a French-American Images Fee program created by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, helps pictures in France and america by way of the making, exhibition, and publication of latest pictures. Annually, inside the framework of a partnership between the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the Worldwide Heart of Images, an artist residency leads to an exhibition at every of the 2 latter establishments, accompanied by a bilingual photobook of the artist’s work in English and French.
Immersion is open to both photographers primarily based in France, who’re mentored by a French skilled as they create a brand new photographic work in america, or to photographers primarily based in america, who’re mentored by an Anglophone skilled as they create a brand new photographic work in France. By way of this unique photographic fee, the Basis permits artists to pursue important new initiatives that articulate their visions of the geographical and cultural territory they discover throughout their residencies.
Immersion : Gregory Halpern, Raymond Meeks, and Vasantha Yogananthan
September 29, 2023 – January 8, 2024
The Worldwide Heart of Images (ICP)
79 Essex Avenue
New York, NY 10002
www.icp.org