Fred Ritchin Appointed Dean of School
The International Center of Photography (ICP) has appointed Fred Ritchin to the newly created position of Dean of School. In this role, Ritchin will direct the School of ICP, which serves more than 5,000 students each year in graduate, certificate, continuing education, and youth photography programs.
Mark Lubell, Executive Director of ICP, said, “We are excited that Fred is joining ICP at this critical moment in our history and in the evolution of imagemaking. He has been a leading voice interpreting the revolution in photography. Fred has a deep understanding of the possibilities present in the medium today and a demonstrated commitment to the ideals of ‘concerned photography’ that are at the heart of ICP. He will help lead the School and our students into the future.”
Ritchin says, “It is a moment of enormous expansion of photography and media with all kinds of new possibilities, many of them yet to be invented. The School at the International Center of Photography will continue as a place of experimentation where students and faculty can articulate new visions while participating in today’s media revolution.”
Phillip S. Block, Deputy Director for Programs & Director of Education, will transition into a new position. During his 32-year tenure at ICP, Block developed the School of ICP into a leader in photographic education. Said Lubell, “Phil’s expertise and enthusiasm for the idea of ICP as a ‘center’—a place that teaches, presents, and preserves photography—will prove invaluable as we plan for our vibrant future.”
About Fred Ritchin
Prior to joining ICP as Dean of School, Fred Ritchin was a full professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he has also co-directs the NYU/Magnum Foundation program in Photography and Human Rights with Susan Meiselas. He served as picture editor of the New York Times Magazine and of Horizon magazine, and executive editor of Camera Arts. In 1994–95, he conducted a research project for the New York Times on how to transform the print newspaper into a multimedia publication. Ritchin was also the founding director of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the School of ICP. Ritchin co-founded PixelPress in 1999, serving as director of an organization that has created multimedia documentary and photojournalism projects online, and collaborated with humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, Crimes of War, and the Rwanda Project. Ritchin is a prolific author and curator, focusing on digital media and the rapid changes occurring in photography. He wrote the first book on the impact of digital imaging on photography, In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (Aperture, 1990, 1999, 2010), which was followed by two more books on the future of imaging in the digital era, After Photography (W. W. Norton, 2008), and Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013). Ritchin has contributed articles and essays to numerous books and publications such as Aperture, Camera Arts, Mother Jones, The New York Times, Time LightBox, and the Village Voice. His curatorial projects include Contemporary Latin American Photographers at the Burden Gallery, What Matters Now: Proposals for a New Front Page at Aperture Gallery, An Uncertain Grace: The Photographs of Sebastião Salgado at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Bodies in Question at the New York Photo Festival. In 1996, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service by the New York Times for the website "Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace," which he created with Gilles Peress. In 2012, Ritchin was given a lifetime achievement award at the Argentinean Documentary Photo Festival.