Photobooks USA 2000–25 explores how the photobook has emerged as a powerful tool for artists to respond to the forces shaping contemporary life in the United States. Over the past 25 years, this evolution is reflected in the growing number of publications, a wider range of publishers, bold experimentation in design, and greater inclusivity.
Featuring over 50 photobooks—from out-of-print titles to more recent landmark publications—the exhibition presents a cross section of creators, themes, forms, and subjects, examining how artists have used the photobook to present and circulate their work in powerful and innovative ways.
Rather than defining a canon or focusing on bestselling or award-winning titles, the exhibition brings together books that explore different aspects of the United States. Taken as a whole, they reflect the artistic, social, cultural, political, environmental and economic conversations shaping the twenty-first century.
Curated by ICP’s Creative Director David Campany, Associate Director of Exhibitions Sara Ickow, and Curatorial Assistant malaika newsome.
Selected photobooks include: Gilles Peress, Michael Shulman and Charles Traub, Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs, 2002 (Scalo); Alec Soth, Sleeping By the Mississippi, 2004 (Steidl); An-My Lê, Small Wars, 2005 (Aperture); Collier Schorr, Jens F., 2005 (steidlMACK); Paul Graham, a shimmer of possibility, 2007 (steidlMACK); LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Notion of Family, 2014 (Aperture); Pacifico Silano, I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine, 2021 (Loose Joints); Nona Faustine, White Shoes, 2021 (MACK); Baldwin Lee, Baldwin Lee, 2022 (Hunter’s Point Press); Jess T. Dugan, Look at me like you love me, 2022 (MACK); Justine Kurland, SCUMB Manifesto, 2022 (MACK); Kimowan Metchewais, A Kind of Prayer, 2023 (Aperture); Carla Williams, Tender, 2023 (TBW); Carmen Winant, The Last Safe Abortion, 2024 (SPBH Editions); and Rahim Fortune, Hardtack, 2024 (Loose Joints).
Header image: Maximilian Ihlenburg for the International Center of Photography
Special Thanks
Exhibition support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Exhibitions at ICP are supported, in part, by Caryl Englander, Almudena Legorreta, ICP Board of Trustee, the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
