Curated by Sara Ickow, Associate Director of Exhibitions, Keisha Scarville Guest Curator, and Elisabeth Sherman, Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at ICP, To Conjure: New Archives in Recent Photography brings together the work of seven artists primarily working in photography—Widline Cadet, Koyoltzintli, Tarrah Krajnak, Shala Miller, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Keisha Scarville, and Sasha Wortzel. The exhibition reimagines what an archive can be or might look like—more than just a means of recuperating the past, these artists utilize the archive as a form for imagining new futures.

Moving away from the centrality of the institutional archive, the artists in To Conjure expand its parameters by engaging with materials—clothing, instruments, the landscape and more—beyond photographs and documents alone. By working with a myriad of contemporary materials, these artists create new histories and material sensibilities. 

 

Header image: Keisha Scarville, Untitled #6 from the series Alma/Mama's Clothes, 2016. © Keisha Scarville, courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures
Thumbnail image: Koyoltzintli, Umiña, 2024. © Koyolzintli

Special Thanks

The exhibition is generously supported by ICP Exhibitions Committee members - Luana Alesio, Deborah Brown, Romy Cohen, Marguerite Gelfman, Vasant Nayak, Elizabeth Rea, Benita Sakin, Magali Smith, Helena Sokoloff, and Richard Stern.

Exhibitions at ICP are supported, in part, by Caryl Englander, Almudena Legorreta, ICP Board of Trustees, Shubert Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.