The Lens

Society, you may have noticed, has seemed a bit unhinged of late. On Saturday, April 10, artist John Miller and art critic and historian Hal Foster will talk with FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator Kevin Moore about the question of finding meaning and sense as the futures of art, society, and politics seem to unfold in increasingly erratic ways.

Art critic and historian Hal Foster is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, What Comes After Farce? Art and Criticism at a Time of Debacle (Verso, 2020) and... Continue reading Art Critic and Historian Hal Foster Talks States of Emergency and Structural Change

Few among us can count Michelle Obama as a personal booster, but all of us can now hear from one who does: In anticipation of her March 4 Lens Mix talk, FotoFocus caught up with celebrated director and cinematographer Nadia Hallgren.

An award-winning filmmaker from the Bronx, New York, Nadia Hallgren directed the Emmy Award–nominated documentary Becoming and the Academy Award–shortlisted short documentary After Maria—though those are just two recent titles on a CV packed with acclaimed work.

On March 4, Hallgren will join... Continue reading Documentary Filmmaker Nadia Hallgren Talks Storytelling, the Particular Power of Film, and Getting Beyond Self-Doubt

As FotoFocus celebrates its first decade, we get the behind-the-scenes scoop of how it started—and what the future holds—from eight people who have lived it.

I. Origin Story

TOM SCHIFF, Founder, FotoFocus and CEO, Lightborne: The idea started maybe 12 years ago or so with James Crump, who was the curator of photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. I mentioned to him that I thought there were never enough photography exhibits in Cincinnati. I thought, If we could have a... Continue reading FotoFocus at 10: An Oral History

Political crises are often abstract, even invisible—and thus difficult to record, particularly in a single frame. So how do we, in a state of isolation, move beyond the isolated image to see what's happening?

A friend pointed out recently that the months of isolation have made us not only worried and frustrated but also socially awkward. As we venture out of our pods, we are rusty at communicating, made worse by masks and other safety protocols. You can’t read facial expressions, you don’t know where someone has been, you... Continue reading The Allure and Pitfalls of Seeing Photographs, and the World, in Isolation

Originally published on July 11, 2020 by The Art Newspaper, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator Kevin Moore asks which photographs will ascend to a more permanent station in today’s social imagination.

Monuments have taken a beating this past week—traditional monuments, that is, statues of what you might call failed white male conquerors, so prevalent in the lingering Confederate South. Shortly after the current occupant of the White House gave a speech at Mount Rushmore on 3 July, protestors in Baltimore pulled down a Christopher Columbus... Continue reading Photographs Are the Monuments of Our Online Visual Culture