Social Photography XI

Lary 7, Atif Akin, Anthony Allen, Hangama Amiri, Ali John Pierre Artemel, Lotte Van den Audenaeren, Hallie Ayres, Bianca Bai, David Baskin, Lisa Beck, Philip Bednarski, Amy Ben-Ezra, Liz Berg, Charles Bernstein, Joi Bittle, Lisa Blas, Skip Blumberg, Carly Blumenthal, Jennifer Bolande, Richard Bosman, F.P. Boué, Paige K. Bradley, James Bradley, Norman Brosterman, Robert Brush, Huê Bùi, Luisa Caldwell, Antoine Catala, Eva Chang, Nora Chellew, Joshua Citarella, Mary Clarke, Michael Robinson Cohen, Eli Coplan, Francisco Correa Cordero, Fred Cray, Jody Culkin, Sara Cwynar, Furen Dai, Reilly Davidson, Rebecca Davis, Mira Dayal, Simon Denny, Thierry de Duve, Eric Farber, Peter Fend, Jacques Fenetre, Adam Finn, Peter Fischli, Bernadette Fiscina, Andrea Frank, Shala Freeman, Marc Ganzglass, Ashley Garrett, Wilbert Gavin, Jeff Gibson, Andrew Ginzel, Robert Goldman, Kathleen Goncharov, Neil Logan, Cewzan Grayson, David Helbich, Richard Hell, Jesse Hess, Duy Hoàng, James Hoff, Karl Holmqvist, Brenan Hood, Xiaoyi Huang, Cindy Hwang, Ficus Interfaith, Shirley Irons, Nick Irvin, Sebastijan Jemec, Neil Jenney, Lulu Jiang, Suzanne Joelson, Quinn Johnson, Ryan Johnson, Jeffrey Joyal, Nicole Kaack, Werner Kaligofsky, Jane Kaplowitz, Pujan Karambeigi, Esen Karol, Valerie Keane, Matt Keegan, Anjali Khosla, Theodore King, Dean Kissick, Essye Klempner, Hilary Kliros, Nicholas Knight, John Kramer, Otis Kriegel, Udomsak Krisanamis, Bradley Kronz, Lawrence Kumpf, Bogdan Teslar Kwiatkowski, Stephen Lack, Justen Ladda, Eugenia Lai, Thomas Laprade, Louise Lawler, Mika Lee, Ana Leon Nunez, Simon Leung, Max Levin, Laura Li, Lucy Lie, Nora Ligorano, Tao Lin, Ming Lin, Arto Lindsay, Jeanne Liotta, Sharon Lockhart, Judith Luongo, Jared Madere, Andrew Maillet, Jiří Makovec, Whitney Mallett, Kai Matsumiya, M. Mau, Tim Maul, Esperanza Mayobre, Win McCarthy, Emma McCormick-Goodheart, Georgia McGovern, Paul McMahon, The Yes Men, Florian Mojem, Ben Morgan-Cleveland, Tim Moukhametzianov, Ryan Muller, Muntadas, Diane Nerwen, John Opera, Kristin Ordahl, Spencer Ostrander, Lisa Oyama, Camila Palomino, Rachel Park, Stephan Pascher, Julie Patton, Andreas Petrossiants, John Russell, Jakob S. Boeskov, João Salema, Sam Samore, Keith Sanborn, Ken Saylor, John Schabel, Zoe Pettijohn Schade, Heidi Schlatter, Mark von Schlegell, Nadine Schmied, Pascal Schneuwly, Katherine Pickard, Lily Pinchbeck, Faith Pinon, Ramon Pinon, JaLeel Porcha, Jeff Preiss, Xingyue Qiao, Lee Ranaldo, Xander Rapparport, Marshall Reese, Calvin Reid, Walter Robinson, Iris Rose, Rachel Rossin, Emily Roz, Anna Rubin, Gryphon Rue, Barry Schwabsky, Felicity Scott, Ser Serpas, Elaine Sexton, Hu Shasha, Yanzhen Shi, Trevor Shimizu, Zhi Shu, Esther Sibiude, James Siena, Shelly Andrea Silver, Timmy Simonds, Leah Singer, Stacy Skolnik, Alexander Slade, Teri Slotkin, Claudia Sohrens, Connor Marie Stankard, Gary Stephan, Steel Stillman, Carol Szymanski, Fabiola Talavera, Ho Tam, R.S Mundi, Sean Tatol, Gwenn Thomas, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Amalia Ulman, Gail Vachon, Pegi Vail, Liselot van der Heijden, Phil Vanderhyden, Virginia Inés Vergara, Francesco Vizzini, Robin Waart, Julia Wachtel, Lotte Walworth, Dan Walworth, Jeff Weber, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, James Welling, Vi Wenxiaoli, Kenneth White, Bronwen Wickstrom, Aaron William Collins, Roy Williams, Tonero Williams, Scott Williams, Andrew Norman Wilson, Jeff Witscher, Josiah Wolfson, B. Wurtz, Boyi Xu, Dena Yago, C. Spencer Yeh, H Spencer Young, Jiajia Zhang, April Zhu, Yonatan Zonszein, Omar Zubair

Tech culture has taken a conspicuously dark turn. With an economy of scale allowing influence over billions of users, opportunism seems to have eclipsed feel-good prophesies about making the world a better place. Infiltrating our political system, the “move fast and break things” motto currently ricochets throughout government agencies, with “efficiency standards” invoked to flatten longstanding institutions whose public focus might conflict with private interests.

Tracing an arc that began with the era of smart phone’s displacement of flip phones, Social Photography’s ambivalent relationship with digital culture is manifested in its connecting simple digital tools (jpgs and emails) with prints produced for an in-person exhibition. Presented in a grid in the order that they’re received, the gallery viewing experience, in contrast to the fleeting, unidirectional social media scroll, relies on viewer instincts, which takes their eyes across the grid as their drawn in by visual interest free of algorithmic direction.

With a recent modest revival of flip phone use indicating an urge to “unplug” from the incessant demands of the digital sphere, the original ethos of the Social Photography show may be beginning to come full circle. Initially meant as an alternative to the conventional benefit raffle shows that source artworks donated by artists, Social Photography both limited the demand on artists to that of emailing an image and signature, while lending coherence to the exhibition through a consistency of the formatting of each image through presenting the whole in a grid.

Allowing for a presentation of open-ended subjects and imagery reflecting the wide range of participants’ interests as well as societal trends that might reflect current events, Social Photography has gradually become an informal ten- plus year archive of what people photograph on their phones, while, through sales of print editions, helping provide needed funding for upcoming programming.

With this eleventh version taking place during a seismic shift in governance that seems designed to shock the system through a series of rapid, destabilizing actions while wholesale institutional transformation is attempted at lighting speed, the concern among many is palpable. While events continue to unfold and responses are taking shape, the fostering and maintaining of locality and cultural communities that offer in-person engagement seems critical in the face of sweeping, dramatic change, and we remain enormously grateful to all participants and supporters who help make Social Photography and on our ongoing work at Carriage Trade possible.