Gallery Photographer Nina Berman Named 2025 World Press Photo Contest North and Central America Jury Chair

 Via World Press Photo

November 25, 2024

In each of the six regions of our contest model, a selection of entries per category will first be made by a regional jury, chaired by the regional jury chair.

The juries are made up of professionals from and/or working in the region they are judging, who are well-equipped to place the stories into a cultural, political and social context.

Once the regional juries have made their selection of entries, the global jury, composed of the six regional jury chairs and one additional member, the global jury chair, decides on the 2025 World Press Photo Contest winners. From those, they will then choose the World Press Photo of the Year and the two runners-up. 

The global jury is assisted by a secretary. The secretary is responsible for all procedural matters and ensures the rules and procedures are fairly and properly applied. The secretary does not contribute to debate on the merits of any entry, and has no vote in the balloting.

Nina Berman is an American documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

World Press Photo Involvement:
2025 World Press Photo Contest jury member
2011 World Press Photo Contest jury member
2005 World Press Photo Contest winner
2007 World Press Photo Contest winner

Nina Berman on Social Media:
Instagram: @nina_berman

Nina Berman fine art prints at Monroe Gallery of Photography

Nina Berman Guided Tour Through Her Exhibition "We The People" At The Capa Space

Via The Capa Space

October 10, 2024

 

ARTIST TALK - Photographer Nina Berman will do a guided tour through her We The People exhibition for an inside look at the protest photographs she has been taking for over thirty years.  She will talk about what inspired her to turn her lens on protest in America and what she has learned about the people who organize and assert their right to protest. Sunday, October 20th 2024 @ 4pm. Suggested donation $10. 

 Click here to RSVP

WE THE PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY NINA BERMAN

We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. September 8th - November 24th, 2024

Nina Berman on Panel: Civilizing Interventions: Humanitarianism and Gender Violence

 Via Columbia Journalism School

Book available here

Civilizing Interventions: Humanitarianism and Gender Violence

Panel and Book Launch for The Cunning of Gender Violence: Geopolitics and Feminism

Time & Location
September 13, 2023
6:00PM - 8:00PM ET

World Room, Pulitzer Hall, Columbia University
2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Important Information

Registration required. Seating is available on a first-come first-served basis, RSVPs do not guarantee admission.

- - - - - - - - - -

Program

Welcome by Jelani Cobb (Columbia Journalism School Dean)

Introduction by Lila Abu-Lughod (CSSD Director, Columbia)

Author Panel:
Nina Berman (Columbia Journalism School)
Rema Hammami (Birzeit University, Palestine)
Sima Shakhsari (University of Minnesota)
Dina M. Siddiqi (New York University)

Moderator: Shenila Khoja-Moolji (Georgetown University)

Sponsored by Columbia’s Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) and School of Journalism. With generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation.

Co-Sponsors: Columbia University Department of Anthropology, Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Middle East Institute, and South Asia Institute

Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States; Artist's talk with Nina Berman January 12

 

January 13 – March 4, 2023

University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum

Nina Berman: John Bonner and Richard Huntly, from the series The Black Boys of Dozier, 2013 

Thousands of boys, mainly black, passed through Dozier since it opened in 1901 as a reform school for wayward boys. But allegations over the years suggest it functioned more like a slave labor camp, with verified reports of children being hog tied and shackled. The name of the institution changed as each successive administration installed its own brand of punishment and forced labor, finally closing in 2011, not because of allegations, but according to the State, because of budget issues.

Panel discussion Thursday, January 12 with artists featured in Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States, including Nina Berman, Rico Gatson, and Jason Lazarus. Curator Christian Viveros-Fauné will lead the conversation exploring issues and topics addressed in the exhibition. This event is free and open to the public, Facebook live link here.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is well known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, yet much less emphasis is placed on his campaign to seek justice for America’s poor, “The Poor People’s Campaign.” This was a multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-racial movement aimed at uniting poor people and their allies to demand an end to poverty and inequality. Fifty-three years after Dr. King’s death, the Reverend William Barber II launched a contemporary push to fulfill MLK’s ambitious brief — one that calls for a “revolution of values” that unites poor and impacted communities across the country. The exhibition Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States represents a visual response to Dr. King’s “last great dream” as well as Reverend Barber’s recent “National Call for Moral Revival.”

With artworks spanning more than 50 years, the exhibition is divided into two parts: Resurrection (1968-1994) and Revival (1995-2022). Resurrection includes photographs, paintings, prints, videos, sculptures, books, and ephemera made by a radically inclusive company of American artists, from Jill Freedman's photographs of Resurrection City, the tent enclave that King's followers erected on the National Mall in 1968, to John Ahearns' plaster cast sculpture Luis Fuentes, South Bronx (1979). Revival offers contemporary engagement across a range of approaches, materials, and points of view. Conceived in a declared opposition to poverty, racism, militarism, environmental destruction, health inequities, and other interlocking injustices, this exhibition shows how artists in the US have visualized poverty and its myriad knock-on effects since 1968. Participating artists include John Ahearn, Nina Berman, Martha De la Cruz, Jill Freedman, Rico Gatson, Mark Thomas Gibson, Corita Kent, Jason Lazarus, Miguel Luciano, Hiram Maristany, Narsiso Martinez, Adrian Piper, Robert Rauschenberg, Rodrigo Valenzuela, William Villalongo & Shraddha Ramani.

Poor People’s Art is curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator-at-Large and organized by the USF Contemporary Art Museum.   Exhibition Press Release

A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Monday to attacking an Associated Press photographer during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol

Via The Associated Press

July 25, 2022

A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Monday to attacking police officers and an Associated Press photographer during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol.

In a deal with prosecutors, Alan Byerly, 55, admitted to wielding a stun gun while confronting officers who were trying to protect the Capitol from the angry mob. He also admitted to assaulting AP photographer John Minchillo, who was documenting the chaos and violence outside the building where lawmakers were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory.

On July 22, photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow spoke about threats photojournalists are facing. Both photographers covered January 6 at the US Capitol and talked about their experiences during the insurrection riot. View the discussion here on the Monroe Gallery YouTube page.

Monroe Gallery of Photography : Imagine a World Without Photojournalism

Via L'Oeil de la Photographie

July 14, 2022

Monroe Gallery of Photography presents an exhibition celebrating the Gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” is a multi-photojournalist presentation of news events of the 20th and 21st Centuries. (slideshow here)

Across America and throughout the world, photojournalists working to bring the world vital news have come under attack, often from authorities, governments, and groups using violence and repression as a form of censorship. In 2021, there were 141 assaults on journalists in the US according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. Combined with deliberate misinformation creating public skepticism; the decline of newspapers and the “news deserts” that result from newspaper closings, the photojournalist’s mission of creating visual moments essential to understanding societal and political change is being threatened.

For 20 years, Monroe Gallery of Photography has presented exhibitions championing the critical work of photojournalists.

Photojournalism’s work and mission—one that can be put simply as documenting a news event through the medium of photographic images, has arguably become the most essential and enduring news messaging tool, and one that has gained only further traction and relevance in the 21st century. On the occasion of Monroe Gallery of Photography’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe, we are proud to present an exhibition of photojournalists that we have exhibited throughout the years which span almost 100 years of history.

 

Imagine a World Without Photojournalism

through September 18, 2022.

Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar

Santa Fe, NM

www.monroegallery.com

A special program with gallery photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow will be held on Friday, July 22 at 5:30 PM, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery for information.

 

 

Nina Berman on Visual Choices: Covering Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones

 Via The Dart Center for Visual Journalism and Trauma

"From the Tigray War in Ethiopia to on-going asymmetric war in Colombia, sexual violence is a reality of conflict around the world. Reporting on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is fraught with ethical issues and the potential for psychological harm to both source and reporter. The Dart Centre is releasing a new resource to deepen journalists’ understanding of CRSV and to help them report on this complex issue ethically and effectively.

Visual choices are a vital part of this. Photographs can be a powerful means of connecting with an audience, but clichéd images can perpetuate stereotypes and in the digital era, live on the internet in perpetuity. 

To help navigate some of these issues, we spoke with documentary photographer Nina Berman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University who has covered conflicts in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and has written on the ethics of photography in conflict and in peacetime. "

Knight Science Journalism Program Names 2021-22 Project Fellows, including Nina Berman

 

Via Knight Science Journalism

July 26, 2021

Twenty-one distinguished journalists will pursue a diverse range of projects related to science, health, technology, and the environment.

The Knight Science Journalism Program (KSJ) is pleased to announce that it has selected a group of 21 distinguished science journalists for its 2021-22 project fellowship class — a cohort that ranges from award-winning freelance writers to staff reporters for outlets such as The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times, and MIT Technology Review.

It marks the second year that KSJ will offer the remote project fellowships, which were established in response to the unique challenges and public health concerns presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. The fellowships are designed to support journalists pursuing a diverse range of projects related to science, health, technology, and the environment. Each fellow will receive a stipend and a budget for project related expenses, as well as access to seminars, workshops, mentoring, and a large offering of online resources at MIT. (KSJ’s traditional in-person fellowships are expected to resume in the 2022-23 academic year.)

The newly selected fellows will pursue in-depth reporting projects probing issues such as globalization in the artificial intelligence industry, inequities in maternal health, animal lab testing, and environmental justice in the Deep South. “It’s an impressive array of projects that really embodies the multitude of ways our lives are touched by science.” said KSJ associate director Ashley Smart. “We’re proud to be able to support so much important work — and the talented journalists who are undertaking it.”

“The Knight Science Journalism Program is honored to contribute to the work being done by this talented group of science journalists,” said KSJ director Deborah Blum. “It’s a pleasure to see such innovative and insightful work across so many platforms – books, documentary films, podcasts, long-form investigative stories – all with such a promise of making a difference.”

Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, the 2021-22 fellowship class includes authors, reporters, documentary photographers, and multimedia journalists representing every time zone in the contiguous United States. Seven journalists will receive full-year fellowships supported by $40,000 stipends; fourteen will receive single semester fellowships supported by $20,000 stipends, with nine in the fall semester and five in the spring semester fellowships.

The Knight Science Journalism program, supported by a generous endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is recognized around the world as the premier mid-career fellowship program for science writers, editors, and multimedia journalists. The program’s goal is to foster professional growth among the world’s small but essential community of journalists covering science and technology, and encourage them to pursue that mission, first and foremost, in the public interest.

Since its founding in 1983, the program has hosted more than 350 fellows representing media outlets from The New York Times to Le Monde, from CNN to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and more. In addition to the fellowship program, KSJ publishes the award-winning digital magazine Undark and administers a national journalism prize, the Victor K. McElheny Award, honoring local and regional science reporting. KSJ’s academic home at MIT is the Department of Science, Technology and Society, which is part of the School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Her books include “Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq,” (Trolley, 2004), “Homeland,” (Trolley, 2008) and “An autobiography of Miss Wish” (2017). Berman’s project, When the Jets Fly, is a multi-channel documentary film, photography and audio report investigating the environmental impact of USA military training focusing on Whidbey Island, WA, and the greater Puget Sound area.

Nina Berman Presents "Fractured:The Shale Play" at Photoville 2013

Via Photoville

PHOTOVILLE will return Brooklyn Bridge Park from September 19–29 on the Uplands of Pier 5
 
The rush to drill down and explode the ground in pursuit of energy is transforming the natural landscape in rural America. Photographing this kind of industrial activity presents a paradox. The visual spectacle is alluring, yet the effects are toxic and polluting. This form of natural gas drilling, also called fracking, is steeped in controversy and unknowns. In these images, all made in rural Pennsylvania, I sought to capture the strange beckoning and fear where the landscapes shifts from natural to industrial, where what appears as rays of sunshine are actually methane flares; where pitch dark dirt roads, end in a burst of artificial light. In this unsettling environment, I include portraits of individuals who are trapped amid this altered, contaminated landscape.

Related Programming:

Artist Talk: Nina Berman, Fracking the Marcellus Shale

2:50 – 3:50pm | Saturday 9/28

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, author and educator, whose photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 90 venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Art Museum, Dublin Contemporary and the Museum for Modern Art, (MMK) Frankfurt. She’s received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, (NYFA), the Open Society Foundation, World Press Photo and Hasselblad. She is the author of two monographs: Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, and Homeland, which examine the aftermath of war and the militarization of American life. She lives in New York City, is an associate professor at Columbia University and is a member of the Amsterdam based NOOR photo collective.

Photographing war on the domestic front

Via The Annenberg Space for Photography

Nina Berman

Evidence and Fantasy: The War at Home

On Thursday, May 30th, 2013, Nina Berman was the featured speaker at The Annerberg Space's Iris Night lecture Series. The Iris Nights lecture series is a public program offered free of charge, by online reservation on a first-come, first-served basis. The series brings to life the most current exhibit with presentations by exhibit featured photographers and other notable experts and guest artists, and takes place from 6:30-8pm Thursday evenings at the Annenberg Space for Photography

Photographer, author and educator Nina Berman is known for her work photographing wounded American veterans including her 2006 “Marine Wedding” image. Presenting selections from work made since 9/11, she will explain her motivations and approaches to photographing war on the domestic front.

Click here for the full presentation.

Related:

NPR reviews "War/Photography": What do cameras and combat have in common? Neither seem to be going away

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY Opens Veterans Day, Sunday, November 11, 2012 in Houston

 

"What do cameras and combat have in common? Neither seem to be going away"

Via NPR The Picture Show


What Do Cameras And Combat Have In Common?

"For me it's about the impact of war as it relates on a very basic human everyday life," says New York-based photographer Nina Berman, who has been photographing wounded veterans since 2003. Her image titled "Marine Wedding," made in 2006, captures a moment between Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel and his bride on their wedding day. Ziegel was seriously wounded by a suicide car bomber in Iraq and spent 19 months in recovery.

"In that moment I saw a shellshocked couple," says Berman. "That is what war does. It disturbs, distresses and changes the normal lovely course of life."

The image itself has had a life of its own, garnering Berman a World Press Photo Award and launching Ziegel into the national spotlight to discuss the failures of veteran care.
Years later, Berman sees the image as less about the couple and more of a symbol of the impact of war.

"I think that people can be taken aback by how [Ziegel] looks," she says, "but there are a lot of people that look like him. He wasn't a freak, an anomaly; that's what this war has done. People who would have died are surviving. That is the reality."

Berman's voice shuddered as she spoke about Ziegel's passing late last year. She says she often wonders: What does it all amount to?

If you strip war of its historical and political context, it seems, what you are left with is simply to wonder: Why has war been a constant throughout human history?

To Do in NYC Wednesday: Photojournalists On War Conversation and Book Signing

 

"Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq [is] required reading for anyone interested in the way news is gathered and disseminated these days ... Kamber was another one of those eyes in Baghdad, so these conversations are remarkably candid -- confidences shared among friends that we're privileged to be listening in on." -- Vince Aletti, Photograph, July/August 2013

 

COINCIDING WITH PUBLICATION OF

MICHAEL KAMBER'S ACCLAIMED NEW BOOK ON THE IRAQ WAR

BROOKLYN BREWERY

WITH WAR CORRESPONDENTS AT THE BROOKLYN BREWERY

PRESENT:

PHOTOJOURNALISTS ON WAR:
THE UNTOLD STORIES BEHIND THE HEADLINES
A CONVERSATION WITH
STEVE HINDY AND MICHAEL KAMBER
WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 7:30 - 10:00 P.M.

Brooklyn Brewery
79 N. 11th Street
Brooklyn, New York 11249
7:30 P.M. - 10:00 P.M.

Ticket includes admission and a free Brooklyn Brewery beer.
All proceeds from event benefit RISC
( Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues).
Ticket price is $15.00. To purchase a ticket, go here.
Copies of the book will be on sale and available for signing

With never-before-seen work from the world's top photographers, Michael Kamber's new book Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq (University of Texas Press) features a groundbreaking visual and oral history of America's nine-year conflict in the Middle East. Influenced by his own experience as a multimedia pioneer, Kamber set out to interview photojournalists from leading news organizations including Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Magnum, Newsweek, The New York Times, Paris Match, Reuters, Time, The Times of London, VII Photo Agency, and The Washington Post. In his book, he recounts their first-person, frontline reports of the war as it unfolded, including key moments such as the battle for Fallujah, the toppling of Saddam's statue, and the Haditha massacre. These hard-hitting accounts and photographs reveal the inside and untold stories behind the headlines in Iraq.

On July 10, Brooklyn Brewery founder and former AP foreign correspondent Steve Hindy will interview Kamber about his career and his mission to create the most comprehensive collection of rare eyewitness accounts of the Iraq War to date. Both men will reflect on the often shocking and sometimes heroic actions that journalists undertake in trying to cover the war, as they discuss the role of media and issues of censorship. The conversation will be followed by a book signing.


Photojournalists on War photographers are: Lynsey Addario * Christoph Bangert * Patrick Baz * Nina Berman * Ben Brody * Andrea Bruce * Guy Calaf * Patrick Chauvel * Alan Chin * Carolyn Cole * Jerome Delay * Marco Di Lauro * Ashley Gilbertson * Stanley Greene *Todd Heisler * Tyler Hicks * Eros Hoagland * Chris Hondros * Ed Kashi * Karim Ben Khelifa * Wathiq Khuzaie * Gary Knight * Yuri Kozyrev * Rita Leistner * Benjamin Lowy * Zoriah Miller * Khalid Mohammed * John Moore * Peter Nicholls * Farah Nosh * Gilles Peress * Scott Peterson * Lucian Read * Eugene Richards * Ahmad Al-Rubaye * João Silva * Stephanie Sinclair * Bruno Stevens * Peter van Agtmael

Michael Kamber has worked as a writer and photojournalist for 25 years. Since September, he has worked primarily as a conflict photographer, covering a dozen conflicts, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia, Darfur, and the Congo. Kamber worked as The New York Times' chief photographer in Baghdad in 2007, the bloodiest year of the Iraq War. He also covered Iraq for the Times in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. As one of the first journalists to routinely file photography, video and written articles from overseas, Kamber helped pioneer the use of multimedia. Photojournalists on War is the result of a five-year oral history project documenting the role of photojournalism and the Iraq War. Kamber is the founder of the Bronx Documentary Center, and is the recipient of the World Press Photo, and many other awards.

Steve Hindy is a former journalist and became interested in homebrewing while serving as a Beirut-based Middle East Correspondent for The Associated Press. He is a co-founder of The Brooklyn Brewery.

Publisher Website: http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/kampho

Author Website: http://www.kamberphoto.com

Bronx Documentary Center: http://www.bronxdoc.org


Media Contact for Michael Kamber:
Andrea Smith, andreasmith202@gmail.com; 646-220-5950

Monroe Gallery at The 2013 AIPAD Photography Show

We are very pleased that Monroe Gallery of Photography will once again be exhibiting at the AIPAD Photography Show, one of the most important international photography art events. The AIPAD Photography Show will be presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD), April 3 - 7, 2013.

Monroe Gallery will be in the same location as last year, Booth # 419, along the left aisle, near the Cafe.

We will be exhibiting specially selected work from the gallery's renowned collection of 20th and 21st Century master photojournalists. Among the highlights selected for this year's exhibition are:

 

Empire State Building During Black-Out in Lower Manhattan,Hurricane Sandy, 2012

- Nina Berman

Roller Coaster, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy, 2012 - Stephen Wilkes

 

 

 

Apple Tree illuminated by gas flaring, Susquehanna County, 2011 - Nina Berman

 

 

 

 

 

  

 "I Am A Man", Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee, March 28, 1968
- Ernest C. Withers  ©The Withers Family Trust

Throughout the show we are honored that several of our photographers will be present in our booth, including Nina Berman, Bill Eppridge, John Filo, John Loengard, Brian Hamill, Stephen Wilkes, and many others. Rosalind Withers, Board President of the Ernest C. Withers Collection Museum, will be in attendance announcing the appointment of Monroe Gallery of Photography as representative of the Ernest C. Withers Estate.

We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.

Very truly yours,

 

Sid and Michelle Monroe
 

Show Hours:

Thursday, April 4 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday, April 5 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, April 6 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 7 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue (between 66th and 67th Streets)

(Must) To Do Friday: Documentary Photography Today Symposium

Documentary Photography Today

Friday, December 7, 2012 - 10:00am to 1:00pm

Teleconference Lecture Hall, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, 169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ

 

Via developingroom.com

 

 

This symposium will reflect on how and why we use the term "documentary" to describe photography today. In what ways are artists, scholars, and curators thinking about documentary photography? How are photographers dealing with the evidentiary function of their pictures, as notions of authenticity and truth are being broadly challenged by political conflicts and new media? How do those pictures shape our understanding of contemporary human rights, and their violations, across the globe? Might we also speak of documentary photography as a style unlinked to the medium's perceived social functions? Participants include photographer Nina Berman, Mary Panzer (NYU), and Sharon Sliwinski (University of Western Ontario), with respondent Diane Neumaier (Rutgers).

WE INVITE YOU TO VIEW THE EVENT ON OUR LIVE WEBCAST BEGINNING AT 10:00 AM EST AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: vcenter.njvid.net

Just click on "live videos" toward the upper-right of the homepage

Sponsors

Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University

Office of the Vice President for Research at Rutgers University

Veteran's Day, 2012

Revealing Side Of Combat

There are sides of war we are not exposed to but a new photographic exhibit in River North is giving us a glimpse. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports: click for video

 

 

 

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Nina Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

 

 

 

Related: War/Photography

 

  How will you remember?

 

  A Day to honor American veterans of all wars

 

  Veteran's Day, 2009 

 

 

"in 2011, the NYPD stopped someone every 45 seconds"

Must Read: Stop and Frisk Procedures, Photography, Activism and the NYPD: A Conversation with Nina Berman

Via Prison Photography

"I was in the Bronx on another project and I didn’t have my camera out. I saw a man riding a bicycle and a cop stopped him in the middle of the street. He stayed on his bicycle and he just immediately put his arms out in the air, like he knew precisely what position to assume. That’s a whole other thing that interests me; how body language for some people according to their race is a normalized gesture. For white people gestures [associated with Stop & Frisk] would be abnormal gestures.

Last summer, I saw a guy – he looked like he was 17 or 18 years old – in the Bronx and two plain-clothed cops came out and pushed him against a wall and stripped him of everything. It was intense."

Read the full post here.

Monroe Gallery at The AIPAD Photography Show 2012

Nina Berman: Afghan Woman with Diploma, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1998

We delighted to return to exhibit at the AIPAD Photography Show  in New York March 28 - April 1, 2012. The show is again at the Park Avenue Armory, and Monroe Gallery of Photography will be located in booth 419.


In our expanded booth, Monroe Gallery of Photography will be exhibiting specially selected work from the gallery's collection. Highlights include: new photographs from Stephen Wilkes' acclaimed "Day To Night" series; significant contemporary photographs by Nina Berman; important and historic photojournalism including photographs of the Civil Rights movement and Grey Villet's photographs of Richard and Mildred Loving taken during the landmark Supreme Court case overturning all race-based restrictions on marriage in the United States; and much more.

Show tickets are available for purchase at the Park Avenue Armory during Show hours.

Thursday, March 29 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday, March 30 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 31 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 1 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Stephen Wilkes: Coney Island, Day To Night

The Art of War: A Look Back at 10 Important Works That Took on the Conflict in Iraq

Every newspaper and news report has been filled with stories about the "end" of the Iraq War. Artinfo.com has compiled  a list of "what seem to us to be the most notable examples" of art dealing with the war.

Courtesy the artist and Jen Bekman projects

http://artinfo.com/news/story/753960/iraq-war-art#

Nina Berman's "Ty with gun," 2009, from "Marine Wedding," 2006/2008, pigment print

Iraq's future remains unclear, but whatever happens, the effects of the war are likely to remain with us for a long time. No work illustrates this more clearly than photographer Nina Berman’s “Marine Wedding" series (memorably seen in the 2009 Whitney Biennial as well as in the recent Dublin Contemporary in Ireland) documenting the marriage of former Marine sergeant Ty Ziegel to his high school sweetheart, Renee Kline. Ziegel was wounded in a suicide bomber’s attack in Iraq, leaving him terribly disfigured. Employing a straightforward and unflinching documentary aesthetic, Berman’s photos show him simply trying to live his life despite his horrible scars, driving his truck, walking his dog, or posing in uniform with his bride — who looks hauntingly lost — for a wedding portrait (the two divorced after a year). Though bordering on the exploitative, Berman’s work offers disturbing testimony to the way the Iraq War has torn through people’s lives, and how its affects are liable to be with us for a long, long time.


Related:  Nina Berman's Blog: Remember the Iraq War
Part 1
Part 2

Selections from "Marine Wedding" featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture"

Nina Berman: Beyond the Fringe of Protest

 


The New York Times/Lens Blog has an excellent post today comparing the Tea Party Protests and Occupy Wall  Street Protests.

By DAVID GONZALEZ

 Nina Berman was intrigued by the idea of protest in this age, so when she heard about a nascent uprising that was gaining national momentum, she had to check it out.

 “I had an open mind,” she said. “I was wondering what made them tick, who showed up and what united them. Were they right wing? Did they draw from the left and the middle? Was it as crazy as people made it out to be?”

She was talking about the Tea Party movement, which she photographed at a huge rally in Washington in 2010. A year later, she had some of the same questions about the throngs that streamed into Lower Manhattan as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. As she has discovered, though there are obvious differences in ideologies, the groups have some similarities. Both have staked a claim to be defenders of grass-roots values. And at times their critics have dismissed both as out of step with the rest of the nation.

 

New York Times/Lens for slideshow and full article.

An Enduring Aftermath: An Interview with Nina Berman, Documentary Photographer

Posted on October 4, 2011 by 10yearsandcounting

Minneapolis curator and arts writer Tricia Khutoretsky interviews photographer Nina Berman for 10 Years + Counting. Nina begun taking photographs 10 years ago, and has since been working on ongoing documentation of America since the invasion of Afghanistan

Photographs are often a glimpse into the past, a way to remember and a way to record. Nina Berman’s award-winning and internationally exhibited documentary photographs however seem to hold a sort of timelessness. Perhaps this is because many of the images she captures are of our country changed by a war that is equally endless. From the legacy left on war veteran’s bodies and minds, to images taken in Afghanistan pre-invasion, or her exploration into America’s troubling ideological landscape… her photographs attempt to understand subjects that she feels personally curious about. That genuine search for deeper insight translates visually in a way that is memorable and provoking. In the following interview, Nina and I converse about the coinciding 10 year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the stories and motivations behind her decade long study of a nation at war.

Full interview here.