Ghosts, nudes and lesbian pageant queens: highlights from...
Briana Ellis·2026-04-22·via The Guardian
Portraits of South African activists and the enigmatic silhouettes of Bill Brandt join a selection from more than 70 galleries at Aipad: The Photography Show at the Park Avenue Armory in New York from 22-26 April
In 1927, Brandt traveled to Vienna to see a lung specialist. Upon his visit, he decided to stay and find work in a photography studio. He went on to have a successful career photographing the likes of poet Ezra Pound; frequently contributing to literary journals including Picture Post, Lilliput, Weekly Illustrated and Verve; and making significant images of the extreme conditions of the second world war. After the war, his photographs mainly explored female nudity, transforming women’s bodies through the angle and frame of the camera lensPhotograph: Courtesy of artist and Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd
Albarrán Cabrera, Polarized #55454, 2023
The Spanish duoAnna Cabrera and Angel Albarrán created elegant oriental motifs printed on fibrous Japanese papers and gold leafPhotograph: Courtesy Marshall Gallery, Los Angeles
Tania Franco Klein, Scream (self-portrait), 2025
Klein is a photographer and artist from Mexico whose work focuses on the everyday anxieties and stress that come from living life onlinePhotograph: Tania Franco Klein/Courtesy Yancey Richardson, New York
Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Dot-Man and Butte, Utah, 2000
Thorne-Thomsen’s images evoke wonder, often photographing landscapes and creating a vision of an alternative existence. Her work alludes to mythology and history, giving evidence to dreams and a deeper understanding of people’s psychologyPhotograph: Estate of Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, Courtesy of Gitterman Gallery
Joan Lyons, Untitled, from the ‘Presences’ portfolio, 1980
Through a feminist lens, Lyons uses her imagery to challenge the conventions of traditional photography drawing from her daily life seeking, as she said, ‘something simple and direct’Photograph: Courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery
Andy Mattern, Ghost No 101
Mattern’s ‘ghost’ images are accidental evidence of a photo on the back of long-forgotten photographs pressed to the surface. ‘I was amazed to stumble upon this new type of picture, and have now spent several years ghost hunting ... I am drawn to their mysterious qualities – where the ghosts happen to land on the page, how they merge with graphics and text, the layering of multiple “exposures” – and I am captivated by the idea that, while no one is looking, the photographs are reproducing themselves,’ he writes on his websitePhotograph: Courtesy of The Hulett Collection
Matar was born in Lebanon and moved to the US in 1984. Her work centers on the personal and collective experiences of female adolescence and womanhoodPhotograph: Rania Matar
Pia Paulina Guilmoth, Dust, 2021
Guilmoth is a trans, working-class, Maine-based photographer who lives inside an old shoe factory at the edge of the Sandy River. ‘I’m constantly just trying to make things that I think are beautiful and give me a feeling of transcendence from everyday life … my life and the people that I care about seep through into the work regardless of if I’m trying or not,’ Guilmoth notes in an interview with LenscratchPhotograph: Courtesy of Clamp Gallery
Eloïse Labarbe-Lafon, American Album, 2023-2025
Labarbe-Lafon is a French photographer. Her images, like American Album, are moments frozen on black-and-white silver film, which she then colors the prints with oil paint, using brushes or her fingersPhotograph: Courtesy Polka Galerie
Sissi Farassat, Flowers and Me, 2022
Sissi Farassat is an Iranian-born photographer who approaches the photographs as an image and object. She blends her photos with embroidery and beadworkPhotograph: Courtesy of Curational Gallery, London
Zanele Muholi, Miss Lesbian I, 2009
Muholi is a self-described visual activist who focuses their lens on documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa’s LGBTQ+ communitiesPhotograph: Courtesy Yancey Richardson, New York
Lee Hsu-Pin, The River Valley next to Namasia, 2010
Hsu-Pin was born and based in Tainan City. He is the founder of the Fotoaura Institute of Photography, and in his work, he often combines words with his photos. In recent years, he explored the 70% of Taiwan’s hills and mountains that he was unfamiliar withPhotograph: Courtesy Be Fine Art Gallery
Bill Armstrong, Renaissance #1013, 2017
Armstrong is a New York-based fine art photographer known for work with blurred color photographs. Renaissance #1013 is from his The Infinity Series was created from his process of photographing images he has found extremely out of focus, setting the focusing ring on his camera to infinityPhotograph: Courtesy of HackelBury Fine Art
Keith Carter, Fireflies Contact Sheet, 1992
Carter is a photographer and educator who is known for his dreamlike images of people, animals and objects. His work explores the essence of time, place and vernacular culturePhotograph: Courtesy of Catherine Couturier Gallery
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, Unreleased #4, 2003
Crewdson’s images are large-scale, cinematic, psychologically intense productions, in which he directs a production and lighting crew to create them. ‘Every artist has a central story to tell, and the difficulty, the impossible task, is trying to present that story in pictures,’ he saidPhotograph: Courtesy of Houk Gallery
Julio Le Parc, Autoportrait devant Cloison à lames réfléchissantes, 1969
Le Parc is known to use theory and abstraction in his work that analyzes the divisions between art and society. Often, he hands out questionnaires to his audience to learn about their thoughts on modern and avant-garde artPhotograph: Courtesy of Vasari Gallery
Patty Carroll, Circle Back, 2025
Since the 1970s, Carroll has been a Chicago-based photographer whose images are known for their staged, colorful tableaux exploring identity, domestic life and excessPhotograph: Patty Carroll/Courtesy of Catherine Couturier Gallery
Lenard Smith, A Work by Design, 2023
Smith is a first-generation Ghanaian American interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work combines research into the African diaspora and architecture, embedding multidisciplinary art such as photography, assemblage sculpture, painting, field recording and video. The work reveals his commitment to understanding architecture as an ongoing process of mediation. He explores how photography functions not only as a means of representation, but as a structure in its own rightPhotograph: Lenard Smith/Courtesy of the artist and Central Server Works
Miguel Rio Branco, Familia, a mão do dono, 1979
Branco is a Brazilian photographer and a member of Magnum Photos, whose images focus on Brazil and social and political criticismPhotograph: Courtesy of Toluca Fine Art
Sayuri Ichida, Phoka #020, 2023
Ichida is a UK-based Japanese photographer whose work focuses on the themes of self-identity through reflections on her own memories and life experiences and explores the complex emotional states of humans by portraying the human form and sculptural objectsPhotograph: Courtesy by Ibasho
