FashionMusicArtCulture Hard Copy, Soft Touch An Interview with Aaron Stern and David Campany words Jasmine Penman and Rachel Weinberg 15 July 2026 Aaron Stern and David Campany dialled in from their respective hotel rooms the night after Hard Copy opened in Arles. Although that … Continue reading
Private Eyes David Campany What comes to mind when you think of a detective? A loner, doggedly solving a crime with cold logic and brilliant intuition? Such figures have long been familiar in novels, cartoon strips, and cinema, … Continue reading
In Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth, Iranian artist Amin Yousefi rephotographs images from the 1979 Iranian Revolution, isolating moments when protesters direct their gaze through the lens and toward the viewer. Through the curved halo of a magnifying loupe, Yousefi … Continue reading
Photobooks USA 2000–25 explores how the photobook has emerged as a powerful tool for artists to respond to the forces shaping contemporary life in the United States. Over the past 25 years, this evolution is reflected in the growing number … Continue reading
Robert Cumming was an artist of seemingly limitless skills who took up photography as a way to synthesize them all. He would design, draw, build and then photograph objects, sets and scenarios that were outlandish but somehow logical in their … Continue reading
Some of my photographs are included in curatorial project “A Box of Impressions”, a box-sized exhibition put together by Lou Stoppard and Sarah-Linh Tran for Lemaire, Palais Royal, Paris. The exhibition invites 21 photographers to focus on the themes of … Continue reading
Pages and Walls David Campany on photographic books in the context of exhibitions. Anyone who was around in the late 1990s to experience the Internet’s seemingly unstoppable growth towards cultural domination would have heard loud and repeated declarations of the imminent … Continue reading
Thames & Hudson (UK), MIT Press (USA), Guilio Einaudi Editore (Italy), Eyrolles (France), Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press (China) Publisher’s Summary: In On Photographs, curator and writer David Campany presents an exploration of photography in 120 images. Proceeding not … Continue reading
Ken Russell was best known as an iconoclastic film-maker, but he began with a still camera, aged twenty-three, in 1951. He was therefore slightly older than the Teddy Girls he photographed in January 1955. Born a little before or during … Continue reading
What place does Robert Frank occupy in the history of photography? Is there a before and after ? In 1958/59, The Americans was deeply divisive. It broke with the ideals of what ‘good photography’ was supposed to look like. Off-kilter … Continue reading
On September 8, 2023, photographer Tanya Marcuse photographed a deer that died in the woods. She returned repeatedly to photograph the deer until its body disappeared nineteen months later, in April 2025. What unfolds in these photographs is not a … Continue reading
Song of Silent Water by Mathieu Chaze Photographs edited and sequenced by David Campany Design: Federico Barbon Size : 23,9 x 21 cm 68 pages printed in duotone Softcover Published in English First Edition 700 copies ISBN: 979-12-80978-30-1
Latitudes: Nuits Balnéaires and François-Xavier Gbré showcases two new projects examining contemporary Côte d’Ivoire. Nuits Balnéaires blends memory and fiction in Eboro, while Gbré’s Radio Ballast traces the historical layers embedded in the country’s railway system, together offering expansive perspectives … Continue reading
HARD COPY NEW YORK spotlights the creative potential of the photocopied image through a multigenerational roster of artists – including Daniel Arnold, David Black, John Divola, Zoe Ghertner, Takashi Homma, Jerry Hsu, Asako Narahashi, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Ari Marcopoulos, Ryan McGinley, … Continue reading
Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation, examines how Eugène Atget (1857–1927) came to be regarded as one of the forefathers of modern photography through the timely and tireless advocacy of Berenice Abbott. Featuring historic prints from ICP’s collection alongside landmark … Continue reading
Excerpt: David: Dadi, I remember when I first came to visit you in Grand-Bassam, east of Abidjan. This was 2024. We walked and talked a lot about real geographies, and imaginary geographies that combine different places. We talked about the … Continue reading
Walker Evans (1903–1975) is a central figure in modern photography and one of the great visual chroniclers of twentieth-century United States. His images, seemingly simple yet deeply complex, depict with clarity everyday life, urban landscapes, and the anonymous faces of … Continue reading
William Klein, Independence Day Parade, Dakar, Senegal, 1963 In 1963, the celebrated artist William Klein was travelling through several west African countries. On April 4 he was in Dakar, capital of Senegal, for the annual Independence Day parade. Senegal had … Continue reading
Jeff Wall Photographs Gallerie d’Italia, Torino October 9, 2025 – February 1, 2026 Curator: David Campany
Edited and co-ordinated by Honey Luard and Elaine ML Tam Editorial assistance by Louise Parfitt and Miranda Yates Designed by (Studio) Sandra Kassenaar Printed by Robstolk, Netherlands 150 x 225 mm, softback 264 pages, colour illustrations throughout ISBN 978-1-910844-79-3 Published … Continue reading
Climate Change and the Image ? David Campany None of us doubt how vital images have been for raising awareness around climate change. There is no doubt, either, how important images have been for climate-related protest and activism. What we … Continue reading
Book accompanying the exhibition Jeff Wall Photographs at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin October 9, 2025 – February 1, 2026, curated by David Campany Written and edited by David Campany 32,5 x 24 cm 192 pages 80 illustrations English 2025 ISBN9788842227403 € … Continue reading
Double Feature Edited by Mark Alice Durant Hardcover / 9.5 x 7.5 inches / 388 Pages / $40 Over 200 vernacular images from the collection of artist Patrick Pound accompanied by ekphrastic texts from 44 writers exploring ideas of doubling … Continue reading
The Great Acceleration, the first solo institutional exhibition of world renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work in New York City in over twenty years, reveals the depth of his investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes around the world, showing … Continue reading
Book accompanying the exhibition Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration at the International Center of Photography, June 19-September 28, 2025 Essay by David Campany, plus reproductions of all 72 works included in the exhibition. A retrospective of Edward Burtynsky’s photography from … Continue reading
June 3, 2025 We recently sat down with David Campany to discuss a rather beautiful book he edited for us last year: Robert Cumming’s Very Pictorial Conceptual Art. Cumming, who emerged in the 1970s Los Angeles art scene, was a quietly … Continue reading
Intricate botanical forms, Baroque one moment and science fiction the next, appear to sprout and multiply. Drained of greens and the colours of flowers, the forms intensify and estrange our expectations of plant life. This is the work of British … Continue reading
As I was beginning to gather my thoughts for this essay, I showed an earlier publication of Beatrice Helg’s work to an artist friend. She looked at it slowly. “These are extraordinary sculptures and installations, and they have been documented … Continue reading
Sebastião Salgado, who died earlier this year, stands among the most significant photographers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. There was an unmistakable power to his imagery and the moral force that underscored it. The photographs were an insistence … Continue reading
In this essay, David Campany considers historical and contemporary photographic representations of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1989, Hiroshi Sugimoto looked out over the Mediterranean Sea from Cassis to make one of his now-familiar seascape photographs. Shot from an elevated vantage point, … Continue reading
Fotografia e cinema, diversi ma connessi Lo scrittore e curatore David Campanyriflette sulla permeabilità tra i due linguaggi dalle origini all’Intelligenza Artificiale Gabriele Sassone David Campany, creative director dell’International Center of Photography di New York, scrittore e curatore, è una … Continue reading
‘Black & White & Color’ by David Campany for True Photo Journal n. 11 Black-and-white and/or color? It’s a perennial question. Forty-five years ago, the cultural critic Roland Barthes wrote of color as “a coating applied later on to the … Continue reading
Three years after the opening of the main exhibition What does the picture do? The Museum of Photography in Krakow gives readers a book with the same title. However, it is not a classic catalog, but a collection of essays, … Continue reading
An essay on the relation between mid-century abstraction and photography Aperture magazine n.258, ‘Photography & Painting.’ Abstraction as Event. Event as Abstraction. Every picture-constructing advantage accumulated over centuries is given up to the jittery flow of events as they unfold. … Continue reading
All the World’s a Stage is the most ambitious and comprehensive exhibition of the work of William Klein (1926-2022), recognised as one of the most influential photographers of the second half of the 20th century, on the European continent since his … Continue reading
€25,00, 17,5 × 23,5 cm, 96 p, ills colour, paperback with screenprinted pvc dustjacket, ISBN 9789083438467, design and editing: Jurgen Maelfeyt, text edit: Giorgia Basch, edition of 800, March 2025 Focussing on the intersection of architecture and photography, Maes has … Continue reading
A Conversation with David Campany Alice Zoo “A creative life is a life that doesn’t fit – it is resistant, searching, unsatisfied.” Last autumn, David Campany was invited to appear on a podcast. The conversation was to take the form … Continue reading
In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with the brilliant David Campany, an influential curator, writer, editor, educator, and the Creative Director of the International Center of Photography, New York. Known for his deep insights into photography’s evolving role in … Continue reading
Photographs by Txema Yeste. Essay by David Campany. Publisher : RM; Bilingual edition (English/Spanish) (April 1, 2025). Language : English. Paperback : 96 pages. ISBN-10 : 8410290049. ISBN-13: 978-8410290044. Dimensions: 8.46 x 1 x 12.8 inches. Needles of the Afternoon Let … Continue reading
Having edited Anastasia Samoylova’s previous books FloodZone 2019 and Floridas 2022, Campany’s editing work on Adaptation provides a broad introduction to the range of her creative output of the previous few years, showcasing her six major bodies of work: Landscape Sublime, … Continue reading
‘August Sander’s Open Work’ is an essay commissioned for a publication coinciding with an extensive presentation of Sander’s portrait project People of the 20th Century at ParisPhoto, November 2024. August Sander’s Open Work David Campany August Sander’s epic People of … Continue reading
Hosted by Nick Tauro: Season 4 Episode 5: Photography and Cinema: An Interview with David Campany “I love cinema. I love photography. Why not talk about the commonalities and differences between these two camera-based mediums? My guest David Campany has … Continue reading
Pestka Photographs by Magdalena Wywrot Edited and sequenced by David Campany. Writing by David Campany and Barbara Rosemary. Publisher: Deadbeat Club, 146 PAGES, HARDCOVER, FULL COLOR OFFSET, 9.5” X 9.5”, ISBN: 978-1-952523-26-7 Read Sean O’Hagan’s piece on Pestka in The Guardian here Read Helen Sullivan’s piece on Pestka … Continue reading
Contributors (in order of appearance): Irina Rozovsky With Tim Davis Collier Schorr With Elle Pérez Lee Mary Manning With Charlie Porter Ernest Cole And Lindokuhle Sobekwa Nick Sethi With David Strettell Magdalena Wywrot With David Campany Peter Tomka With Sammy … Continue reading
In this special episode Grant Scott speaks with writer, curator, editor, and Creative Director of the International Center of Photography, David Campany. The conversation was instigated by an Instagram post Campany made (which Grant responded to thanks to one of his podcast … Continue reading
Raymond Meeks talks with David Campany, on the occasion of Meeks’ exhibition The Inhabitants, part of the Immersion commission, sponsored by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, October 9, 2024 – January 5, 2025 Published in Lieu-Dit magazine … Continue reading
Floridas: Walker Evans and Anastasia Samoylova by David Campany In the mind’s eye or with a camera, Florida is almost too easy to picture. So much about it is unnervingly photo–ready, like it’s all been seen before and primped for … Continue reading
Lee Friedlander’s The Little Screens Commissioned by Stefano Tonchi for The Wrap Book vol. 2: The Art of Television David Campany Taking photos of our hotel rooms is a minor ritual most of us enjoy. It’s a way to mark our … Continue reading
David Campany’s book accompanies his curatorial project William Klein – All the World’s a Stage. It brings together an extensive selection of Klein’s images with Campany’s texts in Portuguese and English, including an extensive essay and a chronology of the artist’s … Continue reading
The British photographer Brian Griffin died on January 29. It is fair to say he wasn’t a household name, but the outpouring of feeling has been intense, particularly among fellow photographers. They knew how good he was, and … Continue reading
‘Heads Up, Heads Down’ by David Campany You may have noticed that Rulx Thork describes himself as a rather shy person. This may or may not come as a surprise. Either way, it is worth taking a pause to think … Continue reading
‘Off the Wall’ by David Campany & Sara Knelman
Indeterminacy: Thoughts on Time, the Image, and Race(ism) by David Campany & Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa Paperback with flap 12.5 x 19.5cm, 160 pages ISBN 978-1-913620-48-6 June 2022 €18.50 £15 $20 In a series of written exchanges, David Campany and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa consider the … Continue reading
Alluring Deceptions David Campany on the work of Valérie Belin, FT Weekend, May 4/5, 2024 Untitled, from the series Michael Jackson, 2003. Gelatin silver print, 63.4 x 49.2 inches. Untitled, from the series Michael Jackson, 2003. Gelatin silver prints … Continue reading
Book specs: Page size: 8.2 x 7.2 inch / 20.9 x 18.4 cm. Page count: 36. Paper: 170g coated. Binding: clothbound hardcover black cloth, white foil stamping. Printing: Offset Tritone with matted inks and matted varnish. Printed by Steidl, Göttingen – Germany Essay by … Continue reading
Fulcrum Press Gallery, Los Angeles May 11 – June 15, 2024 Artists: David Campany Edward Cushenberry Eduardo Consuegra Don Edler Luke Harnden Steve Kado Soo Kim Jacob Murtle Juliana Paciulli Pacifico Silano Before photography became a tool to fix the … Continue reading
Date: 2024 ISBN: 978-0-9569085-5-1 Dimensions: 208x260mm Pages: 300 Edition: 400 Softback English & Arabic Essays by David Campany & Will Self Book available here Anton’s hand is made of guilt. No muscle of bone. He has a Gung-ho Finger and … Continue reading
Ernst Haas’ most cherished and personal project—originally conceived as an audiovisual slideshow—is recreated here in stunning color that will delight his numerous fans as well as anyone interested in Kodachrome photography. Three decades after its completion, Haas’ most personal and … Continue reading
“Welcome to MONTANA – an independent, multidisciplinary collaborative platform dedicated to photography and boundless creativity. Through a meticulously curated collection of 12 issues, each shining a spotlight on the work of remarkable photographers, we celebrate their artistic expression while delving … Continue reading
Essay commissioned for the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition Louis Stettner, Fundación MAPFRE, Spain. Published in English by Thames & Hudson, 2024. To value what is in front of us. On the photography of Louis Stettner. David Campany extract: An … Continue reading
‘Night Fever: Film and Photography After Dark’ is the first significant publication to focus on photographic and cinematic works from the 1960s to the present that use night as the starting point for their explorations. A lavishly illustrated compendium, ‘Night … Continue reading
A Criticism Review is a manifesto where different writers reflect on how we can make changes within the writing community, carving out new ideas about how to work and be published. Contributions from Delphine Bedel, Susan Bright, David Campany, C-print, … Continue reading
‘Weegee and Kubrick’ is an essay commissioned for the book accompanying the exhibition Weegee: Autopsie du Spectacle curated by Clément Cheroux, presented at Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid; and the International Center of Photography, New York. French edition published by … Continue reading
Continuity and Change David Campany If you have a knife, and you break the blade and replace it, and then you break the handle and replace that, is it the same knife? This is a well-known philosophical question but for … Continue reading
Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me! assesses the career of the hugely influential Harper’s Bazaar art director, who changed the course of twentieth-century American photography and graphic design This lavishly illustrated volume explores the influence and significance of the Russian-born photographer, designer, … Continue reading
The book includes an essay by David Campany, The Glitch is in Us, and a 52 page insert placed into the book, featuring contributions from 36 renowned artists, writers and curators. Essay below: The Glitch is in Us by David … Continue reading
Immersion: Gregory Halpern, Raymond Meeks, and Vasantha Yogananthan is an exhibition showcasing three projects created by the artists during their respective residencies—Halpern’s in Guadeloupe, Yogananthan’s in New Orleans, and Meeks’s in France. The photography projects are part of Immersion, a French-American … Continue reading
Collaboration: a Potential History of Photography, edited by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas, Leigh Raiford, and Laura Wexler. Collaboration is a groundbreaking publication, by five great thinkers and practitioners in photography, in collaboration with hundreds of photographers, writers, critics, … Continue reading
Photography – Real and Imagined interrogates the proposition that photographs are either grounded in reality – a record, a document, a reflection of the world – or the product of imagination, storytelling and illusion. On occasion, they can be both. … Continue reading
How to Move a Mountain is Caleb Stein’s photographic essay of the Carrara marble quarry, a series of intimate portraits of robotic arms and raw marble that offer nuance to today’s debate around artistic authorship and AI and computer-augmented art. … Continue reading
All installation photos by Christoph Wieland
Edited and with an essay by David Campany. Robert Cumming was an American artist who defied easy classification. A painter, sculptor, photographer, and printmaker he is perhaps best known for his painstakingly constructed conceptual photographs. This new publication bring together … Continue reading
Sam Youkilis: Somewhere 2017-2023, Loose Joints Edited by Sam Youkilis & Sarah Chaplin Espenon at Loose Joints Studio, Sam Youkilis’s immediate and generous indexing of everyday life reaches across space and time in his debut monograph – a 500-page typology of human experience. Sam Youkilis has … Continue reading
On the Verge, Futures / VOID, 2023 Texts by Aaron Schuman • Alessia Glaviano • Brad Zellar • Cat Lachowskyj • Charles Baudelaire • David Campany • Elissa Marder • Salvatore Vitale • Tim Carpenter Photographs byAlice Pallot • Cian Burke … Continue reading
Sebastian Riemer, Press Paintings Sebastian Riemer’s Press Paintings series looks at the waste paper produced in the last century by the press photo industry. He examines numerous images, analysing the manual work that went into editing them, a primitive process … Continue reading
Trapped: Troubled Souls in Eerie Times Photography by Ximena Echagüe Foreword by David Campany The pandemic serves as background to this story of human life and dynamics in a period of great individual and global uncertainty. From self portraits taken … Continue reading
‘An Indestructible Object of Affection to be Destroyed’ is an essay by David Campany written for the book Man Ray: Other Objects, Luxembourg + Co. / Buchhandlung Walter und Franz Koenig, 2023 Often considered as unique artworks, Man Ray’s original sculptures … Continue reading
Book blurb: In the latest series from Anastasia Samoylova, the Russian-born, Miami-based photographer studies the proliferation of photographic images in urban environments across the world. Samoylova observes how, in our neoliberal era of networked economic markets and networked imagery, the … Continue reading
This is an extract from an ongoing conversation. Justine Kurland, Brassaï, Paris de Nuit, 2019, in A Trillion sunsets: A Century of Image Overload, International Center of Photography, New York, 2022. Curated by David Campany. Daniel C. Blight: In the year … Continue reading
IN SEARCH OF BLUE GOLD Photos by DANIEL SHEA & Words by DAVID CAMPANY A road-trip with denim hunter Bret Eaton. The Colour Journal is a lavish publication that explores colour in art and photography. It has been conceived as … Continue reading
Walker Evans Revisited Kunsthal Helmond, October 8, 2022 – March 5, 2023 First presented as part of of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Loves of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany. Of all the celebrated photographers of … Continue reading
Writer Conversations offers a lively and engaging analysis of the practice of writing on photography. Composed as interviews with highly distinctive writers at the forefront of discourses and debates around visual culture, it provides sustained exploration into the processes and … Continue reading
‘Definitively Unfinished’ is an essay by David Campany written for Joan Fontcuberta’s book Cultura di Polvere, published by Danilo Montanari Editore / ICCD, 2023 Definitively Unfinished David Campany The promise of photography, born at the onset of a rapidly changing … Continue reading
David Campany’s essay ‘Rules and Exceptions’ appears in Where the Land Meets the Sea by Damien Hirst, HENI Publishing, 2023 ISBN: 978-1-912122-77-6 Dimensions: 360 × 290 mm Format: Hardback Extent: 204 pp Illustrations: 545 A vibrant catalogue of Damien Hirst’s Where … Continue reading
Seeing Sweet: a Pink Suite David Campany Here are some thoughts about colour, black & white, and pink in the photographs of William Eggleston and Anastasia Samoylova. In the twentieth century, several difficulties slowed the artistic development of colour photography. … Continue reading
‘Something Lost, Something Gained’ is an essay written for Giulia Parlato’s book Diachronicles. 24×30 cm / 120 pages 500 copies / Soft cover with Swiss binding Design by Nicolas Polli Text by David Campany Published in February 2023 ISBN: 979-12-80177-21-6 … Continue reading
Written by David Campany and published on the occasion of the Willian Klein retrospective he curated for the International Center of Photography, New York, this is a landmark publication encompassing Klein’s long lifetime of creativity across photography, filmmaking, painting, book … Continue reading
William Klein won his first camera in a poker game in 1946. Every image he made was a little pokerish: street-wise, bluffing, anticipating, but intuitive and spontaneous too. In a career spanning seven decades he made some of the most … Continue reading
COMPENDIUM Journal of Comparative Studies Revista de Estudos Comparatistas Materialities of the Photobook | Materialidades do Livro de Fotografia N. 2 Editors of this Issue | Editores deste Número José Bértolo, Universidade Nova de Lisboa David Campany, University of Westminster … Continue reading
Photography’s Long, Short Road to the Non-Fungible Token David Campany Commissioned by The Fellowship, with thanks to Chris McCall Republished in Zum magazine (Brazil) n. 25, October 2023 NON-FUNGIBLE TOKEN a: a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, … Continue reading
‘Theses on the Disaster of Photography’ is an essay by David Campany commissioned for the box for The Camera of Disaster, by Studio for Propositional Cinema, 2022. Theses on the Disaster of Photography by David Campany How many works of science-fiction … Continue reading
Aperture’s Winter 2022 issue ‘Reference’ considers the role images play in the creation of something else. Spanning fashion design, architecture, film, and print, the artists featured in this issue borrow and quote from their source material to create transformative works that … Continue reading
Victor Burgin’s Photopath, by David Campany ‘A path along the floor, of proportions 1×21 units, photographed. Photographs printed actual size of objects and prints attached to the floor so that images are perfectly congruent with their objects.’ With these words … Continue reading
This Country. Thoughts on the photography of Chris Killip and Graham Smith David Campany (This essay was commissioned for the book Chris Killip & Graham Smith 20/20, published by Augusta Edwards Fine Art, 2022) Let me begin in a pub. Apart … Continue reading
Marley Trigg Stewart in Conversation with David Campany MATTE magazine, no. 50, 2022: The Hills Keep Burning in California David Campany: Marley, when I look at the images that make up your project The Hills Keep Burning in California, and … Continue reading
Feeling Light David Campany FT Weekend Magazine, September 3/4, 2022 As visitors pass between the giant bronze doors of the Pantheon in Rome, their faces change. It is not the heavy awe we associate with a grand cathedral but something … Continue reading
L.A. Vedute Thomas Locke Hobbs 157 × 240 mm | 272 p EN | offset | softcover ISBN: 978-94-92051-86- € 32.00 Order The lines that divide us are the spaces we share. Driveways, paths, entrances and walls. These are the … Continue reading
Sebastian Cramer Two Views on Plants Text(s) by Wim Wenders, Sebastian Cramer, David Campany, Susanne S. Renner, Tanja M. Schuster, Stefan Dressler, Birgit Kanz, Christian Printzen, graphic design by Julia Wagner English 2022. 192 pp., 130 ills., Hardcover, 29.00 x 30.50 cm, ISBN 978-3-7757-5382-1 … Continue reading
Jeff Wall – Artist Talk: a conversation with David Campany Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany – 2 June 2018 DC: I would like to start with the question of spontaneity because, for artists with long careers, certain myths accumulate, and … Continue reading
Secondary Revision by David Campany Every photograph is a lucid and enigmatic fragment pulled out of context. It is a suspension of time and place, cut off and adrift, part of a now-lost continuum. Every photograph points us back to … Continue reading
Edited and with an essay by David Campany 75 illustrations 23.5 x 29.0cm 144pp ISBN 978 0 500 025758 October £40.00
Street photographer. Fashion photographer. Painter. Graphic designer. Abstract artist. Writer. Filmmaker. Book maker. Few have transformed as many fields of art and culture as William Klein. From his wildly inventive photographic studies of New York, Rome, Moscow, and Tokyo to … Continue reading
‘Easier said than done’. An essay written for the book John Divola – Scapes, published by Skinnerboox May 2022 Edition of 750 Hardcover 20x24cm 96 pages ISBN 978-88-94895-57-5 – Designed by Federico Carpani Easier said than done by David Campany For all … Continue reading
Hardcover, 12 x 13, 180 pages, 80 four-color plates. Edited by David Campany Second edition, 2022 British artist Mark Neville moved home and studio from London to live in Kyiv, Ukraine, last year. With Putin ordering a violent invasion … Continue reading
In-A-Gadda-Da-England (2022) “For 20 years I’ve worked as a documentary photographer. I’ve photographed everyday life in England, predominantly in Kent, but also around the country. Looking back over the photographs certain themes have revealed themselves: nostalgia, the rise of nationalism, … Continue reading
Ave Pildas, Star Struck Hardcover, 104 Pages, B&W Duotone Offset, 10.5” x 12” , ISBN: 978-1-952523-04-5 Text, ‘Dear Ave Pildas’, by David Campany Dear Ave Hollywood Boulevard, Walk of Fame, 1970s. You were there, with your camera, with your love of life and … Continue reading
David Campany: Jeremy, your book, Organs of a Divided Labour, is a series of still life studio photographs of manufactured industrial parts, mainly metal, sometimes plastic. A short text in the book tells us all the items are from … Continue reading
The catalogue accompanying Cornelia Parker’s major 2022 exhibition at TATE includes a short essay by David Campany on the artist’s relation to photography. In 1997, Cornelia Parker presented a slideshow of her work at the Architectural Association, in London. I … Continue reading
Edited, co-designed and with an extended essay by David Campany 200 pages, 144 images, Hardback / Clothbound, 29.5 x 26.2cm, English, ISBN 978-3-96999-007-0 Sunshine state. Swampland paradise. Tourist aspiration. Real estate racket. Refuge of excess. Political swing-state. Sub-tropical fever dream. With forms of nature … Continue reading
Are there too many images in the world? Too many of the wrong kind? Too many that we don’t like or want or need? These feel like very contemporary questions, but they have a rich and fascinating history. A Trillion … Continue reading
How big can a photograph be? From postcards to giant billboards, they are almost any dimension, but what happens when they are the very same scale as their subject matter? A photo of a bus the size of a bus? … Continue reading
Curated by David Campany For the last two decades, Gillian Laub’s photography has tackled timely topics with a careful focus on community and human rights. Her work has spanned terror survivors in the Middle East (Testimony, 2007) to racism … Continue reading
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the first American television programs to be broadcast in Russia was Santa Barbara (1984–93). Watching from her childhood home in Moscow with her family, Diana Markosian saw the soap opera as … Continue reading
Street Photography between Reportage, Cinema and Theatre. by David Campany An essay commissioned for the book Street Life: the street in art from Kirchner to Streuli, edited by Astrid Ilhe and René Zechlin, Hirmer / Wilhelm Hack Museum, 2021 As … Continue reading
A transcript of a conversation around the book A Field Measure Survey of American Architecture, edited by Jeffrey Ladd and published byMACK 2021. David Campany and Jeffrey Ladd David Campany: Jeffrey, what is A Field Measure Survey of American Architecture, … Continue reading
‘She decided she would become a great viewer’ by David Campany At the gallery, she found the photographs on the wall compelling, but disturbing and confusing. So, she looked for some kind of text on the wall. Sure enough, the … Continue reading
Faced with the complexity and contradiction of New York, photographers tend to take a position, to form a coherent response, especially when making a book. Nearly all New York photobooks do this, from Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland’s Changing New … Continue reading
Pablo López Luz. Baja Moda essay by David Campany €45.00 Binding: Hardcover Pages: 98 Size: 29 x 31cm Language: Bilingual (ENG-SPA) ISBN: 978-84-17975-88-3 Publication year: 2021 A Context for Pablo Lopez Luz’s Baja Moda David Campany The history of photography is blessed with an abundance of … Continue reading
First edition 100 signed and numbered copies September 2021 80 pages printed on Favini upcycled Remake paper, 100% recyclable and biodegradable Side-stitch binding, 41 x 24 cm Siam’s Guy Books 45 EUR Includes the short text ‘Foreshadow’ by David Campany … Continue reading
Of all the forms of visual art of the last one hundred years, it is collage that has proved the most enduring and renewing. Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, Constructivism, Pop, Situationism, Postmodern appropriation, Internet Art. It is hard to imagine any … Continue reading
Past Paper / Present Marks: Responding to Rauschenberg Photography by Jennifer Garza-Cuen and Odette England Texts by Dr. Susan Bright, David Campany, and Nicholas Muellner Hardcover / 11 x 12.75 inches 70 images / 160 pages ISBN: 9781942185826 From … Continue reading
GENERATING DIALOGUE An interview with David Campany Musee Magazine, April 2021 Andrea Blanch: You’ve chosen to work with ICP at this moment in your career. Why did you shift to a more structural space, rather than continue to work independently? … Continue reading
Photography and Communication • A Conversation with David Campany by RICA CERBARANO David, can you tell me how did you become interested in photography? How did you realize that you could be many things—curator, writer, editor and lastly, photographer? When I … Continue reading
A Handful of Dust is David Campany’s speculative history of the last century, and a visual journey through some of its unlikeliest imagery. Let’s suppose the modern era begins in October of 1922. A little French avant-garde journal publishes a … Continue reading
Photographing Rear Window by David Campany. Commissioned by À pala de Walsh (Portuguese translation below) Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window was the first film that I ever saw twice, and both viewings were on television, not in a movie theatre, nor … Continue reading
Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph, edited by Jason Fulford, Aperture, 2021 Publisher’s description: At turns humorous and absurd, heartfelt and searching, Photo No-Nos is for photographers of all levels wishing to avoid easy metaphors and to sharpen their … Continue reading
Amak Mahmoodian’s Zanjir by David Campany “Everything starts in the middle,” wrote Graham Lee. By the time we become aware of the past, we have already lived, moving forward while looking back. How do we understand the past, our past, … Continue reading
A book celebrating the exhibition #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis, organised by the International Center of Photography, New York, October 1, 2020 – January 3, 2021.820 images by 820 photographers, from 70 countries, responding to the events of 2020. Introductory … Continue reading
Benedikt Partenheimer The Weather Is Fine Text. ‘Slowly Quickly’ by David Campany. Graphic design by Uwe Koch English 2021. 128 pp., 60 ills. Hardcover 32.00 x 24.00 cm ISBN 978-3-7757-5073-8 Not only do we live in a period of rapid, exciting change, but we … Continue reading
It was Frankfurt this time. I arrived late, after an hour of delays before take-off. EasyJet. When I landed, I took an Uber to the Hyatt Hotel. Forty minutes in traffic, and nothing much to see on the way. … Continue reading
View the 820 curated images from 70 countries, made during first months of the pandemic, March-November 2020, on ICP’s exhibition website and hear directly from a selection of contributing photographers in our audio guide. On March 20, the International Center of Photography announced an open call … Continue reading
Dialogue is a transatlantic visual conversation. David Campany (New York/London) and Anastasia Samoylova ( Miami) make photographs in response to each other’s photographs. No rules, no expectations. What has emerged is a long, winding, unbroken ‘sentence’ of observational pictures. It moves between theme … Continue reading
Facts and Other Mysteries is the third essay released in Foreground’s File Notes series, an occasional series of commissioned writing that will critically engage with different areas of Foreground’s programme. The essay continues the File Note series current focus on … Continue reading
On the occasion of the posthumous retrospective of Broomberg & Chanarin at Fabra i Coats Contemporary Art Centre, Barcelona, Adam: Dear David, Olly and I are about to announce the official end of our collaboration with a show at Fabra … Continue reading
Five alumni of the School at the International Center of Photography, New York, were commissioned to document their experience of the Covid-19 pandemic throughout the month of April, 2020. Gaia Squarci, Jeenah Moon, Yuki Iwamura, Sarah Blesener, and Jeff Mermelstein. … Continue reading
David, you are well known as a curator and a writer. Why did you begin to take photographs? I have had cameras since I was a kid. Photography has been a way to understand the world and myself, … Continue reading
Is limbo the natural state of the photographic image? It might seem a perverse question given that the whole culture and industry of photography was geared, almost from the start, towards function. Messages. Communication. But we now know very well … Continue reading
David Campany talks with Marcelo Brodsky about his project 1968 – The Fire Of Ideas and the current evolution of visual culture. David Campany: Marcelo, 1968 – The Fire of Ideas is your reconsideration of that landmark year through images … Continue reading
‘EFMR7’ is an essay commissioned for David Rothenberg’s book Roosevelt Station, Perimeter Editions, 2021 Drawing on a series of photographs made between 2019 and 2020 in the Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street train station in Queens, New York, Roosevelt Station proves … Continue reading
An essay written for Jo Dennis’s book I touched this with my hand, I touched that with my eye, 2020. Margins of Error and Expectation. Since it is what you have in your hand, let us begin with a … Continue reading
Exhibition: Houston Center of Photography, opening September 10, 2020. Book published by Schilt. Keeper of the Hearth: Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph, is the first exhibition of Odette England’s book of the same name, which was published in the US in … Continue reading
Running Falling Flying Floating Crawling is a loose compendium of photographs and texts that picture, examine, explore, and / or suggest the human body in states of abandon, helplessness, terror, subjugation, serenity, and transcendence. Words: Kate Palmer Albers, Kim Beil, Tessa … Continue reading
To accompany the exhibition Manoel de Oliveira: Photographer, the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira / Fundação de Serralves will publish a book dedicated to the photographs that belong to the director’s archive. Taken between the late 1930s and the … Continue reading
Lola & Pani, Studio Portraits 2015-2020, Palm Studios Photography by Lola & Pani Curated by Lola & Pani and Alastair McKimm Introduction, ‘To the Unknown Viewer’, by David Campany Alastair McKimm in conversation with Lola & Pani by William Barnes … Continue reading
Dayanita Singh, Montage By David Campany To walk through a doorway and find yourself in a different place entirely. Is this not the most enduring of the wild fantasies smuggled beneath the sober exterior of architectural modernism? What was … Continue reading
Karen Knorr, Questions (after Brecht) GOST Books, November 2020 215 x 300 mm, 88 pp 24 full colour images Hardback 978-1-910401-48-4 Karen Knorr photographed the building site of the disused Parisian Art-Deco Department store, La Samaritaine, in the summers of … Continue reading
Stephen Shore. Room 125, Westbank Motel, Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 18, 1973 David Campany Part of most high school art education involves a trip to the local museum, to sit in front of a painting … Continue reading
Edited by Thomas Zander Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne, 2020. 80 pages, 63 colour illustrations. With an essay by David Campany. Peter Alexander (1939-2020) recorded his visual experience of the Californian zeitgeist in his Polaroids between 1972 … Continue reading
Louis Rogers: Photography is entangled with memory for many of us. How do you remember the development of your photographic interests? David Campany: Cinema was my earliest visual education and escape. British TV in the early 1980s showed incredible seasons … Continue reading
Frido Troost An Educational Archive of 2863 Slides 24 x 33 cm, 400p, ills colour, paperback, English ISBN 9789493146396 text: David Campany design: Floor Komen This publication is composed of all the slides Frido Troost (1960-2013) used for his classes at … Continue reading
Diane Smyth talks to David Campany Aperture, February 12, 20202 Antonia Pérez Rio, Portrait of James Stuart, 2017, from the series Masterpieces Courtesy the artist “Photography has come to symbolize the extremes of contemporary society,” writes author, curator, and artist David Campany … Continue reading
The Lives and Loves of Images is the catalogue of the 2020 Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie in Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg. Paperback: 216 pages Publisher: Kehrer Verlag Language: English (German edition also available) ISBN-10: 3868289712 ISBN-13: 978-3868289718 72 artists in six thematic … Continue reading
David Campany is curator of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, 2020 Seventy artists, six thematic exhibitions in six museums, plus extensive public programme of events and workshops. Artists include: Dennis Adams, Claudia Angelmaier, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Jean-Marc Caimi & … Continue reading
Photographs and works on paper since 1960 from Swiss collection Baloise This survey of Basel-based art collection Baloise―begun in the mid-20th century by the Swiss insurance/financial services company―presents photography and works on paper from the 1960s on, including works by … Continue reading
Many of us have been waiting for a major exhibition of the work of An-My Lê. Now, two have arrived at once, albeit on different continents. The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh is presenting On Contested Terrain, the artist’s first … Continue reading
Part of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Loves of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany Photography has two relations to art. It can be an art in itself – expressive, subjective, creative, inventive. It can be the … Continue reading
Part of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Loves of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany. While photography is an art form, it does not belong exclusively to the world of art. It plays significant roles in all … Continue reading
BiennalePart of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Lovers of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany Artists: Clare Strand, Sebastian Riemer, Thomas Ruff, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa. One of the primary tasks of the twenty-first century has been to make … Continue reading
Part of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Loves of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany Photography has always given rise to striking individual images, but in general it has been a medium of combination. Photographs are brought … Continue reading
Part of the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – The Lives and Loves of Images, 2020, curated by David Campany. We are all acutely aware of the phenomenon of the iconic image. Newspapers and news websites regularly describe photographs as ‘iconic’. And … Continue reading
At the recent show of Garry Winogrand’s color photography from the 1950s and ’60s, presented at the Brooklyn Museum, a woman in her seventies was surprised to see her teenage self on a sidewalk with friends. There she was, frozen … Continue reading
Edition of 800 Hardcover 20x24cm 80 pages ISBN 978-88-94895-33-9 – Designed by Federico Carpani Interview by David Campany John Divola speaks with David Campany DC: John, am I right in thinking the works gathered here were made after you had … Continue reading
Dear David, We always seem to have thought-provoking and meandering conversations when we meet. I was wondering if you would agree to some kind of exchange in the hope that it might become a foreword to a book of pictures … Continue reading
Aperture Magazine #237, Winter 2019: Spirituality Wolfgang Tillmans guest edits Aperture’s “Spirituality” issue, which features contributions by artists, scientists, and writers who examine the different ways photography has been used to represent humanity’s longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. Looking for Transcendence … Continue reading
‘In the Company of Strangers’ Published in George Georgiou, Americans Parade, 2019 What is a parade? Here is one definition: A large number of people walking or in vehicles, all going in the same direction, usually as part of a … Continue reading
David: At what point did this project become a project? Was it clear from quite early? Or did there come a moment when you saw there was really something, beyond research, that was in it for you as an artist? … Continue reading
Edited by Thomas Zander. Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. With texts by David Campany and Klaus Honnef. 88 pages, 42 illustrations German / English The publication juxtaposes works by painters Günter Umberg and James White, inviting a … Continue reading
Text, editing and sequencing by David Campany for the photographic book FloodZone by Anastasia Samoylova. Book edited ans. 136 pages; 9.1 x 10.8 × in. / 23.1 x 27.4 cm; 17 black-and-white and 69 color photographs; Four-color process; Clothbound hardcover. ISBN 978-3-95829-633-6 “The sequence … Continue reading
In 2014, American painter Cynthia Daignault (born 1978) traveled around the entire outside border of the USA, stopping roughly every 25 miles to paint the view before her. The resulting monumental work, Light Atlas, is a grand portrait of … Continue reading
Edited by David Campany Introduction to the book: These are just some of Jeff Mermelstein’s pictures taken mainly on the streets of New York in the last few years. A world of everyday neurosis, minor catastrophe, panic, charm, indiscretion, revelation, fallen pride, deflated … Continue reading
The affection and energy of Antanas Sutkus by David Campany Commissioned for the book Antanas Sutkus – Planet Lithuania, Steidl, 2019 Antanas Sutkus bought his first camera in 1953, aged fourteen, and almost immediately he was making compelling images. It … Continue reading
‘Someone, Somewhere, Sometime’ is the title of a short story by David Campany commissioned for a book by award-winning photographer Maroesjka Lavigne which includes four of the artist’s series: Island, Not Seeing is a Flower, Land of Nothingness, and Lost Lands. … Continue reading
The Crowd and Its Image by David Campany First published in Juan Genovés, Resistencia, La Fabrica, 2019 The Crowd, suddenly there where there was nothing before, is a mysterious and universal phenomenon. A few people may have been standing together—five, … Continue reading
An essay on the recent work of Jeff Wall, commissioned by the FT Weekend Magazine. Summer Afternoons, 2013, Light Jet prints, 2 parts, left: 72 × 83 ½ inches (183 × 212.4 cm), right: 78 ¾ × 98 … Continue reading
‘What do you want to know? What do you want to feel?’ is an essay written for the artist Chen Wei’s book Noon Club, published by Skira, 2019. Bilingual, English / Mandarin An extract: Would you like to know … Continue reading
How Pictures Work: Down the Rabbit Hole with David Campany June 25, 2019 Gregory Eddi Jones. So, David, what have you been thinking about lately? David Campany. I tend to juggle a few projects at once. Currently, it’s curating a … Continue reading
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2017 David: Morten to begin with, could you say at little about the origins of the Terra Nullius series? Was it clear from the start what you had … Continue reading
David Campany ANY ANSWERS British Journal of Photography, issue n. 7883. Questions and portrait by Michael Grieve. Did you study photography? What was your experience of education? As an teenager I was self-taught. Photography, cinema, literature. A darkroom, lots of … Continue reading
‘Uncertainty Multiplied’ is an essay included in David Jiménez’s book Universos, RM Verlag, 2019 The fact that photography is still with us, after around 180 years, is a good enough indication that we have not yet exhausted its possibilities, … Continue reading
In the early 1990s, with the internet still in its infancy, Bill Gates began to buy up many vast archives of historic photographs. Any image has the potential to be reused, and Gates was quick to realise that the internet … Continue reading
D&A Dialogue is a book based on www.instagram.com/dialogue_aandd/, an image conversation between David Campany and Anastasia Samoylova. It is edited and designed by Joshua Schaedel and Rebecca King, of The Fulcrum Press. Published in Summer 2019. Campany and Samoylova shoot … Continue reading
Victor Burgin, installation view of Photopath (1967-69), realized for the exhibition When Attitudes Became Form, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1985. In his very short story ‘On Exactitude in Science’, Jorge Luis Borges describes a civilization that desires maps of ever-finer detail. … Continue reading
Alex Majoli: Scene Exhibition, Le Bal, Paris, February 22 – April 28, 2018 Co-curated by Diane Dufour & David Campany Installation photos © Alessandro Zoboli Book published by MACK Large-format paperback with jacket, 38 x 22.5 cm, essays by David Campany and Corinne Rondeau. French and … Continue reading
A conversation commissioned by Foto Colectania, Spain, on the subject of “Reading Images”, 2018 Dear Anastasia, The subject we have been invited by Foto Colectania to explore in the coming months is ‘Reading Images’. I hope we can do this … Continue reading
What Does Photo Editing Look Like? By David Campany Henrik Malmström, Editing OK Cloth Shop (Kominek Books, 2018), 2014 Courtesy the artist For some photographers, editing is the heart of the matter, the place where the real work is done, … Continue reading
RHOME, MASA/FUAM editions, 500 copies – trade book, Hard Cover 148 pages, Black and white duotone pictures, Munken Pure paper, 17,5 X 23 cm Afterword: David Campany. Recipient of the FUAM dummy book award RHOME is a journey through the multiple microcosms of Rome, our city of … Continue reading
‘Too Many Images: David Campany, Linder, and John Stezaker Discuss the Use of Found Footage In and After the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in Conversations, issue 2, published by Luxembourg & Dayan, 2018 SHARE Soft Cover 39 pages ISBN: 978-0-9956125-5-6 Dimensions: … Continue reading
Getting it Exactly Wrong. The Photobook Review n.15, 2018 DC: I get the impression that you’ve come to be known as much for the way you set up relations between your images, in your books and exhibitions, as the images … Continue reading
David Campany is guest editor of Aperture’s The Photobook Review, issue 15. Its theme is image editing. The Photobook review no 15, on Editing Features and Columns: Editor’s Note David Campany Publisher’s Note Lesley A. Martin Publisher Profile Roma Publications by Taco Hidde … Continue reading
They Lived Together in a House Without Images by David Campany They lived together in a house without images. No pictures on the walls. No illustrated books on the shelves. No images on wallpaper or rugs. No glowing resemblances … Continue reading
David Campany Writer and Curator of a Handful of Dust 1000 Words Editor in Chief, Tim Clark speaks with the writer and curator David Campany ahead of his forthcoming exhibition a Handful of Dust, which opens at the Whitechapel Gallery on June 7th. Having previously … Continue reading
A 104-page hardcover catalogue with 47 illustrations, including 39 full-page reproductions, featuring the first scholarship on Penn’s painting practice, with essays by writer and curator, David Campany, and legacy program manager at The Irving Penn Foundation, Alexandra Dennett; with afterwords … Continue reading
Hardcover: 104 pages Publisher: Hayward Gallery Publishing Language: English ISBN-10: 1853323616 ISBN-13: 978-1853323614 Product Dimensions: 15.2 x 20.3 cm Silver and Glass is the first publication to explore the application and influence of photography in the art of British artist … Continue reading
Electa has published the catalogue of the exhibition Luigi Ghirri. The Landscape of Architecture, curated by Michele Nastasi, presented in the spaces of the Triennale di Milano (May 25 – August 26, 2018). Born out of collaboration between the Museo di … Continue reading
@dialogue_aandd is a purely visual conversation on Instagram between David Campany and Anastasia Samoylova. The artists posted alternately, responding to each other’s images for five years, 2017-2022. In total, 4703 images were exchanged. View Here
‘Making Art from Art’, an essay written for the exhibition catalogue A Matter of Light. Nine photographers in the Vatican Museums, Contrasto Books, 2018 Publisher’s description: The book brings together the eyes of nine masters of international photography called to … Continue reading
An essay on Dorothea Lange’s well-known image, written for The Politics of Seeing, the book of the Barbican Art Gallery London / Jeu de Paume, Paris exhibition. Published by Prestel, 2018 Other essays by Drew Heath Johnson, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, and Alona … Continue reading
‘Modern Vision: revisiting Film und Foto, the 1929 exhibition that blended photography and cinema’ Very few exhibitions can genuinely be regarded as landmarks, having instant and profound effects on perceptions. One of these was Film und Foto, the … Continue reading
Tshirt #021 of the exclusive ‘DoBeDo Photographer Series’ is ‘Gasoline’ by David Campany. The images for this T-shirt are taken from Campany’s book Gasoline; a collection of press photos of American gas stations published by MACK. “A news photo of … Continue reading
So Present, So Invisible. Conversations on Photography Published by Contrasto, 2018 Italian lanuage edition, Così presente, così invisibile. “There is a lot of casual chat about photography, just as there is a lot of casual photography. But there have always been articulate voices, … Continue reading
Physical Space, Image Space, Psychical Space an essay written for the catalogue of the exhibition The Pulse of the Body: Uses and Representations of Space, Bombas Gens Centre d’Art, 14.03.2018 – 20.01.2019. Curated by Nuria Enguita and Vicente Todolí. Publication edited by Nuria … Continue reading
Billboard by David Campany featuring vintage press photographs of Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting Christina’s World. 2 Hoxton Street, London One of a series of artists’ billboards organised by Mustafa Hulusi.
The Singular Picture by David Campany It is forty years since Jeff Wall began in earnest the artistic project for which he has become so well known internationally: photographs, sometimes documentary in nature, sometimes made through preparation and collaboration, conceived … Continue reading
Yesterday’s News is a series of public billboards around the city of Vancouver, Canada, by artists reworking old press photographs. Part of the Capture Photography Festival 2018. Curated by David Campany Artists: Thomas Ruff, Jonah Samson, and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa Lecture by David Campany: … Continue reading
Touching on themes of gender and sexuality, countercultures, subcultures and minorities of all kinds, Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins features the work of 20 photographers from the 1950s to the present day. The exhibition is accompanied by … Continue reading
Umbrellas, Sewing Machines and Mirthless Frog Death. An essay written for Charles Traub’s book Taradiddle, 2018. Pick one of the photographs from this book. Any one. The one you like the most. Describe it. Put into words what you see, … Continue reading
Published in conjunction with an exhibition of John Stezaker’s collages and found objects at City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, Lost World contains ‘After Images’, a conversation between the artist and David Campany. 27 × 22.5 cm | 10 5/8 × 8 … Continue reading
RVM magazine no. 1, the ‘Red’ issue contains an essay on the colour red in the Kodachrome photography of Fred Herzog, Tod Papageorge and Harry Gruyaert. Text in English and Italian. Kodachrome Red – Fred Herzog, Tod Papageorge and Harry … Continue reading
The book for Stephen Shore’s 2017/18 retrospective exhibition at MoMA, New York, is organized as an A-Z. David Campany has written nine of the alphabetical entries. Stephen Shore, edited by Quentin Bajac, text by David Campany, Kristen Gaylord, Martino Stierli. The Museum of Modern Art, 9781633450486 … Continue reading
‘Photography and the Present’, an essay commissioned for the 2017 issue of UNSEEN magazine. by David Campany I have been invited to write something about photography in 2017. The “current state of the photographic medium” to be precise. Defining its … Continue reading
‘Colour, Continued’, Art Press, November 2017. Published in English and French (see end of feature for the French version). by David Campany Colour photography is now so ubiquitous we hardly think about it. It would be like asking a fish … Continue reading
You Get Me? Mahtab Hussain’s tender portraits question the image of South Asian Muslim men in Britain. He talks here with David Campany. Mahtab Hussain, Young boy, white boxing gloves, 2010, from the series You Get Me? Courtesy the artist … Continue reading
Ahorn Books has published a volume of writings exploring Ron Jude’s book of photographs, Lago (MACK 2015). It contains a conversation between David Campany and Ron Jude. Ahorn Books Conversation between David Campany and Ron Jude David: Ron, I am trying … Continue reading
Curated by David Campany and Denise Wolff, this large show explores the long history of photographers going on the road in north America. It includes the work of Robert Frank, Ed Ruscha, Garry Winogrand, Inge Morath, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Joel … Continue reading
A Place Both Wonderful and Strange is a photographic anthology published by FUEGO BOOKS that brings together the work of 12 international photographers in a narration inspired by Twin Peaks and the work of David Lynch. David Campany contributes a short … Continue reading
‘A Mystery Unto Himself’ is an essay by David Campany written for Lise Sarfati’s book Oh Man, published by STEIDL, 2017 Cover: A Mystery unto Himself The simplest or the strongest of these beings has been … Continue reading
The photographic image is essentially still and silent. No movement, no sound, no time. What happens if you add one of these missing elements? The exhibition The Still Point of the Turning World: Between Film and Photography focuses on practices in which a … Continue reading
‘Image Ventriloquism and the Visual Primer’ is an essay written by David Campany for the book Thomas Ruff, published on the occasion of an exhibition of Ruff’s work at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 21 September 2017 – 21 January 2018 Paperback: … Continue reading
Tod Papageorge, Dr. Blankman’s New York – Kodachromes 1966–1967 Afterword by David Campany. Book design by Tod Papageorge and Gerhard Steidl. 136 pages, 60 color photographs, four-color process Hardcover € 45.00 / £ 40.00 / US$ 50.00 ISBN 978-3-95829-108-9 Cover of … Continue reading
‘The Hook’ is an essay written for Txema Salvans’s book of photographs The Waiting Game II, published by RM, Spain, 2017. ‘Fishing’ has been a familiar metaphor for photography for a long time now. ‘Hunting’ too, describing the street photographer … Continue reading
Published by MACK English language second edition available. The French edition , DUST. Histoires de poussière D’après Man Ray et Marcel Duchamp, is out of print. a Handful of Dust is David Campany’s speculative history of the last century, and a visual … Continue reading
Photographs are unruly, anarchic things. They never do quite what you expect. This may appear an odd claim, given that most photos seem to be so obvious, clichéd even. Don’t they perform reliably enough in advertising, documentary, and the … Continue reading
East/West, a two-volume book of photographs by Harry Gruyaert, includes an introductory essay by David Campany. The book brings together photographs made in Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 1982, with photographs made in Moscow in 1989. Published by Textuel (French), … Continue reading
Beneath the Street – Helen Levitt’s Subway Photographs by David Campany Helen Levitt’s pictures haunt like intimate ghosts – ever present, never forceful, curious, receptive. The photographer herself confessed to being “inarticulate”, and rarely discussed the images she made in … Continue reading
David Goldes’s book Electricities contains a conversation between the artist and David Campany.
The essay ‘A Special Collection’, is published in Photography RX: Pharmacy in Photography Since 1866, edited by Deboarh G. Davis & Shawn Waldron, Damiani Editore, 2017 PhotoRx highlights a surprising collection of one hundred works, mostly photographs, dating from 1850 to the … Continue reading
Now almost 90 and still working, William Klein is one of the giants of 20th-century photography. His work includes gritty street shots such those collected in his first book Life is Good & Good for You in New York 1956, groundbreaking fashion … Continue reading
Texts and image selections by Wes Anderson, Quentin Bajac, David Campany, Paul Graham, Guido Guidi, Takashi Homma, An-My Lê, Michael Lesy, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Richard Prince, Francine Prose, Ed Ruscha, Britt Salvesen, Taryn Simon, Thomas Struth, and Lynne Tillman. Publisher’s … Continue reading
Curated by David Campany
The Photobook Review n 12, Spring 2017 includes an essay by David Campany about books based on films and cinematic imagery. We have all heard photographs described as poetic, sculptural, painterly, literary, or cinematic. It is commonplace to look outside … Continue reading
”Working for magazines’ and ‘Works’ for magazines: Walker Evans, the popular press and conceptual art’ is an essay written by David Campany for the exhibition catalogue Walker Evans, edited by Clement Cheroux. The exhibition is presented at the Centre Pompidou, … Continue reading
EDITED BY: Laura Gasparini, Alberto Ferraboschi BINDING: Paperback with flaps SIZE: 23 x 28 cm PAGES: 176 ILLUSTRATIONS: 136 LANGUAGE: Italian YEAR: 2017 ISBN: 9788836637027 Stephen Shore in conversation with David Campany David: Stephen, in 1993 you were invited to … Continue reading
Domestic Disorder: Re-viewing the Photographs of Robert Cumming by David Campany The film director Alfred Hitchcock used to complain about the typical dream sequences in movies: so often they were hazy and out of focus, all gauzy filters and slow … Continue reading
‘Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. Stray thoughts on Peter Fraser’s Mathematics‘ is an essay commissioned for Peter Fraser’s book Mathematics, published by Skinnerboox, 2017. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. Stray thoughts on Peter Fraser’s Mathematics David Campany … Continue reading
FOAM n. 47, contains a commentary by David Campany on Issue 12 (1933) of USSR in Construction, the Stalinist propaganda magazine. This issue was dedicated to the building the Baltic White Sea Canal, and was photographed and designed by Alexander Rodchenko. … Continue reading
This survey book of the work of Lewis Baltz contains a long conversation recorded shortly before his death. It covers whole of the Baltz’s working life, from his earliest ‘topographic’ projects in California in the 1960s, 70s and 80s to the very different … Continue reading
‘Under, Outside and Between: the elusive art of Ed van der Elsken’ is an essay written for Camera in Love, the catalogue of the Stedelijk Museum’s major survey of the work of Ed van der Elsken. The essay looks at … Continue reading
‘The Working Life: Photography and the Depiction of Labor’ is an essay written for Aperture magazine #226: American Destiny. In 1899, Frances Benjamin Johnston was commissioned to photograph the working life of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which had … Continue reading
The expanded edition of Peter Fraser’s Two Blue Buckets includes a conversation between the photographer and David Campany. Published by Peperoni Books Renewed Blue Buckets Peter Fraser and David Campany in Conversation. David: Peter, many of the British books of colour … Continue reading
This book of Greg Girard’s early photographs of Vancouver includes an extended dialogue between the photographer and David Campany. Published by Magenta Foundation. Girard’s photographs from the 1970s and early 1980s show us the city’s final days as a port … Continue reading
Edited by Mark Neville and David Campany. Published by Steidl, October 2016. Fancy Pictures brings together six of Mark Neville’s major projects about working communities, made through a collaborative process and intended to be of direct, practical benefit to his subjects. The Port Glasgow … Continue reading
For those of us that dwell, partly or wholly, in the exile of images, it may seem as if a prime task of the twenty-first century thus far has been to make sense of the twentieth: to pick over its … Continue reading
A small text on Helen Levitt’s photograph New York City, c. 1980. Written for the Capilano Review, Summer 2016. Making street photographs is both a formal photographic game and a test for anyone keen to discover what they really think about the world … Continue reading
John Tagg’s invitation to respond dropped into my email inbox while I sat with coffee in New York after seeing two separate exhibitions by the British artist and writer Victor Burgin. A good coincidence. A Chelsea gallery was presenting two … Continue reading
‘A Question of Finish: thoughts on the work of Jeff Cowen’ is an essay commissioned for Jeff Cowen’s book Photoworks, published by König in 2016, on the occasion of a major traveling exhibition of his work. A Question of Finish. Thoughts on … Continue reading
ONE, published by Radius Books, pairs images by eight photographers with words by eight writers, all around the broad theme of ‘the minimal’. Hardcover / 12.5 x 10.5 inches 64 pages Print run of 150 copies Each copy includes 10 original signed photographic … Continue reading
An essay on the work of the Vancouver photographer Fred Herzog, commissioned for the book Fred Herzog: Modern Color, Hatje Cantz, 2016 Text in German / English, 320 pp., 230 ills., 26.50 x 26.50 cm, hardcover ISBN 978-3-7757-4181-1 Of Time and Place … Continue reading
‘Modern Women: David Campany, Marta Gili, Julie Jones and Roxana Marcoci on the women who dominated photography between the wars’. Aperture magazine n. 225: On Feminism, 2016 (10 pages) Marta Gili is Director of the Jeu de Paume, Paris Julie Jones is Assistant … Continue reading
Walker Evans: the Magazine Work CCP, Melbourne, Australia, October 1 – November 13, 2016 Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 30 July – 18 September, 2016 Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, Italy, May 6 – July 9, 2016. Curated by David Campany, … Continue reading
‘Adventures in the Lea Valley’ by Polly Braden and David Campany. 112pp hardcover, quarter-bound, gold foiled, 199 x 139 mm This book is also available to buy as a Collector’s Edition here. Before the arrival of the 2012 Olympic Games, the … Continue reading
‘Light and Dark Chambers’ is an essay commissioned for the photographer Todd Hido’s major survey Intimate Distance: 25 Years, published by Aperture, 2016. French co-edition published by Editions Textuel. Expanded and republished in 2025 Light and Dark Chambers By … Continue reading
An extended essay commissioned on the occasion of Fiona Tan’s work, Ascent. Slip case binding with 3 softcover books, 80 pages each. Illustrated in colour Published by Izu Photo Museum, Shizuoka, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, NOHARA Publishers, 2016 ISBN 13: 978-4-904257-36-4 … Continue reading
Where the Other Rests / Il y a de l’autre, a thematic exhibition curated by Julie Jones and Agnès Geoffray for the Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles 2016, includes an especially conceived video projection based on David Campany’s book Rich and Strange (Chopped … Continue reading
A short text written for Source magazine’s special issue on sound and photography: It is a truism, a cliché even, that photography is mute, and strictly speaking there is no audio equivalent of the frozen image. Recorded sound is continuous, whereas … Continue reading
‘Seeing Slowly’ is an essay written for Markus Brunetti’s book FACADES, self-published by Brunetti 2016. Text in English, French and German. Seeing Slowly. Markus Brunetti’s Façades. by David Campany Sitting to write about Markus Brunetti’s remarkable series Façades, I have on … Continue reading
Sunil Shah talks with David Campany on the occasion of the republication of Allan Sekula’s book Photography Against the Grain. Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo-works 1973-1983 First published on the website American Suburb X. Sunil Shah: As an … Continue reading
The Difficulties of Nonsense, a book of Robert Cumming’s photography contains a conversation between Cumming and David Campany. Published by Aperture, edited with text by Sarah Bay Gachot. In the 1970s, from his base in Los Angeles, artist Robert Cumming (born 1943) made … Continue reading
Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (SWW): We’ve spoken before about Jeff Wall’s Depiction Object Event lecture (2006), and ways of exploring relationships between archival photographs and Readymades. You’ve just contributed an essay to John Stezaker’s latest book, Unassisted Readymade [Walther König, 2016]. How … Continue reading
‘Doomed to See’ is an essay written by David Campany for Andreas Gefeller’s book BLANK. Published by Hatje Cantz, 2016. German / English, 128 pp., 46 ills., 29.00 x 32.00 cm, hardcover, ISBN 978-3-7757-4116-3 Doomed to See by David Campany Our metaphors of light are … Continue reading
Documentum.TV is a guest-curated periodical archiving & examining the cultural ephemera of our time. Volume 1 considers the phenomenon of Instagram through the eyes of artists, writers, and cultural thinkers. The inaugural issue – The Instagram Issue – is guest curated by … Continue reading
Brad Feuerhelm talks with David Campany David Campany is an Author, Artist, Writer, Lecturer, Curator, Collector, etc. etc. He lives and breathes photography. By metaphor alone this is possibly a cogent transition for discussing “A Handful of Dust”, his current … Continue reading
Klaus Fruchtnis talks to David Campany First published by URBANAUTICA, 2015 Portrait of David Campany by Drew Sawyer David Campany is a British writer, curator, artist and teacher, working mainly with photography. Campany has written and edited books; contributed essays and … Continue reading
Jo Spence: The Final Project, curated by David Campany. An exhibition of the work of British photographer Jo Spence (1934-1992) produced in the last two years of her life before her death from leukaemia. Richard Saltoun Gallery, 111 Great Titchfield Street, London … Continue reading
‘Anonymous and incognito’ is an essay by David Campany featured in the book Walker Evans: Labor Anonymous Published by D.A.P./Koenig, 2015 Edited by Thomas Zander. Texts by David Campany, Heinz Liesbrock and Jerry L. Thompson. Walker Evans shot the photographs collected … Continue reading
David Campany introduces recent photographs by Justine Kurland in Aperture magazine n. 222, Spring 2016 Justine Kurland, Like a Black Snake, 2008 The actualities and the myths, the facts and the metaphors. Justine Kurland photographs America’s tangled sense of itself. How … Continue reading
David Campany’s essay ‘The Given Image’ appears in John Stezaker’s book Unassisted Readymades. JRP Ringier, 2015. Text in English and German. ISBN: 978-3-03764-449-2; Hardcover, 245 x 345 mm; 144 pages; 79 color images
Dust might be the enemy of photography, but for curator David Campany, the recent exhibition A Handful of Dust was a “dream show.” In this interview, Campany discusses with Brendan Embser the strange career of a surrealist photograph. Man Ray … Continue reading
Dick Jewell in conversation with David Campany, marking the publication of Jewell’s new book Four Thousand Threads. Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 6.30 pm, December 2, 2015 Examining the phenomena of online photo sharing, Dick Jewell’s book Four Thousand Threads amasses a vast … Continue reading
A short study of Walker Evans – photographer, editor and writer. The book has an introductory essay and forty-two images, each with an extended commentary. Published by Aperture (Mandarin Chinese co-edition available) 8 x 8 inches, 96 pages, 43 duotone and four-color images. Hardcover … Continue reading
‘Ideas, Images and the Vital Remainder’ is an essay on the work of John Hilliard, published in his book Accident and Design, Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin / Paris Holzwarth Publications, 2015
‘Irving Penn’s Flowers’ is an essay by David Campany written for the book Irving Penn: Flowers, published by Hamilton’s Gallery, London in collaboration with the Irving Penn Foundation, 2015 Image: Irving Penn, Iceland Poppy, Papaver Nudicaule (B), New York, 2006. Courtesy … Continue reading
In 2004 a little gallery in Los Angeles asked me for a list of 100 works of culture that I felt had ‘influenced’ my interest in photography. Influence is a spurious idea. More often than not we don’t really know … Continue reading
‘High and Low. Jennifer Higgie talks to curator David Campany about his latest exhibition and asks why photography was so central to modernism.’ Frieze Masters magazine no.4, 2015 Jennifer Higgie: The exhibition you have curated, ‘A Handful of Dust’ … Continue reading
‘Affection and Suspicion. A Productive Tension’ is an essay published in C Photo vol.2, n. 10 – Don’t Call Me a Photographer!, 2015 Ivory Press, ISBN 9788494282065 After ten years exploring the diversity of approaches employed by contemporary photographers, the final volume of C … Continue reading
‘Between the Snapshot and Staged Photography’ is an essay by David Campany written the book Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now, published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2015 [Author’s note: originally, the essay was to be titled ‘New Narratives’, … Continue reading
A conversation with LaToya Ruby Frazier, published in Frieze magazine n.172. U.P.M.C. Global Corporation, 2011, silver gelatin print mounted on archival museum cardboard, 50 × 40 cm. Courtesy: All images the artist and Michel Rein, Brussels and Paris Over the past decade, us … Continue reading
‘Stillness’, an essay on the long relationship between still photography and the moving image, appears in the anthology Vision Anew: The Lens and Screen Arts, edited by Adam Bell and Charles H. Traub for the University of California Press, 2015.
‘Vision and Beyond’, an essay written for David Batchelder’s book TIDELAND, Schilt Publishing, September 2015. Vision and Beyond David Batchelder made these photographs between 2010 and 2015 in the tidal zone on the beaches that fringe Isle … Continue reading
A short appreciation of Bern Porter’s little-known ‘found image’ book Dieresis (1969), published in Aperture magazine n. 219, Summer 2015 Baritone singer in his collegiate glee club. Developer of the cathode ray tube used for television. Part of the … Continue reading
Fast World, Slow Photography A short essay on the work of Lewis Baltz, written for the Financial Times Weekend magazine photo supplement, May 16, 2015. Lewis Baltz, ‘North Wall Steelcase 1123 Warner Avenue Tustin, 1974’ from the series The New Industrial Parks near … Continue reading
I have helped Mark Neville in the editing of The Battle Against Stigma Book Project, 2015 Press Release: “I thought that mental health and mental health care were a load of **** until I needed help and went and got treatment … Continue reading
‘Photography as Rehearsal / Rehearsal as Photography’ is an essay written for the book Staging Disorder, published by Black Dog Books, edited by Christopher Stewart and Esther Teichmann. Photography as Rehearsal / Rehearsal as Photography by David Campany What happens … Continue reading
projectivewritings on the work of Victor Burgin Contributors: Gülru Çakmak, David Campany, Homay King, D. N. Rodowick and Anthony Vidler 2014, 172 pages, 31 reproductions, 17 x 24 cm. ISBN : 978-2-94015-965-9 ; 24 CHF / 20 euros. Publisher: MAMCO, Geneva Includes an extended conversation between … Continue reading
Photography, Encore. An essay written for the book Time Present: Photography from the Deutsche Bank Collection, 2014 For the better part of a century now, it has been customary to begin an essay about contemporary photography with reference either to … Continue reading
These are the books that remain in my mind and on my desk at the close of 2014. All explore the depiction of conflict. Shooting Range: Photography and the Great War, Inge Henneman ed., FotoMuseum Antwerp. The scholar and curator Inge Henneman … Continue reading
‘All the World’s a Stage’ by David Campany When patrons visited the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazieto to see Leonardo da Vinci’s progress on The Last Supper, very often they found the artist was not there. He would be out … Continue reading
Survey of photographic road trips in America, 1906 to the present. Published by Aperture Winner of the Alice Award 2015 Shortlisted for the Krazsna-Krausz Award French version – Road Trips: Voyages photographiques à travers l’Amérique, published by Textuel Spanish version – En La Carretera, published … Continue reading
‘The Domain of Occurrence: Jeff Wall in conversation with David Campany’ First published in Spanish, in Concreta magazine n.4, 2014 DC: Jeff, in the past you have spoken of picture making as a set of challenges that often float free, … Continue reading
The ‘Photobook’: What’s in a name? The term ‘photobook’ is recent. It hardly appears in writings and discussions before the twenty-first century. This is surprising given that some of the various kinds of objects it purports to designate have been … Continue reading
‘Into the Light’ is an essay written for William Klein’s BLACK+LIGHT, the long-awaited publication of his 1952 maquette of abstract photography. Published by Imprint/HackelBury Gallery, 2014. Into the Light by David Campany In the last year or two I have visited William Klein … Continue reading
‘Stardust’ is an essay written for Mona Kuhn’s book PRIVATE, published by Steidl, 2014. Stardust Photography people like coincidences. Maybe it’s because we work with fragments. Pieces of jigsaws with shapes we must invent and coherence we must divine. I … Continue reading
Stephen Shore: Survey Published by Aperture (English)/ Fundación MAPFRE (English EU and Spanish versions) / Contrasto (Italian) In 2013 Stephen Shore and I had a long conversation covering the entirety of his career, from his first time in the darkroom (aged 6) to the … Continue reading
‘Spectacle of Surveillance’, an essay by David Campany for Jules Spinatsch’s project book Vienna MMIX-10008/7000: Surveillance Panorama Project No. 4 – The Vienna Opera Ball. Published by Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich, 2014. Spectacle of Surveillance by David Campany The Vienna State Opera House. A state-of-the art … Continue reading
What on Earth? David Campany What happens when we look at a photograph but cannot figure out what it is of? Never mind what it means, just what it is of? Most images aim to be easy, so this is … Continue reading
‘Architecture as Photography: document, publicity, commentary, art’. An essay written for the book accompanying the exhibition Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, Barbican Gallery London, 25 September 2014 – 11 January 2015; ArkDes Stockholm, 20 February – 17 May … Continue reading
An exhibition of key works by Lewis Baltz seen in relation to the cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard. Curated by Dominique Païni, David Campany and Diane Dufour. Le Bal, Paris, May 23- August 24 Accompanying book published by … Continue reading
‘Lewis Baltz, Cinema and the Intuition of Nothing’ – a brief essay written on the occasion of the exhibition Lewis Baltz: Common Objects – Hitchcock, Antonioni, Godard, at Le Bal, Paris, 2014. Published in the accompanying catalogue issued by Steidl/ Le … Continue reading