Gordon Parks
in ‘American Job 1940–2011’, International Center of Photography (ICP), New York
23 January – 5 May 2025
Gordon Parks, Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1952 © The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks is included in American Job: 1940-2011 a group exhibition at ICP New York. Drawing from works by more than 40 photographers in the ICP collection, with the addition of exhibition prints from contemporary photographers, the exhibition highlights the collection’s breadth and contemporary relevance by surveying the photographic response to labor organising and strike activity, race and gender discrimination in labor, organised labor’s role in politics, labor and activism, and the intersection of labor and the social changes wrought by the economic restructurings of the twentieth century.
Makeda Best, photography historian and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, has guest curated the exhibition, which features works by photographers including Cornell Capa, Chien-Chi Chang, Arnold Eagle, Robert Frank, Otto Hagel, Bettye Lane, Freda Leinwand, Ken Light, Danny Lyon, Susan Meiselas, Charles Moore, Barbara Norfleet, Gordon Parks, Sophie Rivera, Accra Shepp, Eugene Smith, Dylan Vitone, Todd Webb, Dan Weiner, Bill Wood, and many more.