Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present

Curated by Prof. Maria Antonella Pelizzari with graduate students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate     

On the occasion of Magnum Photos’ 70th Anniversary, the Hunter College Art Galleries presents Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present, an exhibition that revisits the history of the cooperative photo agency, focusing on the idea of “Community”—a subject that has been central to the practice of photographers and continues to be crucial in our time.

Framing Community features a selection of 17 visions and narratives representing communities in a conflicted, dispersed, and racially fractured state. The subjects of this photo exhibition are searching to belong, while living in exile and navigating shifting politics and identities. Organized into four thematic sections: Longing for Community, Shifting Community, Contested Territories, and Displaced Community, the exhibition includes works by photographers Bruno Barbey, René Burri, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Bieke Depoorter, Carl de Keyzer, Paul Fusco, Jim Goldberg, Thomas Hoepker, Josef Koudelka, Susan Meiselas, Alessandra Sanguinetti, David Seymour, Alec Soth, Larry Towell, Peter van Agtmael and Alex Webb.

Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present was developed over a two-semester curatorial seminar, led by Art History Professor Maria Antonella Pelizzari, and is the result of an exceptional team effort by the graduate students involved in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate at Hunter College. In addition to the exhibition, the class produced a comprehensive catalogue, published by Hirmer Verlag and available through University of Chicago Press and Thames and Hudson. 

Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947–Present is made possible by the generous support of the David Bershad Family Foundation, the Susan V. Bershad Charitable Fund, Inc., The Crossways Foundation, Arthur and Carol Kaufman Goldberg, the Leubsdorf Fund, Linda Macklowe, and Agnes Gund in support of the Curatorial Certificate Program.

Public programming

Magnum Photos Inside Out
Friday, October 27, 10:30am–4:30pm
Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
47-49 East 65th Street New York, NY 

One-day forum on Magnum Photos and the idea of community. See website for additional information.

About the Advanced Curatorial Certificate
Hunter’s Department of Art & Art History has long provided its graduate students the opportunity to work with faculty and our galleries’ professional staff on exhibitions of exceptional quality. The new Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies builds on that tradition and the curatorial interests and ambitions of Hunter faculty and students—and our commitment to exhibitions whose themes, theses, and checklists have been developed and honed by our students. The program is designed to offer both a theoretical and historical grounding in curatorial practices and practical experience in exhibition organization and display and object research and preservation. Every student enrolled in the certificate program has the opportunity to work on an exhibition from inception to fruition, whether in the annual Curatorial Seminar or in faculty-supervised guided internships in the Hunter College Art Galleries or in museums and galleries beyond the College.

About Hunter College Art Galleries
The Hunter College Art Galleries, under the auspices of the Department of Art and Art History provide a space for critical engagement with art and pedagogy, bringing together historical scholarship, contemporary artistic practice, and experimental methodology. The galleries are committed to producing exhibitions, events, and scholarship in dialogue with the intellectual discourse generated by the faculty and students at Hunter and serve as an integral extension of the department’s academic programs.

Widely regarded as one of the leading art programs in the country, Hunter College’s Department of Art and Art History serves both undergraduate and graduate students, offering an undergraduate major in Art, a BFA and an MFA in Studio Art, and an MA in Art History.