October 3, 2026–January 31, 2027

Typically understood as a tool for seeing the world as it is, photography is equally valuable for imagining what could be. This exhibition argues that the visionary potential of photography has been chiefly expressed through design. Spanning a century, from the 1920s to the present, this exhibition offers “photo-design” to describe how graphic designers, architects, and artists use photography to imagine new ways of living in times when the future seems uncertain and not guaranteed. Works by artists and designers including Marshall Brown, the Guerrilla Girls, László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Eduardo Paolozzi, Jorge Rigamonte, Grete Stern, and many others illuminate how photo-design shapes our experiences of the modern world. Design offers radical ideas about how to live, taking advantage of photography’s strong association with reality, using equally radical and disruptive techniques including collage, montage, and experimental printing to envision new futures. Today as a century ago, one way we begin to emerge from disaster is to imagine our way out of it.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Hoene Hoy Photography Fund and the Evelyn B. Metzger Exhibition Fund.