Susan Meiselas (USA, 1948), is a documentary photographer based in New York. She is the author of Carnival Strippers (1976), Nicaragua (1981), Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997), Pandora’s Box (2001), Encounters with the Dani (2003), Prince Street Girls (2016), A Room of Their Own (2017), Tar Beach (2020) and Carnival Strippers Revisited (2022). Meiselas is well known for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Her photographs are included in North American and international collections. In 1992 she was made a MacArthur Fellow, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), and most recently the first Women in Motion Award from Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles (2019). Mediations, a survey exhibition of her work from the 1970s to present was initiated by Jeu de Paume and traveled to Barcelona, San Francisco, Sao Paolo, Vienna, Antwerp, Berlin and is presently on view at Jakopič Galerija in Ljubljiana, Slovenia. Meiselas has been the President of the Magnum Foundation since 2007, with a mission to expand diversity and creativity in documentary photography.

Susan Meiselas is a member of the Magnum Agency and a president of Magnum Foundation since 2007. She has been using her camera to witness and connect for the past five decades. In her early career, she has worked as a teacher in New York City and organized photography workshops for rural schools in the American South. She travelled to Nicaragua and later to El Salvador during the worst civil wars in those countries. In the following decades, she continued to get involved in various communities and conflicts around the world. Meiselas has travelled the world covering topics ranging from the sex industry to war and human rights violations. She draws attention to minorities and conflicts that are often overlooked. She always seeks direct contact and dialogue with the people she portrays. Her approach is collaborative and includes the perspective of the people she photographs.

About the Artist. Art works I Projects

Susan Meiselas, born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1948, received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA in visual education from Harvard University. Her first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs, who she photographed during three consecutive summers while teaching photography in New York public schools. Carnival Strippers was originally published in 1976 and a selection was installed at the Whitney Museum of Art in June 2000.

Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976, being one of the first women to do it, and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her extensive documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. She published her second monograph, Nicaragua, June 1978– July 1979, in 1981.

She also served as an editor and contributor to the book El Salvador: The Work of Thirty Photographers (1983) and edited Chile from Within (1991) featuring work by photographers living under the Pinochet regime, as well as an updated e-book on the 40th anniversary of the Chilean coup (2013).

Meiselas has co- directed three films, Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family (1986); Pictures from a Revolution (1991) with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti where she searches for the people in her photographs ten years after they were taken and Re-framing History (2004) where she returns to Nicaragua again, on the 25th anniversary of the Revolution, with 19 murals to place them in the landscape where they were first made to again interrogate the history they represent.

In 1997, she completed a six-year project curating a hundred-year photographic history of Kurdistan, integrating her own work into the book Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997) along with the pioneering website akaKURDISTAN (1998), an online archive of collective memory and cultural exchange.

Her 2001 monograph Pandora’s Box (2001) which explores a New York S & M club, has been exhibited both at home and abroad. The 2003 book and exhibition Encounters with the Dani documents a sixty-year history of outsiders’ discovery and interactions with the Dani, an indigenous people of the highlands of Papua in Indonesia. Her first retrospective exhibition and book In History (2008) was produced with the International Center for Photography and published by Steidl. A further survey of Meiselas’ four decades of work, Mediations, launched in 2017 and traveled to the Fundacion Tapies in Barcelona, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Instituto Moreira Salles in Sao Paulo.

A more recent project A Room Of Their Own (2015-2016) explores the experiences of women taking refuge in the Black Country UK. Commissioned by UK based arts organization Multistory, Meiselas led a series of workshops with women in refuge to create a visual narrative combining photographs, first hand testimonies and original artwork. A Room Of Their Own was published by Multistory in 2017.

The latest book, Tar Beach (2020), gathers family photographs and memories from Little Italy, New York, with two of her neighbors, focusing on life on the rooftops, celebrating everyday lives from the 1930s through the 1970s.

Meiselas has had one-woman exhibitions in many different countries and her work is included in different collections around the world. She has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for her work in Nicaragua (1979); the Leica Award for Excellence (1982); the Engelhard Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art (1985); the Hasselblad Foundation Photography prize (1994); the Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2005); the Harvard Arts Medal (2011), Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), and most recently the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2019). In 1992, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Meiselas has been the President of the Magnum Foundation since its founding in 2007. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Acumen Fund and the Vera List Center for Arts and Culture in New York.

Mediations, a survey exhibition of her work from the 1970s to present was recently exhibited at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Jeu de Paume, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Instituto Moreira Salles.

Career I Exhibitions

b. June 21, 1948; Baltimore, Maryland
B.A. Sarah Lawrence College, 1970
Ed.M. Harvard University, School of Education, 1971
Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, Parsons School of Art, 1986 Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Boston, 1996 Honorary Doctor in Humane Letters, Columbia University, 2016

Freelance photographer, member of Magnum Photos since 1976

Author

Carnival Strippers and Making Of; Steidl; 2021
Tar Beach, Damiani, 2020
Eyes Open: 23 Photography Projects for Curious Kids, Aperture, 2020 Porch Portraits, Photopaper 33|34, 2018 View of A Room, Here Press, 2018
A Room of Their Own, Multistory, 2017
Prince Street Girls TBW Subscription Series, TBW Books, 2017
My Life for Love / Nicaraguita; Steidl / ifa, 2016
Prince Street Girls; Yellow Magic Books, 2013
Encounters with the Dani; Steidl/ICP; 2003
Pandora's Box, Trebruk/Magnum Editions; 2001
Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History; Random House; 1997; Reprint, Univ. of Chicago Press 2008
Nicaragua, June 1978-July 1979; Pantheon; 1981; Aperture; 2008
Carnival Strippers; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 1976; revision Steidl/Whitney; 2003

Editor. Catalogues

Mediations, Damiani, 2018
On The Frontline, Thames and Hudson, 2017 In History, Steidl, 2008
Chile from Within e-book, MAPP, 2013
Chile from Within, W.W. Norton, 1990
El Salvador: Work of 30 Photographers, Writers & Readers, 1983 Learn to See, Polaroid Foundation, 1975; reprint Delpire & Co; 2021

Films

A Family in History, co-directed & co-produced with Alfred Guzzetti, 2011
The Windmill Movie, Executive Producer, 2009
Reframing History, co-directed & co-produced with A. Guzzetti & Pedro Linger Gasiglia, 2004

Pictures from a Revolution, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R.P. Rogers, 1991; distributed by Kino International
Living at Risk, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R. P. Rogers, 1985, distributed by New Yorker Films

Voyages, directed by M. Karlin, writing & photography by Meiselas, 1985, produced for Channel 4, England

Awards

Dr. Erich Salomon Price of the German Photographic Society, 2022 Royal Anthropological Institute, Photography Studies award, 2021 Rencontres d’Arles First Prize Women in Motion Award, 2019 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, 2019 Kraszna-Krausz Fellowship Award, 2019
Guggenheim Fellowship, 2015
Alice Austen Award for the Advancement of Photography, 2014 Harvard Arts Medal, 2011
Luma Historical Book Award, In History, 2009
Krazna Kraus And/or Book Award, In History, 2009
Lucie Documentary Award, 2008
Centenary Award, Royal Photographic Society, 2006
Cornell Capa Infinity Award, ICP, 2005
Rockefeller Foundation, Multi-Media Fellowship, 1995 Hasselblad Foundation Prize, 1994
Maria Moors Cabot Prize, Columbia Journalism School, 1994 Missouri Honor Medal, Missouri School of Journalism, 1994 MacArthur Fellowship, 1992
Lyndhurst Foundation, 1987
Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, 1985
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1984 Photojournalist of the Year, ASMP, 1982
Leica Award of Excellence, 1982
Robert Capa Gold Medal, Overseas Press Club, 1979

Individual Exhibitions

2021

·     “Planeta de Cristal”. Curated by Colectivo Aluna. Atchugarry Art Center, Miami, USA.

·     “De Isla en Isla”. La Cometa, Bogotá, Colombia.

2020

·     Geometria Popular Te Tuhi, Auckland, New Zealand.

·     “Visión de túnel” .Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid, Spain.

·     Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno. CAAM. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

2019

·     “Puentes Invertidos”. Gallery Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland.

·     “Tus Manos Están Bien”. Ivorypress. Madrid, Spain.

·     Los Carpinteros. “Cuba va!” The Phillips Collections. Washington DC,USA.

2018

·     “Susurro del Palmar”. Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland.

·     “El otro El mismo”. KOW, Berlin, Germany.

2017

·     “La Cosa está Candela”. Museo banco de la República, Bogota, Colombia.

·     “Hacia una lectura expandida”. NC Arte, Bogota, Colombia.

2016

·     Los Carpinteros. ”O Objeto Vital”. Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo / Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Brasilia / Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Belo Horizonte / Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

·     Video Project Space: Los Carpinteros. Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, California.

·     Los Carpinteros. Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, MUAC. Mexico DF, Mexico. 

·     Artists’ Space Los Carpinteros. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.

2015

·     “El Pueblo Se Equivoca”. Galeria Fortes Vilaça / Galpão Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil.

·     Los Carpinteros. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, MARCO, Nuevo León, México / Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, MUAC, Mexico DF, Mexico. 

·     Los Carpinteros. Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, United Kingdom.

2014

·     “Pellejo”. Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada.

·     Bazar. Ivorypress Space, Madrid, Spain.

2013

·     “Heterotopias”. Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong.

·     “Bola de Pelo”. Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland.

·     “Irreversible”. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA.

·     “Candela”. Matadero de Madrid, Madrid. Spain.

2012 

·     Silence your eyes. Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
Los Carpinteros at Project Space. Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland.
Los Carpinteros. Faena Art Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Silence your eyes. Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun, Switzerland.

2011 

·     Los Carpinteros. “Handwork–Constructing the world”. Pieces from the Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Baluard Museu d´ Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Mallorca, Spain.

·     “Casa e Aviao”. Fortes Vilaça Art Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil.

·     “El gran Picnic”. Habana Gallery, Havana, Cuba.

·     “Rumba Muerta”. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA.

2010

·     “Drama Turquesa”. Ivorypress Art and Books, Madrid, Spain.

·     “Opener 19: Los Carpinteros”. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, New York, USA.

2008   

·     “La Montaña Rusa”. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA.

·     “Sub-Urbano”. Fortes Vilaça Gallery. São Paulo, Brazil.

2007   

·     Los Carpinteros. “Grand Café“– services contemporary art, during Estuaire Nantes-Saint-Nazaire. Saint-Nazaire, France.

2006  

·     “Sel et Poivre”. Gallery In SITU, Paris, France.

·     “Faro Tumbado”. Galería Habana, Havana, Cuba.

·     “Dinámicas de la Cultura Urbana”. 9th Bienal de La Habana, Havana, Cuba.

·     Los Carpinteros. “Contemporaneamente”, Milan, Italy.

·     Los Carpinteros. “Unosunove and IILA”, Rome, Italy.

2005 

·     Los Carpinteros: “Inventing the World” / Inventar el mundo. USF Contemporary Art Center, South Florida University, Tampa / Chicago Cultural Center, Illinois, / Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati / Museum London, London, Ontario, Canada.

·     “En el Jardín”. Fortes Vilaça Gallery. São Paulo, Brazil.

2004 

·     Manual de Trabajo, dibujos. Esculturas Recientes. Galería Servando, Havana, Cuba.

·     “Downtown”. Anthony Grant Inc., New York, USA.

2003  

·     “Novos Desenhos”. Fortes Vilaça Gallery, São Paulo,  Brazil.

·     “Fluido”. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba.

2002 

·     Los Carpinteros “intervention at B”. Opening. Baltic The Center for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, United Kingdom.

·     “Ciudad Transportable”. Contemporary Art Museum of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii.

2001   

·     “Túneles Populares”. Palacio de Abrahante, Salamanca, Spain.

·     Los Carpinteros. Galeria Camargo VilaVa, São Paulo, Brazil.

·     “Ciudad Transportable”. PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA.

·     Los Carpinteros. Grant Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, California, USA.

·     “Ciudad Transportable”. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.

·     Los Carpinteros. San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, USA.

2000   

·     Los Carpinteros. Grant Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, California, USA.

1999   

·     Tania Bruguera/Los Carpinteros. Vera Van Laer Galerie, Antwerp, Belgium.

1998   

·     Los Carpinteros. Project Room, Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo

·     ARCO'98, Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I, Madrid, Spain.

·     “Mecánica Popular”. Galería Habana, Havana, Cuba.

·     Los Carpinteros. Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst. Aachen, Kunsthalle, Berlin, Germany.

·     Bili Bidjocka/Los Carpinteros/Rivane Neuenschwande, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA.

·     Los Carpinteros. Iturralde Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA.

1997   

·     “Construimos el puente para que cruce la gente, construimos paredes para que el sol no llegue”. Galería Ángel Romero, Madrid, Spain.

·     “Viejos métodos para nuevas deudas”. Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Havana, Cuba.

·     Los Carpinteros/Carlos Estévez/Offill Industrial. Galería Nina Menocal, Mexico D.F., Mexico.

1996   

·     Todo ha sido reducido a la mitad del original. Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro, La Habana, Cuba.

1995   

·     Los Carpinteros. “Obra Reciente”. Galería Ángel Romero, Madrid, Spain.

·     “Se vende tierra de Cuba”. L'Entrepot Pour Matériel Pharmaceutique. Nantes, France. Exhibition cancelled due to the cancellation of Les Allumées Nantes-La Havanne Festival.

·     “Ingeniería Civil”, Galería Habana, Havana, Cuba.

1992   

·     “Arte‑sano” [Fernando Rodríguez Falcón / Alexandre Arrechea / Dagoberto Rodríguez]. Casa del Joven Creador, Havana, Cuba.

·     “No sitios pintados”. Galería Arte 7, Complejo Cultural Cinematográfico Yara, Havana, Cuba.

·     “Pintura de Caballete”. Centro de Arte 23 y 12, Havana, Cuba.

1991   

·     “Para Usted”. Fábrica de Tabacos Partagás, Havana, Cuba.

Collective exhibitions

2022

• Is it morning for you yet? 58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art,Pittsburgh, PA

• Close Enough New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers of Magnum,International

• Center of Photography, New York

• Cartographies du corps by Susan Meiselas & Marta Gentilucci, 53rd edition of the Arles Les Rencontres de la Photographie Festival, Arles, France

2021

• Travessia, Ci.CLO Bienal Forografia do Porto ‘21, Porto, Portugal

• Known and Strange: Photographs from the Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

2020

• Inside the Mask, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

2019

• Mujeres, Fotoméxico Festival Internacional de Fotografía, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico

• Theater of Operations, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY

• Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize

2019

• The Photographers’ Gallery, London

• MSDEMEANORS, Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York

• Female Photographers At the Front, Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf

2018

• Camera Austria International. Laboratory for Photography and Theory, Museum of Modern Art Salzburg Mönchsberg, Austria

• Dream of Solentiname 80WSE, New York

• Magna Brava Ongoing, Magnum Gallery, Paris

• Thessaloniki Photo Biennale 2018, Thessaoloniki Museum of Photography, Greece

• Dream of Solentiname Museuo Jumex, Mexico City

2017

• Framing Community: Magnum Photos, 1947-Present, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York

• Bending the Frame, Preus Museum, Norway

• Conflict and Consequence, Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska Magnum Analog Recovery, Le Bal, Paris

2016

• History Unfolds The Swedish History Museum, Stockholm

• Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection Whitney Museum of

• American Art, New York

2015

• Collaborative Archives: Connective Histories LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York

• Being Kurdish, Hinterland Gallery, Vienna

• Images of Conviction: The Construction of Visual Evidence, Le Bal, Paris

• The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

• Mobilizing Memory – Vienna, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna

• Sideshow, Yale School of Art, New Haven

• Not Yet. On the Reinvention of Documentary and Criticism of Modernism 1968-1989, Reina Sofia, Madrid

2014

• Conflict, Time, Photography, Tate Modern, London

• American Photography: Recent Acquisitions from The Museum of Modern Art, Paris Photo, Paris

• Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg,

• Mobilizing Memory: Women Witnessing, DEPO, Istanbul

• Women in War, Daegu International Photography Biennale, Korea

• Postcards from America, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Wisconsin

• Backstage, Magnum Gallery, Paris

• Envisioning Human, Rights Berkeley Art Museum, California

• Forensic Aesthetics, Pauza Gallery, Krakow

• Re-Framing History, Galerie Lelong, New York

2013

• 160 Actions To Make A Jacket, Look 3 Festival of the Photograph, Charlottesville, Virginia.

2012

• Revolution vs. Revolution, Beirut Art Center 2010 Anti-Periodismo, La Virreina, Barcelona

• Engaged Observors: Documentary Photography since the 1960s, J. Paul Getty Museum

• Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera, Tate Britain

2009

• Elles, Centre Pompidou, Paris

• Kreyol Factory, Parc de la Villette, Paris

2008

• Darkside, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich

• The War of Images and the Images of War, Brighton Photo Festival, UK Disposable People, The Hayward, London

2007

• Immigrante Madrid, Canal de Isabel II, Spain

• Big Picture: Provisions for the Arts of Social Change, New York

2006

• Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Gwangju Biennial, South Korea

• Carnival Strippers and Reframing History Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France

• Post.doc?, Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece

• Beautiful Suffering, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Ma.

New York, New York, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco

2005

• After the Fact, First Festival of Photography, Berlin Mirror, Mirror, Centre Cultural de Belem, Lisbon

2003

• Strangers: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, New York

2002

• Open City: Street Photographs since 1950, Museum of Modern Art Oxford

2001

• Photoworks in Progress, Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam

2000

• Picturing the Modern Amazon, New Museum, New York Magnum Degrees,

• Biblioteque Nacional, Paris

1998

• Art in Freedom, Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam

1996

• Facing History, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

• Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Menil Collection, Houston

1989

• In Our Time, International Center of Photography, New York

• Los Vecinos, Museum for Photographic Arts, San Diego, Ca.

• The Art of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

1986

• On the Line, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1984

• The Nicaragua Media Project New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

• El Salvador: Work of 30 Photographers, Museum for Photographic Arts, San Diego, Ca.

1982

• New Color Work, Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Ma.

Collections

• Vassar College, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York

• Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• Victoria and Albert Museum, London

• Center for Creative Photography, Arizona

• The Morgan Library and Museum, New York

• Tate Modern, London

• Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey

• The Jewish Museum, New York

• National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

• Museum of Modern Art, New York

• J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

• Library of Congress, Washington DC

• Hasselblad Center, Sweden

• Centre Pompidou, Paris

• Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

• Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

• St. Louis Museum of Art, Missouri

• Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego

• George Eastman House, Rochester, New York

• Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge University of California, Riverside

• Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland

• Haverford College, Pennsylvania

• International Center of Photography, New York

• Hood Museum, Dartmouth, New Hampshire