IMAGE CREDIT: Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, logo courtesy of FEP

Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography
(Founded in 2003; Based in Minneapolis, MN and Paris, France)
Nominated by A. D. Coleman

The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP) was inaugurated in 2003 to create and produce thought-provoking photographic exhibitions and publications produced outside the normal framework. This unique non-profit organization is led by Executive Director Todd Brandow, a former art consultant, and its Executive and Advisory Boards are comprised of photographic and cultural luminaries.

Recent publications and traveling exhibitions include SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen—which was shown locally at the DeCordova Museum of Art and Sculpture Park (Lincoln, MA) and is currently traveling internationally—and Sacred Legacy: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, which traveled extensively in Europe. Current projects in development include a survey of jazz photography and Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography, which will travel to Jeu de Paume (Paris), Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne, Switzerland), and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain).

Statement

The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP) is devoted to the promotion of photography through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs. Currently touring FEP exhibitions: Edward S. Curtis and Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Upcoming shows: a two-part Edward Steichen retrospective, and a survey of Chinese documentary photography. In development: a K-12 photo-education program.

The mission of the FEP is:

To produce and promote significant, uniquely conceived exhibitions of photographic art, both monographic and thematic, not originating from the established cultural and institutional frameworks.
To use the power and immediacy of the photographic image to promote cultural exchanges on a global scale.
To provide for the development of educational programs that will increase public awareness of the profound impact of photographic imagery on our lives, and will enable us to use the medium of photography to improve the quality of our individual and collective lives.

A. D. Coleman

(Born December 19, 1943; Lives Staten Island, NY and Shenzhen, People's Republic of China)

A native New Yorker, A. D. (Allan Douglass) Coleman, a world-renowned photography critic, is a co-founder of the PRC and the first editor of its publication, VIEWS: A New England Journal of Photography, from 1981 to 1982. Coleman has been a columnist for the New York Times, the Village Voice, and the New York Observer, as well as a contributor to ARTnews, Art On Paper, and Technology Review. His books include The Grotesque in Photography (1977), Light Readings: A Photography Critic's Writings (1979), The Digital Evolution: Photography in the Electronic Age, Essays, Lectures and Interviews, 1967-1997 (1998), and Available Light: Selected Essays from Darkroom Photography/Camera & Darkroom (forthcoming in 2007).

Coleman was the recipient of a 1976 National Endowment for the Arts Art Critics Fellowship and was the Center for Creative Photography's (Tucson, AZ) Ansel and Virginia Adams Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence in 1996. In 2000, the CCP published A. D. Coleman: A Bibliography of His Writings on Photography from 1968 to 1995, the first published bibliography of a photo critic. He is the publisher and executive director of both The Nearby Café (nearbycafe.com) and the Photography Criticism CyberArchive (photocriticism.com). In 1998, American Photo named Coleman one of the 100 most important people in photography. He is on the advisory board of FEP.

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Statement

A. D. Coleman