New Exhibition Reveals How Experimental Photography Pictures the Future

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY, September 23, 2026—From October 3, 2026—January 31, 2027, the exhibition Photo-Design: Persuasion, Critique, Fantasy on the Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center (“The Loeb”) will present guests how experimental images strategies have helped envision new prospects and movie new futures. While images is commonly related to fact and documenting the world as it’s, it’s arguably extra highly effective and ubiquitous as a medium of persuasion, critique, and creativeness. This exhibition seems on the function of images all through the 20 th and twenty-first centuries as a precious device for creating, and typically promoting, a imaginative and prescient of tomorrow.

It begins within the Twenties, within the aftermath of World War I, when avant-garde European graphic designers have been enlisted to assist rebuild economies and concrete facilities. In order to visualise a future that appeared past imagining, these designers turned to revolutionary strategies like photomontage–slicing, rearranging, and manipulating images to create new photos. Through city improvement and business graphic design that supported the expansion of recent industries and client tradition, designers made important contributions in a time of worldwide instability and uncertainty. In our present second, these visions really feel particularly poignant and mandatory.

“Artists–past and present–always help me make sense of the world. It’s often artworks that are the most bizarre and fantastical that really meet the moment. I hope our visitors will walk away from this exhibition thinking about how artists and designers shape our reality in profound ways,” Jessica D. Brier, curator of images on the Loeb, mentioned.

Bringing collectively ads, books, political posters, and magazines, amongst different objects, this exhibition demonstrates that photomontage and different experimental strategies will not be rarified, however fairly a ubiquitous type of visible communication that permeates on a regular basis life. Featuring a various roster of artists and designers, together with Herbert Bayer, Shannon Bool, Marshall Brown, Pere Català i Pic, Sarah Elawad, Guerrilla Girls, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Luciana Pinchiero, Jorge Rigamonti, Grete Stern, Superstudio, and Guanyu Xu, Photo-Design highlights the historic and ongoing significance of images to the follow of graphic design and structure, providing this as a throughline that connects seemingly disparate types and approaches to design. Works within the exhibition are drawn from the everlasting assortment of the Loeb, displayed alongside beneficiant loans from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, and the Merrill C. Berman Collection.

“The remarkable range of artists and artworks in this exhibition is a testament to photography’s profound influence on the history of design in all its forms,” Mary-Kay Lombino, deputy director and the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator on the Loeb, mentioned.

Events

October 3, 2:00 p.m., Taylor Hall 102

Opening Celebration for Photo-Design with Artist, Sarah Elawad

Celebrate the opening of Photo-Design: Persuasion, Critique, Fantasy, which seems on the some ways designers have used images over the past century to think about new prospects. British Sudanese artist Sarah Elawad, who’s featured within the exhibition and contributed to its design, joins exhibition curator Jessica D. Brier in dialog. This occasion is free and open to the general public. A reception within the Loeb’s atrium will comply with this system.

October 11, 1–3 p.m., Loeb Galleries

Family Day on the Loeb

Get artistic this fall! Join us for free drop-in household packages on choose Sundays. Enjoy a singular hands-on artwork exercise impressed by artwork on view. Activities could be modified for all ages, however are finest fitted to youngsters 5 and up.

Admission and Hours

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free, and all galleries are wheelchair accessible. The Loeb is open Tuesday to Sunday (10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.) and, from June by August, late nights on Thursdays (5:00–7:00 p.m.). The Loeb is positioned at 124 Raymond Avenue, close to the doorway to the Vassar College campus. Parking is offered on Raymond Avenue. Directions to the campus in Poughkeepsie, NY, can be found at vassar.edu/go to/tour#instructions. The Art Center can be accessible through Dutchess County Public Transit, Bus Route L. For extra info, name 845-437-5632 or go to vassar.edu/theloeb.

About The Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is a instructing and studying museum, free and open to all, supporting Vassar College’s academic mission and communities. Formerly the Vassar College Art Gallery, The Loeb is the primary artwork museum at a university or college that was a part of the establishment’s unique plan. Today, the everlasting assortment consists of greater than 22,000 works, comprising work, sculptures, drawings, images, textiles, and glass and ceramic wares. The Loeb strives to be a catalyst for scholarly, artistic, and social justice work by Vassar college students and others. It goals to mirror a dedication to broaden and amplify the voices represented within the museum setting, and to make sure that The Loeb’s packages and practices have a optimistic influence on campus and past. To be taught extra, please go to vassar.edu/theloeb or comply with on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.