Houston Center of Photography: THE VANGUARD,Rebel Girl, and Soft Heat…and a dialog with Anne Massoni

©Dornith Doherty, Intersect, 2024 (courtesy of Dornith Doherty and Moody Gallery),from the exhibition, THE VANGUARD

Today we function three exhibitions that open tonight on the Houston Center for Photography (HCP): THE VANGUARD, Rebel Girl, and Soft Heat, celebrating girls photographers But we are also in dialog with HCP’s new Executive Director, Anne Leighton Massoni. I first met Anne just a few years again by way of my educating with ICP and was excited to now see her spearheading this prestigious group. Scroll to the top for the interview.

Women have lengthy formed the language of pictures, bringing imaginative and prescient and artistic depth to the medium, usually the ultimate recognition. Over the previous twenty years, girls within the area have achieved better visibility and affect, redefining the career and institutional requirements. Trailblazing organizations comparable to Houston Center for Photography (HCP) have been important to this progress. For 45 years, HCP has constantly honored, supported, and superior the work of ladies, guaranteeing their voices are firmly embedded within the up to date photographic panorama. With girls shaping its imaginative and prescient from the very starting of its formation, HCP’s dedication to fairness stays a defining a part of its legacy.

Exhibition Related Dates:

Rebel Girl and THE VANGUARD: March 12 2026 – May 24, 2026  Opening Reception (Rebel Girl, THE VANGUARD, and tender warmth): March 12, 2026 from 6:15 – 8:00 PM

Artist Panel Conversation (Rebel Girl and THE VANGUARD): March 12, 2026 from 5:30 – 6:15 PM

tender warmth by Jamie Robertson: March 12 2026 – April 12, 2026

Artist Talk (tender warmth by Jamie Robertson): March 18, 2026 from 6:30 to eight PM

Curatorial Walkthrough (Rebel Girl, THE VANGUARD, and tender warmth): May 2nd, 2026 from 10:30 AM – 12 PM

THE VANGUARD is a journey into HCP’s archives, that includes Yolanda Andrade, Bennie Flores Ansell, Deborah Bay, Gay Block, Carol Crow, Dornith Doherty, Susan Dunkerley Maguire, Melanie Friend, Susan kae Grant, Mary Margaret Hansen and Patsy Cravens, Graciela Iturbide, Priya Kambli, Jean Karotkin, An-My Lê, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Kenda North, Aline Smithson, Maggie Taylor, Wendy Watriss, and Carrie Mae Weems.

©Deborah Bay, 9mm Uzi 2, 2014 (Courtesy of artist), from The Big Bang collection, from the exhibition, THE VANGUARD

Featuring 20 photographers, THE VANGUARD affirms HCP’s long-standing dedication to platforming girls. With legacies that proceed to resonate, their careers have laid the groundwork for the up to date practices of ladies exhibited at HCP as we speak.

For an expanded curatorial assertion for THE VANGUARD go to the exhibition webpage.

©Carrie Mae Weems, Echoes of Marian 2014 (Courtesy of artist), from the exhibition, THE VANGUARD

©Aline Smithson, Melanesia from Fugue States, from the exhibition THE VANGUARD

©Maggie Taylor, Girl with a Bee Dress , 2004 (Courtesy of Catherine Coutuier Gallery), from the exhibition THE VANGUARD

©Mary Margaret Hansen and Patsy Cravens, Blowin’ within the Wind, 1980 (Courtesy of Heidi Vaughan Fine Art), from the exhibition THE VANGUARD

©Susan kae Grant, Nocturnal Visit #066 2012 (Courtesy of Joy Simpson), from Night Journey, from the exhibition THE VANGUARD

©Gay Block, Untitled Leopard Lady, 1982-85 Courtesy of artist),from the exhibition THE VANGUARD

©Kenda North, Resurgence Still Life 2, 2020, b (Courtesy of artist)

©Jean Karotkin, Sara Terry, 2013 (Courtesy of Jean Morgenstern)

A companion exhibition, Rebel Girl, celebrates this legacy by highlighting each HCP’s historic dedication to championing girls’s photographic careers and the work of up to date photographers exploring the complexities of feminine id.

Rebel Girl options:

• Luisa Dörr: Dörr’s collection Imilla paperwork feminine skater tradition in Bolivia, the place girls carrying conventional pollera skirts bridge cultural heritage and fashionable subculture.

©Luisa Dörr, Joselin Brenda Mamani tinta (27) and Lucia Rosmeri tinta Quispe (46) Brenda and her mom are thought-about Pollera girls from a distinct ethny known as Aymara from La Paz. Brenda began skateboarding 6 years in the past and felt that this exercise may give her course, one thing to be taught that might stimulate her to drop her fears and get out of her consolation zone. She says – “It makes me really feel succesful as a result of I can break my very own limits and I can dare to do issues that I’ve by no means considered, and like this I can recover from my every day worry. For her skateboarding in Pollera outfits means a problem by itself as a result of it is extremely laborious to skateboard carrying a voluminous skirt however she is aware of that perseverance and observe will assist and he or she has been enhancing her expertise. For her this exercise represents her roots, the place she comes from and who she is. From the exhibition Rebel Girl

• Selina Román: Román’s abstracted self-portraiture makes use of brightly coloured spandex to remodel the pure curves of her physique into geometric coloration fields, enjoying with type and calling us to query “excess” within the aptly titled collection XS.

©Selina Roman, from the exhibition Rebel Girl

• Jo Ann Chaus: In Conversations with Myself, Chaus displays on the mid-century beliefs of femininity that formed her upbringing, staging their tensions in opposition to the lived actuality of navigating an getting older physique in an period of physique positivity.

©JoAnn Chaus, from the exhibition Rebel Girl

The third Exhibition, tender warmth, by Jamie Robertson, is a photographic research of wetlands within the Southern United States by way of black and white infrared movie pictures.

Falling out of the seen spectrum of sunshine, infrared pictures visually shift our understanding of what’s seen permitting the setting’s reminiscence or ‘specter’ to be realized. What can a swamp bear in mind? Does the Great Dismal Swamp bear in mind George Washington’s “triumphant” trek into its’ inside? Does it bear in mind the lots of of Maroons who known as it dwelling? This work is a continuation of my exploration of swamps and the house they maintain in American society. Emerging from crowd-sourced information, the title tender warmth embodies the qualities of the panorama and the infrared picture. The swamp’s tender, watery setting is rendered as thermal ‘heat’ in a tender, spectral gentle, difficult harsh attitudes to uncover the setting’s delicate energy.

My inventive observe explores the setting of the American South and its relationship to Blackness. Deep in Southern soil lies a wealthy historical past of Black defiance. Through analysis, writing, pictures, and video artwork, my work excavates this historical past, contending with the vilified and monolithic narrative of the Southern United States. Using a Black Feminist Hauntological and Eco-Womanist lens, I stability this layered and typically untold historical past whereas honoring the land. I strategy image-making fluidly, oscillating between analog and digital processes. I make the most of textual content, archival pictures, and located imagery as supplies and companions to my work to oppose the hierarchy of excessive and low tradition. Currently, I’m serious about black and white infrared movie as a poetic technique of seeing past human sight, revealing the “spectral” presence that haunts the Southern panorama.

©Jamie Robertson, Escape, 2024 (Courtesy of artist)

Conversation with HCP Executive Director and Curator, Anne Leighton Massoni

Tell us about your rising up and what introduced you to pictures….

I grew up in Washington, DC and afterward the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I used to be a curious child with an eagerness to expertise the world – over time, the digital camera would change into that car for exploration. In 1989, I traveled to the Soviet Union as a scholar ambassador with People to People, bringing a small point-and-shoot digital camera with me. I photographed all the pieces. One picture—taken on an airport tarmac after weeks of journey—was chosen 24 years later for the exhibition Early Works in regards to the second photographers fell in love with the medium. Its strangeness and open-ended storytelling nonetheless displays my creative strategy.

©Anne Leighton Massoni

At 17, I bought my first SLR and taught myself to make use of it, studying by way of expertise and the books my dad shared reasonably than formal lessons, he was a talented newbie photographer. In highschool and all through school, I labored for Constance Stuart Larrabee, the primary feminine South African struggle correspondent, helping with archiving, enhancing, and exhibition preparation. Her mentorship deeply formed my understanding of composition and type.
I earned my undergraduate diploma in Anthropology and Photography from Connecticut College and accomplished my MFA in pictures at Ohio University. I entered my first full-time function as a professor lower than 2 months after defending my masters thesis – I’ve spent the higher a part of 30 years working professionally within the pictures trade from practitioner to educator in addition to an administrator and curator.

After many years in academia in New York , what introduced you to the Houston Center of Photography in Texas?

And not simply NY! I spent 22 years in academia and taught at a myriad of colleges together with Cornell University, University of the Arts (UArts), and the International Center of Photography (ICP) to call just some. I spent greater than a decade of these years in administrative roles. In order to share what introduced me to HCP, I’ve to first share that I left the UArts in Philadelphia in 2020 to tackle the function of Dean & Managing Director of Education at ICP in New York City as a result of I wished to transition out of a standard larger schooling setting. Things have been altering in larger schooling and I wished extra freedom to deal with new and different modalities of studying. I knew I wished to remain on the earth of pictures, however I wished to have a extra substantial group affect – turning to considered one of our picture facilities was the ultimate pivot and I used to be thrilled when the Houston Center for Photography (HCP) supplied me the function of Executive Director & Curator.

What excites you about this new function, as Executive Director & Curator?

What excites me most is the collaborative spirit of our group and the affect of our work on the Houston Center for Photography. As one of many few devoted picture facilities within the nation, HCP has spent 45 years fostering a multigenerational group. We imagine each purpose to be within the classroom has benefit, which is why our educational programming—led by Natan Dvir—ranges from iPhone and AI pictures to our newly launched certificates packages. 

Our community engagement programming has additionally reached new heights. Under Lindsay Sparagana’s management, we’ve established almost 40 partnerships, bringing arts programming to Ok-12 college students all through the Houston metro space. We’ve additionally launched a multi-track highschool program to bridge the hole between present ardour and future career, providing pathways in high-quality artwork, curation, and enterprise. And in exhibitions, along with our annual programming, we just lately devoted gallery house and honoraria particularly to Houstonian photographers for the needs of solo exhibitions, guaranteeing that native expertise has a visual, supported platform inside their very own metropolis.

While my function has shifted towards fundraising and curation, I’m energized by the eagerness of our “small but mighty” employees, together with Director of Operations Theresa Marshall and Exhibitions & Programs Coordinator Areli Navarro Magallón who make it doable for me to satisfy these roles as Executive Director and Curator. Supported by a devoted board and the colourful Houston artwork scene, HCP is enjoying an important function in pictures. 

Tell us about your inspiration for The Vanguard Exhibition.

The begin of 2026 marked the Houston Center for Photography’s forty fifth anniversary. As Executive Director and Curator, curating the group exhibition The Vanguard was deeply private and particularly well timed. I joined HCP in 2023, having identified the group since my time in graduate faculty (1998–2000). First by way of its former publication SPOT, and later by following the curatorial careers of earlier Executive Directors and Curators Madeline Yale Preston and Bevin Bering Dubrowski, HCP was on my radar lengthy earlier than I got here to my current stewardship of it.  

Not solely have been lots of HCP’s founding members girls, however as a member-run group, they’d significant voices in shaping the middle’s early course. Add to this the extraordinary management of the esteemed Anne Wilkes Tucker, who was deeply concerned in curatorial selections throughout HCP’s earliest years, and it’s clear why HCP turned a pioneer amongst picture facilities..

HCP was instrumental in introducing me to a wide selection of ladies photographers at a time when my formal schooling had neglected them. In 2001, as HCP was turning 20, I discovered myself on the precipice of my skilled profession in academia and realized this was the pivotal second for me to play an element in rectifying these institutional erasures. By guaranteeing that college students and rising artists had the chance to come across and be impressed by extraordinary girls within the area of pictures, HCP’s enduring legacy moved by way of me lengthy earlier than I ever set foot in Houston. Years later, I’d come to know how profoundly that legacy has formed my very own trajectory, ultimately main me to HCP.

What higher technique to have fun this legacy and mark our forty fifth anniversary than by acknowledging the very individuals who began all of it—each for HCP and for myself. Curating THE VANGUARD has been a wealthy journey by way of HCP’s archives. After sifting by way of lots of of ladies exhibited through the middle’s first 20 years, I finally chosen 20 artists for the exhibition. Each girl falls into considered one of three curatorial classes: artists I found within the early 2000s due to HCP, artists with whom I’ve had the honour of sharing a curatorial relationship, and artists I encountered upon arriving in Houston whom I regretted not realizing sooner.

With these classes in thoughts, I’ve paired every work with a private anecdote on prolonged wall labels, inviting viewers to interact with each the artists’ practices and my very own journey with HCP.

The Vanguard contains: Yolanda Andrade, Bennie Flores Ansell, Deborah Bay, Gay Block, Carol Crow, Dornith Doherty, Susan Dunkerley, Melanie Friend, Susan kae Grant, Mary Margaret Hansen / Patsy Cravens, Graciela Iturbide, Priya Kambli, Jean Karotkin, An-My Lê, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Kenda North, Aline Smithson, Maggie Taylor, Wendy Watriss, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The Vanguard is a companion exhibition to Rebel Girl that celebrates up to date photographers partaking with the numerous dimensions of feminine id. Their work highlights the variety of expertise, questioning stereotypes and illuminating the evolving roles and perceptions of ladies as we speak. Rebel Girl options 

• Luisa Dörr: Dörr’s collection Imilla paperwork feminine skater tradition in Bolivia, the place girls carrying conventional pollera skirts bridge cultural heritage and fashionable subculture. 
• Selina Román: Román’s abstracted self-portraiture makes use of brightly coloured spandex to remodel the pure curves of her physique into geometric coloration fields, enjoying with type and calling us to query “excess” within the aptly titled collection XS.
• Jo Ann Chaus: In Conversations with Myself, Chaus displays on the mid-century beliefs of femininity that formed her upbringing, staging their tensions in opposition to the lived actuality of navigating an getting older physique in an period of physique positivity.

Together, these artists problem conference whereas celebrating different narratives of femininity. Our commonplace picture of a skater not often contains conventional Bolivian apparel, expectations of the feminine type proceed to be certain by slender requirements of dimension, and cultural views of getting older and wonder usually marginalize girls as they get older. Each artist foregrounds these exceptions, normalizes their existence, and invitations us to rethink womanhood throughout its unfolding levels, from youthful revolt to mature reflection.

What’s on the horizon for the Organization?

HCP is shifting! 

After an unimaginable 40-plus years at our beloved location on 1441 West Alabama Street, the Houston Center for Photography (HCP) has reached a pivotal second and is embarking on a journey to discover a new dwelling.

This choice, whereas marking the top of an period, is pushed by a transparent imaginative and prescient for HCP’s development and long-term sustainability. Primarily, now we have come to comprehend that our present services not present the house vital to completely understand the size of our ambitions and packages. Additionally, the phrases of our long-standing lease not align with the evolving wants of our landlord. HCP engaged its members and the group at massive in a collection of city corridor conferences and realized that collaborative, engagement, and artistic house was important. For that purpose, our new dwelling will function a makerspace, darkroom, and manufacturing services; secondary and grownup schooling house, drop-in protected areas, and a devoted scholar gallery; an expanded library; and a strong residency program.

Importantly, we heard the will to stay throughout the Museum District and Montrose space of Houston, a dedication now we have taken to coronary heart. The Board of Directors led a diligent search with the skilled steering and help of Savills and secured a exceptional historic property positioned in shut proximity to the MFAH, CAMH, and the sunshine rail. Beyond location alone, this new dwelling presents thrilling alternatives for deeper collaborations with our esteemed sister establishments and ensures handy entry for our guests and the broader group.

This is a very transformative second for the Houston Center for Photography, and we’re extremely enthusiastic in regards to the alternatives this new chapter will deliver. This transfer will allow us to raised serve the Houston pictures group, increase our attain, and additional solidify our place as a number one establishment devoted to the artwork of pictures.

Should Lenscratch’s readership be serious about studying extra about our new dwelling and Capital Campaign – I’d welcome the chance to share more information! 

Thank you Anne! So excited for the way forward for HCP!