International Center of Photography Selects Mark Robbins As Its New Executive Director

NEW YORK, May 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Trustees of the International Center of Photography announced today that it has selected Mark Robbins, Dean of the School of Architecture and Senior Advisor on Architecture and Urban Initiatives at Syracuse University, to be the next Executive Director of ICP. The decision is the culmination of an international search that began in August 2011, after Willis E. "Buzz" Hartshorn, Executive Director since 1994 and Ehrenkranz Director since 2001, declared his intention to transition to a new role at ICP.

Caryl Englander, Chair of the Board, said, "Mark Robbins brings a record of exceptional leadership to ICP and will help fulfill its mission to be the world's leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography in all its forms. We announce his appointment with great enthusiasm, having found in him the Director who can lead ICP into a new era, extending its intellectual and artistic reach while confirming and enhancing all of this great institution's existing strengths."

"Through the search process, we discovered that Mark shares ICP's vision of the transformational power of images, a vision which is at the heart of its mission," said Jeffrey A. Rosen, President of the Board. "It is a thread which runs through his entire career and explains his deep interest and engagement with photography. He has translated this vision into action at institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Syracuse University. At each of these, he made a significant impact as a leader and a manager, and as an artist and an educator."

"I respect Mark's knowledge of photography and value his significant credentials as an educator. He is an excellent choice to lead ICP," said Hartshorn, who will become Senior Deputy Director focusing on special projects with his successor.  

"I welcome this appointment with a combination of humility and tremendous excitement. We live in a time that is characterized by the power and presence of the image. In a global culture linked beyond borders, media of all kind communicate visually. Photography and the transmission of the image in all forms is the medium that defines us. It is an exciting moment to lead an institution dedicated to the image and its production. I look forward to building on ICP's rich history and expanding into new modes of practice, debate, and public engagement," Robbins said.

Over the course of a 25-year career, Robbins has held leadership roles at major arts institutions while maintaining his own multidisciplinary practice, which bridges the fields of art, architecture, and critical theory. He has served as the first Curator of Architecture at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio (1993-1999), as Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts (1999-2002), and most recently as Dean of the School of Architecture (2004 – present) and Senior Advisor on Architecture and Urban Initiatives (2008 – present) at Syracuse University.

With projects such as his gallery exhibition and book Households, he has used photography to examine and comment on the ways in which people inhabit, and see themselves in, their built environment—an exploration that brings to light a concern with community that runs throughout his varied work, and that aligns with the social and political traditions of ICP.

Recent installations and photographic work include Guest | Host in Bangkok and Student-Teacher in Kigali, Rwanda. This fall, Robbins will exhibit his work in a solo show at Colgate University's Clifford Gallery in Hamilton, New York. Other installations and site-specific projects have been exhibited at the Adelaide Festival in Adelaide, Australia, the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Japan, the Queens Museum and the Clocktower Gallery in New York, and the Wexner Center for the Arts, and his public art project Import/Export was installed along the length of the Miami River in Miami, Florida.

His work is represented in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and numerous private collections. A monograph on his work, Angles of Incidence, is published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Robbins is a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome; grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the NEA and the Graham Foundation; and artist fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has been a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2003) and the McDowell Colony (1990 and 2003), among other residencies.

He is a frequent juror, visiting critic, and lecturer on issues pertaining to art and design and a recipient of a 2008 American Institute of Architects New York Educators Award. He serves on boards including the Van Alen Institute, the New York Architectural League, AD Magazine in London, and Hong Kong University. He was a tenured associate professor at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University and distinguished visiting professor at the University of Virginia and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Robbins will assume his duties as Executive Director July 1, 2012.

About ICP

ICP was founded in 1974 by Cornell Capa (1918-2008) as an institution dedicated to photography that occupies a vital and central place in contemporary culture as it reflects and influences social change. Through our museum, school and community programs, we embrace photography's ability to open new opportunities for personal and aesthetic expression, transform popular culture, and continually evolve to incorporate new technologies. ICP has presented more than 500 exhibitions, bringing the work of more than 3,000 photographers and other artists to the public in one-person and group exhibitions and provided thousands of classes and workshops that have enriched tens of thousands of students. Visit www.icp.org for more information.

Contact

Kelly Heisler, ICP Director of Marketing and Communications
212.857.9707 or [email protected]

SOURCE International Center of Photography