On Marc Riboud

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark and NYU’s Professor of Photography and Imaging Shelley Rice muse on the legacy of pioneering photographer Marc Riboud, to mark the opening of the exhibition Witness at a Crossroads Photographer Marc Riboud in Asia.
Witness at a Crossroads chronicles French photographer Marc Riboud’s journeys across Asia during the mid-1950s and 60s, a period of great cultural and political transition in the region. More than one hundred arresting black-and-white photographs offer glimpses into everyday life in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, and Japan, illuminating tensions between tradition and post-war modernity.
Presented in association with the Howard Greenberg Gallery

About the Speakers

Mary Ellen Mark is recognized as one of our most respected and influential photographers, having achieved worldwide visibility through her seventeen books, exhibitions and editorial magazine work. She is a contributing photographer to The New Yorker and has published photo-essays and portraits in such publications as LIFE, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. For over four decades, she has traveled extensively to make pictures that reflect a high degree of humanism. Her images of our world’s diverse cultures have become landmarks in the field of documentary photography. Her portrayals of Mother Teresa, Indian circuses, and brothels in Bombay were the product of many years of work in India. Among her many awards, Mary Ellen was presented with the Cornell Capa Award by the International Center of Photography in 2001; the Infinity Award for Journalism; an Erna & Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and a Walter Annenberg Grant for her book and exhibition project on AMERICA; the Matrix Award for outstanding woman in the field of film/photography; and the Dr. Erich Salomon Award for outstanding merits in the field of journalistic photography. Her large retrospective book, Exposure (Phaidon Press) showcases 134 of Mary Ellen’s best images, including both iconic and previously unpublished images. This is her second appearance at the Rubin.
Shelley Rice is a leading authority on photography and the author of Parisian Views (MIT Press, 1997; shortlisted for the Kraszna-Krausz Award, 1999). Her book Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman (MIT Press, 1999) was the subject of an exhibition she curated at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, 1999-2000 (Winner, International Art Critics’ Award, Best Photo Exhibit 1999-2000). Shelley was the American Consultant for Frizot, La Nouvelle Histoire de la Photographie (Paris, 1995; USA,1999). She is also a photography and arts critic with articles published in Art in America, Art Journal, Ms. Magazine and The New Republic, among others. Shelley has been the recipient of many awards and grants. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow (1992); Fulbright Senior Research Fellow (France, 1988) and Fulbright Senior Lecture Fellow.