Through words and images from different projects, Alex and Rebecca Webb invite the audience to explore the heart of their creative processes, reflecting on their relationship with the world through the camera. The duo offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution of their artistic practice, highlighting how their approach has grown and transformed over time. In this creative journey, they address issues as practical as they are philosophical, exploring the role of photography as a means of connection and, at the same time, separation from the world around them.
Among the projects presented is Dislocations an emblematic series that highlights the distinctive approach of Alex Webb, renowned for his ability to fuse documentary photography, aesthetic sensitivity and visual storytelling. In this series, Alex meditates on the act of photography as a form of dislocation in itself, a process that simultaneously separates and connects the photographer from the reality he observes.
Following, A Difficulty is a Light, a book of hybrid poetry in which Rebecca Norris Webb explores the geography of loss, both personal and environmental, following the suicide of her brother. In this intimate and profound work, Rebecca embarks on an inner and physical journey that follows the shifting play of light.
With these two projects, Alex and Rebecca Webb offer a unique and complementary insight into their approach to art and life, showing how photography and poetry can dialogue with each other to explore universal themes such as dislocation, mourning and transformation, weaving visual and textual languages into a complex and profound narrative.
About the authors
Alex Webb has published more than 15 books, including The Suffering of Light, a survey book of 30 years of his color photographs. He’s exhibited at museums worldwide including the Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y., the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A Magnum Photos member since 1979, his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Geo, National Geographic, Vogue, and other publications. Webb has received numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. Some of his most recent books include La Calle: Photographs from Mexico and the collaborative books, Brooklyn: The City Within, the latter newly reprinted by Aperture. His most recent book, Dislocations, was released in fall 2023 by Aperture. He’s currently working on an ongoing project on U.S. cities.
Originally a poet, Rebecca Norris Webb often interweaves her text and photographs in her nine books, most notably with her monograph, My Dakota—an elegy for her brother who died unexpectedly—with a solo exhibition of the work at The Cleveland Museum of Art in 2015. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Le Monde, and is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cleveland Museum of Art, and George Eastman Museum, Rochester, N.Y. An NEA grant recipient, Norris Webb’s upcoming 10th book, A Difficulty Is a Light, will be released in Fall 2024 by Chose Commune, with an accompanying exhibition at Alessia Paladini Gallery, Milan. She’s currently working in the Dakotas on a new project, Badlands, and her next book, Glimmerings, a selection of some three decades of her lyrical color work.
Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue at Condé Nast, where she revolutionised the world of fashion photography with an innovative platform for emerging and established photographers. With over 15 years of experience, she has curated prestigious exhibitions and led projects exploring the intersection of art, fashion and visual culture.