On view May 22 - September 23, 2026

"Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, MO) presents Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene. It is the first major exhibition to examine the Anthropocene through the lens of contemporary photography, comprised of some 40 photo-based artists working in a variety of artistic methods from studios and sites across the globe.  

These artists offer compelling visual imagery necessary for picturing the Anthropocene: aerial views of beautiful but toxic sites, collages that incorporate archival photographs to counter colonial narratives, depictions of urbanism on an unimaginable scale, and imagined yet precarious futures. In doing so, they address urgent issues such as vanishing ice, rising waters, and increasing resource extraction, as well as the deeply rooted and painful legacies of colonialism, forced climate migration, and socio-environmental trauma.

Explains Jessica May, Executive Director of Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and co-curator of the exhibition, "Second Nature arrives at the Kemper Museum as our city prepares to host a truly global event, the World Cup, with its attendant visitors and a shared dialogue about what globalism really means at this complicated moment. The exhibition allows us to see a changing world through the perspective of artists from all over the world." 

Alia Ali’s photography is now on display at House of Photography.

“The Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne exhibition features Christopher Payne’s intricately detailed photography of America’s factories. This film follows Payne as he revisits three industrial factories he has photographed during his decade-long photographic journey to learn more about the craft of both industrial and artisanal making in the United States.

“Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne” is On view from Dec. 12 through Sept. 27, 2026, the exhibition brings together more than 70 large-format photographs captured by Payne over a decade-long photographic journey to learn more about the craft of both industrial and artisanal making in the United States.”

“In conjunction with the current exhibition Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne, please join Christopher Payne and Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic and author Alexandra Lange for a discussion on Payne’s intricately detailed photography of America’s factories. The program will consider Payne’s photographs of industrial manufacturing as part of a long history of image-making of American architecture and design, highlighting spaces of production, the skilled workers who make things, and the products themselves. They will also discuss the significance of Payne’s work now, in this period of rapid industrial transformation.”

Announcing a bold new direction for our Photography Program: systemwide artist takeovers are coming this fall. For the first time, a single artist’s work will fill all 45 Arts & Design lightboxes across four stations.

Our inaugural takeover exhibition will feature industrial photographer Christopher Payne, whose large‑format images reveal the unseen beauty of American industry, infrastructure, and the skilled labor that powers it.

For the forthcoming exhibition, Christopher Payne will expand on his acclaimed series inside the MTA’s Coney Island Overhaul Shop, broadening it into a systemwide study of the behind‑the‑scenes operations that keep the nation’s largest transit network moving.

The work will span all of the MTA’s operating agencies—New York City Transit, Long Island Rail Road, Metro‑North Railroad, MTA Bus Company, and MTA Bridges and Tunnels—offering the public a rare view of infrastructure and expertise that make daily travel possible.

Launching September 2026

"Christopher Payne’s photographs at Cooper Hewitt sidestep questions of economic uncertainty and geopolitical strife to spotlight the craftsmanship of factory workers" by Julie Schneider

"Christopher Payne discusses his Cooper Hewitt exhibition Made in America, which documents U.S. factories and manufacturing facilities" by Jack Murphy

"Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne, a solo exhibition now on view at the Cooper Hewitt, is, in the photographer’s own words, “a celebration of the making of things.” Indeed, in his visits to American factories, Payne has documented machinery, workers, techniques, and the materials of manufacture—but as the era of workers making things in America draws to a close, we might ask what these photographs really represent. Those of us who lived through some portion of the industrial age’s apotheosis, and enjoyed the surfeit of manufactured products it provided, were taught by photography to admire the power and promise of technology and industry. In newspapers, magazines, textbooks, and corporate annual reports, photography shaped our image of factories and, with it, our admiration for them." by Jan Staller

"'Made in America' looks at manufacturing, and 'Art of Noise' at how we listen" by Mark Feeney

An exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum presents more than 70 vivid images of American manufacturing, capturing the making of jet engines, pencils, pianos and more.

Opening reception: May 30, 2026
On view: May 30 – September 6, 2026

The first Upstate Photography Biennial isa landmark new exhibition series celebrating the diversity and vitality of photographic practices in upstate New York. Highlighting the extraordinary proliferation of creative cultural activity in the region, the exhibition will showcase the work of thirty-nine artists, drawn in part from an open call for submissions.

The Upstate Photography Biennial will spotlight the breadth and richness of contemporary photographic practices across the Hudson Valley and the upstate region. The goal of the ongoing series is to foster meaningful dialogue and community engagement around the evolving role of photographic work in the region. 

Made in America is now on view through September 27, 2026 at The Cooper Hewitt. Christopher Payne’s photographs take you inside American factories, showcasing the traditional craftsmanship behind the creation of musical instruments, flags, footballs, and pinball machines, as well as the intricate hand processes still critical to creating the most advanced products, ranging from microchips to the Giant Magellan Telescope. 

The first large-scale photography exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Made in America showcases the design process through photography bringing the object, the machine, and the hand together. Payne’s photographs highlight manufacturing as a fundamental part of the design process. 

In celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, this exhibition brings together more than 70 of Payne’s large-format photographs to consider the American factory as a key site of design ingenuity and innovation.

Rather than a monograph, a drawing of one, Alia Ali presents with this book a multi-graph, a drawing of many. Ali deconstructs artificial binaries to examine inherited political narratives—diaspora, identity, borders—through the lens of photography, language, textile, and architectural installations. A map of patterns emerges, interwoven with artist statements, research images, exchanges with collaborators, and fragments of her journals. Words and images draw us simultaneously into the micro musings of the artist’s mind and zoom out to a macro reflection of the global and communal nature of the artist’s practice. Ali’s multi-graph is a textural experience in which each page is folded upon itself, leaving one wondering at what is invisible in plain sight.This extraordinary book also impresses with its special form of Japanese binding. Alia Ali (*1985, Austria) is a Yemeni-Bosnian-American multimedia artist who lives and works in New Orleans, Paris, Marrakech, and Jaipur. Her interdisciplinary works combine photography, textiles, language, and installations to challenge cultural identities and political narratives. Ali’s works have been exhibited worldwide and are renowned for their vibrant patterns, profound themes, and innovative artistic approaches that transcend the boundaries between tradition and modernity.

Price: $80.00. Please contact info@benrubigallery.com to purchase