Presented against the backdrop of the twin meltdowns of a social media platform and a cryptocurrency, this 10th anniversary show of Social Photography comes at a time when the progressive reputation enjoyed by the tech industry might warrant some skepticism. While a neo-robber baron browbeats his newly acquired workforce into submission or exile, ostensibly for the good of a “digital town square”, in the same week a financial guru, after evaporating billions in investor funds almost overnight, shrugs off the staggering losses with a sheepish, "I’m sorry".

Propped up by fawning news stories that celebrate novelty and personality over reason or logic, the insidious effect of the world wrought by the anointed power brokers of tech dictates as much of our behavior as we’ll allow. Embracing consumer friendly devices that subject us to behavioral experiments and perpetual tracking, our “digital exhaust”, largely invisible to us, is magically turned to gold by legions of tech workers guided by the speculative bets of tech entrepreneurs.

Begun before most cell phones in use were considered “smart”, the first Social Photography show took place more or less at the inception of visual information as fodder for the experience economy. In late 2010, with cell phone pictures little more than a novelty stored within the limited technological capacity of flip phones, the gargantuan image mill of Instagram had yet to kick into full gear. Searching for an alternative to the benefit raffle exhibition which asks time and materials in the form of donated artworks from artists while offering little in the way of a collective aesthetic, Carriage Trade solicited a couple of hundred cell phone pictures from its community of artists, writers, curators, students, and neighbors, formatting and printing them and presenting the whole in a grid, with proceeds from sales going to support the gallery’s non-commercial mission.

What began as a novelty eventually became a tradition, with evolving participants reflecting the growth of the gallery’s audience, while many of the gallery’s regular visitors returned for each show. As the societal consequences of social media became more clear, the show started to represent a kind of alternative, a "progressive anachronism" where the pictures we take on our phones are shared online and printed out and shown in a physical space, without suffering the pressure to accumulate visible status symbols in the form of hearts, or doled out based on a corporation’s statistical analysis of our preferences.

Arranged chronologically based on when the gallery receives the emailed image, from the start the goal was not to promote cell phone photography, but to take its measure on an annual basis; an informal assessment of how people (both artists and non-artists) are engaging with this relatively new image technology and its inevitable evolution. Now in its tenth year, and over two thousand unique pictures later, the original emphasis of the show, one of sensibility over professionalism or mastery, seems to have prevailed, while the impressive advances of cell phone technology rival point and shoot cameras, offering immediacy and spontaneity with little compromise in image quality.

As the show arrives at its tenth iteration, a milestone of sorts, perhaps its most important feature to the gallery, apart from critical support that helps us continue our programming, is how a simple use of digital technology can foster and expand an in-person community so important to the galley’s mission, and we’d like to sincerely thank all those who’ve so generously donated their images (in some cases year after year) to help support the work that we do.

Social Photography X Contributors:

Saif Abaza · Dennis Adams · Rachel Allen · Graham Anderson · Matías Añón · Peggy Ahwesh · Hallie Ayres · Mengfan Bai · James Barondess · David Baskin · Philip Bednarski · Amy Ben-Ezra · Theodora Benezra · Liz Berg · Alex Berns · Julien Bismuth · Joi Bittle · Lisa Blas · Jenna Bliss · Carly Blumenthal · Ann Bobco · Jakob S. Boeskov · Jennifer Bolande · Richard Bosman · F.P. Boué · James Bradley · Norman Brosterman · Robert Brush · Hue Bui · Victoria Campbell · Antoine Catala · Myrel Chernick · Mary Clarke · Barnett Cohen · Matt Connors · Eli Coplan · Jeri Coppola · Francisco Correa Cordero · Fred Cray · Jody Culkin · Furen Dai · Reilly Davidson · August Dine · Daniella Dooling · Paul Druecke · Aisosa Edokpayi · Peter Fend · Bernadette Fiscina · Andrea Frank · Rainer Ganahl · Marc Ganzglass · Ashley Garrett · Hunter Gause · Jeff Gibson · Louisa Gibson · Liam Gillick · Andrew Ginzel · Robert Goldman · Jennifer Golub · Kathleen Goncharov · Michelle Grabner · Alexander Graves · Tracy Grayson · Susan Grayson · Ethan Greenbaum · Barbara Gundlach · Beck Haberstroh · Anthony Hawley · Lorna Hayden · Yuki Higashino · Laura Hoffmann · Karl Holmqvist · Laura Hunt · Alex Hutton · Cindy Hwang · Shirley Irons · Bryn Jayes · Neil Jenney · Kazusa Jibiki · Suzanne Joelson · Danielle K Johnson · Nicole Kaack · Werner Kaligofsky · Craig Kalpakjian · Brigid Kennedy · Mike Kenney · Anjali Khosla · Theodore King · Ben Kinmont · Hilary Kliros · Nicholas Knight · Margia Kramer · Otis Kriegel · Udomsak Krisanamis · Nina Kuo · Stephen Lack · Justen Ladda · Eugenia Lai · Paige Landesberg · Erik LaPrade · Clair LaPrade · Elizabeth LeCompte · Louise Lawler · Mika Lee · Gary J Lee · Alexandra Lerman · Max Levin · Wenxiao Li · Nora Ligorano · Jeanne Liotta · Alina Lis · Michelle Liu · Judith Luongo · Tim Maul · Esperanza Mayobre · Tom McGlynn · Paul McMahon · John Miller · Veronika Molnár · Isabella Moore · Real Salvator Mundi · Rick Myers · Diane Nerwen · John G. H. Oakes · Stefano Olla · John Opera · Kristin Ordahl · Elani Ortiz · Spencer Ostrander · Tony Oursler · J Lisa Oyama · Camila Palomino · Hannah Park · Laura Parnes · Stephan Pascher · Julie Patton · Gelah Penn · Andreas Petrossiants · Lily Pinchbeck · Michael Poetschko · Jeff Preiss · Xingyue Qiao · R H Quaytman · Jack Radley · Lee Ranaldo · Andrés Rangl · Xander Rapparport · Riven Ratanavanh · Marshall Reese · Calvin Reid · Esioul Relwal · Walter Robinson · Michael Robinson Cohen · Aura Rosenberg · Lorin Roser · Barbara Rothbart · Betty Roytburd · Emily Roz · Ryan Rusiecki · Keith Sanborn · Dwayne Sanders · Ken Saylor · John Schabel · Julia Scher · Jeffrey Schiff · Heidi Schlatter · Nadine Schmied · Gary Schneider · Barry Schwabsky · Michael Scott · Felicity Scott · Anne Katrine Senstad · Elaine Sexton · Raphaele Shirley · Zhi Shu · Shelly Silver · Jason Simon · Adam Simon · Day Sinclair · Raphaele Shirley · Leah Singer · Janice Sloane · Teri Slotkin · Alec Snow · Claudia Sohrens · Gary Stephan · Steel Stillman · Carol Szymanski · Ho Tam · Sikay Tang · Bogdan Teslar Kwiatkowski · The Yes Men · Gwenn Thomas · Yulia Topchiy · Momoyo Torimitsu · Dan Torop · Pegi Vail · Kate Valk · Ali Van · Lotte Van den Audenaeren · Liselot van der Heijden · Philip Vanderhyden · Virginia Inés Vergara · Julia Wachtel · Daniel Walworth · Lotte Walworth · Max Warsh · Jeff Weber · Barbara Weissberger · James Welling · Bronwen Wickstrom · Elvia Wilk · Tonero Williams · Scott Williams · Eliza Williamson · Bryce Wilner · Nechama Winston · David Winter · Josiah Wolfson · B Wurtz · Mie Yim · H Spencer Young · Paul David Young · Michael Zansky · Tutu Zhu · Omar Zubair

*socialphotography.carriagetrade.org
1 print: $75.00
2 prints: $120.00 (use promo code: 2/$120 at checkout)
3 prints: $150.00 (use promo code: 3/$150 at checkout)

Photo credit: John Schabel, Grand Central, 2022, 7" x 5"