“Disturbed Harmonies”: Richard Renaldi & W.M. Hunt in conversation
5th September 2023
American photographer Richard Renaldi has been short listed for this year’s Prix Pictet for his ongoing series “Disturbed Harmonies.” He will be joined in conversation for Photo London Online Talks Programme by W.M. Hunt, champion of photography, on Tuesday, 5 September at 6PM GMT.
They will talk about Renaldi’s diptychs of portraits of men and landscapes by going through his portfolio of these recent works and talking about their evolution and appropriateness to the Prix’s theme “Humankind” and its overall mission “to harness the power of photography — all genres — to draw attention to issues of sustainability”. <prixpictet.com>
Renaldi has had a full career as a documentary portraitist and teacher. The two men are longtime colleagues and fans of each other. This will be the first time they have had a unique opportunity like this to talk in depth about the artist’s work.
On graduating from New York University in 1990, Renaldi worked as a researcher and editor at Magnum Photos and Impact Visuals. At this time, he started the first of many long-term projects, a series of street portraits on Madison Avenue. They were included in STRANGERS: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video at the International Center of Photography, New York (2003).
Renaldi’s work has also been shown at the George Eastman Museum in New York and the Museum of the City of New York.
Renaldi is the author of five books, including a visual autobiography, I Want Your Love (Super Labo, 2018). The others are Richard Renaldi: Figure and Ground (Aperture, 2006); Fall River Boys (Charles Lane Press, 2009); Touching Strangers (Aperture, 2014); and Manhattan Sunday (Aperture, 2016). His project Billions Served was featured in The New Yorker and the Financial Times.
In 2015, Renaldi received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
He has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, and at Harvard University. In 2019, he was the Henry Wolf Chair in Photography at the Cooper Union, New York.
In 2008, Renaldi founded Charles Lane Press, dedicated to publishing lesser-known or emerging photographers and overlooked projects.
Since 2004, he has been involved with Visual AIDS as an archive member, fundraiser and supporter. In 2011, he received the Bill Olander Award, honouring his commitment to art activism, AIDS advocacy, HIV prevention, education and support of other artists with HIV/AIDS.
W.M. Hunt is a photography collector, curator and consultant who lives and works in New York. His recent essays on great photographs are accessible at <wmhunt.com/somereallygoodones>. He is working on a new book on his collection of photographs of American groups, “America: At Work, At Play & At War” after exhibitions in New York, Bologna and Arles. Earlier conversations for Photo London with critic Andy Grundberg, collector Nick Sutton, and artists Joanne Dugan, Liz Nielsen and Nancy Burson can be found online.
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