Retold: Altered Photography

Nouf Aljowaysir, Garth Amundson and Pierre Gour, Juyon Lee, Negin Mahzoun, Wendel A. White Retold: Altered Photography is an exhibition featuring work by six contemporary artists who use photographic alteration to reclaim and reframe personal narratives and social histories, challenging photography’s authority as a neutral record. Two additional related exhibitions exploring how photographic meaning is shaped by manipulation, from analog newsroom edits to contemporary digital practices, are also on view: Cut and Paste (Student Exhibition Lab): a CMS 338: Media Criticism student-curated selection of historic newsroom photographs from the George Stephanopoulos Collection analyzing visible evidence of manual editing in print media. Open for Interpretation (Student Exhibition Lab): a display of ART 356: Experimental Photography student digital works responding to these historical practices, exploring how images can be reinterpreted through construction and deconstruction. The project is inspired by historic newsroom prints from the George Stephanopoulos Collection at Pace that retain visible marks of manual editing, including pen lines, whiteout, and incisions. Created in the mid-20th century, these alterations reflect editorial judgment and the technical constraints of newspaper production, shaping interpretation while meeting the demands of reproduction and layout. For contemporary audiences accustomed to digital manipulation and fully fabricated images, these analog edits appear strikingly overt. Yet their transparency reveals a foundational truth: photographs have always been shaped, edited, and constructed. Removed from their original context, these images prompt renewed attention to what is revealed or omitted in producing visual meaning. By placing contemporary artworks in dialogue with historic newsroom photographs, the exhibitions highlight photographic alteration’s dual capacity: to assert authority and to question it. Across all three, acts of cutting, editing, layering, and erasure reveal that photographs are never neutral; they are constructed, contingent, and open to interpretation. Curated by Sarah Cunningham, Art Gallery Director and Associate Clinical Professor, with Roger Sayre, Professor and Associate Chair of the Art Department