PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf - Photography Podcast

Photographers Peter van Agtmael and Paul Shambroom join Sasha Wolf on PhotoWork to discuss their documentary practices: where they align, and where they part ways, with Shambroom working closer to the fine art tradition and van Agtmael closer to photojournalism. The conversation ranges widely as they compare notes on the nature of documentary and its claims to truth, the ethical limits of the work, and how each engages with the communities they photograph, including questions of consent.

Paul Shambroom uses found and original photographs to explore American power and culture. His recent practice incorporates sourced images, collaborative theater and 3D constructions. His documentary subjects include nuclear weapons and small-town council meetings. He’s published three monographs: “Past Time”, “Meetings” and “Face to Face with the Bomb….” and a catalog for his mid-career touring exhibition “…Picturing Power.” He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Creative Capital grantee, among other honors. His work has been in the Whitney Biennial and has been collected and exhibited by major museums including the San Francisco MoMA, MoMA (NY), the Walker Art Center and the Art Institute of Chicago. He is an Associate Professor Emeritus in Art, University of Minnesota.

https://paulshambroom.com

https://www.instagram.com/paul_shambroom/

Peter van Agtmael was born in Washington, DC, in 1981. He was 20 years old and studying history at Yale on 9/11, an event that was pivotal in shaping his career. Shortly after graduating, he began documenting the United States at war and at home, which continues to be the anchor of his work.

Van Agtmael is known for his deeply affecting, sometimes surreal images, which explore themes of conflict, history, memory, nationalism, militarism, race, and class. He has spent more than 15 years covering US wars from both sides and countless angles, from embedding with military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to covering the civilian cost of the wars. He has also extensively documented the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Along with ongoing personal projects, Van Agtmael has photographed for many leading publications, including the New York Times Magazine, where his images have been featured on multiple front covers. His work is held at the International Center of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, and Yale University Art Gallery. He is the author of five books, 2nd Tour: Hope I Don’t Die (2009), Buzzing at the Sill: Peter van Agtmael (2016), 2020 (2020), Sorry for the War (2020), and Look at the U.S.A.: A Diary of War and Home (2024).

Van Agtmael is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant, the ICP Infinity Award for Young Photographer, the LUMIX FREELENS Award, the Aaron Siskind Grant, and several World Press Photo Awards. Since 2014, he has been a mentor in the Arab Documentary Photography Program in Beirut. Van Agtmael joined Magnum Photos in 2008 and became a full member in 2013.

https://www.petervanagtmael.net

https://www.instagram.com/pvanagtmael/

Photographer Irina Rozovsky joins Sasha Wolf on PhotoWork to discuss the release of her latest photobook, Mountain Black Heart (MACK). The conversation explores how Rozovsky’s nomadic photographic journey through the Balkan region shaped the book’s images and underlying atmosphere. Rozovsky and Wolf reflect on the parallels between making photographs and making a photobook, examining how distance from the routines of home, unfamiliar surroundings, and a willingness to embrace discomfort inform her creative process. 

https://www.irinar.com

https://www.mackbooks.us/collections/new-books/products/mountain-black-heart-irina-rozovsky

Irina Rozovsky (born 1981, Moscow) is drawn to regions with complex histories. While her photographs are rooted in reality, they ultimately weave a personal, psychological portrait of place. She has published four monographs: Mountain Black Heart (MACK, 2026), In Plain Air (MACK, 2021), Island in my Mind (Verlag Kettler, 2015), and One to Nothing (Kehrer, 2011). Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more. Irina lives and works in Athens, Georgia where she and her husband Mark Steinmetz run the photography project space The Humid.

Artists Dru Donovan and Jon Rubin join PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to share their memories of legendary photographer, artist, and teacher Larry Sultan and discuss the release of Water Over Thunder: Selected Writings (MACK), the first publication devoted to Sultan's wide-ranging use of writing as a personal, artistic, and pedagogical tool, illustrated throughout with previously unseen materials from his archive. Former students, assistants, and friends of Sultan, Donovan and Rubin share personal stories about his approach to photography, teaching, and mentorship, while reflecting on his lasting influence and the privilege of collaborating with his family on this book.

Dru Donovan

Dru Donovan works with both photography and video to examine the connection between physical and emotional occurrences by constructing or revisiting human experiences. Donovan’s work has shown nationally and internationally and was included in reGeneration2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in the 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, Fraenkel Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Williamson Knight Gallery and Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. Donovan’s photographs were published in Aperture Magazine, Blind Spot, Picture Magazine and Matte Magazine. In 2011 TBW Books published her first book, Lifting Water. In 2011-2012 she participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace studio residency. Awards Donovan has received are the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship in 2015 and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2016.

https://drudonovan.com

Jon Rubin 

Jon Rubin is an interdisciplinary artist who creates collaborative interventions into public life that re-imagine individual, group, and institutional behavior. His socially engaged projects include running a barter-based nomadic art school, founding a national museum, operating a restaurant that produces a live talk show with its customers, and co-directing another that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. In 2019, with the support from Creative Capital, Rubin built an exact replica of his friend Sohrab Kashani’s Tehran apartment so they both could live and work together in a parallel universe that bypassed the Trump travel ban.

Rubin has exhibited at the Shanghai Biennial; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Mercosul Biennial; the Carnegie International; The Lyon Biennale; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico; The Rooseum, Sweden; as well as in backyards, living rooms, and street corners. In 2017 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum commissioned a major new work by Rubin and collaborator Lenka Clayton, entitled A talking parrot, a high school drama class, a Punjabi TV show, the oldest song in the world, a museum artwork, and a congregation’s call to action circle through New York. With the participation of six diverse venues around New York City, the artists arranged for an essential element from each site—referenced in the project’s title—to circulate from one place to the next, creating a six-month network of social and material exchange. 

His work has been reported on internationally by outlets including The New York Times, The Associated Press, Art in America, Artforum, The Boston Globe, La Repubblica, Al Jazeera, BBC World News, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Conflict Kitchen, Rubin’s collaborative seven-year work with artist Dawn Weleski, was named as one of the 100 Artworks that “Defined the Decade” by Artnet News.

Rubin is a Professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Columbus College of Art and Design.

https://www.jonrubin.net

Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan (American photographer, b. Brooklyn, NY, 1946; d. Greenbrae, CA, 2009) was raised in California’s San Fernando Valley. His work, heavily influenced by the post-war popular culture of Los Angeles, plays with notions of documentary and staged photography and reveals the psychological nuances found in the everyday suburban landscape and family life. Acclaimed for his use of color and light, Sultan is also known for uniquely collapsing the distance between himself and his subject. His series include Swimmers (1978-82), Pictures from Home (1983-92), The Valley (2004) and Homeland (2006-2009). Sultan co-authored the ground-breaking work, Evidence (1977) with Mike Mandel. A beloved and highly influential educator, Sultan taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and served as a Distinguished Professor of Photography at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, from 1989 to 2009.

Sultan’s work has been widely published, exhibited, and collected worldwide including Tate Modern, London; The National Gallery, London; Stedejik Museum, Amsterdam; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, NY; Los Angeles County San Francisco Museum of Art, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Sultan was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, US Department of International Arts and Lectures Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship. Sultan’s project Pictures from Home was developed for the stage and premiered on Broadway in 2023.

https://www.larrysultan.com

Artists Dru Donovan and Jon Rubin join PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to share their memories of legendary photographer, artist, and teacher Larry Sultan and discuss the release of Water Over Thunder: Selected Writings (MACK), the first publication devoted to Sultan's wide-ranging use of writing as a personal, artistic, and pedagogical tool, illustrated throughout with previously unseen materials from his archive. Former students, assistants, and friends of Sultan, Donovan and Rubin share personal stories about his approach to photography, teaching, and mentorship, while reflecting on his lasting influence and the privilege of collaborating with his family on this book.

Dru Donovan

Dru Donovan works with both photography and video to examine the connection between physical and emotional occurrences by constructing or revisiting human experiences. Donovan’s work has shown nationally and internationally and was included in reGeneration2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, and in the 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, Fraenkel Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Williamson Knight Gallery and Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. Donovan’s photographs were published in Aperture Magazine, Blind Spot, Picture Magazine and Matte Magazine. In 2011 TBW Books published her first book, Lifting Water. In 2011-2012 she participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace studio residency. Awards Donovan has received are the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship in 2015 and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2016.

https://drudonovan.com

Jon Rubin 

Jon Rubin is an interdisciplinary artist who creates collaborative interventions into public life that re-imagine individual, group, and institutional behavior. His socially engaged projects include running a barter-based nomadic art school, founding a national museum, operating a restaurant that produces a live talk show with its customers, and co-directing another that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. In 2019, with the support from Creative Capital, Rubin built an exact replica of his friend Sohrab Kashani’s Tehran apartment so they both could live and work together in a parallel universe that bypassed the Trump travel ban.

Rubin has exhibited at the Shanghai Biennial; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Mercosul Biennial; the Carnegie International; The Lyon Biennale; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico; The Rooseum, Sweden; as well as in backyards, living rooms, and street corners. In 2017 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum commissioned a major new work by Rubin and collaborator Lenka Clayton, entitled A talking parrot, a high school drama class, a Punjabi TV show, the oldest song in the world, a museum artwork, and a congregation’s call to action circle through New York. With the participation of six diverse venues around New York City, the artists arranged for an essential element from each site—referenced in the project’s title—to circulate from one place to the next, creating a six-month network of social and material exchange. 

His work has been reported on internationally by outlets including The New York Times, The Associated Press, Art in America, Artforum, The Boston Globe, La Repubblica, Al Jazeera, BBC World News, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Conflict Kitchen, Rubin’s collaborative seven-year work with artist Dawn Weleski, was named as one of the 100 Artworks that “Defined the Decade” by Artnet News.

Rubin is a Professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Columbus College of Art and Design.

https://www.jonrubin.net

Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan (American photographer, b. Brooklyn, NY, 1946; d. Greenbrae, CA, 2009) was raised in California’s San Fernando Valley. His work, heavily influenced by the post-war popular culture of Los Angeles, plays with notions of documentary and staged photography and reveals the psychological nuances found in the everyday suburban landscape and family life. Acclaimed for his use of color and light, Sultan is also known for uniquely collapsing the distance between himself and his subject. His series include Swimmers (1978-82), Pictures from Home (1983-92), The Valley (2004) and Homeland (2006-2009). Sultan co-authored the ground-breaking work, Evidence (1977) with Mike Mandel. A beloved and highly influential educator, Sultan taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and served as a Distinguished Professor of Photography at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, from 1989 to 2009.

Sultan’s work has been widely published, exhibited, and collected worldwide including Tate Modern, London; The National Gallery, London; Stedejik Museum, Amsterdam; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, NY; Los Angeles County San Francisco Museum of Art, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Sultan was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, US Department of International Arts and Lectures Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship. Sultan’s project Pictures from Home was developed for the stage and premiered on Broadway in 2023.

https://www.larrysultan.com

Curators Marina Chao & Adam Ryan (CPW) join PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss the inaugural Upstate Photography Biennial and the curatorial process behind this major contemporary photography exhibition. Chao, Ryan, and Wolf explore how CPW develops exhibitions with both the local community and broader audience in mind, building meaningful public engagement, and what artists can do to establish and sustain relationships with photography and arts organizations.

https://cpw.org

Marina Chao has previously held curatorial positions at the International Center of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As assistant curator at ICP she organized the exhibition Multiply, Identify, Her (2018) and contributed to the publication Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self (Aperture and ICP, 2018). She was awarded a 2019 Curatorial Research Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for a project exploring the intersections of image, language, and technology.

Adam Ryan is a photography specialist and curator based in Poughkeepsie, New York. He gained experience working at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he focused on the museum’s permanent collection of photographs, while also managing its Collection Study Center. He collaborated on multiple exhibitions such as Japanese Photography from Post War to Now, Selections from the Sack Photographic Trust, and Nothing Stable Under Heaven. Before that, he worked in the Photography Department of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his primary focus was a major retrospective on the work of renowned artist Duane Michals – Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals. As a student, he learned photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and continued into graduate school at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada.

https://www.adamgilesryan.com