New York, NY—On Wednesday, April 10, photographers, artists, business leaders, philanthropists as well as fans and friends of the International Center of Photography (ICP) gathered at The Shed. At the sold-out event, ICP honored five pioneering women for their creativity, leadership and contributions to photography as an art and a discipline.
IPC’s 40th Annual Infinity Awards, sponsored by Hearst and Kering, honored Lynsey Addario, Renell Medrano, Shirin Neshat, Wendy Red Star and Caryl S. Englander. Moreover, this was first time the Infinity Awards were given to five women for their achievements.
“We’re thrilled that the New York City cultural, civic and philanthropic communities continue to support our work at ICP, especially during our 50th anniversary year which is a special milestone for the institution,” said Bob Jeffrey, CEO of ICP. “This year’s Infinity Award honorees personify what it means to embody ICP’s mission in their work and in the world. More women are at the helm of guiding photography in practice, behind the lens, and in shaping the institutional and academic conversations about photography as an art and mass medium. We’re proud that ICP continues to be at the center of advancing those discussions and to invest in those who steer them into the future.”
ICP Honors Pioneering Women
Hosted by Vincent J. Musi, the 40th Annual Infinity Awards also included a live and silent auction. It featured fine art prints by notable contemporary practitioners. Among them were works by Annie Leibovitz, Mickalene Thomas, Cindy Sherman as well as Sebastião Salgado.
What’s more, during the event, each awardee was accompanied by a short film, telling the powerful story of their journey in photography. Following the main program, a more informal “nightcap” cocktail hour also welcomed a festive crowd to mingle with Infinity Award honorees, gala guests and colleagues.
Furthermore, the evening surpassed a goal of raising $1.2 million for ICP’s initiatives that will support exhibition programming and its growing education offerings.
2024 Infinity Award Categories and Recipients
Following are the 2024 award honorees.
Trustees Award: Caryl S. Englander
Lifetime Achievement: Shirin Neshat
Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism: Lynsey Addario
Contemporary Photography and New Media: Wendy Red Star
Commercial and Editorial Photography: Renell Medrano
Moreover, the guests for the 2024 Infinity Awards evening included:
Hugh Jackman
Linda Evangelista
Kathy Ryan
Caryl Englander
Renell Medrano
Lynsey Addario
Wendy Red Star
Shirin Neshat
Honor Brodie
Nina Garcia
Samira Nasr
Jodi Cobb
Tip Dunham
Laurie Simmons
Callie Shell
Rosalind Fox Solomon
Alfredo Jaar
Chirag Chotalia
Katherine Chia
Michael Clinton
Jane Corkin
Adam Fuss
Renee Harbers Liddell
Uzodinma Iweala
Almudena Legorreta
Jan Mulder
Jessical Nagle
Ken Nicholson
Stefano Tonchi
Jeffrey Rosen
Pat Schoenfeld
Susan Meiselas
David Friend
Myles Loftin
Isolde Brielmaier
David Maupin
Samantha Bass
Heidi Lee
Dominique Levy
Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn
Elodie and Richard Taittinger
2024 Infinity Award Recipients
Caryl S. Englander
An accomplished documentary and portrait photographer, Englander has served as chair of the International Center of Photography since 2008. Additionally, she joined the board a decade earlier. Her exceptional leadership has guided ICP through a period of tremendous growth and international recognition. Further, among her many contributions to the success of the institution was securing ICP’s new location on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It houses the school and museum in one integrated space. What’s more, in recognition of this accomplishment, the structure was named The Caryl S. Englander Building.
A graduate of the ICP/NYU Master’s program, Englander’s photographs have formed the core of several exhibitions. They include Acts of Charity, Deeds of Kindness for the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty in 2005 as well as Through the Lens of Faith, installed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 2019 in collaboration with the Studio Libeskind. In addition to her leadership positions, she has served on ICP’s Exhibitions, Acquisitions, and Education Committees. Additionally, Englander is a fierce advocate for their programming and community engagement.
Shirin Nesha
An Iranian-born artist and filmmaker living in New York, Neshat works and continues to experiment with the mediums of photography, video, and film. Further, she imbues her work with highly poetic and politically charged images and narratives. Her work questions issues of power, religion, race, gender as well as the relationship between the past and present, East and West, individual and collective through the lens of her personal experience as an Iranian woman living in exile.
Lynsey Addario
An American photojournalist, Addario has covered conflict, humanitarian crises as well as women’s issues. She has done so on assignment for the New York Times and National Geographic magazine for more than two decades. Since September 11, 2001, Addario has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Syria as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Wendy Red Star
Based in Portland, Oregon, Red Star has exhibited in the United States and abroad. Venues include the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY), both of which have her works in their permanent collections; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contempora in (Paris, France), Domaine de Kerguéhennec (Bignan, France), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Hood Art Museum (Hanover, NH), St. Louis Art Museum (St. Louis, MO), Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN), the Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL), among others.
Renell Medrano
Medrano is a Dominican-American photographer and director from the Bronx, New York. Her work focuses on finding vulnerability in her subjects, drawing inspiration from New York City and her motherland of the Dominican Republic. Further, she graduated from Parsons School of Design | The New School with a degree in Photography.
