Announcing the 48 Critics’ Choice Award Winners for 2023

Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. In his practice, the exhibition becomes an experimental site for reflection, civic engagement, ecology and repatriation — both tangible and symbolic. Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organization based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also serves as Founder and Director of Lagos Photo Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas. In 2021, Nwagbogu was awarded “Curator of Year 2021” by the Royal Photographic Society, UK, and also listed amongst the hundred most influential people in the art world by ArtReview. Most recently, Nwagbogu launched the project “Dig Where You Stand (DWYS) - From Coast to Coast” which offers a new model for institutional building and engagement, with questions of decolonization, restitution and repatriation, the exhibition took place in Ibrahim’s Mahama’s culture hub SCCA in Tamale, Ghana. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large.

Eve Schillo curates exhibitions that span photographic history and appear in galleries dedicated to American, Latin American, Modern, Contemporary, and Japanese Art, as well as those devoted to photography. Recent projects include an exhibition celebrating California photography, Golden Hour (2021-22); In the Now: Gender and Nation in Europe (2021); Mariana Yampolsky (2018); This Is Not a Selfie (2018 + tour); Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld (2018); Larry Sultan: Here and Home (2015); and Road Trip: Photography and the American West (2014). Areas of interest include experimental and time-based media, Latinx makers, and of course, California and The West, early through contemporary work.

Robert Morat is the owner and director of Robert Morat Gallery in Berlin. The gallery program focuses on emerging and mid-career positions in contemporary photography, representing artists such aa Christian Patterson, Ron Jude, Jessica Backhaus, Bertien van Manen, Hans Christian Schink, Lia Darjes, Mårten Lange, Simon Roberts, Andrea Grützner and many others. Robert, an art historian, went to Journalism School and started out as an editor working for magazines, newspapers and TV. He opened the gallery in Hamburg in 2004 and started showing at international art fairs in 2007. Today, the gallery is a regular exhibitor at art fairs such as Paris Photo, Unseen Amsterdam, and Photo London. In 2009, Robert became a member of AIPAD, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, and served as a director and member of the board from 2010 to 2015. In 20015 the gallery relocated to Berlin and is found today on Linienstrasse in the Mitte art district, showing an alternating program of represented artists, guest exhibitors (John Divola (2019), Max Pinckers (2020)), book presentations and artist talks.

Deborah Klochko has over twenty-five years experience in photography museums as an educator, director, and curator. She has curated over thirty exhibitions, was executive editor of an award-winning journal of visual culture called see, and is the founder of Speaking of Light: Oral Histories of American Photographers. Formerly the director of The Friends of Photography, located at the Ansel Adams Center, Deborah has also worked at the California Museum of Photography; the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Ihiro Hayami (b. 1982, Osaka, Japan) is the founder / director of T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL (Tokyo International Photography Festival). He’s the former chief editor of the Japanese photography magazine PHaT PHOTO and was the gallery director of RINGCUBE (Ginza). His selected curatorial exhibitions include Alejandro Chaskielberg’s Otsuchi Future Memories (2016), Alex Prager’s WEEK-END (2010), and more. Over the past few years, he has served as juror, lecturer, and reviewer at various international photo festivals and photography universities.

Matthew Flowers (b. 1956) is a British contemporary art dealer and the Managing Director of Flowers Gallery, London, Hong Kong and New York. Flowers Gallery, which is now in its 50th year, is one of the longest-standing international contemporary art galleries and currently represents over 50 international artists and artist’s estates, working across a wide range of media. Established in 2008, the Gallery's dedicated photography programme is recognised for its engagement with important socio-cultural, political and environmental themes. Throughout his career Matthew has been on boards and committees of international art fairs and arts institutions and spent 12 years as a non-executive Director of DACS (visual artists’ rights management organisation).

Whitney Matewe is photo editor at TIME. She primarily works on portraiture and feature commissions as well as larger packages such as TIME100, Next Generation Leaders and Kid of The Year. Prior to joining the photo department at TIME, Whitney was a photo editor at National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Intercept and Condé Nast brands like Teen Vogue and GQ. She has served as juror on multiple awards and reviews.

Whitney Johnson is the Vice President of Visuals and Immersive Experiences at National Geographic. Prior to that she worked at the Open Society Foundations. She has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the International Center of Photography.

Since March 2000, Xavier Canonne has been the director of the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium. Before coming to the Musée, he was the director of the collection of the Province of the Hainaut (modern and contemporary art) from 1987 to 2000. He has curated many exhibitions and has edited and written various books and studies. He had curated several exhibitions, among them Intimate Man Ray (2003); Scenes of Atget (2004); Lee Miller a Life (2005); and Surrealism in Belgium in the Fine Arts Museum in Mons-BAM (March—April, 2007). Canonne is the publisher of the review "Marées de la Nuit". He is the author of the several books, including Looking at the U.S. – 1957—1986, published in 2009; Requiem pour un homme seul, Le Samouraï de Jean-Pierre Melville, 2010; and René Magritte, The revealing images, published in 2017. Xavier Canonne received his Doctorate in Art History and Archaeology from the Sorbonne University in Paris, with a doctoral thesis dedicated to Surrealism in Belgium.

Shields has over twenty years’ picture-editing experience across a range of newspaper titles and has served as picture editor of The Guardian for the last nine. She recently took up the role of Head of Photography for the Guardian News and Media Group. Throughout her career, she has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic news stories of our time: 9/11, conflicts around the world, the Arab Spring and much more. Besides her work at the newspaper, she’s delivered talks at photo festivals and to students of photojournalism. She has judged the Sony World Photography Awards, the UK Picture Editors Guild Awards, and the Renaissance Photography Prize among others. Most recently she served as a nominator for the Prix Pictet and joined the jury of the highly regarded Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.

Giuseppe Oliverio is an Italian entrepreneur and artistic director. In 2012, he launched PHmuseum, a platform for contemporary photography widely known for its grants and education program. Past recipients include artists Laura El-Tantawy, Max Pinckers, Diana Markosian, Jacob Aue Sobol, Poulomi Basu and Alejandro Cartagena.

PhMuseum is based in Bologna, Italy, where Oliverio opened the PhMuseum Lab, a multifunctional space for workshops, talks, and exhibitions, in 2020. The following year he launched PhMuseum Days, the platform’s international photography festival whose second edition counted around 10,000 visitors and 15 exhibitions.

Oliverio has served on the juries for the Lucie Photo Book Prize, Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward, UPI’s The Fence, and Happiness OnTheMove, and regularly works as a portfolio reviewer at festivals such as Unseen, Photo Vogue Festival, and Visa Pour L’Image. He has written for TIME magazine and L’Uomo Vogue.

Oliverio holds a degree in economics from Bocconi University (Milan) and a Master’s in Quantitative Finance from Cass Business School (London).

Rebecca Morse is Curator in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Recent projects include Objects of Desire: Photography and the Language of Advertising, Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You I Mean Me I Mean You, Thomas Joshua Cooper: The World’s Edge, Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld, and Larry Sultan: Here and Home. She was previously Associate Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) where she organized Amanda Ross Ho: Teeny Tiny Woman, Cai Guo-Qiang: Ladder to the Sky, Rodarte: States of Matter, The Artist’s Museum, and Florian Maier-Aichen. Upcoming projects include an exhibition around the work of American photographer Laura Gilpin.

Karen McQuaid is Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. She has curated exhibitions including Jim Goldberg, Open See (2009); Fiona Tan, Vox Populi, London (2012); Andy Warhol, Photographs: 1976 – 1987 (2014); Lorenzo Vitturi, Dalston Anatomy (2014) and Rosângela Rennó, Río-Montevideo (2016). She has co-curated Geraldo De Barros, What Remains (2013) with Isobel Whitelegg and Made You Look, Dandyism and Black Masculinity (2016) with Ekow Eshun. She has co-edited and produced The New Colonists (2018) by Monica Alcazar-Duarte, published with Bemojake. Karen has curated external exhibitions at The Moscow House of Photography and The National Gallery of Kosovo. She regularly edits artists books and guest lectures across the UK.

Dr Sabina Jaskot-Gill is Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London where she develops acquisitions and curates exhibitions of photography and new media. Recent examples include Hold Still (2020), Only Human: Martin Parr (2019), John Stezaker: Portrait (2019), In Focus: Rinko Kawauchi (2018), Black is the New Black: Portraits by Simon Frederick (2018), Siân Davey: We Are Family (2017), Thomas Ruff Portraits (2017) and Double Take: Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image Foundation (2017). Sabina has also curated the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibitions. Previously, Sabina lectured on the history and theory of photography at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and has held positions at Tate, Autograph ABP and the University for the Creative Arts.

Darius Himes is the first International Head of Photographs for Christie's, joining in November 2014. Prior to that, he was Director of Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (2011-2014). In his curatorial career, he has collaborated with a wide range of photographers, from Lee Friedlander to Alec Soth and Katy Grannan. He has also worked with some of the top institutions across the United States: The Art Institute of Chicago, David Zwirner Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Himes has contributed writing to Aperture, American Photo, Blind Spot, Bookforum, BOMB, PDN, and Lay Flat. He also co-authored the title, "Publish Your Photography Book," a popular guide (now in its second edition) to the illustrated book publishing industry.

Claire has been collecting photographs since 1997 and with her husband James has developed one of the most significant private collections of British Photography in the world in The Hyman Collection. Claire is also Chair of the Board of Trustees of the new Centre for British Photography, a significant new public space that seeks to champion photography made in Britain in all its diversity. A charitable initiative, it has exhibitions spaces, a programme of public events, an archive, and a shop. The aim is to host exhibitions curated independently by outside curators and institutional partners as well as to provide a platform for a range of voices to present an expansive overview of the diversity of British photography past and present.

Eslah Attar is a visual storyteller from the suburbs of Ohio where she studied photojournalism and documented immigration in her community. Prior to joining The New York Times as a photo editing fellow, she worked at National Geographic as an associate photo editor. Before then, she worked at National Public Radio as a photo editor and photographer.

Since 2010, Manolis Moresopoulos has been the artistic director of the Athens Photo Festival, a leading international festival of photography and visual culture. In and beyond this role, Manolis has been responsible for numerous exhibitions and photography-related activities, including book projects, learning activities, artist exchange programs, and talent development initiatives. Over the past few years he has served as nominator, juror and reviewer for many international festivals and organisations, and regularly lectures on the theory and practice of photography. Manolis is always looking for new or emerging artists working with photography for possible future collaborations.

Stéphane Magnan founded Les Filles du Calvaire gallery in Paris in 1995. Its vocation is to show and defend contemporary creation by asserting a resolutely multimedia program and a strong political orientation through the works of committed artists of all generations who think about the current world in all its conditions. The gallery actively participates in fairs and shows in France and abroad and collaborates with many institutions around the world.

Jim Casper is the editor-in-chief of LensCulture, one of the leading online destinations to discover contemporary photography from around the world. As an active member in the contemporary photography world, Casper organizes annual international photography events, travels around the world to meet with photographers and review their portfolios, curates art exhibitions, writes about photography and culture, lectures, conducts workshops, serves as an international juror and nominator for key awards, and is an advisor to arts and education organizations.