Stir World

Navigating the visual vocabulary of romantic relationships through ‘Love Songs'

Curated by Sara Raza, ‘Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy’ presents works of 16 international photographers, reinforcing the complexity of romantic relationships.

by Sakhi Sobti

Published on: Sep 03, 2023

Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy, curated by Sara Raza, is being displayed at the International Center of Photography, in the heart of New York. The 16 exhibiting artists hail from around the world, and through their lenses, have captured various stages of love, including budding romance, marriage, honeymooning, the simplicity of domestic bliss, the anguish of separation, the anticipation of loss, and the terror of one's partner’s mortality. Within these photographs are aesthetic glimpses of poetic adoration, passion, unprocessed emotion and other facets of the deeply human experience that is love.

The offering of photography at Love Songs spans 70 years, from 1952-2022. The featured artists include Nobuyoshi Araki, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Motoyuki Daifu, Fouad Elkoury, Aikaterini Gegisian, Nan Goldin, René Groebli, Hervé Guibert, Sheree Hovsepian, Clifford Prince King, Leigh Ledare, Lin Zhipeng (No. 223), Sally Mann, RongRong&inri, CollierSchorr, and Karla Hiraldo Voleau—all highlighting the softness and complexity of human relationships.