Taking Back Our Space Makes the Politics of a Pose Visible
A pose can look casual while carrying years of instruction.
A pose can look casual while carrying years of instruction. At MoMA, Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives brings Marianne Wex’s study of everyday body language into conversation with seven contemporary artists exploring who gets to occupy public space and shape their own image. The exhibition is on view through May 2, 2027.
Reading the ordinary gesture
Wex began photographing people in Hamburg in 1972. She studied the positions of their limbs and the ways they occupied their surroundings, then combined those pictures with images gathered from media and art history. Organized into groups of gestures, the photographs make repeated conventions easier to recognize. MoMA’s presentation places this foundational project in its second-floor Paul J. Sachs Galleries. Official exhibition page
The method encourages a different kind of looking. Instead of treating each photograph as a self-contained statement, a viewer can compare neighboring images and consider how posture becomes a social habit. A hand, a bent knee or a claim on a seat may communicate expectations that nobody has said aloud. The camera records an individual moment, while the arrangement invites questions about the larger pattern.
Wex’s work also makes the act of classification visible. Someone decides which pictures belong together and what their similarities might mean. That gives the exhibition a useful tension for photography audiences: an image can reveal a convention while the structure around it influences how we understand what we see.
Expanding the conversation
The contemporary artists are Nona Faustine, Martine Gutierrez, K8 Hardy, Yuki Kihara, Joiri Minaya, Paulina Olowska and Wendy Red Star. Their work brings questions of race, gender, colonial histories and self-representation into the discussion. In their exhibition guide, curators Roxana Marcoci and Caitlin Ryan describe a conversation reaching beyond physical territory to the authority to represent oneself. MoMA’s curators’ guide
Gutierrez’s Indigenous Woman takes the form of a magazine in which the artist assumes multiple roles, including photographer, model and editor. Hardy’s Position Series presents repeated transformations of the artist’s own appearance. Read together, these approaches suggest that a self-portrait can be a constructed proposition, with clothing, performance and presentation contributing to what the photograph says. MoMA’s exhibition press release
Red Star’s Accession series works with another image-making system: the museum archive. It brings historical illustrations of Native objects into relation with photographs she made at Crow Fair. Kihara’s Paradise Camp revisits imagery associated with Paul Gauguin through work featuring Indigenous Samoan fa’afafine. Both projects make room for perspectives that complicate the authority of familiar cultural images. The exhibition’s press materials identify these as specific bodies of work in the presentation. MoMA’s exhibition press release
A question for the person looking
For photographers, the exhibition offers a prompt that extends beyond technique. What does the frame permit a person to express? What assumptions arrive with a pose, a costume, a backdrop or a historical reference? Those decisions are part of making an image, even when a picture appears spontaneous.
For viewers, the corresponding task is to notice the position from which we read. Recognizing a visual convention is only a starting point. Staying curious about who created it, who benefits from it and how an artist might alter it opens a more demanding relationship with the photograph.
Watch, then look again
MoMA’s video profile of K8 Hardy provides a related entry point. Published as part of its Art for All series, the film introduces an artist included in the exhibition. It belongs alongside the show as context for Hardy’s practice, rather than as a guide to the gallery installation. Official MoMA video feature
The museum will extend the exhibition’s themes into an evening program on November 17, from 7 to 10 p.m., with performances, readings and art-making. The announced lineup includes Hardy, Amanda Krische, Megumi Shauna Arai and readings curated by The Whitney Review. Check the museum’s event page for tickets and current details. MoMA After Hours
Taking Back Our Space gives the everyday pose enough time to become unfamiliar again. That pause is its invitation: to see an image’s choices, and to recognize how differently a person might choose to be seen.
Watch: MoMA’s K8 Hardy profile explores the artist’s practice of self-presentation. This related artist film is not a walkthrough of Taking Back Our Space.
More entertaining stories to read here.
Black Doves returns to Netflix on November 5, bringing Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw back as Helen Webb and Sam Young. The timing makes this a release-week watch, but the more interesting question is how a friendship built around keeping secrets survives when one of its members moves closer to the center of political power.
John Legend’s Muse arrived October 23, with Pharrell producing the album and Clipse appearing in the new “Bodies On The Floor” video.
Sampa the Great puts Zambia’s rock inheritance at the center of Nu Zamrock. Released October 30, 2026, her third album brings a family discovery into a project that connects hip-hop with the rebellious spirit of Zamrock.
Shygirl’s SWALLOW! arrives November 6. Its linked music videos make this release week a story worth following before the full album lands.
Anderson .Paak and Cordae’s Heavy Is the Crown arrives October 23, 2026, giving their partnership an 11-song album of its own. The release moves a familiar collaboration into a longer conversation about confidence, responsibility and the complicated business of being on top.
Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan turn “expectations” into a shared pop statement, pairing a newly released remix with a theatrical official video.
Summer Walker faces an Interscope lawsuit seeking at least $50 million over recordings the label says she still owes. She disputes its claims.
Megan Thee Stallion’s October 20 freestyle samples Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff,” adding a new chapter to Tina Snow’s fall run.
Doechii’s October 20 video follows “BOMBS,” with production from Real Bad Man and Kal Banx and direction shared with Carlos Acosta.
Mahalia’s “the 5 stages of heartbreak,” released October 23, turns a relationship’s unraveling into a five-part R&B story. The single and official video introduce a new independent chapter, with vulnerability and creative control sharing the spotlight.
Zara Larsson’s “Blue Moon” gives the Midnight Sun era a new after-dark fantasy. Directed by Charlotte Rutherford, the video turns an ordinary setting into a heightened world of romance, movement and transformation.
Tierra Whack has added seven songs to WHACK’S MUSEUM. Released October 16, 2026, the deluxe edition gives her rap-focused project another chapter without adding featured guests, keeping the attention on the artist whose name is above the door.
Beck’s Ride Lonesome reaches a new checkpoint as his tour arrives at Toronto’s Massey Hall on October 14 and 15. The September album and its accompanying live run offer a useful look at how an established artist can build a new chapter around musical continuity.
Doechii revives Swamp Sessions with “BOMBS,” a self-directed video released October 12, bringing rapid-fire rap and sci-fi imagery into her next creative chapter.
Talking Heads Radio is on air this October, giving listeners a limited window to revisit the band’s catalog before an expanded Fear of Music arrives November 13. The SiriusXM channel runs through October 22 in cars and October 31 on the app.
Yung Miami makes self-belief look red-hot in “F You,” pairing a fiercely independent message with glossy cars, smoke and striking red-and-black styling. The new video turns her refusal to shrink under criticism into a stylish statement of confidence as she builds toward her debut solo album, Watch Dis.
Dawn Richard’s creole culture arrives today, October 9, on Merge Records. The album completes her New Orleans trilogy with a story told from her own perspective, bringing family, local collaborators and Louisiana Creole language into an 11-song release.
Drake, Don Toliver and Yebba’s “Cold Shoulder” has arrived on Drake’s official YouTube channel, giving the HABIBTI (FOMO) collaboration its own standalone video release. The October 6 upload follows the song’s arrival on streaming and brings its relationship drama back into focus.
Megan Thee Stallion has given Tina Snow two Tuesdays in a row. “Tina Tuesday Freestyle,” released September 29, is now joined by “Is You Cool?,” which arrived October 6. Together, the videos reopen a familiar corner of her catalog while listeners await Act III.
Drake and Don Toliver have released the official “Solar Eclipse” music video on YouTube, extending the rollout of HABIBTI (FOMO). The October 6 upload arrives four days after the song reached streaming, putting the Ella Langley-interpolating collaboration back in the spotlight.
A song can begin with a technical breakthrough, a wish to lift someone's spirits, or a feeling that has waited long enough to be expressed. For Christopher Benson, who makes music as ChrisB, those impulses help explain The Right Time, Money's Calling You and Diamond in the Rough. Benson says he wrote, produced and recorded all three himself. His accounts of their beginnings, together with the lyrics to all three songs, offer a portrait of an artist learning how to give personal intention a finished musical form.
Tinashe’s Popstar era has reached a new high. The album debuts at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 dated October 10, 2026, securing her first top 10 album, according to Billboard’s report.
The night didn’t begin as planned. Hundreds of people without tickets rushed the stadium entrances, forcing organizers to temporarily lock down access. Thousands of paying fans were left waiting outside while security regained control, delaying the concert by roughly three to four hours. Jay-Z eventually came on stage just after midnight and apologized, telling fans the delay was necessary for everyone’s safety.
Nicki Minaj, also known as the Queen of Gag City, speaks in-depth with Ebro Darden live in studio in New York City about everything related to "Pink Friday 2." The candid talk covers a wide range of topics, with Minaj discussing how her reaction to learning of her father's death affected the opening song on PF2, "Are You Gone Already."
Get your earphones charged and ready because you’ll need them coming into the New Year with Bronx native trendsetting rapper Sheem Klauf’s ‘Count These Bandz’ which dropped in September 2023. The 90’s feel trap song written with a stellar and catchy hook gives a new spin on nostalgia play snapping out of that New York Drill music that radio’s have gotten so use to listening to & definitely goes complimentary well with the ‘Big Shot’ MC.
The multi-Platinum R&B singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer Tinashe made a magnificent return appearance on Sunday before kickoff to perform the National Anthem. In addition, the lifelong Silver and Black supporter paid tribute to America before the Raiders vs. Chiefs games in 2021 and 2018.
'These last few days [since news of the lawsuit broke] have been gut wrenchingly difficult and overwhelmingly disappointing.'
"You f**kin' right" when they remark, "She got it from her mama, "Body impolite, it's rude/Victoria growled as she sang, "Done being the humble type/Tell me, are you down?/'Cause I'm tryna get up tonight. "I just wanna live in a fantasy/I think we deserve it, right? H*es and hoochies left and right."/All the memories I've ever had in my life, top them all.Permanent euphoriaLet's sleep where the lovers lie/Ladies is pimps tonight/Livin' within a fantasy, she sings.
Shygirl posted a statement on her Instagram Story saying that she was "devastated to share that due to an ongoing respiratory condition, I've been forced to make the difficult decision to cancel my appearances on the upcoming US tour on the advice of my doctor that I can no longer delay surgery."
A pose can look casual while carrying years of instruction. At MoMA, Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives brings Marianne Wex’s study of everyday body language into conversation with seven contemporary artists exploring who gets to occupy public space and shape their own image. The exhibition is on view through May 2, 2027.
A school photograph can record a face while missing the person. Melissa Ann Pinney’s long-running work with Chicago Public School students asks for a slower encounter, and a new exhibition at New York’s International Center of Photography brings that invitation into focus.
Who gives a photograph its meaning after the shutter closes? The published programme for the International Center of Photography’s “Concept Album” symposium, dated October 23 and 24, places that question in the hands of writers, photographers and curators, following images into books, archives and public conversation.
Renée Cox’s Take A Good Look has been extended through November 14 at Ethan Cohen Gallery in Chelsea. The exhibition brings more than three decades of photography and self-representation into conversation.
An upcoming New Orleans exhibition explores how photographs change when a collector brings them into conversation.
Opening October 23, 2026, Milwaukee’s Beneath the Surface examines photography’s complicated relationship with resource extraction.
Bucharest Photofest’s Witness edition runs through October 18, bringing photography, film and conversation together around a difficult question: what does it mean to keep looking?
Graciela Iturbide received the Leica Hall of Fame Award on October 8, 2026, in Wetzlar, Germany. The honor comes with an exhibition of more than 50 photographs and a fresh invitation to explore the Mexican artist’s distinctive way of seeing everyday life.
The High Museum of Art has scheduled Photography as a Way of Life to begin today, October 9, in Atlanta. Through Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, the exhibition considers how making pictures, teaching and sharing ideas can shape an entire creative life.
At Paris’s Maison Européenne de la Photographie, PENN & FASHION revisits a career in which a dress could become the beginning of an image’s invention. Within that wider story, Irving Penn’s collaboration with Issey Miyake offers an unusually revealing account of what happens when a designer lets a photographer take the lead.
Russell Brand was sentenced to 10 years and six months after convictions involving four women. Police are assessing further information received during and after the trial.