Since 1985, the International Center of Photography Infinity Awards has recognised outstanding contributions and emerging talent in the fields of, art, photojournalism, fashion photography, and publishing.
The ICP honours remarkable efforts in photography and visual arts. Past recipients include South African visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi, and Malian photographer Malick Sidibé, amongst others. This year, Ming Smith and Zora J Murff make the list of past honourees for their outstanding achievement and strides in the visual arts and photography scene.
The New York International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards honoured Ming Smith with a Lifetime Achievement Award while Zora J Murff was awarded for his Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism.
Image courtesy of Aware
About Ming Smith
Ming Smith [b. 1950] first became a photographer when she was given a camera. She was the first female member to join Kamoinge, a collective of Black photographers in New York in the 1960s, working to document Black life. Smith was also the first Black woman photographer to be included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art.
Smith’s photography focused on black-and-white street photography, a format that she described as ‘you have to catch a moment that would never ever return again, and do it justice.’ Smith has often described her work as ‘celebrating the struggle, the survival and to find grace in it.’ Many of Smith’s subjects were well-known black cultural figures from Nina Simone, Grace Jones and Alice Coltrane: all from her neighbourhood. Smith has cited music as being a big influence in her work, specifically the genres of jazz and the blues. She has likened her work to the blues, saying, “in the art of photography, I’m dealing with light, I’m dealing with all these elements, getting that precise moment. Getting the feeling — to put it simply, these pieces are like the blues.”
As an artist, recognition for her work only came recently thanks to several high-profile exhibitions. Not limited to photography she also uses post-production techniques, collage and paint to create her works. Smith was recently included in Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern in collaboration with Brooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges and The Broad. She was also featured in Brooklyn Museum’s We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85. Smith’s work is in the collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. She was included in MoMA’s 2010 seminal exhibition, Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography.
Zora J Murff
Zora J Murff [b. 1987] is an artist and educator living in Northwest Arkansas. In 2019, Murff was named an Aperture Portfolio Prize finalist, a PDN 30 honoree, and a Light Work Artist-in-Residence; he was one of eight artists chosen for the most recent iteration of the Museum of Modern Art’s New Photography series, Companion Pieces: New Photography 2020. Murff’s books include Corrections (2015); LOST, Omaha (2018); and At No Point In Between (2019). His work was presented at the 2021 Rencontres d’Arles, France, as part of the Louis Roederer Discovery Award and his works are housed in many notable US institutions and collections. “Zora J Murff. He is Black; therefore, he is.”
