Alfredo JaarPhoto London 2026
Photo London
14–17 May 2026
Presented at Photo London as part of a collaboration between Prix Pictet and Goodman Gallery, Alfredo Jaar’s ‘Searching for Africa in Life [For Koyo Kouoh]’ brings together all 2,128 covers of LIFE Magazine published between 1936 and 1996.
At its peak, LIFE reached over thirteen million weekly readers, positioning itself as a window onto the world. Yet across six decades of circulation, African subjects appear only rarely. Jaar mobilises this absence as material – transforming the archive into a critical lens through which to examine the politics of representation.
What emerges is not only a record of omission, but a broader indictment of how knowledge is produced and circulated. The work exposes a persistent failure: to represent the diversity and complexity of the African continent beyond reductive, exoticising frames.
Artist Bio
Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956, Santiago, Chile) is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who considers social injustices and human suffering through thought-provoking installations. Throughout his career Jaar has used different mediums to create compelling work that examines the way we engage with, and represent humanitarian crises. He is known as one of the most uncompromising, compelling, and innovative artists working today.
Through photography, film and installation he provokes the viewer to question our thought process around how we view the world around us. Jaar has explored significant political and social issues throughout his career, including genocide, the displacement of refugees across borders, and the balance of power between the first and third world.
Jaar's work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002).
Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel, London (1992); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005) and The Nederlands Fotomuseum (2019). Major recent surveys of his work have taken place at Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2007); Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008); Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlinische Galerie and Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin (2012); Rencontres d’Arles (2013); KIASMA, Helsinki (2014); and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2017).
The artist has realised more than seventy public interventions worldwide and has been the subject of over sixty monographic publications. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. His accolades include the Hiroshima Art Prize (2018) and the prestigious Hasselblad Award (2020). More recently, he received the Edward MacDowell Medal and was announced the winner of the 11th Prix Pictet in 2025.
His work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MOCA and LACMA, Los Angeles; MASP, Museu de Arte de São Paulo; TATE, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centro Reina Sofia, Madrid; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MAXXI and MACRO, Rome; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlaebeck; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Tokushima Modern Art Museum, Japan; M+, Hong Kong; and dozens of institutions and private collections worldwide.
The artist lives and works in New York, USA.
