Speaking in Pairs
February 5 – April 19, 2026
Opening Reception: April 19, 6–8pm

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery
Hunter West Building
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065

Can a portrait represent violence and healing at the same time? A photograph made by artist August Sander of Hermann Leubsdorf in 1938, in Cologne, Germany, suggests that it can.

Speaking in Pairs, on view Spring 2026 in a gallery endowed by the Leubsdorf family, looks at the aesthetic, material, social, and political layers that portraits offer—revealing how the people they portray, their makers and viewers, and the changing world they exist in connect and conflict in shifting cycles over time.

More than eighty contributors—artists, historians, lawyers, doctors, writers, curators, and more—come together for this exhibition, which presents works in a continually evolving installation and uses books, posters, and ephemera to visually illuminate the connections between vernacular photography and art, nobody and somebody, the personal and public. An array of viewpoints blurs the lines between artists, curators, and other subjects, and between non-fiction and fiction. 

Along the way, we note the 200th birthday of photography (2026), the 150th birthday of August Sander (1876–1964), the 125th birthday of playwright Marieluise Fleißer (1901–1974), the 100th birthday of Boris Lurie (1924–2008), and the approaching 40th anniversary of the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery on March 8th, 2027.

August Sander (1876-1964), Hermann Leubsdorf, Victim of Persecution, 1938, Cologne, Germany, Courtesy of John Leubsdorf. © Die Photographische Sammlung/Sk Stiftung Kultur–August Sander Archiv, Cologne/VG-Bildkunst 2025.

Reiner Leist, exhibition curator and Hunter College Professor, writes: 

“Portraits allow immortality. This exhibition asks: Who gets to be pictured and seen? Who may tell their story? Such evidence of being present, alive, can also increase visibility or hasten our demise. Speaking in Pairs seeks to offer navigational references across time and geography, between works and the practitioners making, or pondering, them. The Leubsdorf family fled Germany in 1938 and in the 1980s descendants of Hermann Leubsdorf endowed the Hunter College Art Gallery on the 68th Street campus. Speaking in Pairs considers art's historical and contemporary response to oppression and crisis, in a space long used to offer representation to those impacted by extraordinary and unspeakable events.”

Juxtaposing images created at points of conflict and growth in history, Speaking in Pairs examines how multiple conflicting forces can be viewed and experienced in what appears—at face value—to be a quiet photograph. Dynamics between sitters and artists, and those who later view their collaborations, infuse the experience. The works convey an evolving meaning that can spark vital conversations.

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Participants

A

Dennis Adams

Alexander von Alten-Reuss

Emilio Ambasz

Nobutaka Aozaki

Ellen Auerbach

Richard Avedon

Sadaf Azadehfar

B

Jennifer Bajorek

James Baldwin

Lewis Baltz

George Barris

Regina Baumhauer

Ludmilla Beckles

Harry Belafonte

Marina Berio

Joseph Beuys

Dawoud Bey

Elisabeth Biondi

Joan Biren

Karin Biow

Franz Boas

Christian Boltanski

Margaret Bourke-White

Carole Braden

Marco Breuer

Jude Broughan

Elizabeth Burns

Stanley Burns

Stefanie Bürkle

C

Elinor Carucci

Alexander Chekmenev

Paulina Choh

Ano Chrispin

Peter J. Cohen

Lynne Cohen

Ernest Cole

Gabriele Conrath-Scholl

Luis Corzo

Morgan Cousins

Elizabeth Cronin

Edward Curtis

Dr. Court Cutting

D

Meredith Davenport

John Deakin

Roy DeCarava

Annette Deeken

Jack Delano

Constance DeJong

Thomas Demand

Ludger Derenthal

June Canedo deSouza

Alfred Döblin

Frazer Dougherty

E

Natalie Eddings

Christiane Eisler

Noam Elcott

Okwui Enwezor

Alberto Errera

Francesca Esmay

F

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Carl von Fechten

Fabian Feiner

Hans Peter Feldmann

Mark Feldstein

Celeste Fichter

Jane Fincher

Trude Fleischmann

Marieluise Fleißer

Andrea Frank

Robert Frank

Paul Fusco

G

Damon Galgut

Denize Galiao

Chitra Ganesh

Thomas E. Gilsen

David Goldblatt

Marlene Goldstein

Adam Golfer

Beth Griffith

Julio Grinblatt

Rick Guidotti

H

Hans Haacke

Ronald L. Haeberle

Tess Hamilton

Peter Handke

Rachel Handlin

Sharon Harper

Erich Hartmann

John Heartfield

Marvin Heiferman

Jon Hendricks

Alexander Held

Rudolf Herz

Benjamin Hett

Albert Hien

Candida Höfer

Curt Holtz

Langston Hughes

Yehuda Hyman

I

Christopher Isherwood

Graciela Iturbide

J

Lotte Jacobi

Anna Lise Jensen

Paul Ramirez Jonas

Helen Joseph

Caro Jost

Yeji Jun

K

Dora Kallmus

Sabine Kammerl

Emily Katrencik

Rinko Kawauchi

Daniel Kehlmann

Adrienne Keller

Nora Kennedy

Michael Klant

Barbara Klemm

Victor Klemperer

Hans Kraemer

Konrad Kulke

Yasuo Kuniyoshi L

Liza Lacroix  

Thomas Lang

Dorothea Lange

Danka Latorre

Doris Lauerwald

Jacob Lawrence

Dani Lessnau

Bertha Leubsdorf

Hedwig Leubsdorf

Hermann Leubsdorf

John Leubsdorf

Karl Leubsdorf

Naomi Levinshtein

Michael Lobel

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler

David Lowe

Boris Lurie

Loretta Lux

Daminico Lynch

M

Glory Badirileng Maebelo

Daniel Magilow

Dan Manilow

Robert Mapplethorpe

Roger Meintjes

Hector René Membreño-Canales

Annette Messager

Paul Messier

Lee Miller

Santu Mofokeng

Hlonipha Mokoena

Meleko Mokgosi

David Moy

Zanele Muholi

Robin Muir

Gabriele Münter

Maggie Mustard

N

Maurizio Nannucci

Robert Nestora

Ursula Neugebauer

Katherine Newbegin

Helmut Newton (Neustädter)

O

Eva Obermeyer

Ken Ohara

Marc Ohrem-Leclef

Takako Oishi

Lauren Orchowski

Jesse Owens

P

Reinhard Pabst

Helga Paris

Gordon Parks

Raoul Peck

Antonella Pelizzari

Olaf Peters

Irving Petlin

Paul Pfeiffer

Stephen Pinson

Daniel Polonsky

Barbara Probst

R

Birgit Ramsauer

Matthias Reichelt

R.W. Rexford

Jessenia Reyes-Ambrosio

Gerhard Richter

Carly Ries

Jacob Riis

Sofia Rivera

Kendall Rogers

Larissa Rogers

Ann Rosener

Julian Rosefeldt

Judith Joy Ross

Edwin Rosskam

Martin Roth

Alexandra Ruggieri

Stefan Ruiz

Caroline Rupprecht

Vickie Russell

S

August Sander

Horst Sauerbruch

Jürgen Schadeberg

Rudolf Schäfer

Pavel Schnabel

Martin Schoeller

Hanna Schygulla

Alina Serote

Mongane Wally Serote

Jillian Seymour

Jamel Shabazz

Sam Sherman

Yoshida Shigeki

Melissa Shook

Kristina Shook

Milly Skellington

Tony Smith

Stephen Sollins

Fredrick Sommer

Emily Song

Susan Sontag

Kerstin Specht

Keliy Anderson Staley

Stephanie Stebich

Edward Steichen

Hildegard Steinmetz

Sally Stein

Grete Stern

Alfred Stieglitz

Joel Sternfeld

Ceija Stojka

T

Rein Jelle Terpstra

Noelle Théard

Charles Traub

V

John Vachon

Vincent van Gogh

Camilo Vergara

Virginia Inés Vergara

W

Nari Ward

Andy Warhol

Wim Wenders

Michael Wesely

Hannah Westerman

Edward Weston

Hans Winkler

Marion Post Wolcott

Y

Byungsuk Yoon

JeongMee Yoon

Miyako Yoshinaga

Z

Ilana Zaks-Nederlander

Sigríður Zoëga

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Press for Speaking in Pairs

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Speaking in Pairs is curated by Reiner Leist, Professor of Art & Art History at Hunter College, with MA and MFA students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate Seminar. The exhibition is organized by Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, and Tara Ohanian, Assistant Curator and Exhibitions Manager. Exhibition design: Louisa Thompson and Reiner Leist in collaboration with curatorial fellows Caitlin Anklam, Adrienne Keller, and Sofia Rivera. MA and MFA students: Ano Chrispin, Daniel Polonsky, Noa Raviv, Kendall Rogers, Vivek Sebastian, Jillian Seymour, and Ingrid Song.

The exhibition is made possible by The Leonard A. Lauder Exhibition and Catalogue Fund, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Crossway Foundation. A catalogue, co-published with Hirmer Publishers and forthcoming in Fall 2026, is funded by a grant from the Wolf Kahn Foundation and the Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation on behalf of artists Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn.

ABOUT THE HUNTER COLLEGE ART GALLERIES

Part of the college’s Department of Art and Art History, the Hunter College Art Galleries have contributed to New York City’s vital cultural landscape since their inception over a quarter of a century ago. The galleries provide a space for critical engagement with art and pedagogy, bringing together historical scholarship, contemporary artistic practice, and experimental methodology. Located on Hunter’s main campus at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery presents research-driven historical exhibitions that provide new scholarship on important and often under-represented artists and art movements.

For more information about exhibitions and public programs visit: huntercollegeartgalleries.org

PRESS INQUIRIES
E-mail Aleeq Kroshian, aleeq.kroshian@hunter.cuny.edu