Stephen Shore, Ryan McGinley's Xeroxes in "Hard Copy New York"

"All the pictures in "Hard Copy New York," a big two-floor show at the International Center of Photography (through May 4), were made with photocopy machines. They have that streaked, velvety, platinum-gray tone familiar from old Xeroxes, and they're pinned or stapled right to the wall. But there's nothing nostalgic or romantic about this throwback look. Instead, the work has the immediacy of a poster on a pole, and, even if some of the material documents old history, it feels like news."

"The curator Aaron Stern, working with I.C.P.'s David Campany, made (and "reinterpreted") all of these copies from files that the photographers provided. (He includes a tabletop collage piece that's both index and art work.) The process involved a high level of collaboration and trust. Only Ari Marcopoulos, a master of the photocopy as art, made his own prints, including a gang of friends-and-family portraits and several densely worked text pieces."

"Stephen Shore shows ninety-three grainy copies of his photographs from the Factory, many of which were published in the catalogue for Andy Warhol's 1968 Moderna Museet exhibition, in Stockholm-pictures of Andy, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, and Lou Reed just hanging out. At the other end of the size scale, John Divola's images of dogs running in the desert, each one made of nine huge panels, come at you fierce and frothing."

The "Hard Copy New York" exhibition at the International Center of Photography showcases photographs created using photocopy machines, displaying characteristic streaked, velvety platinum-gray tones. Rather than appearing nostalgic, the work conveys urgency and newslike immediacy. Curator Aaron Stern collaborated with photographer-provided files to create and reinterpret copies for the exhibition. Featured artists include Stephen Shore with ninety-three grainy copies from Andy Warhol's Factory, John Divola's large-scale desert dog images, Ari Marcopoulos's self-made prints and text pieces, Collier Schorr's performance documentation, and Daniel Arnold's street photography. The exhibition runs through May 4 and represents diverse approaches to the photocopy medium as artistic practice.

Read at The New Yorker