
Exhibition preview·New York
Jack Shainman marks Gordon Parks Foundation's 20th year with 'Voices in the Mirror'
Jack Shainman's Tribeca space is showing 'Gordon Parks: Voices in the Mirror' from September 18 through November 6, 2026, a 65-image exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation, pairing the photographer's iconic work with reflections from the families he portrayed.
Jack Shainman's Tribeca space is marking the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation with "Gordon Parks: Voices in the Mirror," an exhibition of 65 of the pioneering photographer's most iconic images, on view from September 18 through November 6, 2026, at 46 Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. The show sets its tone with Parks's searing portraits of Muhammad Ali, published in Life magazine as "The Redemption of the Champion," and ranges across his documentation of Black American life — from Harlem street portraits to the civil rights movement in the South. Parks once said he saw the camera as "a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs," and the exhibition traces how he wielded it across decades of work for Life and beyond. True to its title, the presentation pairs the photographs with reflections from the people and families Parks portrayed, examining not only the images but the stories of resilience behind them. Contributors include Muhammad Ali's widow Lonnie Ali, activist and former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver, actor Isabella Rossellini, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, Guggenheim curator Thelma Golden, and artist Hank Willis Thomas. Organized with the foundation that bears his name, the exhibition revisits a career that shaped how America talks about history — one that centered the inner lives of the people who lived it. The Tribeca presentation, timed with the fall gallery season, places Parks's legacy at the heart of one of New York's busiest art districts, and it featured in fall art-week roundups with critics singling it out among the season's must-see gallery shows.


