Oct 3–11, 2026 My Plan
Portrait of Phillip Maisel

Photo via FotoFocus

FotoFocusSpeaker · Artist

Phillip Maisel

Artist

Phillip Maisel utilizes site-informed materials to create sculpture, collage, video, and photographic objects. His work often subverts expectations of photographic space, destabilizing the viewer’s visual literacy. He received his M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and his B.S. in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Maisel has presented solo exhibitions at the Chiquita Room, Barcelona, Spain; Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Nazarian / Curcio (formerly Shulamit Nazarian), Los Angeles, CA; and DOCUMENT, Chicago, IL. He has exhibited at The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut; the University of New Mexico, Taos; and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Boston, MA. His book, Two Concrete Things, received the ArtsLibris-Fundació Banc Sabadell Award in 2021. His work is included in the KADIST collection, as well as the High Museum, Atlanta, GA.

Events · 3

As artist

Hours not listed · Sep 30–Mar 6

FotoFocusExhibition

Natural Fictions

The Carnegie

Lindsay Albert, Sso-Rha Kang and 3 more

Free · photography · group · featured

Details

In an age marked by accelerated change and ecological instability, Natural Fictions proposes a slower, stranger, and more speculative gaze. The exhibition gathers artists who harness photography’s potential to imagine new relationships with the natural world—ones that are not bound by documentary fidelity but instead embrace transformation, fiction, and play. Through their work, the landscape becomes a site of experimentation and wonder, where speculative futures and unseen pasts coexist in surreal, poetic, and scientific inquiry.

The artists in this exhibition use the lens not merely to capture the world as it is, but to destabilize it. They fold time, alter perspective, and merge disciplines, constructing images that evoke geological duration, cosmic scale, and embodied mythologies. Some simulate environments that never existed, while others render familiar terrain uncanny through shifts in material, scale, or cultural reference. Their practices explore the camera as both a tool and collaborator in seeing beyond the visible and the known.

Natural Fictions considers how photography can resist linearity and certainty. What new narratives emerge when nature is approached as something invented as much as it is observed? What futures might become imaginable when science meets spirit or when perspective is shaped by play instead of conquest? Natural Fictions invites viewers to look sideways—and forward—at the environments we inhabit, inherit, and imagine.

Artists: Lydia Smith, Mareiwa Miller, Ruby Que, Sean McFarland

Also with Joshua Berg (artist), Heesoo Kwon (artist), Phillip Maisel (artist)

Cost: Free to the Public

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

As speaker

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FotoFocusKeynote

Artist Talks and Keynote Lecture

Memorial Hall

Lindsay Albert, Joshua Berg and 8 more

Opening Program · biennial program · performance

Details

Noon Light Bites

1pm Natural Fictions

Conversation with Artists Joshua Berg, Covington, KY; Heesoo Kwon, Los Angeles, CA; and Phillip Maisel, San Francisco, CA; moderated by Curator Lindsay Albert, Program Manager, KADIST, San Francisco, CA

2pm Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Compressed Tenses

Conversation with Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Artist, Los Angeles, CA, and Carmen Winant, Artist and Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art at the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

3pm Nancy Rexroth: Secrets of My Power

Conversation with Curator Nathaniel M. Stein, Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, and Elizabeth Leitzell, Photographer and Short Filmmaker, Philadelphia, PA

4pm Trevor Paglen: the most merciful thing in the world

Performance-lecture by Trevor Paglen, Artist, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA

5pm The Long View Keynote

Lecture by Daniel Immerwahr, Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) are provided

Artists: Nancy Rexroth

Also with Daniel Immerwahr (speaker), Heesoo Kwon (speaker), Elizabeth Leitzell (speaker), Phillip Maisel (speaker), Trevor Paglen (speaker), Paul Mpagi Sepuya (speaker), Nathaniel M. Stein (speaker), Carmen Winant (speaker)

Cost: Free to Biennial Pass Holders

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

As speaker

end time not listed

FotoFocusPanel

Conversation: Natural Fictions

Memorial Hall

Lindsay Albert, Joshua Berg and 2 more

Opening Program · biennial pass · session

Details

Conversation with Artists Joshua Berg, Covington, KY; Heesoo Kwon, Los Angeles, CA; and Phillip Maisel, San Francisco, CA; moderated by Curator Lindsay Albert, Program Manager, KADIST, San Francisco, CA

Also with Heesoo Kwon (speaker), Phillip Maisel (speaker)

Cost: Free to Biennial Pass Holders

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

Where to find them

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

All people