Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton (born 1970) is an independent curator of and writer about photography.

She has held positions including Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Head of Programming at The Photographers' Gallery, London, Creative Director at the National Media Museum, UK, Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Curator in Residence at the Katonah Museum of Art, NY, and Curator in Residence for International Center of Photography’s new museum and events space, 250 Bowery.

Cotton has curated a number of exhibitions on contemporary photography and her publications include The Photograph as Contemporary Art, Imperfect Beauty, Then Things Went Quiet, Guy Bourdin, and Photography is Magic. She is also the founder of wordswithoutpictures.org (2008-9) and EitherAnd.org (2012). Words Without Pictures was published as a print and eBook by Aperture in 2010.

Life and career

Cotton was born in the Cotswolds in England. She studied Art History at the University of Sussex in Brighton.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Cotton was curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 1993 to 2004. She started working as an intern there in 1992. She curated many exhibitions of historical and contemporary photography at the museum including: 'Imperfect Beauty: the making of contemporary fashion photographs' (2000), 'Out of Japan' (2002), 'Stepping In and Out: contemporary documentary photography' (2003) and 'Guy Bourdin' (2003).

The Photograph as Contemporary Art

The Photograph as Contemporary Art provides an introduction to contemporary art-photography, identifying its most important features and themes and celebrating its exciting pluralism through an overview of its most important and innovative practitioners. The work of nearly 250 photographers is reproduced, from established artists such as Isa Genzken, Jeff Wall, Sophie Calle, Thomas Demand, Nan Goldin, and Sherrie Levine to emerging talents such Walead Beshty, Jason Evans, Lucas Blalock, Sara VanDerBeek, and Viviane Sassen.

The first edition of The Photograph as Contemporary Art was published in 2004. The third, and most recent edition, was published in 2014 and features a new introduction and extended final chapter.

The Photograph as Contemporary Art is published in nine languages.

The Photographers' Gallery

Cotton was Head of Programming at The Photographers' Gallery, London from 2004-2005.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Cotton was Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from 2007-2009.

"Charlotte's career bridges the traditional and the contemporary. That is her real strength," said LACMA Director Michael Govan. "At the Victoria & Albert, she dealt with a collection of some 300,000 photographs that has great 19th century and early 20th century material, so she had a real grounding in a big museum collection and historic work. Then she gave it up to experiment and learn more about photography in the contemporary world. She has had huge experience, and she has taken risks. That's a good combination."

Photography is Magic

Photography is Magic is a critical publication that surveys the practices of over eighty artists, all of whom are engaged with experimental approaches to photographic ideas, set within the contemporary image environment, framed by Web 2.0. Photography is Magic surveys over eighty artists whose practices are shaping the possibilities of the contemporary photographic landscape. The contributors include Elad Lassry, Sara VanDerBeek and Kate Steciw.

Curated projects

Exhibitions organized and co-organized by Cotton:

• Photography is Magic: Aperture Summer Open, Aperture Foundation, NY, July ~ August 2016
• SupraEnvironmental, Katonah Museum of Art, NY, October 25, 2015 ~ January 24, 2016
• This Place, DOX center, Prague, October 2014 ~ January 2015; Tel Aviv Museum, May ~ September 2015; Norton Museum, Palm Beach, Fall 2015; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, Spring 2016
• Photoespaña 2014: P2P, Teatro Fernan Gomez, Madrid, June ~ July 2014.
• Daegu Photo Biennale: Photography Is Magic!, Daegu Arts and Culture Centre, Daegu, September ~ October 2012
• Krakow Photomonth: Photography in Everyday Life, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, May ~ June 2012
• Brighton Photo Fringe, Phoenix Arts, Brighton November ~ December 2011
• EATLACMA, LACMA, Los Angeles February ~ November 2010
• A Machine Project Field Guide to the LA County Museum of Art, LACMA, Los Angeles, November, 2008.
• Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913 ~ 2008, LACMA, Los Angeles October 2008 ~ March 2009
• The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, LACMA, Los Angeles, October 2008 ~ February 2009
• Philip-Lorca diCorcia, LACMA, Los Angeles May ~ September 2008.
• Art + Commerce Festival of Emerging Photographers, The Tobacco Warehouse, Brooklyn, October 2005; MOC Gallery, Tokyo (February–March 2006); Fendi Gallery, Milan (May 2006); Matadero Madrid (June 2006, PHotoEspaña); Center for Photography, Stockholm (September–October 2006, XpoSweden)
• Stories from Russia: Melanie Manchot & David King, The Photographers’ Gallery, London January ~ March 2005
• History in the Making: Mitch Epstein, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Ori Gersht, Zineb Sedira, Zoran Nazkovski. Circulos des Bellas Artes, Madrid PhotoEspana, June ~ July 2004
• Guy Bourdin, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Spring, 2003); National Gallery Victoria (Summer, 2003); Centre Nationale de la Photographie Paris (Spring, 2004); Foam Amsterdam (Fall 2004)
• Stepping In and Out: Contemporary Documentary Photography: Roger Ballen, Tina Barney, Donovan Wylie, Clare Richardson, Albrecht Tubke, Victoria and Albert Museum, London September 2002 ~ February 2003.
• Out of Japan: Felice Beato, Masahisa Fukase, Naoya Hatakeyama, Victoria and Albert Museum, London September 2001 ~ February 2002
• Imperfect Beauty: The Making of Contemporary Fashion Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum, London September 2000 ~ March 2001
• Attitude: A History of Posing, Victoria and Albert Museum, London September 2000 ~ March 2001
• Triple Exposure: Three Photographers From the Sixties, Victoria and Albert Museum, London September 1999 ~ February 2000
• Silver & Syrup: a selected history of photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London November 1998 ~ September 1999
• Information Units: A digital programme exploring the V&A’s Photography Collection. Devised and launched between April and November 1998
• Fashion on Paper & Contemporary Fashion Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, March ~ September 1997

Books

Books that Cotton has edited and contributed writing to:

• Cotton, Charlotte (2015). Photography is Magic. Aperture. ISBN 978-1597113311.
• (Exhibition catalogue, editor, essay, interviews)
• (Third edition with new introduction and extended final chapter)
• (Exhibition catalogue, essay, artists’ biographies)
• (Commissioned and published for LACMA)
• (Commissioned and published for LACMA)
• (Essay, co-published for LACMA)
• (Commissioned and published for LACMA)
• (Founder of wordswithoutpictures.org, co-editor, essay, published for LACMA)
• (Essay, published for LACMA)
• (Editor, essay)

Teaching

Cotton has been a visiting critic and scholar at numerous universities and schools in the US and the UK including: NYU Tisch, New York; CCA, San Francisco; Parsons and SVA, New York; Yale University, New Haven; UPenn, Philadelphia; and UCLA, USC, UC Irvine, Los Angeles; Farnham College, Surrey Institute of Design, UK.