Photography Exhibition Featuring Works by Dona Ann McAdams and Abby Robinson at Pratt Manhattan Gallery
Two Powerful Photography Exhibitions Open at Pratt Manhattan Gallery
On Friday, April 18, Pratt Manhattan Gallery will unveil two dynamic photography exhibitions that explore personal narrative, social identity, and the transformation of the self through lens-based storytelling. The exhibitions—Black | Box by Dona Ann McAdams and AutoWorks & WaterWorks by Abby Robinson—present compelling visions of American life, gender, and embodiment across different decades. Both shows will be on view through June 7, 2025, with a public opening reception on Thursday, April 17, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Dona Ann McAdams: Black | Box
Black | Box is a retrospective by renowned American photographer Dona Ann McAdams, whose award-winning work has captured defining grassroots movements and cultural moments over the last half-century. Spanning 1974 to 2024, the exhibition features black-and-white photographs intertwined with McAdams’s own lyrical texts—personal, poetic reflections that transform the images into a photo-memoir.
The 50-year archive covers a wide range of social, political, and artistic life in America, with a particular focus on the Queer Liberation Movement, the Culture Wars, and experimental performance art in New York during the 1980s and 1990s. McAdams’s collaboration with grassroots communities, her empathetic portraits, and her minimalist texts bring an intimate, documentary honesty to these tumultuous, vibrant chapters of contemporary history.
The exhibition coincides with the release of McAdams’s new book, Black | Box: A Photographic Memoir, published by Saint Lucy Books. The monograph both complements and expands on the themes of the exhibition, offering a deeper dive into the photographer’s personal and artistic journey.
Abby Robinson: AutoWorks & WaterWorks
Abby Robinson’s twin series, AutoWorks and WaterWorks, trace the evolution of feminist self-portraiture across more than 30 years. Beginning in 1971, AutoWorks presents small, approximately two-by-three inch black-and-white photographs, in which Robinson uses her own image to question—and often dismantle—traditional gender norms and societal expectations placed on women.
These intimate photo-narratives show the deliberate, performative relationship between artist and camera, where chance, identity, and agency intertwine. Robinson often described the series as a game with the camera—a way to both test and reveal her place within cultural frameworks.
WaterWorks, developed more recently, emerged serendipitously after Robinson began taking her camera into the shower. These full-color images offer a shift in scale and atmosphere. Larger in format and often suffused with flowing water and refracted light, the WaterWorks photographs depict the vulnerable, expressive body in spaces shaped by fluidity and introspection. They also underscore Robinson’s enduring interest in how the body interacts with containment, illumination, and transformation.
Before her passing in July 2024, Robinson personally selected the works featured in this exhibition, making AutoWorks & WaterWorks a poetic summation of her artistic ethos and enduring legacy.
Gallery Details
Both Black | Box and AutoWorks & WaterWorks will be on view at Pratt Manhattan Gallery from April 18 through June 7, 2025. The gallery is located at 144 West 14th Street in New York City and is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. A public opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 17, from 6 to 8 p.m., offering visitors an opportunity to engage with these impactful bodies of work.
To learn more about the exhibitions and programming, visit pratt.edu.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery’s programming is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Whether through McAdams’s sweeping decades of activism and art or Robinson’s embodied, playful experimentation, these exhibitions invite audiences to explore nuanced narratives of resilience, memory, and self-expression in the language of photography.