International Center of Photography Announces 2012 Infinity Awards Winners

NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Center of Photography (ICP) will recognize Daido Moriyama for Lifetime Achievement and will honor Ai Weiwei with the Cornell Capa Award at the 28th Annual Infinity Awards gala event on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, at Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers, in New York City. This year, 10 recipients will be recognized.

Celebrated at ICP's largest annual fundraiser, the Infinity Awards are widely respected as the leading honor for excellence in the field of photography. The full range of ICP's programs, including exhibitions, education, collections, and community outreach benefit from funds raised by the Infinity Awards.

"Each year ICP acknowledges the work of those whose powerful images and words excite, engage, and enliven us," said ICP Ehrenkranz Director Willis E. Hartshorn. We are especially honored to recognize Daido Moriyama and Ai Weiwei, two artists who embody the Infinity Award recipient ideal—those who are dedicated to exploring photography's cultural influence and how it creates opportunities for communication and personal expression. We are pleased to recognize the achievement of this year's recipients."

Since 1985, the annual ICP Infinity Awards recognize major contributions and emerging talent in the fields of photojournalism, art, fashion photography, publishing, and writing. More than 500 prominent individuals from the business, fashion, philanthropy, art, entertainment, and photography worlds are present to celebrate the world's leading photography professionals and demonstrate their commitment to creative expression and artistic achievement.

THE 2012 RECIPIENTS

Lifetime Achievement: Daido Moriyama
Cornell Capa Award: Ai Weiwei
Young Photographer: Anouk Kruithof
Writing: David Campany
Art: Stan Douglas
Publication: The Worker-Photography Movement 1926–1939, TF Editores/Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (Edited by Jorge Ribalta)
Photojournalism: Benjamin Lowy
Applied/Fashion/Advertising: Maurice Scheltens and Liesbeth Abbenes

Born in 1938 in Osaka, Daido Moriyama is an innovative street photographer whose high-contrast images portray an unstable, uncertain world. In the 1960s, he served as an assistant to photographer Eikoh Hosoe and then began his own freelance career. He has received multiple awards, including the New Artist Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association (1967) and the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Photographic Society of Japan (2004). His work has been exhibited throughout the world, and his numerous books are considered landmarks of photographic publishing.

Born in 1957 in Beijing, Ai Weiwei is known for his audacious conceptual sculpture and photographs, and for his photographic images of New York's Lower East Side in the 1980s. He gained international prominence after the Chinese government shut down his politically dissident blog and then seized him on spurious tax-evasion charges in April 2011. His three-month detention in prison provoked an outpouring of protests from artists, museum directors, and human rights advocates, leading to his release in June 2011. His work has been exhibited worldwide.                                                                                

Past winners of the top awards have included Elliott Erwitt, Ruth Gruber, Robert Frank, Mary Ellen Mark, Marc Riboud, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Berenice Abbott, Richard Avedon, Harold Evans, Alexander Liberman, Gordon Parks, Helen Levitt, Annie Leibovitz, Lee Friedlander, William Klein, Susan Meiselas, Roy DeCarava, Malick Sidibe, John G. Morris, and Karl Lagerfeld.

Selection Committee