ICP Infinity Award Winners Announced

Talk about strange bedfellows. Karl Lagerfeld and The Gap(!) will both be honored at the International Center of Photography's 23rd annual Infinity Awards, to be held May 14 at Pier Sixty in New York.

William Klein, Milton Rogovin, Ryan McGinley, Christopher Morris, David Levi Strauss, Tendance Floue and Tracey Moffat are the other recipients.

We're always a bit bemused by the selections for said awards, so we'll dissect the worthy and the not-so-worthy after the jump.

When looking at the list of recipients, it's not hard to separate the worthy ones from the ones simply chosen to sell tickets (at $1000 each, no less!). Ryan McGinley? He would have made more sense as the Young Photographer recipient two or three years ago, but now he seems like old news. Karl Lagerfeld for the ICP Trustees Award? This is the same self-serving award ICP gave last year to Getty Images co-founders Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein. (Getty is the main sponsor of the Infinity Awards.) But the biggest head-scratcher of them all this year has to be the Gap, that particularly bland department store whose art direction and advertising hide the fact that their clothes are poorly made and devoid of style. (I should know, I'm about to don a Gap pea coat and brace myself against the freezing New York wind.)

Maybe creative writing award recipient Strauss can explain why the Gap should be honored at an awards show for photography. (OK, so it's more a nod to the photo campaigns commissioned by the store over the past several years than the clothing chain itself. And as we all know, Individuals: Portraits from the Gap Collection was chosen as one of American Photo's Best Books of 2006. But still...the Gap?)

That said, there are some worthy winners here. William Klein for Lifetime Achievement is a no-brainer, and Christopher Morris for his My America project is the ICP board's way of poking a stick in the eye of the Bush administration. I admittedly don't know as much as I should about Milton Rogovin or Tracey Moffat, but they seem like deserving candidates.

For all my kvetching, the Infinity Awards are truly a fun experience. The food is unfailingly excellent, the atmosphere pleasant, and it's the one time you'll see photojournalists washed, shaved and mingling with fashion models.

If dropping $1000 on an awards show is no big deal to you, I highly recommend it.

(If so, can I borrow some money? I need to buy a new coat from the Gap.)

--Jay DeFoore

The Winners

Lifetime Achievement Award: William Klein
Cornell Capa Award: Milton Rogovin
ICP Trustees Award: Karl Lagerfeld
Young Photographer: Ryan McGinley
Writing: David Levi Strauss
Publication: Somme-Nous? by Tendance Floue
Art: Tracey Moffat
Photojournalism: Christopher Morris
Applied Photography: The Gap