FotoFocus Opens a Permanent Photography Museum in Cincinnati With a Democratic First Show
A former gas station in Cincinnati now anchors one of the country’s few museums devoted entirely to photography. FotoFocus Center opened in late May after more than three years of construction, giving the regional nonprofit a permanent home for exhibitions and public programming in a 14,700-square-foot building designed by local architect Jose Garcia.
Garcia’s building is conceived as a visual argument for photography itself. Black iron brick recalls the historic masonry of Mount Auburn and Over-the-Rhine, neighborhoods founded by German immigrants in the 1830s, around the same period photography emerged. Sepia tones appear in the wood, while white caliza stone and black granite were sourced from Argentina, Garcia’s home country. Gridded windows further echo the look of a camera viewfinder.
The result is a structure that feels both rooted and open-ended. “Once you walk inside, it’s very warm and welcoming, which is the idea of the institution,” Garcia said. “It belongs to anyone and everybody. You’re at home when you’re here.”
For FotoFocus, the opening marks a major institutional step. Since 2010, the organization has staged photography biennials across the region and supported local arts groups, including during the early months of the Covid pandemic. Executive director Katherine Siegwarth said the new museum responds to a clear appetite in Cincinnati for year-round photography programming and for conversations that move beyond the medium itself.
That ambition is on display in the inaugural exhibition, “Big Tent,” on view through August 22. Curated by Kevin Moore, the show takes its cue from Amanda Gorman’s 2017 poem “In This Place (An American Lyric)” and gathers work by dozens of artists around a broad idea of American diversity. The exhibition includes photographs by Marco Anelli, Catherine Opie, Gordon Parks, and a number of Cincinnati photographers, among them Asa Featherstone, Madeleine Hordinski, Michael Wilson, Tina Gutierrez, and Melvin Grier.
Moore has also placed the museum within Cincinnati’s own photography history. Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1990 retrospective at the Contemporary Arts Center led to obscenity trials that drew national attention, and the new institution appears willing to inherit that legacy of debate. Backed in part by patron Tom Schiff, who owns more than 800 photographs, FotoFocus is positioning itself as a place for difficult, public-minded discussion.
The organization will publish a catalogue, “Democratic States of Photography,” during the run of “Big Tent,” and Trevor Paglen is scheduled for a solo exhibition as part of the 2026 biennial this autumn. In a city with deep photographic roots, FotoFocus is now building a more permanent future.
