Saatchi Gallery announces summer exhibition, Civilization: The Way We Live Now

Civilization: The Way We Live Now showcases 350 original prints by 150 renowned artists, offering a unique glimpse into humanity's rapidly changing collective life worldwide.

Image: Olaf Otto Becker, Point 660, 2, 08/2008 67°09’04’’N, 50°01’58’’W, Altitude 360M, from the series Above Zero, 2008 © Olaf Otto Becker

This summer, the Saatchi Gallery will present a new international exhibition, Civilization: The Way We Live Now, which will provide an unprecedented glimpse into the ever-changing, complex lives of humankind across the globe. The exhibition features 150 contemporary photographers, including many mid-career and emerging talents, and showcases previously unseen images that highlight the diversity of global "civilization" today. From Reiner Riedler's leisure parks to Edward Burtynsky's water resources, Civilization draws together powerful and challenging imagery that explores the complexity and contradictions of contemporary civilization. Curated by William A. Ewing and Holly Roussell, Civilization: The Way We Live Now has toured major museums across the world and includes a new selection of works curated specifically for its London edition at Saatchi Gallery.

Image: Reiner Riedler, Wild River, Florida, from the series Fake Holidays, 2005 © Reiner Riedler

The exhibition is designed as a journey through eight thematic chapters that explore the key aspects of civilization, including the urban environment, social relationships, movement of peoples and ideas, strategies of persuasion, authority and power, societal breakdown and conflict, escape, and the new world taking shape in the 21st century. As curator William A. Ewing explains, photographers are our civilization's eyes, capturing telling moments with sharp and vivid images. Civilization: The Way We Live Now focuses on our emerging global civilization and collective behaviour and achievement, which are often disguised in our time by the celebration of individuality.

Image: Jeffrey Milstein, Newark 8 Terminal B, Newark, NJ, from the series Airports, 2016 © Jeffrey Milstein

Photography is also seen as a collective civilizational endeavour that creates a multifaceted portrait of our time. Photographers are found in every country and in every city, capturing the way we live now, where we live, how we work and play, and how we collaborate and compete. Civilization: The Way We Live Now is an exhibition about civilization and photography, and ideally, it can be viewed through both lenses simultaneously. London has always been a great centre for the celebration of photography from all corners of the globe, and the exhibition showcases the fruits of the curators' research from collections, archives, museums, and galleries deeply committed to promoting this vital art form.

Location: Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY. Date: 2 June – 17 September 2023. Price: from £16. Concessions available. Book now.