Allan Sekula (b. Erie, PA 1951 – d.2013) was an American photographer, writer, filmmaker, theorist, and critic whose work examined the social, economic, and political structures shaping contemporary life. Across photography, film, and writing, Sekula developed a sustained critique of late capitalism, focusing on what he described as “the imaginary and material geographies of the advanced capitalist world.”
Rather than treating photography as a neutral or autonomous visual practice, Sekula foregrounded the conditions under which images are produced, circulated, and interpreted. His work consistently moved beyond surface appearances to interrogate the systems—economic, institutional, and ideological—that organize social reality. Photography functioned as his primary medium, deployed through exhibitions, books, and films, while critical writing served as an essential, parallel practice. Essays and texts were often integrated with images to form complex, multi-layered arguments about power, labor, and globalization.
Of Polish and English descent, in the early 1960s Sekula's family relocated to San Pedro, California, a port city whose maritime culture would later inform key aspects of his work. He earned a BA in biology from the University of California, San Diego, followed by an MFA in 1974. From 1985 until his death, he taught in the Photography and Media Program at the California Institute of the Arts, where he influenced generations of artists through both his pedagogy and his critical rigor.
Sekula was also an accomplished filmmaker, frequently collaborating with film theorist Noël Burch. Notable projects include The Reagan Tapes (1984) and The Forgotten Space (2010), which extend his photographic concerns into moving-image form.
His work is held in major international public collections, including the MACBA, the Getty Research Institute, LACMA, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Museo Reina Sofía, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum Folkwang.
Sekula received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and Atelier Calder, among others, and was named a USA Broad Fellow in 2007. He died in 2013 at the age of 62 following a long illness.