1% – Privilege in a Time of Global Inequality

Group Exhibition

East Wing

30 September – 19 November 2015

“The story of inequality is impossible to ignore these days. My morning commute through Manhattan affords me glimpses of both appalling poverty and magnificent wealth. Everyone from billionaire businessmen to the Pope has spoken out against this troubling development.

While we may think we understand wealth through television and tabloids, what we see represents only a drop in the bucket. In 2014, the highest paid athlete in the world, Floyd Mayweather, made $105 million. In the same year, the highest paid hedge fund manager in the world, Kenneth Griffin, made $1.3 billion. And yet Mayweather is world famous, while for most people Griffin doesn’t register at all. And while we may think we understand inequality, in fact we don’t at all. Harvard Business School asked Americans how much they think major CEOs earn relative to ordinary workers. The median respondent thought the ratio was perhaps 30 to 1. The reality? It’s over to 350 to 1.” – Myles Little

East Wing exhibits 16 images by award winning international photographers. This is their response to the issue of skyrocketing wealth inequality around the globe, using contemporary documentary photography to map the ecosystem of privilege, from work to education to leisure.

Featuring images by: Christopher Anderson / Magnum Photos, Nina Berman / NOOR, Guillaume Bonn, David Chancellor / kiosk, Jesse Chehak, Kevin Cooley, Greg Girard, Shane Lavalette, David Leventi, Michael Light, Ben Quinton, Daniel Shea, Anna Skladmann, Henk Wildschut, Paolo Woods & Gabriele Galimberti / INSTITUTE