Artist Profile

Phillip
Toledano

Phillip Toledano was born in 1968 in London to a French Moroccan mother and an American father.

He grew up in London and Casablanca. He lives in New York. He holds a degree in English literature from Tufts University in Boston. Toledano considers himself a conceptual artist: everything starts with an idea, and the idea determines the execution. Consequently, his work varies in medium, ranging from photography to installation, sculpture, painting and video.

Retrospectives
2025 – MIA PHOTO FAIR BNL PARIBAS 2025 Milano – Tallulah Studio Art
2025 – THE PHAIR PHOTO FAIR OGR TORINO 2025 – Tallulah Studio Art
2024 – Festival De Photografie Plances Contact Deauville
We are at War – Another America

2024 – Griffin Museum of Photograpy Winchester MA Usa – Another America
2023 – Phest – Monopoli Another America
2016 – The Deutsche Hygiene Museum A Fleeting sense of happiness
2015 – Diechtorhallen, The day will come when man falls
2013 – Noorderlicht gallery, Inside out (Retrospective)

Solo exhibitions
2016 – Dina Mitrani Gallery, When I was six
2016 – Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Maybe
2015 – Cortona on the move, Maybe

2015 – Encontros da Imagem, Maybe
2013 – Edmund Pierce gallery, The absent portrait
2012 – Ingrid Deuss gallery, Days with my father
2012 – Paul Kopeikin gallery, A new kind of beauty
2012 – Perth Centre for Photography, A new kind of beauty
2011 – Gallery 339, A new kind of beauty
2011 – Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Days with my father
2010 – Klomp Ching gallery, A new kind of beauty
2010 – Gallery 339, Days with my father
2009 – Hous projects, America the gift shop
2009 – The center for photography at Woodstock, America the gift shop
2006 – Colette, The Other side of America
2004 – Annina Nosei, Bankrupt
2004 – Annina Nosei, Arctic circle

Group Shows
2015 – Photographic Center Northwest, Terminal
2014 – Fuchs projects, Up close and personal
2013 – Eastwing, New Perspectives

2013 – Gallery 339, Pant
2013 – Redline Gallery, The reality of fiction
2012 – Gund gallery, Left, Right, and Center: Contemporary Art and the Challenges of Democracy
2012 – Ullens center for contemporary art, Bejing, Beyond words: Photography in the New Yorker
2012 – Vögele Kultur Zentrum, D.E.F.E.N.C.E. A Consideration of Various Strategies in biology, politics, economy, technology, military, psychology, society and culture
2011 – Winkelman gallery, Corporations are people too
2011 – Eastman House, The unseen eye
2011 – Pictura Gallery, Man Made
2011 – Gallery 339, About Face
2011 – Klomp Ching gallery, Exposed
2010 – Descubrimientos photoespana
2010 – Gallery 339, In Review
2010 – Künstlerhaus Bethanien, All my lovin’
2010 – Hous projects, The naked truth
2010 – Photographic Center Northwest, EXPOSED: Critical Mass 2009
2010 – Doswell Gallery, Bittersweet-Expressions of love and hate
2010 – Hous projects, Versus
2009 – Randall Scott Gallery, Unseen
2008 – University of USF Contemporary Art Museum, Audience & Avatar
2008 – Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Just how does a patriot act?
2008 – Photobiennale of Thessaloniki, Places and manners of worship
2008 – Miami Art Space, Hexagone
2006 – Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Public, Private
2006 – Jenkins Johnson Gallery, American Eden
2006 – Parallel Lines, See
2006 – Gild, Kaleidoscope
2005 – Eyestorm Gallery
2005 – Robert Miller, AI
2003 – Paul Morris gallery, Inner spaces

Festivals
2013 – Unseen Festival
2012 – Bursa International photo festival, Traces of humanity
2012 – BredaPhoto International photo festival, homo empathicus

2012 – Singapore Fringe art festival, Art and the faith
2012 – Fotofreo International Festival of Photography, Australia
2011 – FotoNaarden, The Netherlands
2010 – FotoGrafia. International festival, Rome
2010 – Fotoleggendo Festival, Rome
2010 – GETXOPHOTO, Barcelona
2010 – Singapore Fringe art festival, Art and the law
2010 – Fotofestiwal 2010, All my lovin’
2009 – Singapore Fringe art festival, Art and Family
2008 – BAC! International Festival of Contemporary Art, Barcelona
2008 – Athens Photo Festival, Faith
2007 – Rhubarb, England
2007 – Noorderlicht, Holland
2007 – Lianzhou International Photo festival, China

Collections
The Houston museum of fine art
The Progressive collection
The University of South Florida contemporary art museum

Books
2015 – Maybe, Dewi Lewis
2015 – When I was six, Dewi Lewis
2013 – The reluctant father, Dewi Lewis

2011 – A new kind of beauty, Dewi Lewis
2010 – Days with my father, Chronicle
2008 – Phonesex, Twin Palms
2006 – Bankrupt, Twin Palms

Select Publications
Aperture, Ojodepez, Eyemazing, The British Journal of Photography, La Republica, Blink, GUP, Orion, Hayden’s ferry review, Rear View Mirror, Rooms, Zoom, Raw, IdeaFixa, Harpers

Projects

NEVER SEEN THE LIGHT

The latest chapter in Phillip Toledano’s pioneering exploration of Artificial Intelligence. The project unfolds as a sophisticated exercise in “historical surrealism”: a series of black-and-white prints that masterfully mimic the aesthetic codes of 1940s documentary photography. Toledano stages a previously undiscovered archive attributed to Edward Trevor—a persona echoing the artist’s own father—claiming these shots were found among his late father’s belongings. However, this narrative is a deliberately deceptive device: every single image is the result of a synthetic generative process. Toledano doesn’t just produce images; he constructs an artificial memory with no referent in the real world. There are no negatives, no cameras, and no actual events. Through this tension between extreme visual credibility and a total lack of referential truth, Toledano examines the erosion of photography’s authority as a witness to the past, forcing us to confront the fragility of the trust we place in images.

Another England

The book Another England, published by L’Artiere Editore, Bologna, explores an England defined not by what it “is,” but by everything it could become if reality experienced a slight tremor. The project moves between local news, country folktales, and lucid delirium: the photographs appear as memories of a collectively dreamed country, while the texts read like articles from a parallel archive where the absurd is reported with administrative meticulousness. Buildings themselves become characters: cathedrals transformed into water parks, Stonehenge as a traffic roundabout, and animal-shaped houses that observe visitors. Humans appear rarely and always surreally: women fused with their dogs or inhabitants with flower heads. It is a geography of the absurd — tender, funny, and ironic — that invites the viewer to reflect on how imagination can become a critical tool of reality.

Another America

The artist defines his work as a form of historical surrealism, using artificial intelligence to reimagine history in a way that makes us question what is real. Creating an alternative story of America through plausible images set in the 1940s is one of the ways he explores this theme. Looking to the future, Toledano reflects on the growing role of Artificial Intelligence in art and photography. Just as the advent of photography in the 19th century represented a new frontier that some artists were able to exploit with mastery, AI also represents a new frontier. The artist wonders how photography might evolve in response to AI’s capabilities, suggesting that we might witness an artistic movement similar to Impressionism, born as a response to photographic realism.

Artwork