Location, location, location.

AIPAD'S PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW 2006

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

FEBRUARY 10-12, 2006

If it is February in New York, then it is AIPAD time, and the eyes and wallets of the photography world converge on the finest collection of photography galleries, members of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers. This time, however, instead of congregating at the Midtown Hilton Hotel, dealers, buyers, and the visually curious mustered themselves at New York's 7th Regiment Armory at Park Avenue and 67th Street. Not to be confused with the site of the legendary Armory Show of 1913, which was held downtown at the 69th Regiment Armory at Lexington Avenue and 25th Street, or its newer incarnation, "The Armory Show," to be held March 9-13 at Piers 90 and 92, AIPAD's twenty-sixth Photography Show took great advantage of its new digs.

This move is of great importance to the organization that has done much to establish photography as a collectible art medium. AIPAD is a membership organization. Its members must meet various criteria and uphold ethical standards in a medium whose very process makes it prone to unauthorized copies of originals as the case of Lewis Hines's prints several years ago makes clear. Partly as a result of AIPAD's efforts, photography has crossed over into the commercial art world, as any tour of venues such as Art Basel, The Armory Show, or any number of smaller events makes clear. A quick glance confirms that virtually 30 percent of the works on those other walls are made up of photography or photography-based art that often commands breathtaking prices--witness $1,248,000 for a contemporary Richard Prince or $822,400 for a vintage Dorothea Lange.

The eighty-three dealers from Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States reveled in the change of venue to a place allowing them more possibilities to display their artworks. Not accidentally, the Armory is also the site of the Art Dealers Association of America's own "Art Show," held a mere ten days later (February 23-27, 2006), and marks the venue as a pilgrimage point for collectors making the rounds in New York.

AIPAD can in part be seen as a victim of its own success as the leading market maker for photography. Not merely has photography been embraced by the larger art market, with its far higher prices and collector base, but it has spawned several powerful, yet different, competitors, notably Stephen Cohen's photo l.a. (January) and Paris Photo (November), as well as the upstart photoLondon (May). For the past several years Paris Photo has rivaled AIPAD as the most important art photography event. AIPAD has also suffered in the past from dealers playing to their strengths in vintage and classic modernist works. The result is a tendency to see the same old pictures every year--however beautiful a Roger Fenton, Edward Weston, Heinrich Kuhn, Ilse Bing, Robert Frank, or Helen Levitt is, to see the same or similar images year after year can be less than exciting. At Paris Photo, where many AIPAD members also participate, there is a newer, hipper look more attune with what has been going on in the contemporary art shows like Art Basel. Typically there is more large color work and increasingly more staged and digitally manipulated work from the likes of Desiree Dolron, Loretta Lux, and Thomas Ruff. Fashion photography and concept art play a more overt role in Paris as well. Not surprisingly, Paris has reached a broader collecting base and sales have boomed in recent years, seemingly leaving AIPAD in its silver-gelatin shadow.

This year, though, AIPAD's Photography Show did embrace the new more than ever before. New York's Hasted Hunt Gallery had a series of Erwin Olaf tableaux of Lolita-like, student-teacher images. Catherine Edelman of Chicago had digitally manipulated works by Clark & Pougnaud, whose homages to Edward Hopper made them stars of Art Basel and the Scope New York Arts Fair and earned them the prestigious HSBC prize this year. New York's Yossi Milo, who had championed Lux, had several of her images. Sydney, Australia's Sandra Byron Gallery had enigmatic, theatrical works by digital artist Samantha Everton.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This embrace of the new is not really a paradigm shift for photography. From the earliest times, still lifes and theatricals have been part of the medium whether through the dress ups of Julia Margaret Cameron or Lewis Carroll or the elaborate retouchings and montages of Oskar Rejlander. In effect, there is no difference between a digitally manipulated image by Andreas Gursky or Dolron and any of those old masters of photography. What has changed is that this new digital work has largely been seen far more on the art market than at traditional, pure photography shows. AIPAD's move to established "art world" territory is both part of the organization's acceptance of newer forms in the medium and its awareness of the need to partake in the art world's desire for contemporary photography.

By all accounts, both dealers and collectors were well pleased with the new venue. Pictures went out the door at a remarkable clip. It is possible that many galleries would have set sales records had New York not been struck by the largest snowstorm in its recorded history which kept many people away on closing day. As a result, it is hard to estimate how well the twenty-sixth Photography Show would have done had the weather cooperated, but it seems clear that the new venue presages a comeback for a venerable organization.

BILL KOUWENHOVEN is a writer and photographer and was editor of Photo Metro from 1997 to 2001. He lives and works in Berlin and New York City.

info

For more information about AIPAD see www.aipad.com.