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Two Big Photo Shows: AIPAD Classics and Armory Contemporary

by Dorothy S. Gelatt

Collectors prowled two different major photography shows during the annual winter art market season in New York City. Both shows had primarily American dealers, with a good sprinkling of European and other foreign exhibitors.

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) founded its show in 1979 and presents images made since the start of photography in the 1830's. The first of the big photography art shows, it attracts collectors, museums, corporations, photographers, artists, designers, and decorators each February at the New York Hilton Hotel. The exhibitors are all AIPAD members/dealers.

A new show, the Armory Photography Show, debuted at the Javits Center North Pavilion in October 2002, aimed at the latest in contemporary photographs and advanced cutting-edge electronic and other inventive imagery. Matthew Marks and Paul Morris, New York City contemporary art dealers, own the show, an offshoot of their Armory contemporary art venture. The exhibitors were there by invitation.

In the current economic climate, prices under $50,000 were popular at both shows. Although AIPAD had a few rarities as high as $600,000, you could also find wonderful images under $1000—and many dealers were willing to negotiate. While collectors always want to find something new to love, right now they don't especially want to stretch for it. Museums and corporations are not overflowing with acquisition funds at the moment either.

There seemed to be plenty of room for both shows, although there was a certain amount of reshuffling. Americana dealer Ricco/Maresca in Manhattan passed up AIPAD this time and showed instead at Armory. New York City dealer Bonni Benrubi did both shows, as did Shelbyville, Indiana, dealer Lee Marks, an AIPAD founder who specializes in midwestern images. And about 25% of the exhibitors at the Armory show are also long-established members of AIPAD, where they always exhibit. Even AIPAD's current president, Robert Klein of Boston, extended a hand of fellowship and exhibited at the Armory show in addition to AIPAD. Each show had about 85 dealers.

Surprising many, a few major AIPAD gallery pioneers, including Toronto dealer Jane Corkin and New York City dealer Edwynn Houk, skipped both shows this time. Houk told friends that the redesigned AIPAD spaces did not go with what he wanted to show this time. Corkin has recently been testing the waters in some of the more general art shows and in France as the photography market expands.

In the last couple of years the contemporary painting and sculpture market has embraced the mammoth newly fashionable color photographs by Canadian Edward Burtynsky and Europeans such as Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky. They are the current rage at museums and galleries and sell high at auction. The auction record for a mammoth Struth architectural color photo is held by Mailander dom (fassade), 1998. At 74 1/2 inches x 92 1/2 inches, mounted on Plexiglas, from an edition of ten, it sold at Christie's postwar and contemporary art auction on May 14, 2002, for $317,500.

Struth, the celebrity speaker at the AIPAD show, also has an impressive current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Asked how he made the jump from a quiet career in small conventional black-and-white prints to his current rage with huge color images, he told the AIPAD audience bluntly, "I met the right people."

AIPAD Photography Show, February 7-9

Now in its tenth year at the New York Hilton's duplex exhibition hall, AIPAD redesigned the exhibit space and lighting. In the enlarged brighter booths, photographs looked splendid, and with larger aisles for the crowds, browsing was a pleasure.

The choice was wide, from expensive early rarities to less pricey current images. An 1849 sixth-plate daguerreotype of Chicago could cost you $500,000; a circa 1840 Fox Talbot photogenic drawing negative, $250,000; and a vintage Edward Weston 1927 Shells, $160,000.

With less outlay, a Bert Stern Marilyn Monroe nude, in color, with her own editing slashes, was $12,000. David Graham's Mike Memphis Lepore As Elvis was $2500. A Winston Link steam passenger train was $5500, and a NASA astronaut Apollo 12 Lunar Surface, $3500.

A truly unexpected treasure, Walker Evans's 1970's little square Polaroid color shots were $6000 each. A scintillating Mariana Cook portrait of renowned French/Belgian author Marguerite Yourcenar, who lived on Mt. Desert Island, Maine, from 1950 to her death in 1987, cost $4500.

The AIPAD shows always feature a preview charity fund-raiser, a reasonably priced buffet, and two free public lecture programs. Besides the Struth illustrated talk, there was a panel of New York museum photography curators, who fell to sniping one another before an astonished full house.

Armory Photography Show, October 25-28, 2002

Call it "cutting edge." Call it "avant garde." No matter what you call it, the Armory Photography Show that debuted at the Javits Center North Pavilion was a savvy, professionally organized affair in a nice open space big enough to hold a bunch of tennis courts.

Light spread by the whitish arched roof was very kind to photographs, and the exposed roof frame gave a tasteful hint of creative grunge. Cutting edge or avant garde, this was definitely not a starving artist's starving dealer show. It plays both to photography collectors and to crossover modern and contemporary art collectors.

The only question about it was whether the usual East Side art-buying show crowd would venture (schlep??) all the way west to the Javits Center, better known for techie and housewares trade shows than fine art.

Founder Matthew Marks has been sparking young new art fairs ever since 1994 when he, Paul Morris, and the late Pat Hearn dreamed up the fabulous Gramercy International Contemporary Art Exhibition (see M.A.D., July 1994, p. 30-E).

Those were truly the good old grunge days—also during an economic slump. Hearn and Marks turned the top three bedroom floors of the genteel down-at-heel Gramercy Park Hotel into art galleries by day and dealer sleeping quarters by night, saving the exhibitors a pile of money.

The atmosphere was exotic, bringing new artists, dealers, and collectors together in a slightly threadbare artistic and breathtaking way. Collectors adored chasing up and down dim stairs and hallways to discover the latest in unique new art. Some of it was even displayed in bathtubs—the ultimate far-out setting.

But that was then, and this is now. The Armory Photography Show at the Javits was bright, spacious, easy to navigate, and had a self-service food court in the rear. This show, and its companion art show, both carry the Armory name picked up along the way, when the Gramercy art show moved to the 69th Regiment Armory—scene of the historic 1913 Armory art show, which put modern art on the map in America. (The current Armory art show now hangs out at the Hudson River piers. New York is a happenin' place!)

At the Javits show, work that already has a following was of course pricier than work of lesser-known newcomers. And the bigger the image, the more it tended to cost.

You had to spend $45,000 for Andreas Gursky's big Taipei hotel interior, from an edition of 25, that started out in 1999 at $25,000. Richard Misrach's big overhead Hawaii beach pattern was $32,000. Arno Rafael Minkkinen's smaller Millenium was only $4500.

Walker Evans's 1970's little Polaroid color shots were the same $6000 as at the AIPAD show, but Ellen Carey's "Polaroid Pulls," recent unique streaks of abstract color on long 80 inches Polaroid film pulled through the biggest Polaroid camera, cost $6000 each. Ugo Rondinone's video installation with four screens and 12 speakers would set you back $45,000. An untitled portrait of two Maine hunters by Jocelyn Lee cost a more modest $3750.

There is no Armory Photography Show scheduled for this year.

For more information on the AIPAD show, call (202) 986-0105 or visit the Web site (www.photoshow.com). For more information on the 2002 Armory show, call (212) 645-6440.