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Picture Perfect Photography Has Earned Enough Respect in the Art World to Have Its Very Own Fair
Andres Serrano. Photo by Irina Movmyga
By Omar Sommereyns
Photography has come a long way to position itself as a respected medium within the ivory tower of the highbrow art establishment. But what has kept things interesting throughout the years is how many photographers have progressed toward the unorthodox, using technology to their advantage and intermixing photo-based pieces with other media in order to create original and occasionally innovative works.
This, apparently, is what Photo Miami – the only art fair centered around this medium – is attempting to display to viewers.
“The idea was to expand photography toward other media like video and performance,” says Paco Barragán, a Madrid-based independent curator involved in the show. “…There are of course many art fairs, and we know that Photo Miami, as a new fair, will attract quite some attention as photography is still a very agile and intrepid medium. But we have been working at different levels in order to get galleries that are not the traditional photo galleries, but who have artists that work with photography and video; and we also have some projects that really expand the medium and put photography in relation to video, performance or installation.”
“We wanted to give people an international concentration of wonderful, media-based work that’s being produced more and more rapidly these days,” adds Tim Fleming, the fair’s director. “We wanted to give photography a separate voice during this week.”
Photo Miami has gathered over 40 international galleries, including Galerie Caprice Horn (Berlin), Taro Nasu (Japan), B & D Studio Contemporanea (Italy), Goedhuis Contemporary (New York) and Karpio + Facchini (Miami), at the SoHo Building in Wynwood at 2136 NW First Ave.
“We were looking for galleries that have strong programming and a great media facet,” Fleming insists. “We wanted them to have a progressive focus, show work that is very contemporary … Photo-making has really become a part of everyday life – it’s an integral part of sharing information.”
In addition to the gallery booths, a curated “Preview” section features works by top international names, such as Tobias Bernstrup, Tim White-Sobieski, Alexandre Apóstol and Andres Serrano (who is most famous for his urine-imbued Piss Christ and whose gallery will be showing new work at the fair). Special projects curated by Barragán, Miami-based Nina Arias and Pedro Velez of Puerto Rico also seek to break the customary art fair grid. For opening night, Barragán’s Party Time consists of a happening created by Dutch artist and international VJ Micha Klein, Swedish performance and multimedia artist Tobias Bernstrup, and British photo-artist Trevor Apleson.
“They will perform by means of VJing at the opening, making a multimedia performance and shooting pictures live of the ‘art’ mob,” says Barragán. “So we have this opening event which has an artistic input that deals with photography, video, multimedia and VJing.”
Another compelling aspect of the fair is its artists’ lecture series at the Miami Art Museum, with presentations by Carrie Mae Weems and Enrique Martinez Celaya.
Initial communications from Photo Miami stated that Andres Serrano was scheduled to lecture as well, yet when the SunPost recently contacted the artist, he explained that he wasn’t coming to Miami for the fair.
“Unfortunately, there was a slight miscommunication.… I don't particularly like art fairs, and although I don't mind going to them if I'm in the city, I won't make a special trip to attend one,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Art fairs are not for artists; they are for people who want to see and sell art.” His Milan gallery, B & D Studio Contemporanea, will be showing his Cycads series, which he shot on assignment last year for The New York Times Magazine.
“Cycads are the oldest plants on the planet, except for ferns,” Serrano points out. “They are a protected and endangered species of plants and are often smuggled and sold on the black market. It is said that the collectors become obsessed by them.”
When asked about his future goals, Serrano announced that he was going to work on a few more projects and then actually stop making art.
“I don't follow photography or the art world anymore,” he says. “However, I have been invited by the Ministry of Culture of France, Yvon Lambert and the Comédie-Française to photograph this illustrious company. This is a great honor bestowed on me. Although the company has a history of commissioning artists to portray their actors, it's been a long time since it's been done. I look forward to executing this project in February. After this, I want to do one last great show for the Paula Cooper and Yvon Lambert galleries, and then retire from art.”
Meantime, back to Photo Miami, Nina Arias, an independent curator based in Miami, has put together a group photo and video show (with artists such as Ali Prosch, Tall Rickards, Odalis Valdivesio, George Sanchez Calderon and Jodie Lynn-Kee-Chow), and Pedro Velez has selected a number of emerging artists from Puerto Rico to produce an exhibit that explores issues of propaganda and advertising in contemporary Caribbean society.
“The trends I recognize [in new media] include a lot of video and the unusual and creative ways of projecting or presenting video,” says Arias. “I also see artists blurring lines between performance art with video documentation, or between photography and drawing (my favorite).”
Adds Barragán, “I see [photography] evolving more toward a dynamic relationship with other mediums like video, installation and, especially, toward painting – that is, a more direct mix of photography and painting.”
Ultimately, Fleming explains, the fair’s goal isn’t to speculate on the state of contemporary photography, but rather to present a wide range of photographic and new media-based works for the audience to absorb individually.
“Of course some of those issues may come to light, but we didn’t seek out to present particular themes or anything like that,” Fleming says. “The idea was to fill the space with media-based work, and redefine what a photo fair can actually be – it’s not just a presentation of straight photography, a medium that has tried so hard to establish itself in the art world. We’re saying it’s already moved on from that. Here, we’re less interested in what type of paper is used and more into the idea behind the piece; we’re less into the aesthetics and more about the conceptual process.”
Exhibition hours are Wednesday, Dec. 6 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Thursday, Dec. 7 through Sunday, Dec. 10 from 12 p.m.-7 p.m. at the SoHo Building. Tickets are $10 for a one-day pass. Lectures are free and will be held Friday, Dec. 8 at the Miami Art Museum, 101 W. Flagler St., Miami, from 1-4 p.m. For additional information visit www.artfairsinc.com or call 1-323-937-4659
Comments? E-mail omar@miamisunpost.com. |
