Debut Photo Festival Brings Medium’s Future into Focus

Martin Parr Simon Norfolk Parrworld Debut Photo Fair Finds Strong Interest in Tokyo Parr To Donate His Collection to His Country 2009 Preview: Paris Museum Shows Watches of Mass Destruction Canadian Museum Shows in May

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Photography’s future may in fact be uncertain — the panel delivered more questions than predictions — but the festival, which, perhaps daringly (and oxymoronically), celebrates “the future of contemporary photography,” is already looking ahead.

The multi-venue event, which took place May 14-18, comprised four curated exhibitions and a handful of satellite shows showing the work of more than 400 artists, as well as dozens of artists’ talks, panel discussions, book signings, a ceremony to honor the recipients of the first ever New York Photo Awards, and several by-all-accounts pretty happening parties. The event was such a success that cofounders Frank Evers, managing director of VII photo agency, and Daniel Power, founder of powerHouse Books, have already put the wheels in motion for next year, announcing on the festival’s final day the dates and curators for the 2009 edition.

In the place of this year’s curatorial team — Parr, Aperture publisher Lesley A. Martin, former Vice photo editor Tim Barber, and New York Times Magazine photo editor Kathy Ryan — the 2009 festival will feature shows organized by U.K. publisher Chris Boot, Musée de l'Elysée curator Bill Ewing, New York magazine’s Jody Quon, and the critic Neville Wakefield, and will be extended to ten days. Despite the changes, the curators will again be given minimal instructions. “Do whatever you want, but please try to keep it new and unseen,” Evers described his only dictum. “We didn’t want to limit what they showed, but we did want this to be a place to see ideas and work for the very first time as much as possible.”

Indeed, this year’s four curated exhibitions, which formed the heart of the festival, took a wide range of approaches to the medium. The most talked about was probably Barber’s “Various Photographs,” which presented 300-plus small-scale images in dense rows of identical dark frames in what he calls “a series of questions, an equation of symbols, a list of riddles — none of which have specific answers, solutions, or punch lines.” The images themselves were culled from Barber’s Web site tinyvices.com. Largely by unknown artists, they ranged from the sort of quirky snapshots one might find on Flickr or MySpace to more abstract or expressionistic works, some quite successful. The show’s emphasis, though, was clearly on the synergy among the images, and not on any particular works.

Martin’s exhibition, “The Ubiquitous Image,” was the most experimental in terms of content, presenting works by 11 artists who use found materials or images to create their own pieces. Ryan’s “Chisel” showed ten artists whose work speaks to painting and sculpture, including the much discussed Simon Norfolk, whose brand-new work recalls Rothkos, and Raphael Dallaporta, whose gruesomely luscious still lifes of human organs evoke the richly detailed canvases of the Dutch masters.

Last but not least, Parr’s two-venue “New Typologies” explored recent documentary photography that seeks to impose order on an increasingly chaotic world. Standouts included Ananke Asseff’s series of large-scale, richly colored portraits of middle-class citizens in Argentina who have recently acquired handguns to protect themselves during a period of economic hardship, and Michel Campeau’s rather clinical close-ups of specific objects or details — the drain of a dirty-looking red sink, a stained white lab coat — in photographic darkrooms.

Although nothing was for sale at the festival, and Evers emphasized the lack of market focus (“We hope the dogged collectors will find the artists, or the dealers who represent them, but ultimately this festival is about artists, photography, and celebrating the idea of discovery,” he explained), there was a panel on collecting organized by AIPAD (the Association of International Photography Art Dealers), led by WM Hunt of Hasted Hunt gallery, which represents VII, and including dealer Yancey Richardson, collector Kent Belden, and Brooklyn Museum associate photography curator Patrick Amsellem. Along with offering advice to new collectors (see "Nine Tips for Photography Collectors"), the panelists plugged the artists represented by their respective galleries or collections.

Among the tips about when and where and how to buy new work, Hunt brought up an idea that informed the entire festival: that most of us already know more about photography than we think. “You’ve looked at tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of photographs in your life,” he said. “If you live in the Western world, you’re a very visual person. You know all about photographs. You know what the good ones are and the bad ones are. You may not be able to articulate that so easily, but you do know.”

A related idea, discussed at another panel the next day, is that we know not only how to look at photographs, but how to make them as well. (A quick glance around DUMBO this weekend proved the point. A majority of festivalgoers seemed to be toting their own Nikons and Canons and Leicas, snapping shots as they moved around the streets and exhibitions.) Panelists discussed today’s glut of images, the rise of “citizen journalism,” and the challenges that accompany them, namely, how photographers and photojournalists can remain relevant in an age when anyone with a camera and a computer can churn out – and publish online – decent photographs by the thousands.

Innovation is the key to remaining relevant, according to Parr, who led the panel, which included Paris Match photo editor Romain Lacroix and book dealer Markus Schaden. “One of the problems with photojournalism,” he says, “is that the images are very tired. We’ve all seen the pictures of the starving kids, of the war victims. People need to reinvent it. One of the great things about this festival is you can walk around and see many new ways of telling stories. This is where the future lies.”