A Spectrum of Openings

In honor of the opening of the new Fall season of photography, I thought I would do something last night that I don’t do particularly often: take a spin through a series of gallery openings. The primary reason we tend to pass on most openings is that they are the single worst time to see an art exhibition: the crowds severely reduce the likelihood of seeing or understanding the images on view. But as another collector recently reminded me, the main reason to show up is not to see the art, but to show support for the artists and galleries and to reinforce for them that at least some collectors are paying attention.

So I chose a group of five openings to visit last night, spanning a show of vintage prints from an early 20th century master (long dead and who didn’t attend) to a first gallery show in New York for an emerging contemporary photographer (clearly alive and who did), with a few in between. In many ways, my goal was primarily to take the pulse of the market and get a feel for the overall mind set of the collecting public. We’ll go back to each of the shows we visited last night for a more formal review, so our comments here are aimed more at the quality/quantity of the visitors than the quality of the art.

The Jacques Henri Lartigue opening at Howard Greenberg (here) and the Nicholas Nixon opening at Pace/MacGill (here) had a generally common feel: civilized and refined art viewing for a select group, with well known collectors comfortably conversing with each other and the gallery staff in hushed tones. Both shows attracted a generally older but sophisticated looking crowd; I was certainly on the younger half of the age distribution. While all openings work hard to be welcoming and casual, these two were both a bit more formal, likely a result of the density of deep pocketed collectors taking it rather seriously.

Down in Chelsea, the atmosphere was entirely different: the crowds were thick and full of life. My itinerary included the Dutch landscape show at Aperture (here), the Todd Hido/Nicolai Howalt show at Bruce Silverstein (here), and the Amy Stein show at Clamp Art (here). My first stop was Aperture, where the crowd waiting for the elevator filled the lobby and spilled out into the street; I opted for the stairs, which were just as packed. Up in the galleries, the crowd was clustered near the bar, with the viewing areas somewhat less crowded. This was not the case at Silverstein or Clamp; in these galleries, the viewers were jammed in like sardines, overflowing into every nook and cranny of available space.

In all three Chelsea venues, art viewing was a sweaty, bustling, bumping, free booze infused communal activity. The crowd was quite a bit younger overall; this time, I was likely on the older half of the age spectrum. While there were seemingly less collectors milling around, there was a fantastic energy to the entire neighborhood party, more a lively celebration of the return of art than anything else. The artists and gallery owners looked harried and exhausted, but happy with the huge turnout and running on adrenaline.

As a collector, what I took away from this whirlwind tour was a renewed set of questions about the split in the market between the “vintage” and “contemporary” worlds of photography. In many ways, each side could use a little more of what the other side has in abundance: the vintage photography market would benefit from an injection of the youthful energy of the contemporary market, while the contemporary photography market needs more attention from true collectors who will turn into real buyers, rather than those just out for free drinks and a good party. (By the way, we see this same exact split in our efforts on this site: posts about vintage/dead artists are usually well received by the collectors in the audience, but otherwise arrive with a thud for other readers; posts about contemporary work get shared and passed around on Facebook or Twitter, creating a flood of visitors who come by once and generally never return.) How we go about mixing the two worlds to their mutual benefit seems quite a bit more open for debate.

Overall, it was great to get out and see a bunch of fresh work and fresh faces. If these openings can be used as a barometer of confidence in the photography market, there’s a surprising amount of optimism in the air as we head into Autumn.