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Artnet Auctions’s ‘Signature Works’ Sale Traces Commercial Photography’s Ascent to Fine Art, With Works by Annie Leibovitz and Steve McCurry

Artnet’s current auction, Signature Works, features career-defining photographs by influential and daring creators, spanning from classic shots by Helmut Newton to Zanele Muholi’s bold, contemporary work.

The sale also features iconic photographs that originate from the commercial photography industry, including images by Horst P. Horst, Annie Leibovitz, and Steve McCurry that were originally produced for print publications. We spoke to Artnet’s Head of Photographs, Susanna Wenniger, about how these works represent profound artistic accomplishments while simultaneously satisfying a commercial practice—as well as contributed to artists’ long-standing fight for photography to be considered fine art, which has been ongoing since the medium’s inception in the early 1800s.

**Horst P. Horst, Mainbocher Corset (1939)**

Horst P. Horst, Mainbocher Corset (1939). Est. $30,000–$50,000.

One of the earliest and most important fashion photographers in history, Horst P. Horst created distinctly modern photographs that drew inspiration from the Surrealist movement. Mainbocher Corset (1939) is Horst’s most famous work, and it was the last photograph he took in Paris before World War II. Seen from the waist up and obscured in dramatic shadow, Horst’s model resembles a classical sculpture.

The image was initially published in French Vogue in December 1939. There are two versions of the image: one with a loosened corset and the other tightened. The latter is shown here and was the version that appeared in Vogue, as the original image with the loose corset was deemed too provocative for the time. The print in our sale is a rare, large platinum palladium print from a small edition of 10. It stands out as one of the most important fashion images ever made, and it is even directly referenced in Madonna’s 1990 music video for her song Vogue.

**Annie Leibovitz, Kate Moss (1999)**

Annie Leibovitz, Kate Moss (1999). Est. $20,000–$30,000.

As her first foray into photographing high fashion, Annie Leibovitz was approached by Anna Wintour in 1998 to shoot a spread for American Vogue on Sean Combs—then known as Puff Daddy—and Kate Moss in Paris. “I could never be a bona fide fashion photographer,” stated Leibovitz in an interview with the New York Times. Rather, through her elaborate costumes and set designs, Leibovitz considers herself a “conceptual artist using photography.”

Leibovitz captured this image of Moss wearing an intricate headdress from fall 1999 Christian Dior couture that appropriated designs from the Hindu god Vishnu. While the accompanying article in Vogue focuses on Puff Daddy’s taste for all things luxury, this arresting image of Moss stands out as the artistic highlight of the shoot. Moss dons bejeweled earrings and a head covering while staring powerfully at the lens. A decade after its initial publication, this timeless image was jointly selected by Moss and James Danziger for the Kate Moss Portfolio, published in an edition of 30.

**Annie Leibovitz, Keith Haring, New York (1986)**

Annie Leibovitz, Keith Haring, New York (1986). Est. $40,000–$60,000.

Annie Leibovitz’s practice as a self-described conceptual artist is epitomized through her unconventional photographs of fellow artists, such as her iconic celebration of Keith Haring, pictured here. Leibovitz was commissioned by a Floridian magazine to capture images of the pioneering artist Keith Haring in 1986. Although the images were not published, since the magazine folded shortly after, the collaboration between Haring and Leibovitz is a testament to the important relationship between editorial and fine art. Once Leibovitz provided an all-white living room of thrifted furniture, Haring painted an array of black graffiti in his characteristic style all over the walls, sofa, and finally himself. His first time painting his body, Haring initially whitewashed just his torso. “When he came out of the dressing room he was wearing white painters’ pants,” stated Leibovitz, “but it just seemed obvious to both of us at that point that he should paint the rest of him.” Although initially intended for commercial purposes, Leibovitz’s image is a powerful conceptual portrait of one of the most important 20th-century artists, and offers lasting insight into both Haring’s and Leibovitz’s minds as creators.

**Steve McCurry, Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, Pakistan (1984)**

Steve McCurry, Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, Pakistan (1984). Est. $12,000–$18,000.

One of the most immediately recognizable photographic portraits of all time, Steve McCurry captured this mesmerizing shot while on assignment in Afghanistan for National Geographic. Much like how Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother humanized the Great Depression, McCurry’s image offered an important representation of the toll on humanity caused by the conflict in Afghanistan.

This image is a powerful example of how a photographic image can initially serve a functional purpose but then transcend its original intentions. The June 1985 cover of National Geographic has a Mona Lisa-esque intensity both from its compositional mystique and art historical prominence.

Signature Works is now open for bidding on Artnet until May 24. Browse the sale and place your bids.

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This Year’s Photography Show by AIPAD Casts a Wide Net From Historic Images to NFTs—Here Are Some of the Highlights

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers, commonly known as AIPAD, represents over 80 leading photography galleries from around the world, and for over 40 years has been dedicated to fostering and promoting the scholarship, exhibition, and market of fine art photography. Presented by AIPAD, the Photography Show returns for its 42nd edition in New York this month, running March 31 through April 2, 2023, at Center415. Earlier this year, AIPAD announced the appointment of Lydia Melamed Johnson as the new executive director. Of the forthcoming fair, Melamed Johnson said, “We’ve had an incredible response so far for the 2023 show, and I’m looking forward to being able to build on what we accomplished last year, including growing to welcome back guest exhibitors and publishers as we did at the Piers.”

An early initiative introduced by Melamed Johnson is the Associate Membership, an introductory membership that provides accessibility and support for emerging galleries that are less than five years old, which is currently the age of operation needed for full AIPAD membership. These associate members will be showing for the first time this year, alongside a roster of prestigious AIPAD gallery members. Together, 44 galleries will come together—from local to international—to present both new and historic museum-quality photography in addition to a range of new media, including photo-based art and NFTs.

Rodrigo Valenzuela, Case #1 (2022). Courtesy of Assembly, Houston.

One gallery that will be highlighting NFTs is Assembly, Houston, which will show the work of Rodrigo Valenzuela as both photographic prints and digital NFTs. Recognized for his images of collected industrial and mechanical objects against hazy backgrounds, through the presentation of Valenzuela’s work the gallery will assist collectors new to acquiring NFTs.

James Bidgood, Hanging Off Bed (Bobby Kendall) (mid-to-late 1960s/printed later). © Estate of James Bidgood. Courtesy of CLAMP, New York.

Other highlights of the forthcoming show include New York gallery Clamp‘s curated exhibition of queer portraiture, dated from the early 20th century through today, and Yancey Richardson’s presentation of Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home, which will also be on view at the gallery and coinciding with the Broadway play Pictures from Home starring Nathan Lane. Visitors to the fair will also be able to discover some of the world’s most recognizable images, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s iconic Rue Mouggetard, Paris (1954) at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rue Mouffetard, Paris (1954) © Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery, London.

Complementing the range of gallery presentations will be a special exhibition, “Highlights from the Archive: Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of MUUS Collection.” Centered on collecting a “quintessentially American photography archive from the 20th century,” the MUUS Collection exhibition will highlight the work of five photographers, André de Dienes, Fred W. McDarrah, Deborah Turbeville, Rosalind Fox Solomon, and Alfred Wertheimer. Tracing the similarities and distinctions between each photographer’s approach to portraiture, the show will bring together both iconic and lesser-known images, highlighting both the scope of the archive and showcasing these inimitable artists’ work.

Niv Rozenberg, Chrysler (day) (2019). Courtesy of Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris.

As the longest-running exhibition dedicated to photography, the Photography Show presented by AIPAD is a yearly highlight for photography collectors and enthusiasts alike. With a full slate of new programming and exhibitors, the 2023 edition is not to be missed.

The Photography Show presented by AIPAD will be on view March 31–April 2, 2023, at Center415, New York.

Four Artists Have Been Shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. See How Their Works Unpack Themes of Identity and Power

Photographs tend to flatten—in multiple senses of the word—the subjects they depict. But do they have to?

The medium’s capacity for complex, multidimensional depiction is front of mind for Bieke Depoorter, Samuel Fosso, Arthur Jafa, and Frida Orupabo—the four artists nominated for this year’s prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023. Their work is on view now in a show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London.

Now in its 27th iteration, the annual £30,000 ($36,000) prize recognizes outstanding photographic artworks or exhibitions presented in the preceding year. The winner, who will be announced in a ceremony set for May 11, will join an impressive list of previous recipients, including Deana Lawson (who won in 2022), Susan Meiselas (2019), Trevor Paglen (2016), and Paul Graham (2009). This year’s runners-up will each receive £5,000 ($6,000).

Depoorter, a Belgian artist whose work often probes the power dynamics between photographer and subject, was chosen for her 2022 show “A Chance Encounter” at C/O Berlin. Among the two projects she presented there was Michael (2015-present), an installation that explores the inner life of a man Depoorter met on the streets of Portland, Oregon in 2015.

Last year’s career-spanning survey of Fosso at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris qualified him for the Deutsche Börse prize. For five decades now, the influential African photographer has turned his camera on himself, donning elaborate costumes for coded self-portraits that reflect on the performance of identity.

A series of piecework photo-sculptures represents the contributions of Orupabo, who was nominated for her exhibition “I have seen a million pictures of my face and still I have no idea” at Switzerland’s Fotomuseum Winterthur. Using imagery culled from both colonial archives and contemporary picture-sharing platforms, the Norwegian Nigerian artist creates collages of black female bodies that are both dense and fragmented.

Jafa, who rounds out the group of shortlisted creators, similarly draws from disparate sources for his own library of pictures, though how that material manifests in his work varies widely. The American artist’s 2022 exhibition “Live Evil” at LUMA in Arles, France featured photographs, sculptures, and large-scale installations, as well as signature films like The White Album (2018).

Arthur Jafa, Bloods II (2020). © Arthur Jafa. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.

This year’s four shortlisted artists were selected by a jury of five industry experts: Anne-Marie Beckmann, director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation; Natalie Herschdorfer, director of the Photo Elysee in Switzerland; Mahtab Hussain, an artist based in Britain; Thyago Nogueria, head of contemporary photography at the Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil; and Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers’ Gallery.

“Our shortlist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023 exemplifies photography’s resounding power and resonance right now,” said Rogers in a statement. “Each artist addresses subjects which drive forward debate about the nature of the medium, and the role it plays in history and society.”

See more pictures from the 2023 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nominees below.

Frida Orupabo, A lil help (2021). Photo: © Frida Orupabo, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nordenhake.

Samuel Fosso, Autoportrait (1976). Photo: © Samuel Fosso, courtesy of the artist and JM Patras.

Bieke Depoorter, We walked together, Portland, Oregon, USA (2015). Photo: © Bieke Depoorter/Magnum Photos, courtesy of the artist.

Samuel Fosso, Self-Portrait (Angela Davis) (2008). Photo: © Samuel Fossoc courtesy of the artist and JM Patras.

Arthur Jafa, Ex-Slave Gordon 1863 (2017). Photo: Andrea Rossetti, © Arthur Jafa, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.

7 Questions for Francisco Tavoni on Finding Inspiration in Nightclubs and the Studio Accident That Changed His Photography Practice

Originally from Venezuela, Australia-based artist Francisco Tavoni (b. 1986) is a photographer whose experimental and vibrantly colored images work to address identity and the ego, and frequently engage with ideas surrounding existentialism. Over the course of his artistic career, Tavoni has undertaken extensive travels around the world, exploring the myriad ways in which societies and cultures affect how people see themselves and others—and seeking out “authenticity in identity.”

Tavoni employs a unique photographic method, involving variously filtering his lenses and printing on cotton rag sheets, that lends the images a distinctly tactile element. Combined with his use of atmospheric undulating of color, the works are immersive, contemplative forays into the subconscious and ideas of self. For those looking to see his work in person, and this May his work will be shown at ATM Gallery in New York. We caught up with the artist to find out more about his practice and inspirations.

Installation view of recent works at Francisco Tavoni’s studio.

Tell us about your journey as an artist. Where did you start?

I used to work in fashion for 10 years. I co-founded a clothing label in Australia and during that time did photography on the side. Then I studied photography, started a photographic studio, and assisted other photographers. Collaborating with other artists and spending those years in the creative industries together gave me the tools to have structure and flow, to understand lighting and colors. Then one day, while experimenting with lights and fabrics, an accident happened. That was the breaking point that led me to what I do today.

How would you describe your creative process? Do you work with a fully formed idea or is it more intuitive?

I write ideas and meditate on them for a few days. I try to look within, at what I like or what has influenced me in the past. In that way, my process is very intuitive. I choose specific people that I share a special personal bond with, who understand what I’m doing—I begin with people. I think about how certain things are timeless: good in the past and still relevant today. I try to imagine how we will see these things in the future.

Francisco Tavoni, Estado Meditativo 1 (2023). Courtesy of the artist.

Can you talk a bit about how you make your work from a technical perspective? How has your method evolved?

I work with colored lens filters, see-through silks with patterned layers, and colored strobe lights. Then it’s a process of luminous inversion that I stumbled upon. Light turns to dark and cold becomes warmth. I’ve recently started to do more portraiture—the work itself showed me that it made the most visual sense for the ideas of identity that I was working with. I use new lens filters and new fabrics so that I get a different result each time.

Where do you most commonly find inspiration? Are there other artists, historical or contemporary, that have influenced you the most?

Lately, I’ve found a lot of inspiration in underground dance clubs and some of the people that go there. It’s a subculture of beautiful creatures. The custom chunky aluminum frames on my works were inspired by some of those industrial nightclub’s aesthetics.

There are many artists that I admire, like Thomas Ruff, Izumi Kato, and Klara Hosnedlová. They inspire me to make better work every day and to continue to evolve my work—but I wouldn’t necessarily say that my work is inspired by theirs directly. I find inspiration in solitude and stillness.

Francisco Tavoni, Estado Meditativo 2 (2023). Courtesy of the artist.

What do you want viewers’ experience of your work to be like? What do you want them to take away with them?

My desire is that viewers will recognize that identity does not have to be (and in fact isn’t) rooted in social conditioning. The work is about peeling those layers of identity and ego to reveal the true core of who we are at a soul level. Social structures and systems—culture, language, nationality—are all forms of ego and they don’t define what we are, and I want the work to help set the viewer free from those norms and escape the matrix.

What are you working on now? Are there any ideas you want to explore that you haven’t yet?

I’m working on the next series. What I can say at the moment is that there will be more storytelling, mainly about experiences that made me challenge my identity. I’m also experimenting with different mediums like paint, video, and performance.

If you were not an artist, what would you be?

There are certain things that I learned from an old mentor about inner work and psychic abilities. Some of these tools help me integrate into different cultural situations and to be at ease with myself. I think these tools can benefit everyone, so I think I would be teaching people about those skills.

Francisco Tavoni, Despertar y Entender (2023). Courtesy of the artist.

Learn more about Francisco Tavoni’s work here.

Victor Burgin’s ‘Photopath’ Unlocked Multi-Dimensionality in Photography 50 Years Ago. Now, the Work Is Resurfacing in New York

“A path along the floor, of proportions 1×21 units, photographed. Photographs printed to actual size of objects and prints attached to floor so that images are perfectly congruent with their objects.”

So read a set of simple, if ambiguous, instructions that Victor Burgin wrote on a single index card in 1967. When followed, the prompt yields a line of photographs that are exactingly printed to mimic the floor on which they’re installed—so much so, in fact, that it’s easy to miss them altogether.

This was Photopath (1967-69), an era-defining work of mid-century photo-conceptualism that still mystifies today, even if—or, indeed, because—it leaves its viewers with more questions than answers. Photopath is the subject of both a new book and a show. The latter, a dedicated exhibition at Cristin Tierney Gallery that opens today, marks the first time in more than 50 years that the influential artwork will be installed in New York.

Victor Burgin, typed instruction for Photopath, 1967. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York.

Burgin, now 81, wasn’t a photographer when he created Photopath 51 years ago. He didn’t own, or even really know how to use, a camera. What the technology represented to him was a means to an end—or, more accurately, the “solution to a problem,” he said in a recent interview.

The British-born artist was getting his graduate degree at Yale in the late ‘60s and was hyper-conscious, as many young artists are, of his place in the iterative evolution of artistic ideas and movements—that process where a generation of makers responds to the one that preceded it, and in doing so, establishes a new set of issues for the successive generation to take up.

“We felt, back then, that our generation had to find the problem. Once you found the problem, then you knew what your artistic problem was; it was solving that,” Burgin said.

On the artist’s mind were the slightly older mid-century minimalists—Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and his then-teacher at Yale, Robert Morris—whose formally rigorous work often resisted close examination and instead gestured outward, to the spaces in which it was installed. But Burgin was after something more elusive, something even non-material.

“It struck me then that maybe I found the problem,” he said, recalling it in the form of a question: “What could I do in a gallery that would not add anything significant to the space yet would direct the viewer’s attention to [their] being there?” It was into this context that Photopath was born.

Victor Burgin, Photopath (1967-69), installation view, Nottingham, 1967. Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York.

The artwork was one of several index cards that Burgin wrote after he had returned to the U.K. Creating instructions for hypothetical artworks satisfied his desire “to do away with the object” in his work, but the cards, too, felt unfulfilled; he needed to enact the prompts to complete them.

So he did. Photopath was first realized on the scarred wooden floor of a friend’s apartment in Nottingham in 1967, then again at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 1969 and at the Guggenheim in 1971.

Though the piece was conceived as a kind of sculpture—or an anti-sculpture, perhaps—its impact, in retrospect, feels emphatically photographic. Like few artworks before it, Photopath exploited the medium’s uncanny ability to nestle in between image and object, illusion and idea. If the artwork doesn’t compel its viewers to consider these ideas intellectually, it at least makes one feel them through interaction. Do you treat it like a sculpture or a picture? Or is it not an artwork at all and instead just another stretch of floor? Do you step on Photopath’s prints or walk around them?

“It is hard to imagine an act of photography more straightforward and uncompromising than Photopath,” writer and curator David Campany explained in his recent book on the artwork and its legacy, published last October by MACK.

“It aims to fulfill the basic potential of the medium, which is to copy and to put itself forward as a stand-in or substitute. Yet,” Campany went on, “in meeting this expectation so literally, it somehow estranges itself.”

Victor Burgin with Francette Pacteau photographing the brick floor at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 1984. © Andrew Nairne / Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. Courtesy of Victor Burgin and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York.

To date, Photopath has only been installed a handful of times, the most recent instance of which came in 2012 at the Art Institute of Chicago’s “Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977” exhibition, when it was laid upon the polished wood boards of the museum’s Renzo Piano-designed atrium. After the run of the show, Burgin’s prints were discarded, leaving a dark, ghostly silhouette on the sun-soaked floor. He had, in a sense, created another type of photograph.

“I thought, ‘That’s just perfect.’ It really returns [the artwork] to the origin of photography,” Burgin said, noting that the show felt like a fitting conclusion for the artwork. He thought that would be the final time Photopath would be shown.

But that changed last year when Campany approached the artist with the idea of writing his short book about the artwork—a piece of writing that blends analytic art theory and personal experience, often to lyrical effect. What Campany identified in Burgin’s artwork was a kind of foresight for how photographic technology is used today.

David Campany, Victor Burgin’s Photopath, 2022. Courtesy of MACK.

“[J]ust as Vermeer had pursued an important technical development in the picturing of three-dimensional space, so too had Burgin anticipated aspects of representation that are just as pervasive: the replication of surfaces, and the uncertain space between images and their mental impressions. Fake leaves on plastic plants. Laminated tabletops imitating stone or wood. Synthetic clothing pretending to be denim or leather.”

“Photographic ‘skins’ are everywhere in contemporary life,” Campany concluded. “They are not pictures, at least not in the conventional sense, but are a fact of our contemporary material, visual, and virtual experience.”

“Victor Burgin: Photopath” is on view now through March 4, 2023 at Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York. Victor Burgin’s Photopath by David Campany is available now through MACK.

An African Photography Biennale Makes a Case for Mali as a Creative Hub—But the Global Art World’s Bad Habits May Hold It Back

During last month’s edition of Bamako Encounters–African Biennale of Photography, as dusk arrived following a captivating artist talk by revered Nigerian photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi, southern winds carrying Saharan dust settled over Mali’s capital and clouds of bats took flight between the trees across a lavender-hued sky.

Pioneering photographers such as Seydou Keita, Abdhourahmane Sakaly, and (of course) Malick Sidibe loom large here. And at such moments, even an untrained eye can understand how Bamako is an image-maker’s paradise, and a seemingly perfect setting for a photography biennale. The city’s endlessly compelling, starkly geometric architecture—angular and curved, Sahelian, colonial, and contemporary—is magnificently illuminated by the light.

In early December 2022, dozens of artists from across the world convened for the 13th edition of the Bamako Encounters, which runs until early February 2023. It is titled “On Multiplicity, Difference, Becoming, and Heritage,” a theme that invites the audience to consider moving past understandings of the world that focus on singularity and essentialism, creating room for movement, change, and malleability. Mali is a country with diverse geologies and geographies, inevitably yielding varying ways of living and cultures. This biennale thus explores a universally applicable theme in a place where liminal spaces are ever present.

Highlights

Spread across seven key sites, including the National Museum of Mali and a disused train station that formerly connected Bamako to Dakar, a standout feature from this edition of the biennale is its substantial inclusion of artists from across the African Diaspora.

Still from Baff Akoto, Leave The Edges (2020).

One of the noteworthy works from the biennale, Leave the Edges (2020), which won the biennale’s Grand Prix/Seydou Keita award, came from artist-filmmaker Baff Akoto, who was raised between Accra and London. The work explores African and Diasporic spiritualities, and how they have mutated and transformed across time and in different spaces, as a metaphor for a wider conversation around cultural exchange.

An exceptional and meditative piece, employing tender cinematography, subtle lighting, and mesmerizing soundscapes, Leave the Edges is a poetic movement film melding performance art and commemorations of slave rebellions in Guadeloupe.

Installation view of works by Anna Binta Diallo, both 2022. Photo by Photp by Tobi Onabolu.

Meanwhile at the National Museum, Anna Binta Diallo’s futuristic looking work explores the historical roots of folklore and storytelling. Employing a variety of maps, prints, and images superimposed onto outlines of human forms, Diallo invites us to consider what it means for humanity to exist in symbiosis with the natural environment. Concurrently, she explores concerns such as migration, identity, and memory.

Installation view of works by Anna Binta Diallo, both 2022. Photp by Tobi Onabolu.

Sofia Yala works in the same vein, but on a more personal level within the setting of her own family, questioning the notion of the body as an archive. Yala’s work involves screenprinting her grandfather’s archives—whether private notes, I.D. documents, or work contracts—onto photographs taken by Yala in domestic spaces. Through the process, she is able to uncover deeper layers of identity—a poignant exercise in the context of reconnecting with the artist’s Angolan heritage.

Installation view of works by Marie-Claire Messouma, all 2022. Photo by Tobi Onabolu.

Over at the former train station, sub-themes of magic, the ethereal, and eternity emanate through more conceptual and abstract works. Marie-Claire Messouma’s mystical, melismatic photography aims to spark a conversation about humanity and the cosmos, mixing textile sculptures, ceramics, and other materials, and evoking the feminine.

Similarly, in Fairouz El Tom’s work, the artist questions where the “I” ends and the “you” begins within the discourse of human ontology, prompting vital discussions around the interconnectedness of humanity—or, perhaps, the lack thereof, in this age of uncertainty.

Installation view of works by Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo, all 2019. Photo by Tobi Onabolu.

In Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo’s haunting works, we are invited to reflect on the legacies of human violence and the enduring trauma that comes from it. Drawing on his own past and personal experiences, Hlatshwayo has converted the tavern where he grew up—a site of intense trauma—into his studio, demonstrating a tangibly curative element within his practice.

Who Is It For?

With a high-profile curatorial team attached to the biennale under the artistic direction of superstar curator Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Bamako Encounters is a triumph for the artists, and undoubtedly an impressive notch on any exhibition C.V. Yet the hyper-conceptual nature of “On Multiplicity, Difference, Becoming, and Heritage,” married with sub-par scenography that often attempts to emulate the white cube model, also creates a disconnection between organizers and audiences, prompting questions, the most pressing of which is: “who is this really for?”

The well-curated, robust program of artist talks and conversations was predominantly attended by the artists themselves, alongside other industry practitioners, once again creating the all-too-familiar echo chambers that the art world is known for. The same problem is felt with the text-heavy, exclusive language of art that accompanies this exhibition, often using insular vocabulary that very few people outside of the industry even understand.

In recent times, the scrutiny of these echo chambers, and the industry at large, have become well popularized by the likes of the Instagram-based account @freeze_magazine. Such critiques often touch on how the art world perpetuates harmful capitalist tendencies, whose victims include both humans and the environment; the flaws and hypocrisy of institutional spaces; and general elitism. And at points, the 13th edition of Bamako Encounters might be guilty of all three offenses, even if to only a fraction of the degree of the Venice Biennale or other biennials in the Global North, or the market at large.

Installation view of works by Adama Delphine Fawund, all 2020. Photo by Tobi Onabolu.

“If the art only exists within institutional spaces it makes you wonder who is it really for and how is it functioning?” exhibiting artist Adama Delphine Fawundu told Artnet News, reflecting on these challenges. “I think most artists are making work that deals with subject matter that actually interrogates the institution. Therefore, what’s important about this biennale is the way that it’s documented, through the books and the text. Fifty years from now, what will people be saying about today? And if the work is not being documented at least for the future, then the biennale has to be interacting with people. How do you take it outside of the museum or the gallery space, and actually engage with real people that we see around? Because this is what we’re actually concerned about.”

And although this edition of Bamako Encounters has a central theme that relates so directly to contemporary realities in Mali, access to these conversations is largely limited to industry practitioners and socio-economic elites, many of whom were flown in specifically for the opening weekend (inevitably producing excessive quantities of carbon emissions just for the biennale to take place). In African contexts, the debate around the most effective modes of presentation and sharing critical artistic work with new audiences continues to bubble.

Nevertheless, perhaps the biennale’s biggest strength was that it became this meeting point for important, unfiltered conversations between artists and practitioners who may never have met otherwise. Indeed, amidst an onslaught of almost-farcical organizational errors, including missing baggage and overbooked hotels, the artists rallied together, evoking the power of the collective through their inter-generational and cross-cultural collaborations and exchanges. With the sheer number of artists present for this event greatly outnumbering overbearing know-it-all curators, hard-to-please institutional overlords, and opportunistic dealers, Bamako provided the platform for real connections to emerge between its exhibiting artists.

And so, despite underlying political uncertainty in Mali, fears of a global recession, and the overarching problems of the global art system, the 13th edition of Bamako Encounters emerges as a success, albeit with a plethora of concerns left to consider.

The 13th Edition of Bamako Encounters, African Biennale of Photography, is on view at venues throughout Bamako, through February 8, 2023.

The New Centre for British Photography in London Is the First Space Dedicated Entirely to U.K.-Based Artists in the Medium

Photography aficionados will need extra stamina to explore the seven exhibitions spread over three floors at the launch of the Centre for British Photography in central London on January 26.

Principally, the 8,000-square-foot space on Jermyn Street will house the Hyman Collection, the private collection of Claire and James Hyman widely considered one of the world’s major repositories of British photography. Over 3,000 significant works by more than 100 artists—such as Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton, and Martin Parr—since 1900 are included. Until now, it was only available to view online.

Bill Brandt, David Hockney (1980). © Bill Brandt / Bill Brandt Archive Ltd. Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

The center will give a historical overview of British photography and—importantly—present the diverse landscape of British photography as it exists today. “There is no venue specifically dedicated to artists working in photography in Britain,” Founding Director James Hyman told Artnet News.

“While institutions such as Tate and the V&A have extraordinary, encyclopedic collections, they are not devoted to photography, or to British photography,” he continued. “We have one of the most substantial collections of British photography, which we wish to make more public.”

Natasha Caruana, Fairy Tale for Sale (2011-2013). Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

The new center, Hyman said, is “committed to presenting a diverse view of photographic practice in Britain,” which the opening program embodies. One of the major opening shows takes its name from Bill Brandt’s seminal publication of 1935, The English at Home, presenting over 150 works that explore the central place of the home in 20th-century British photography.

In “powerful contrast” to this is the group show “Headstrong.” Curated by Fast Forward—a research group designed to promote and engage with women and non-binary people in photography across the globe—the show will focus on recent self-portraits by women working in photography.

Trish Morrissey, Pretty Ogre (2011), part of “Headstrong. Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

“This exhibition foregrounds artists and photographers who have been using self-portraiture as a tool to crack open the oppressive, often punishing nature of patriarchy,” explained Anna Fox, Director of Fast Forward. “From exposing cyberbullies to exploring the multiplicity of female identity, these portraits reinvent outdated concepts of how we should behave, how we should be, and what we can become.”

The center will also reopen with three solo exhibitions by Heather Agyepong, Jo Spence, and Natasha Caruana. “Each show is different but, by putting these artists together—each of whom uses theater and performance—connections can be drawn,” Hyman said to Artnet News.

The new center is for anyone with an interest in photography—amateur or professional. It will be free to visit year round, and will present self-generated exhibitions, shows led by independent curators and organizations, as well as monographic displays, events, and talks. “We hope visitors will get a sense of the incredible range and diversity of historical as well as contemporary photography in Britain,” added Hyman.

The New Centre for British Photography in London Is the First Space Dedicated Entirely to U.K. Artists Working in the Medium

Photography aficionados will need extra stamina to explore the seven exhibitions across three floors at the opening of the Centre for British Photography in central London on January 26.

The 8,000-square-foot new space on Jermyn Street will house the Hyman Collection—the private collection of Claire and James Hyman, widely considered one of the world’s major libraries of British photography. Over 3,000 significant works by more than 100 artists—such as Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton, and Martin Parr—since 1900 are included. Until now, it was only available to view online.

Bill Brandt, David Hockney (1980). Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

Natasha Caruana, Fairy Tale for Sale (2011-2013). Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

Trish Morrissey, Pretty Ogre (2011), part of “Headstrong. Courtesy of the Centre for British Photography, London.

Noémie Goudal’s Photo and Video Collages Trick the Eye. But They’re All About Revealing, Not Concealing, Her Process

The French artist Noémie Goudal is an illusionist. But unlike a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Goudal provides the viewer with enough clues to understand her creative process. Her photographs and videos of palm trees and burning vegetation derive from the creation of printed décor, like stage sets, which clearly differentiates her art from the work of a documentary photographer.

Several images on the stand of Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire at Paris Photo in the Grand Palais Éphémère this past weekend, conveyed Goudal’s preoccupations with nature and her working method.

For Mountain III (2021), Goudal erected jagged pieces of cardboard in front of a partially snow-capped landscape. In order not to deceive the viewer about her intervention, she left the edges of the cardboard visible in the ensuing work.

For Phoenix V (2021), she sliced her own photographs of a palm tree into vertical and horizontal strips, which she installed in the same landscape in order to make another picture. The overlapping layers of strips conjure a deconstructed image. Black spaces in between the branches and the artificial light illuminating some of the leaves denote how the original conditions were nocturnal. Meanwhile, the visibility of the clips and cables communicates the work’s artifice.

Noémie Goudal, Mountain III (2021). Courtesy Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire.

“What I try to instill in the image is all the artisanal side, so you can find the gesture of fabricating the image within the image itself,” Goudal told Artnet News. “For me, it’s very important to involve the viewer so that they can live a bit of the [image-making] experience.”

To capture the palm trees, Goudal and her team of assistants drove to southern Spain, taking along equipment like cameras, computers, a printer and lighting. “We made a kind of deconstruction of the landscape and the result of this performance is represented in the photos,” she said.

Born in Paris, Goudal, 38, studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins in London before attaining a MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. “There’s better and more varied teaching in England; the schools have a good reputation and the students are very free,” Goudal said about her decision to study abroad.

From the beginning of her practice, Goudal has been interested in the hovering interface between fictional images and reality. To make her early works, she would install a photograph of a landscape somewhere very different—such as capturing a print of a misty, tropical road inside a dusty barn.

In the last few years, Goudal’s work has become increasingly ambitious in scale and media. She has had exhibitions at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, the Finnish Museum of Photography, and Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, among other venues. Notably, her works have entered the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the CNAP – France’s visual arts collection, and Germany’s Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Noémie Goudal, Phoenix V (2021). Courtesy Galerie Les Filles Filles du Calvaire.

As part of this summer’s Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in the south of France, Goudal had an exhibition, “Phoenix,” in a deconsecrated gothic church called Église des Trinitaires. On view in the chapel’s nave were two captivating videos evincing her fascination with representation, installation, and performance.

Inhale Exhale (2021) opens with a verdant, tropical landscape, like a postcard cliché. But the palm trees are soon revealed to be printed on placards, which begin to emerge and move, eventually collapsing in the rain. Then an identically constructed jungle appears, only to meet the same drowned fate. The piece was filmed in the wood of Vincennes, near Paris, wherein the décor was placed.

The second video, Below the Deep South, (2021), is more terrifying, showing lush vegetation being set ablaze. The edges of the sheets of images lick with flames, burn and vanish. Then another, and yet another, layer of images catches fire in a perpetual cycle of repetition and destruction. Eventually, the ravaging flames stop flickering and embers amass on the floor of an industrial site. This ‘making of’ ending indicates that this is where the sheets of images were installed. Clarity is given to the mastered fakery, the poetic illusion is rendered comprehensible.

One immediately wonders if the dystopian vision is a reflection on the fires in the Amazon rainforest during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency of Brazil. But Goudal replied that this was not the starting point. Rather, it was researching deep time and paleoclimatology, the study of the climate history of the earth and how a better understanding of the earth’s climate in the past relates to its present and future climate.

Noémie Goudal. Film still from Below the Deep South (2021). Courtesy of Les Filles du Calvaire gallery and the artist.

“What interests me through these videos is trying to see the metamorphoses of the earth in a much broader sense than during man’s era, and looking at the destruction of fire but also at how it is a very important force of energy,” Goudal said. “When we speak to paleoclimatologists, we realize to what extent the earth was subjected to metamorphoses, like blasts and volcanoes, which allowed man to exist, and it’s this balance that we’re trying to save now.”

It is this transversal quality of Goudal’s practice—working across techniques and media, and exploring the earth’s different geological epochs—that makes it distinguishing, according to Stéphane Magnan, co-founder of Galeries Les Filles du Calvaire. The gallery sells her photographs, in an edition of five, priced between €18,500 and €28,000 ($18,330-$27,740), depending on the format. Videos, also in an edition of five, are priced at €20,000 ($19,810).

“This artist proposes a very subtle work that destabilizes the viewer by deconstructing the landscape,” Magnan said. “This very particular, offbeat vision triggers fundamental issues about the earth’s transformation and proposes an aesthetic recomposition of our world.”

The theme of destruction is treated slightly differently in the black-and-white video, Untitled (Study on Matters and Fire), 2022. Commissioned for the group exhibition, “L’horizon des événements,” at Château d’Oiron in western France this summer, it shows a bleak, actual wasteland located beyond the periphery of Paris.

One quickly perceives that the austere image is a composition of different elements, centered by a large circle whose edges become aflame. As the billowing, blackened paper tumbles, the fire devours the landscape. Through a system of photographic anamorphosis, the destruction gives way to the real, unravaged landscape behind.

Noémie Goudal, Untitled (Study on Matters and Fire) (2022). Exhibition view Château d’Oiron. Photo: Anna Sansom.

“The contract with Jean-Luc Meslet, director of the Château d’Oiron, was to produce works in situ, in or near the château, and we looked with Noémie for a forest that could be filmed in May but this turned out to be impossible so we couldn’t respect this contractual clause,” the exhibition’s curator Patrice Joly explained. “I find this new film even more powerful – it totally finds its place in the château’s grandiose setting, the sound fills the large room under the eaves […] and makes us feel the power and magnetism of fire – it’s a magnificent piece.”

Goudal, who cites Christopher Williams, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andreas Gursky and Zoe Leonard as references, has also ventured into interdisciplinary projects. At the Festival d’Avignon, south of France, this summer, she collaborated with stage director Maëlle Poésy on a performance piece, Anima. Next to a landscape-metamorphosis video, a dancer performed on a metallic, gridded structure of the same dimensions as the video screen.

Goudal has also made a foray into sculpture. At her exhibition, “Post Atlantica,” at Edel Assanti in London earlier this year, several spherical, kinetic sculptures were on display alongside photographs and videos.

Indeed, Goudal aspires for her conceptual work to defy classification and be appreciated beyond the confines of photography. “It’s still complicated to show photographic work in a contemporary art context,” Goudal lamented. “As there are fairs dedicated to photography, a gallery will think of showing their trending photographer at Paris Photo rather than at Paris+ [par Art Basel]. I understand but it’s just classifying [artists who work with photography] even more. I suffer a lot from this.”

Besides, Goudal is hardly a photographer in the traditional sense. “Photographers who make documentary and more classical work don’t see mine as classical photography,” Goudal added.

Certainly, what drives Goudal is developing a multifarious practice, rich in intellectual exploration. “It’s very natural for me to use all these different media,” she said. “What interests me is studying the image from lots of different viewpoints and, above all, the experience of creating the image.”

Asia-Pacific’s Largest Photography Fair Will Host Its Inaugural New York Edition Next Fall

Photofairs, Asia’s largest photography fair, will make its debut in New York next year.

Event organizer Creo has announced the first Photofairs New York will take place from September 8–10, 2023 at the Javits Center, just next door to the Armory Show. Held in partnership with Angus Montgomery Arts, the fair will showcase photography, film, and virtual reality works, spotlighting about 100 international galleries. Exhibitor applications are now open.

“We have great admiration for the Armory Show and its long-standing track record,” Creo CEO Scott Gray told Artnet News. “Bringing the unique offerings of the two fairs together under one roof will be mutually beneficial.” The Javits Center, he said, is “a purpose-built exhibition center well suited to the requirements of galleries and visitors alike.”

According to Jeff Rosenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s photography curator, the city itself is likely to be receptive. “New York’s enthusiasm for photography is almost unbounded,” he noted in Creo’s press release. “This will bring new energy to the fall season in New York.”

The 2017 edition of Photofairs Shanghai at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Photo by Simon Song/South China Morning Post via Getty Images

Gray founded Creo in 2007 as the World Photography Organization, a company whose roster now encompasses the Sony World Photography Awards, Sony Future Filmmaker Awards, and Photo London. He currently also serves as CEO of Angus Montgomery Arts, which oversees India Art Fair, Taipei Dangdai, and Art Düsseldorf, among other fairs.

“Creo has since grown in scope, furthering its mission of developing meaningful opportunities for creatives and expanding the reach of its cultural activities to film and contemporary art,” Gray explained.

In 2014, Creo launched the now-signature Photofairs Shanghai. Between 2017 and 2019, the group tried hosting two rounds of a San Francisco edition, but gave up after learning it cost more than $1 million to produce.

Photofairs New York will organize exhibitors into four sections. “Galleries” will encompass all exhibitors chosen by Creo’s Selection Committee, comprising of international galleries, and the fair’s Advisory Group of international collectors—who will also cultivate an audience of buyers for the event. International fair partner Meta Media Group will expand the fair’s global footprint.

Photo courtesy of Photofairs New York.

Meanwhile, the “Platform” section will hold space for booths by galleries that have logged less than eight years in the business and artists aged under 35. “Screen” will showcase galleries working in new technologies such as VR and NFTs. “Film” will focus on moving image as a medium.

Since photography has gone from a technically specialized skill to a widely embraced medium, Gray reflected, “I believe there is demand for a new fair in photo-based works and new technologies, which really reflects current market trends and explores how we interact with digital culture.” Creo is looking to further embrace experimental practices and seminal photographers alike—and catch both seasoned and emerging collectors.

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