"Why is photography important?" and "How does one become a collector of photography?" with Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Silver Eye Center for Photography

5. Why is photography important? 

Photography is a vital form of creative self-expression. It can create empowering spaces for connection with ourselves and each other. When artists center curiosity, empathy, and social concern in their practice, photography can challenge conventions, biases, and structural inequalities. Through such photography, we can imagine and work towards more equitable futures. Photography is important to me when it provokes me to critically question history, society, and representation and continually reflect on how photographs are made, read, circulated and understood. Most of all, photography is important in any way that an individual finds meaningful. That relationship has the potential to be limitless. 

Spring by Marc Wilson from the series ‘Travelogue 1’ made in Ukraine between 2018-2021. © Marc Wilson

6. How does one become a collector of photography? 

Relationships are fundamental to becoming a collector of photography - whether with artists, gallerists, curators, arts workers, cultural producers, or writers. Start going to events at galleries or organizations whose programs directly support and engage with artists. These experiences will offer the opportunity to discover new work, develop your interests, and connect with artists directly in meaningful and authentic ways. I don't think the commercial value should drive your collecting. But instead, collect what you love and fully embrace that this will inevitably change and grow in unexpected ways.

In Pittsburgh, we are fortunate to have many accessible pathways to start collecting. Such local opportunities include editions from Silver Eye, regular juried shows by local non-profits such as Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and Brew House Association, Small Mall, and the emergence of new independent art galleries such as Here. Most of my recent personal collecting has been through fundraising initiatives raising awareness on issues that are important to me. I encourage new collectors to consider how their collecting purposefully aligns with their values. Ultimately, when collecting work by contemporary photographers, you directly support the future development of their artistic practice, which is one of the most rewarding reasons to start collecting.

"Who is Your Favorite Photographer?" with Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Programs at Silver Eye Center for Photography

For the next part of our On Curating Photography series with Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Programs at Silver Eye Center for Photography, we asked about her favorite photographer:

Camerawork No. 8 / Lewisham: What are you taking pictures for? (London: Half Moon Photography Workshop, 1977. Cover photograph by Chris Steele-Perkins)

I cannot name just one favorite photographer - I have many that constantly change and evolve! Inevitably, I connect with particular bodies of work due to my changing personal circumstances. I relocated to the US in 2020. While I feel settled in my new home, I am still negotiating a long separation from my family due to Covid. I have experienced that the aftermath of the immigration process creates a constant tension between progress and loss and preoccupation with generational cycles of family and time. Consequently, I especially connect with contemporary photographers whose work explores these in-between psychological spaces associated with migration. Photographers such as Atefeh Farajolahzadeh, Priya Kambli, Kalpesh Lathigra, and Vivian Poey, to name a few.

I have also recently enjoyed returning to twentieth-century emigre photographers whose work I have always cherished. There are some photographers whose work has stayed with me for decades such as Lucia Moholy and André Kertész. However, I am always looking, questioning, learning, and unlearning. Fully embracing these uncertain, even vulnerable, states of knowledge and being is essential to creativity, including curating and writing.

"How does curating photography compare to other forms of visual art?" Interview with Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Programs at the Silver Eye Center for Photography

For part two of our dialogue with Helen Trompeteler we ask: How does curating photography compare to other forms of visual art?

“Photography is a medium with unique material and theoretical histories. Since its invention, people have used photography to inspire, record beauty, and foster understanding of themselves or the world around them. Yet since its beginnings, photography has also caused harm as a vehicle for othering, racism, and colonial and capitalist ambitions. Recorded photographic histories have systematically prioritized Western-centric narratives. Therefore when curating photography, one must be constantly mindful of these specific histories and prejudices and how they are lived out today in contemporary society and visual culture.

Installation view of Fellowship 22 with Good Hope by Carla Liesching, 5 May - 6 August 2022, Silver Eye Center for Photography. Photograph by Sean Carroll

While recognizing these individual contexts, photography belongs to many different disciplines and is not an isolated art form. I see photography's relationship to other visual art forms holistically. Curating contemporary photography involves considering image-making in a highly expanded field. This framework encompasses many art forms, including collage, sculpture, video, installation, and performance. For example, in Fellowship 22, Carla Liesching's sculptural site-specific installation Good Hope and Steph Foster's multimedia practice exemplify such interdisciplinary forms of contemporary photographic practice.”

"What goes into curating a photography exhibition?" Interview with Helen Trompeteler, Deputy Director of Programs at Silver Eye Center for Photography

When thinking about curating photography, it is important to consider what goes into the process, and how it compares to other forms of visual art. We spoke with curator, writer, and Deputy Director of Programs at Silver Eye Center for Photography Helen Trompeteler, whose curatorial practice ‘promotes photography as a fine art medium that can provoke contemporary dialogue, foster community, and inspire more equitable futures’ on what goes into curating a photography exhibition.

“When I begin developing a new exhibition, I critically ask myself how this exhibition will create new opportunities for connection with audiences and serve the artist's creative vision. Many additional self-reflective questions affect my curatorial approach, but these foundational concerns inform all my subsequent decision-making. These decisions include final image selection and layout, paper and framing options, and the writing, design, and pacing of interpretive text. All these elements are part of storytelling in the physical exhibition space. They will affect how audiences engage with photography and whether the artist will realize their aims.

Installation view of Mouse Trap with photographs by Patricia Voulgaris, 3 March - 23 April, 2022, Silver Eye Center for Photography. Photograph by Sean Carroll.

Curating is a highly collaborative process. I collaborate closely with all our artists at Silver Eye. I strive to provide a framework of care, support, and facilitation so they can take new creative directions or risks in their practice. I feel very fortunate to collaborate with colleagues, including Sean Stewart, who shares his immense expertise in printing and production. 21st-century definitions of curating perceived the curator as a solitary guardian or authoritative voice in defining an aspect of knowledge or taste. However, my curatorial approach always aims to be conversational. I focus on introducing themes, references, ideas, and frameworks for individuals to explore on their own terms. Collaborators are essential to my curatorial thinking, including everyone who engages with the exhibition and shares their perspectives.”

Challenging the Canon: Olga Yatskevich on Photobook History

Co-founded by Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich in 2012, 10x10 Photobooks foster engagement with the global photobook community through the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of photobooks. The PGH Photo Fair has partnered with 10 x 10 Photobooks on all their previous touring reading rooms, including in 2019 for How We See: Photobooks by Women, which presented a global range of contemporary photobooks by women.

Follow-up project, What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women 1843–1999, focuses on historically significant photobooks produced by women. Officially released on 1 November 2021, the book was recently shortlisted for the Paris Photo - Aperture Foundation Catalogue of the Year Award 2021.

Helen Trompeteler spoke with Olga Yatskevich about 10x10’s ongoing exploration of photobook history and the underrepresentation of women in this field. 

How does your own cultural and personal background inform your approach to the photobook? Do you have a particular early experience with a photobook or reading room which inspired your engagement with this art form?

My interest in photography is fairly typical. My grandfather was a serious amateur photographer, I would spend hours looking at family photo albums and often re-arranging photographs. I spent a big part of my life moving between countries, first with my parents as a kid and later for school and work. I was constantly exploring new places and taking photos felt pretty natural. And I’ve always been a book person but my interest in photobook shaped when I moved to NYC. I started making connections with the local photo community, both in person and online. That’s how I met Russet Lederman, my partner in 10x10 Photobooks. I invited Russet and Jeff Gutterman, her husband, to come to a photobook meet-up I was organizing and talk about Japanese photobooks from their extensive collection. In a way that was the beginning of our 10x10 project.

We started 10x10 Photobooks with a very simple idea - to bring to New York contemporary Japanese photobooks, not easily available through regular distribution. We invited ten people to suggest ten photobooks published by Japanese photographers. We brought these books in a pop-up reading room and invited people to come to the space and spend time with the books. The project came together in just about two months. Our first reading room, titled 10x10 Japanese Photobooks, was launched in September 2012 during NY Art Book Fair, and was sponsored by the International Center of Photography.

Histories of the photobook have existed for some years now. For example, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s multi-volume history published between 2004-2014 was a high-profile series on this subject. However, the politics of selection is an important consideration. The photography and publishing industries have frequently had their histories shaped by ‘gatekeepers’ with social or financial influence. For example, Helmut Gernsheim and Beaumont Newhall wrote hugely influential books that shaped twentieth-century photo history, neither of which included many women photographers. At 10x10, your collective approach to constructing histories resists this model of selection, incorporating more democratic forums for dialogue across reading rooms, publications, and events. Can you talk a little about this underlying ethos of co-creation?

From the very beginning 10x10 was about community, collaboration, inclusion and diversity. 10x10 was about bringing together people with different backgrounds - publishers, photographers, collectors, writers, designers, curators - and various interests within photography, but with common passion - photobooks. 10x10 wanted to provide a platform for a conversation. Almost a decade later we are a non-profit organization, and our mission is the same - to foster engagement with the global photobook community through an appreciation, dissemination and understanding of photobooks.

We have completed four major reading rooms - focusing on Japanese, American, contemporary Latin American Photobooks and photobooks by women. To put these projects, we brought together a diverse group of contributors. They followed a similar format; our experts were asked to each select a number of photobooks. We also ask each selector to write a short statement to explain what brings these books together, which helps people understand the individual books and to see the connections between them. 

When 10x10 produced How We See, the program of touring reading rooms relied on the tactility of the objects. In interviews at the time, Russet Lederman discussed that 10x10 didn’t include historical works due to the inability to show them and have the public interact with them. One of the aspects of the new book I love is how objects have been photographed to emphasize a wide variety of material histories and qualities. How will this translate into what is shown in the reading rooms program for What They Saw?

We had the photobooks included in all our previous reading rooms. Inviting people in a space where they can touch books, flip through the pages, smell the ink was always essential to us. That’s why we also donated the books from each reading room to a dedicated public library, so people continue to have access to them. Many books discussed in What They Saw are still available for a reasonable price, and we were able to purchase a good portion of them. But there is a number of rare books too, like Anna Atkins’ “Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions” (1843-1853). Some of them are unique albums, like the one put together by Kate A. Williams with the cards collected during her travels in Europe to share with friends, or a carte-de-visite album by Arabella Chapman, a Black middle-class woman in Albany, New York; her albums include photographs of friends, family, and leading abolitionists. These types of publications are unique, we hope to create flip through videos to showcase them. We also tried to illustrate them extensively in our publication. We are planning to partner with institutions that already have many of these books in their collection. Our first reading room will be in partnership with the New York Public Library in May 2022. 

Arabella Chapman, Carte-de-Visite Albums, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

To truly challenge the canon of photo history, I think it is essential to collaborate with experts from other fields – across political, cultural, and social disciplines – as all these factors work towards shaping and constructing knowledge. Can you talk a little about the selection of writers for What They Saw and whether this was a concern?

Producing a publication like this one requires a big team. We invited Mariama Attah who is curator of Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool to write an overview essay. To address the current photobook history, she brings the metaphor of a popular Mercator projection that distorts the relative size of landmasses. She articulates a number of questions we are trying to cover with this project. The book has ten chapters, and we brought scholars, both western and non-western, to write them. These chapters also map key political, cultural and social events that influenced those decades, and briefly mention the books discussed in detail for that chapter putting them in that context. Carole Naggar is a photography historian, and also a writer and poet. Elizabeth Cronin is a curator at the New York Public Library. Paula Kupfer brings a Latin American perspective, while Michiko Kasahara offers a perspective from Japan. Jörg Colberg, originally from Germany and now based in the United States, is a writer, photographer, and educator. 

A huge amount of communal effort went into this publication. Many people contributed to this publication; our acknowledgement list is pretty long. We also had a number of PhD students and researchers who contributed drafting book blurbs. Our designer, Ayumi Higuchi, had an enormous task of putting together all the elements, and I think she did an incredible job.   

There are many practical and structural reasons why women photographers have been omitted or underrepresented in history. Many male-owned nineteenth-century studios relied on female labor, but their names and histories have been largely unrecorded. Sometimes women photographers operated under a pseudonym, or their change of name through marriage means their lives become harder to trace through archival records. As periodicals and the magazine industry boomed during the early twentieth century, images were often reproduced uncredited. Reclaiming and working with historical material within photobooks can be a way to address these omissions. Please can you talk a little about this theme of archival loss or absence - and perhaps give a few favorite examples of innovative photobooks that have addressed this specifically?

There were a number of factors that kept women’s names from the proper acknowledgment in the publication and public eye. To expand this conversation and widen the frame, we had to reconsider our definition of a photobook, so we included individual albums, maquettes, zines and pamphlets. But we are expanding this conversation to include not only women, but make it as inclusive as possible. 

Take for example, Isabel Agnes Cowper, for over 20 years she was the official photographer in the South Kensington Museum but was not credited in any of the publications and remained neglected until recent research and the scrutiny of the museum archives. Now she is recognized as the first woman to hold the title of official museum photographer. Her photographs document museum exhibitions, objects in its collections and the construction of museum facilities. In our publication we included one of the earliest volumes illustrated with her photographs, “Catalogue of the Special Loan Exhibition of Decorative Art Needlework Made Before 1800” published in 1874. 

There are many forms of individual self-publishing. But more broadly, power dynamics are often involved in every stage of the photobook process – editing, captioning, design, circulation. Editing and sequencing especially rarely receive critical study within the history of photography. Many post-war historians emphasized notions of the master photographer at the expense of this broader contextualization of the medium. How can we encourage an approach that moves away from solely focusing on notions of single authorship to acknowledge these wider contributions and contexts?

Women have consistently contributed to the photobook history, and as early as the mid 18th century. However, their contributions were often neglected, misrepresented or diminished. What They Saw starts to identify where we might find these voices. It is important to keep questioning dominant historical narratives, as individual contributions too often get lost or overshadowed. To represent these fragmented and incomplete histories, we included timeline entries that need further research. 

There are examples of women supporting their husbands in their commercial photographic endeavours, and hardly getting any mention. In the 1860s in Japan, Ryu Shima had a studio with her husband and most likely contributed to two albums, her name is not credited. Ashraf os-Saltaneh, an Iranian princess and one of the earliest women photographers in the country, kept her husband’s diary and most likely used her photographs for illustrations. There are so many examples. Uncovering and sharing these stories help us to see a bigger picture.  

Zofia Rydet, Mały człowiek, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

Especially since the 1970s, women have found a platform at the intersections of theoretical, political, and autobiographical writing in photography. Even before this, photographers such as Dorothy Wilding and Madame Yevonde safe-guarded their place in photo history by writing memoirs, seeking empowerment by telling their story in their own words. So, I’m interested in how women have had to write themselves and their careers into photo history. Jo Spence’s undergraduate thesis was recently published in full for the first time. This exciting revisiting of past visual texts encourages a much richer history and new opportunities for contemporary dialogue. The use of language is an integral part of who is represented and how. Therefore, please can you talk a little about this relationship – how do you see these intersections between life writing and the traditions of the photobook?

Gisèle Freund wrote the first Ph.D. on photography in 1936, and a couple of years later Lucia Moholy, Both a photographer and a scholar, wrote “A Hundred Years of Photography”; it sold out immediately, in forty thousand copies. It was 1942, when Elizabeth McCausland, an American historian and art critic, wrote one of the first essays on the still new medium of the photobook titled Photographic Books. Sadly, her legacy got forgotten over the years, her essay wasn't referenced in any of the recent anthologies. When we launched our How We See project, we also reprinted the essay and had copies available during the reading rooms. Kristen Lubben, in her essay Partial Histories: Looking at Photobooks by Women for “How We See”, talks about McCausland and her contribution. 

A potential critique when drawing attention to creative practice on the grounds of gender alone is that it is, in a way, reductive. The statistics you gathered while producing How We See, and regularly shared by groups such as Women Photograph and Guerilla Girls are irrefutable. Nevertheless, speaking in binaries between male and female gaze can be problematic. How can we make these discussions as inclusive as possible, incorporating non-binary and genderfluid identities into these discussions of photobook history?

Our How We See project, required that all photography contributions in a selected book are women, and those who identify as women. We used the same approach for What They Saw. As we explore the photobook history, inclusivity is one of our primary goals.

The potential of movement that is inherent with photobooks have made them so central to political movements, including second and third-wave feminism. Zines, newspapers, leaflets, pamphlets can all be shared easily, sent cheaply, travel between countries – they are an effective way of circumventing the establishment. Can you talk a little about your views on what constitutes a feminist photobook? How do you see the potential of photobooks as agents of such political action?

What makes a photobook feminist? There is no simple way to define this. In early years access to publishing was rather privileged, and many women who had this access used it to state their independence, economic, sexual or artistic. Today photobooks are versatile, inexpensive and democratic. They can easily travel, share ideas and ultimately empower. 

There are definitely a number of photobooks I would consider as an example in What They Saw. From a late 19th century album made for the Women’s Social and Political Union by Christina Broom and Isabel Marion Seymour with portraits of the Suffragettes to Elsa Dorfman’s “Elsa’s Housebook: A Woman’s Photojournal” which documented the rich social life of a young woman in the 1970s and Abigail Heyman’s "Growing up female: a personal photojournal", giving us a frank portrait of what it means to be female in the United States in the 1970s.

I think a great example of political action is a photobook, a pamphlet to be precise, by Alice Seeley Harris titled “The Camera and the Congo Crime”. Published around 1906, it is one of the earliest examples of a humanitarian photographic campaign. Harris’ images reveal the colonial atrocities endured by the Congolese people. It played a key role in bringing attention to these atrocities committed under King Leopold II. 

Or another, perhaps more known book, and an example of both feminist and protest book is “Immagini del no” (Images of No) published in 1974, with photographs by Paola Mattioli and Anna Candiani. It was published in the wake of the Italian referendum to repeal an earlier law legalizing divorce. It made a direct appeal for political change in women’s issues. 

Christina Broom and Isabel Marion Seymour, WSPU Postcards Album, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

Paola Mattioli and Anna Candiani, Immagini del no, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

Many factors impact women’s ability to sustain a creative practice – including class, money, domestic and caring responsibilities. The business aspects of women’s creativity are often completed neglected in photo histories. Historically, there has often been a snobbery around art-making and book-making being seen in this context of commerce. The reality is that to live creatively is often to live fragmentally across many different models of working and living. Does What They Saw invite a provocation to think differently about how we view success? Or, indeed, evaluate and record success within history?

How do we define success? What is our criteria for progress? In early years only women with privileged social positions were able to pursue photography. They were married to someone or came from privileged families. (And obviously, there were other factors, outside gender.) They had the means to purchase equipment, or to learn photography at first as a hobby. These women were trailblazers, they paved the way for others, and considering the context in which they worked, their contributions are extraordinary. 

Each chapter in our publication sets the historical context for the books discussed within it. What are the factors that contributed to making certain books possible? We spent a lot of time searching for photobooks by Black women made between the 1960s and 1980s. We don't know how many women tried to publish books in those years, but as we talked to people it became clear that there was simply no funding for these books. “The Decorative Arts of Africa” by Louise E. Jefferson, released in 1974, is a rare example of a book that did find support. Jefferson was also the first Black woman with a director’s position in the publishing industry. Has that had an impact? These are the questions we are bringing up.

In the past few years, a number of great photobooks were published showing the body of work that was 40 years old, and just did not find recognition it deserved at that time. 

Presenting diverse ethnic, cultural, and geographic backgrounds has been central to What They Saw from its inception. How can we work to ensure against future gaps and omissions in photobook history, in particular the lack of access, support, and funding for photobooks by non-Western women and women of color? How do you think publishers can better support a range of visions that are non-Western?

When we started working on How We See, we conducted research to get an idea on the representation of photobooks by women. The numbers were quite shocking. Photobooks by women made up only 10.5% of the entries in the six major “book-on-books” anthologies, three major photobook publishers had only 16.2% of photobooks by women in their online titles. However, I think if we look at the past three years, we will notice a shift. I think the conversation, on different levels, is very important. It is essential to have editors who are sensitive and consider different voices. We need to engage designers with various backgrounds. We have to continue to advocate for inclusivity within the high-profile sectors of the photobook community. As one puts together exhibitions, publishes photobooks, organizes fairs, acquires books for libraries, manages awards, let’s make sure the process is inclusive. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem is not that they are untrue, but that they result in incomplete narratives.

Ellen Kolban Thorbecke, People in China: Thirty Two Photographic Studies from Life, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

Lesley Lawson, Working Women: A Portrait of South Africa’s Black Women Workers, in ‘What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999’. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

The identity and interests of collectors play an essential part in shaping histories. The MUUS Collection supports What They Saw and its associated research grants. Please can you talk a little about how this relationship with the MUUS Collection started and has evolved? What can you tell us about this year’s research grants and what to expect regarding future programming relating to them?

10x10 Research Grants on Photobook History was initiated and administered by our board members, David Solo and Richard Grosbard, and were launched last Fall. We are grateful to the MUUS Collection, and their generous support of this important initiative. Their mission which is to make visible their photography collection and archives through exhibitions, scholarship, donations, licensing, and the printing of images and books, overlaps with 10x10’s.

With this grant 10x10 contributes to our mission by encouraging and supporting scholarship on under-explored topics in photobook history. The first year’s theme focuses on research into the history of women and photobooks from 1843 to 1999.

We received a good number of submissions and our jury members - Susan Bright, Sarah Meister and Ingrid Masondo – were impressed with the range and strength of research topics. While we originally planned to select two grantees, this year we decided to award three grants, $1,500 each.

Faride Mereb, an artist and independent publisher from Venezuela, will process and digitize archives of Karmele Leizaola, an important contributor to the publishing scene in Venezuela. Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Associate Professor in visual culture at the Lebanese American University, will focus on Catherine Leroy’s photobook “God Cried” (1983), a little-known book about the intense and violent conflicts in Beirut. Uschi Klein, a researcher at University of Brighton, will collect more materials about the life and work of Romanian photographer Clara Spitzer.

We will have public events to share the progress of their research with the photobook community. The high number of submissions indicates that we need to continue to support more research into the history of the photobook.

Lastly, how has your work on this project and with 10x10 Photobooks influenced your own collecting practices?

This is definitely a two-way process, our personal interests in collecting photobooks inform our 10x10 programming. Our projects come together as we engage in long conversations and brainstorming sessions, we try to determine overlooked regions and subjects, bring fresh ideas and share what inspires us. Needless to say, that through our projects I always discover new books, and purchase many of them for my own collection. Photobooks provide an opportunity to meet people, - artists, publishers, designers - support their work and share them with a wider audience.  

What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999. Courtesy 10 x 10 Photobooks

To find out more the work of 10 x 10 Photobooks, visit their website or follow them on Instagram @10x10photobooks

Reimagining Aperture: In conversation with Sarah Meister

For over 25 years, Sarah Meister built an exceptional curatorial career at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where her many critically acclaimed exhibitions and publications included Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946–1964 (2021), Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures (2020), and Gordon Parks: The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957 (2020). She was the lead instructor for the online course Seeing Through Photographs and co-director of the August Sander Project. 

In May 2021, Sarah Meister joined Aperture as Executive Director, where she oversees Aperture’s book publishing and flagship magazine, educational and outreach programs, and creative partnerships with artists and institutions. Helen Trompeteler recently spoke with Sarah about Aperture’s history, her vision for its future, and the central role of photography in our contemporary experience.

Thinking about personal beginnings in photography, I know you initially engaged with photography as a practitioner. And then you studied with Peter Bunnell, who sadly passed away recently. And I wondered if you would like to share a few details of this time?

My own beginnings in photography don’t really bear mention. But I will say by the time I met Peter Bunnell; I had made peace with the fact that, as I learned of real achievements in photography, I understood the gap between those and my own. So yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about Peter recently and our sort of twinned arcs through the photography world. Peter, starting at Aperture, and then going to MoMA and then going to Princeton - and myself, starting at Princeton, then going to MoMA and then going to Aperture. There’s wonderful serendipity in that.

He was a very important figure to so many people in the field. Just today, I was talking with someone who was thinking about what it would mean to trace not just the first generation of people who studied with him directly, but those who have studied with those who studied with him, which then really covers a tremendous section of the field. Especially in his curatorial work, he was really pushing boundaries that people are just now in recent decades catching up to understand. And so that person I was talking with was sort of bemoaning, ‘oh, it's too bad, he didn’t stay a curator’. But I think I’m a little bit glad he didn’t stay a curator, selfishly, and I’m taking the same feeling to heart - I loved being a curator, but it is exciting to do something different.

Maquette and final edition of Aperture issue 1, 1952, featuring an untitled photograph by Dorothea Lange. Courtesy The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum. Bequest of Minor White.
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University

Before we talk about Aperture in more detail, I wanted to reflect a little on your last exhibition at MoMA. Fotoclubismo was such a revelation to me; it introduced me to many new artists that I hadn’t discovered before. And it made me think a lot about the exclusions that can happen in photography - whether around boundaries of distinction or geographical biases. Can you share a few reflections on this aspect of the exhibition, and also discuss how you propose to counter such biases when directing future programming at Aperture?

Well, I think that the first thing is acknowledging your own complicity in constructing these narratives of exclusion. And that’s not easy work, but that is what is required of each of us going forward. And I would say that was the perfect exhibition to be thinking about, as the country and the world were grappling with this idea of how the structures and systems in which we have operated, served to suppress, to diminish, to distract, from larger, more important stories.

Photography is an unruly mess, you know, we know this. And on some level, to make sense of it, we set up these hierarchies to say - okay, here, this is art, science, journalism, and this is amateur photography. And, inevitably, when you’re drawing these structures, you’re creating hierarchies. You’re simplifying for the sake of understanding. Where I am now, and where I hope Aperture will be, is in a sense a kind of leaning into the porosity of this. Photography isn’t neat, life isn’t neat, history isn’t neat. We just need to make peace with that as a way of moving forward. 

And so yes, I believe that understanding and clarity can come through considerations of individual achievements. Yes, I loved that my last exhibition at MoMA was about amateur practices. And that was a very important thing for me to finish thinking through. And then, once I had thought it through, I thought I would rather contemplate where photography is in the world today, not within the context of a modern art museum, even though that was an unbelievable privilege and gift for my whole career. But what happens when you put photography at the center and see how that expands from there? It felt like once that exhibition was on view, I said to myself, okay, I think I’m done, I think I’m ready. 26 and a half years later, if I’m going to leave MoMA for anything, I’m happy it’s for Aperture.

Installation view of Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946–1964, May 8, 2021 - September 26, 2021. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan Muzikar

Aperture closed its permanent gallery space in Chelsea just before the pandemic. And that must have necessitated new opportunities for collaboration with exhibition partners. Are you able to share anything about plans for Aperture’s future physical space? Or perhaps it’s too early to talk about that?

I mean, it’s early in that I don’t have one that I could tell you about. But I can tell you; Aperture won’t have an exhibition space in Manhattan in the way it did, although we intend to have space to convene with our audiences and share what we do. And that was a strategic decision that the organization made before I arrived. There are so many places in New York City where photographs are displayed. And at a time when resources are limited, how you function as a nonprofit is an expression of where you want to be in the work you want to do. I think that what Aperture does that no one else can do is be a kind of catalyst of understanding and connective tissue between universities and museums and artists and audiences in a way that doesn’t require an exhibition space in Manhattan. 

Even right now, there are two exhibitions on view at ICP that emerged out of Aperture publications. So, this is emblematic I hope of the future for Aperture. I don’t think we need to operate a space in New York. I’m very grateful that the decision was made before I arrived, but it is a decision I support. At the same time, the ICP exhibitions are different in that those were organized by ICP. But Aperture itself organizes exhibitions in partnership – for example, Antwaun Sargent for The New Black Vanguard or Wendy Red Star for Native America, or Kwame Brathwaite. We have all these incredible exhibitions, that for decades have been traveling around the country and around the world. And I confess, I wasn’t sufficiently appreciative of that fact. I had really thought about exhibitions as something that you needed a major museum for to make value for the public. But what Aperture’s exhibitions have shown me - and these are exhibitions that go to the Blanton Museum, or the Detroit Institute of Art, for example - we have extraordinary partners around the country and around the world, who help our ideas reach audiences through these exhibitions. 

So, I think on some level, this is an unwinding of my snobbery. There is an important role that museums and museum curators play in bringing together photographs as objects and as ideas. And I believe in the aura of photography. Yet, I also have been coming to realize that there’s a preciousness associated with that. And that is somehow at odds with the fundamentally democratic nature of the medium. And that you can both honor and respect photographs in that context and understand that giving broader audiences a chance to interact with similar ideas in ways that are much more cost-effective, and dare I say, on a popular level, that’s really valuable too. And when I say popular, I don’t mean less significant in terms of their intellectual ambition; I simply mean placed in the path of more people.

One of the last things I did at MoMA was work on a Walker Evans exhibition that’s being circulated through Art Bridges. And the idea was, why should you have to live in a major urban area to access to these objects and ideas? And that is a persuasive question. And so, I love the ways in which Aperture’s exhibitions will really flourish in the world, even without a space in New York City from which they launch.

Dana Scruggs, Fire on the Beach, 2019, from The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

Thinking about Aperture’s beginnings, it perhaps initially reached a limited group of photographers, editors, and educators. Over many decades since, its audience has grown into a global community of readers interested in images, culture, and society. How do you personally critically reflect on who the audiences of Aperture are and should be? And what are your hopes for how Aperture can best serve the photography community today?

Well, one of the things I loved before I even applied for the job, I was working on Fotoclubismo and thinking about this post war moment. And reading Peter Bunnell’s edited book about the Minor White years at Aperture, which is an extraordinary resource. I looked at it for the Dorothea Lange Words and Pictures exhibition, and I returned to it often. So, by the time they called me to interview, all of this was at the very front of my mind because Aperture was singularly important in framing things that we have come to accept. Well, it was singularly important in a way that has maybe become oversimplified in time, but what I loved is that as I was looking back, that diverse audience was present from the very beginning. So, in the second editorial of Aperture magazine, Melton Ferris, one of the lesser-known founders of the magazine, wrote: ‘Aperture draws no editorial boundaries between the professional and the amateur, the pictorialist and the documentarian, the journalist and the scholar’. And I thought to myself, wow, what a remarkable declaration of ambition for a magazine. And wouldn’t it be great if, instead of trying to create hierarchies and structure, we went back to that and really embraced the idea of an audience for photography that encompasses everyone who holds a camera in their back pocket? And so, I think Aperture’s history points to this direction in some ways, and that aligns philosophically and ethically with where I think the medium is and can be.

One of the many things I admired during your tenure at MoMA was your Seeing Through Photographs course, which was a landmark in bringing educational access to photography collections in such an accessible way. I think you reached some 375,000 learners. How has that experience informed your ideas for how Aperture’s digital programs could evolve in the future?

Well, that course and that experience engaging with those learners, I’m forever grateful to Seeing Through Photographs. What I brought to that was how much I love thinking about photographs in the world today. And what all those learners brought was a consciousness in my mind of how much broader that interest is. And, on some level, the example of that course, I think, led me to Aperture because Aperture wants to and can be a point of connection for anyone interested in photography. 

And so, in terms of digital programming, we continue to think about how Aperture’s website can reach broader audiences. One of the new initiatives that we’re going to be doing, that on some level was inspired by Seeing Through Photographs, is we’re going to start an Aperture photo book club. On some level, it emerged during COVID with all our online programming around photographs, but it is anchoring it within an appreciation of photography through photo books. And the principle is that if we gather a small number of people in let’s say, my living room, we’ll talk about images and ideas and words and pictures and design and circulation, and all the things that fascinate me about photography. And if we do this, with artists and designers and editors and writers - we are opening up possibilities for understanding for that very audience. And then, of course, they carry it through not only in their enjoyment of that particular book that they might be holding on their lap at home, as we’re discussing it – it’s physical accessibility, not just an intellectual one. 

Teju Cole has a beautiful piece in The Guardian from 2020, where he says that to enjoy photographs online is like a facsimile of the original. It’s like instant coffee or artificial flowers, or frozen pizza. And yet, a photo book is an actual physical enjoyment in the privacy of your own home. Meaning that museums are one way of doing it, but a photo book is another, once you help people understand its functions – for example, what do the head and tail bands mean? What do the end papers do? How do you understand how the titles live with respect to the images? This is an educational opportunity really that people can carry forward to other books and other places.

And so, I’ll also say that Seeing Through Photographs showed me how difficult it is to develop an online course. So, I’m not sure that that is going to be the best model for Aperture. But I think that the ethos of it and the principle of making ideas accessible through digital technologies to audiences around the world is something that we really want to attend to.

And so, my next question, Aperture’s magazine has a very distinctive identity, with each issue focused on a thought-provoking theme. And I wondered if you wanted to sustain that overall approach or whether you and colleagues are beginning to collaboratively explore new approaches to the content, form, and structure of the magazine?

Well, I have to say, I have such tremendous respect for Michael Famighetti, Brendan Embser, and Nicole Acheampong - and the magazine team is amazing. You know, the magazine is just tremendously important, and it has been since 1952. It is the heart of what Aperture does, and whether that’s for example, the Vision and Justice issue, that then blossoms into a series of books that we hope we’re doing with Sarah Lewis and Deb Willis, and Leigh Raiford - or the exhibition program and issue of the magazine. But there is, I think, a sense of if you are not specifically interested in the theme of a particular issue of the magazine, how can we make sure that there’s enough to sustain the interest of somebody who’s interested in photography writ large? And so, the one thing I asked Michael, Brendan, and Nicole to think through with me was, how can we build up the front and the back of the magazine? Not to disrupt the incredible things that they’re doing, but to say, how do we make sure that every issue of the magazine attends to this broad audience that I have in mind?

Obviously, the compelling photographs and the portfolios in an issue that respond to the theme, the amazing writers that they get, all of this can and should be undisturbed. But there are people for whom that isn’t a sufficient reason to subscribe to the magazine. We're even incorporating photo book reviews, which had been a twice annual ride along with the magazine, into the magazine itself to think what can we do to make every issue of the magazine speak to anyone with a serious interest in the medium. You’ll notice in the magazine’s upcoming issue, this will begin to take root, and it will blossom on from there. And I think what’s been wonderful is that I wouldn’t presume to tell Michael Famighetti what to do, but he has been marvelously responsive to this, and he wants to grow the subscriptions as well, and he wants this magazine to be in the hands of more people. And so, we’ve had a really good time thinking about how to protect all the great things they have done. For me, even as a curator, the magazine was an unbelievable resource. When I was working on Gordon Parks and the Atmosphere of Crime, I took Nicole Fleetwood’s Prison Nation issue like my textbook. We don’t want to do anything to disrupt that. But I do want to think about anyone who isn’t a subscriber, why not? It speaks to a sophisticated audience, and it should, but there are ways of helping encourage accessibility that we’re thinking about.

Aperture announced the 2021 photo book awards shortlist this morning, and I’ve been catching up with this news. And I wondered if you could give a few examples of favorite recent publications, which for you personally, have extended your expectations around what a photo book could be, in terms of form or approach?

First of all, I think all of the honorable mentions on that list are doing that because those are really expanding the form. I’ll also say, first of all, I was very careful not to interfere with the jury. I wouldn’t even let myself go up to the room where this was all happening because I didn’t want to influence anything. But for instance, Farah Al Qasimi’s book that Capricious published was one that I had ordered personally. Because I’m really interested in Farah's work and that idea of how an attentiveness to the commercial languages of photography can be understood in a very serious artistic context. But, one of the things I love about the submissions to that prize, in general, is what that tells about the vitality of the medium and about the ways in which photographers are probing how their photographs ought to exist on pages. 

And when I was a juror, not this year, but the year before, I was so inspired by all that was happening in that field. It’s one expression of recognition of how photographs circulate in the world, for example, from Walker Evans American Photographs through to The Americans, and forwards - the ways in which photographs live on the printed page in books and magazines, and online, these are all an inseparable part of the medium. 

Farah Al Qasimi, Lady Lady, 2020. Courtesy Helena Anrather and The Third Line, Dubai. From Aperture Magazine 241 “Utopia”

Aperture is also currently preparing its 2021 gala, which celebrates the range of your publishing program. And I wondered if you could talk a little about the decision process behind this year’s selection of artists and maybe expand on the work of some of its recipients like Sara Cwynar, for example.

So historically, Aperture has had themes for its galas. After I accepted the role and before I started, we were talking, and they asked, what’s our theme? And I said, what if our theme is no theme? What if our theme is this very plurality that the editors of Aperture were articulating from the start? Our theme is truly no theme, which is to say, Aperture wants to engage with what’s happening in the world today, and we do this through our publishing program, and we want to do this through our gala. So, the three honorees really occupy different positions in the field, and in the end, that’s why they are together.

Graciela Iturbide is an amazing photographer whose work I had acquired while I was a curator at MoMA. It was on view in our inaugural reinstallation in a gallery that my colleague Lucy Gallun had organized. And Aperture is doing a workshop series book with Graciela that’s coming out in early 2022. So, Aperture had visited her when the Mexico City issue of the magazine came out, and it just felt like she represented a means of engaging with photography and its history that was important to uphold and to celebrate. 

Sara Cwynar has a very different approach to photography and image-making and the commodification and circulation of photographs in the world today. She is also somebody I had worked with at MoMA. We had commissioned her to do a project and worked on an acquisition of a series of photographs. And so, when I signed on for Aperture, and I learned that they were publishing this first major monograph of her work, I thought this was so fantastic. And the book itself is so smart in that it interweaves her practices between video and still photography and helps make these connections accessible. It’s not only a beautiful book, but it gives a sense of her approach to her practice that I think is really important.

So, these were two women whose work I admired, and then what Dr. Kenneth Montague has done with The Wedge Collection as a collector aligns so beautifully with so many of Aperture’s artists and voices that Aperture wants to bring forward. And so, doing books of collections, that’s a different way of saying, this too is important to Aperture and important in the world. We’re launching Kenneth’s book As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic at the end of this month.

So, there is no connection between Sara and Graciela and Kenneth, other than they connect with and think deeply about photographs in a way that models where I see the future of the medium. 

Cover from Glass Life (Aperture,2021). © Sara Cwynar

Your previous exhibitions on Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks reflect your interest in and value of the social purpose of photography. And thinking about our current social and political time, how do you perceive photography's role in the context of justice and equity? Aperture’s Vision and Justice issue, which you mentioned earlier, had a huge impact. But how do you think Aperture can embed and continually expand those social values?

Well, yes, I mentioned that issue of the magazine really was a catalyst for all kinds of thinking, in a very meaningful way. And Sarah Lewis deserves extraordinary credit for helping people think through how photography and vision and justice are interrelated. I’m so thrilled that we will partner with Sarah going forward, as I mentioned in passing briefly before. But with this work, you don’t begin it and end it; this is ongoing. And when you grasp how photographs have that possibility throughout history - this was true for Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks, and this is certainly true today - when you engage with that possibility, you understand that this is just essential work that can’t ever take a backseat; it has to always remain front of mind. 

And I was very fortunate that at MoMA, I was able to pursue projects and acquisitions that allowed these ways of thinking to be front of my mind on a daily basis. And whether it was thinking about Francis Benjamin Johnston’s photographs – I mean, Lange and Parks for sure - but Francis Benjamin Johnston’s Hampton album where Latoya Ruby Frazier contributed a text. Or thinking through what representations of educational models mean, then and now. Or an acquisition that I did of Robert McNeill’s work and thinking through how somebody who may have been marginalized, frankly, as a black amateur photographer, who then became a professional, a commercial photographer, and thinking how does that work live in a book like Photography at MoMA? How does that work live in a gallery that we organized called Picturing America? How does that work live in another gallery about modern media? And so, one of the reasons I’m so thrilled to be at Aperture is that I’m surrounded by people who share a commitment to keep this front of mind every single day.

 And some days, you can’t point to what the tangible value of it is. But you simply know that without committing to it, you’re in fact committing to the opposite. And so, I certainly am very conscious of the privileges that have brought me to where I am, and the only way to honor that is to make sure that you both look for opportunities to complicate, expand, and encourage these things.

Aperture, for instance, has an incredibly distinguished Work Scholar Program, and a lot of current staff members had been work scholars, but we used to pay them just a small stipend. And I said we’re going to pay those people. It’s a commitment to understanding how it’s not just the work that you publish; it’s about thinking through what Aperture as an organization means in the field? And what can we do to mentor young editors, young designers, and others in the field? And this is a commitment. Having experienced that at MoMA, it is something I continue to enjoy at Aperture, with no less commitment.

Covers of the award-winning 2016 “Vision & Justice” issue of Aperture magazine

You’ve pre-empted my next question, because you’ve touched on the Work Scholars Program. I think Aperture has an important role in diversifying the field of photography criticism and removing some of those barriers for young critics, editors, or people that want to access arts publishing. So that’s great if you’re re-evaluating the Work Scholars Program in more detail.

It has taken us a little while to do. I would say big picture; what I envision Aperture to be is a nonprofit. And that as a nonprofit, it uses its publishing and web platforms as a means of getting ideas and understanding out there in the world. Also, it means is taking responsibility for where the field is and what you can do to encourage this diversity. And that is not just in your program; it’s actually in the structure of your organization. And obviously, I’m conscious of what I don’t bring to that as a human being. And so, I have to do it through my actions. And I’m grateful that it’s not only the staff, but also the board too, who feel this, and that grasp how urgent this is.

Thank you, Sarah. So, my last question, I know it’s still relatively early in your tenure. But what are your thoughts on how you wish to expand Aperture’s legacy? We've touched on this a little already. Still, I wondered if you could say what you want to bring from your many years of curating in museums to your ambition for Aperture, both as a cultural presence in New York specifically and as a cultural presence for photography internationally?

Well, I think this ties a little to my last answer - I believe that Aperture holds a singular position in the field. And that by leaning into what is singular about it and thinking through - How can we connect artists and audiences? How can we support universities and museums? How can we encourage dialogue around why photographs matter today? Then, we’re really living up to our potential. 

And it is an idea that’s bigger than art – and it approaches life. And I think that when Aperture is functioning as a real nonprofit, we are thinking through not only how do photographs matter, and why do they matter, but what can Aperture do to encourage that in the world. And when we can do that without undue concern for financial viability, but just in terms of dialogue and partnerships, this is the way. I think we can all do it together - we can be generous, be supportive, be encouraging, be critical, and in a sense that is made possible by those other instincts. And in doing that, we’re going to make a difference.

Connect with Aperture online and on its social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). You can also follow Sarah Meister’s work with photography on Instagram @thesarahmeister

Sotheby’s Photographs at 50: Brandei Estes on Collecting

Brandei Estes is the Head of Photographs at Sotheby’s London, and spent over ten years working in photography and contemporary art galleries in London and Paris before joining Sotheby’s in 2013. Brandei is regularly a judge and nominator for numerous international photography awards including the Prix Pictet and the Deutsche Borse, and served for five years as the Chair for the advisory committee of The Photographers’ Gallery TPG Contemporaries. Brandei also lectures throughout the year on collecting photographs and the photography market for public and private institutions, museums, galleries and fairs.

This year Sotheby’s celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first photographs auction, which took place at Sotheby’s London in 1971. Coinciding with this occasion, Helen Trompeteler spoke with Brandei about the evolution of the art photography market. They discussed what drives her passion for photography and her advice for new collectors.

So, to begin with, please can you tell us about how you first became interested in photography? I understand that your work with David Gill’s collection helped shape your early experiences. So, could you start by telling us a little about that time? 

When I was at university, I studied History of Art and Italian at University College London. And I never took a class over 1850. So, I completely missed photography as a student. I thought I would go into the restoration of paintings. But I met David Gill, by chance, and he offered me a job as his gallery manager. And he's known in the design world and has worked with Zaha Hadid and discovered Grayson Perry and Tom Dixon. He had a personal collection of photographs, which I just fell in love with and found fascinating. I think whatever you do in the art world, it's good to have that foundation and understanding of art history, but I never thought I would make a career in photographs. And from working at David Gill, I met Michael Hoppen and started working for him. And the rest is history. 

Sotheby's was key to establishing the art photography market in the mid-1970s, with numerous landmark sales, such as the Julia Margaret Cameron Herschel album. Please can you talk about a few personal highlights from Sotheby's most recent years, which, in your opinion, have dramatically shaped the market?      

For me, the sale that stands out was the 175 Masterworks to celebrate 175 Years of Photography – Property from Joy of Giving Something Foundation. It happened in New York – each work was a cornerstone for photography - all exemplary prints. It was from such a great collection, and the catalogue showed a work per page with a lovely essay. 

And then, more recently, this year, we had our 50th-anniversary sale. That was a joint effort between the New York department and us in London. It was the first time I think that we've ever done a sale together. So, it was nice to have 25 works sold in New York on one day, and then the next day, the other 25 sold in London. Even though we hung the works in the salerooms, in the galleries, and we could have some visitors as Covid restrictions had been relaxed enough, what was interesting about that sale was that it was all online. 

Right now, it's all about embracing technology and the shift online, which of course, COVID has accelerated. As an auction house, we had already made a lot of investment in online and AI. So, we were quite ahead of the curve. And I think there are some pros and cons, but what's so important is the outreach you can get online. So that was interesting to have this very pivotal sale for 50 years and embracing the new technology. 

Gustave Le Gray, The Pont du Carrousel Seen from the Pont Royal (Pont du Carrousel, vu du pont Royal), 1859. Courtesy Sotheby’s 

Chris Levine, 'Lightness of Being', 2008. Courtesy Sotheby’s 

Since the late 60s and 70s, with the more widespread establishment of photography departments within museums, major museum retrospectives and monographs often influence commercial value. This relationship between museums and auction houses is complex, especially around the reappraisal of women photographers. What do you see as some of the challenges and opportunities of this ongoing relationship?

I think it's a really good point. And context is so key. When you look at the photo markets, we talk about New York, Paris, London, and arguably New York has the strongest market; by size, volume, but they also have had a history in museums with photo curators. Compared to the UK, MoMA had its first curator in 1940, whereas Tate Modern had its first photography curator in 2009. So, you have this significant disparity between these two locations. 

There’s an ecosystem. And arguably, there are more dedicated photo museums and galleries in Paris and New York than in London. So, this museum creation affects the market. I don't feel like we're at a loss here in London, but we're a bit behind, and we have to catch up. And I think that explains the type of work we see in London compared to New York or Paris. You know, you see the bigger names, the Ansel Adams’, the Edward Weston’s, the super high-value works in New York, and maybe that super high value Man Ray being sold in Paris. And in London, it can happen, but less so - it's also the same with single-owner sales, you don't often see these here. There’s been a really strong push and effort from museums to show photography, so hopefully, it’s changing. 

As our conversation continued, we specifically discussed the need for greater representation of women artists, both within museum programming and commercial spheres:

Looking at photography in a broader context is so important in the wider art market. It’s having those conversations and showing contemporary collectors who don't collect photography how important it is that many women artists use photography to document their work. So, I think that side of museum shows focusing on women is important. If you think of performance artists like Marina Abramović, Ana Mendieta, or Helena Almeida – they were not purely photographers, but photography was a big part of their practice.  So, I think it's more interesting for collectors to have those broader dialogues. I'm not a fan of siloing photography and keeping it separate. I think it's nice to live with and experience art together; there are dialogues between periods and people. 

NFTs have been in the news lately but are controversial due to the harmful environmental impact of crypto technology. In April 2021, Sotheby’s held its first NFT sale. Part of their appeal in an art market context is the trackability of information inherent in the NFT. Brandei commented on this evolving area:

As a company, we are putting a lot of time, effort, and resources into it. I'm still trying to get my head around NFT's, but I want to learn. I think what's interesting for us is to capture that tech crowd, who don’t normally transact in the traditional categories, and translate that interest into a broader sense of collecting. People I've spoken to who are very knowledgeable about NFTs say it caters to that potentially younger generation of collectors who are experienced-led in their spending. I don't think it's the end of what we do with physical, two-dimensional, three-dimensional artworks - I think it would be nice if they can coexist. 

In the last year or so, I've noticed very different models of auction house such as Greenhouse Auctions, for example, which actively pursues philanthropic goals as part of its business model. And during the last year, we've seen private commercial galleries fundraising for COVID relief funds and Black Lives Matter. I wondered if you could say a few words about how you try to align your values with your work at Sotheby's. 

It’s tricky because I have a bottom line, and we're not a charity. So, you want to have personal integrity in the work that you sell, but you also have to make money. So, it’s trying to find that balance. 

Last year I auctioned a photograph by Misan Harriman that he took of a woman holding a sign saying, ‘Why is ending racism still a debate?’ He shot that at one of the Black Lives Matter protests in July here in London. I feel like you have to do things carefully, sensitively, and really think about it. And I felt like that was a good moment, and all the sale proceeds from that photograph benefited blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan. The sale had that charitable side, so it felt meaningful, and that was good to do. 

It’s hard because you can't please everyone, but you have to be really careful with anything political, not that this should be political, but how some people view politics. But then you could also argue that art is always political,but as a traditional auction house, I think we have to be careful what we do and what we align with. But the company does a lot of charitable support and involvement. 

We’re definitely selling more and more women photographers. For us, we sell where there is demand, not that we react 100% to the market – but unless museums, galleries start showing more women, you won’t see that filter through to the market. 

Investing in early career artists is also integral to creating a healthy market. Firstly, please could you talk a little about some of your favorite places to discover new contemporary photographers? And secondly, what are some of the factors you look for to ensure that an ‘emerging’ artist, of any age, holds their value in the art market. 

I'm a big fan of the Photographers’ Gallery, and they do a really good job of having a program that profiles big names but also emerging or overlooked names. I also love TJ Boulting. My favorite place to discover new artists is FOAM, and the show they do every September, which coincides with Unseen.  

Where else would I go? I do look a lot at Instagram. I feel like in the past year, with the pandemic, I've got a lot of really nice things and met amazing photographers through social media.

For me, what I personally look for, it needs to be something that's different from anything you've seen before. If you think of Richard Mosse, when I first saw his installation at the Venice Biennale in 2013, you just had never seen anything like that before. So, what's your USP? What makes you special and stand out?  I look for that if I buy young works myself, but also, for Sotheby's. It’s a tricky balance because I do think emerging artists should first have a solid gallery program.

In the last year or so we have seen increased discussion around the politics of photography, including the legacy of colonialism within photography. I wondered if any of that critical debate has translated into the art market. For example, there are many great collecting initiatives in India and China, which rarely get any coverage in the Western media. Could you talk a little about Sotheby's global strategy and how you engage with such markets?

It’s hard because we’re a small global department. I feel like we're making progress, and we want to do more. We have a big seat in Asia, and you do sometimes see photographs coming up for sale there. We had a beautiful selling exhibition there a couple of years ago of Fan Ho’s work. So, I think things need to change, and these conversations need to be had. I feel like it’s trickling down into the commercial side, but there's a lot of debates and conversations to have.

I know you have a particular passion for fashion photography. Many fashion photographs were originally intended for magazines and the printed page. This genre is an area that has grown significantly in the art market during the last 10 or 15 years. Can you say a little about why that genre particularly appeals to you? And perhaps some of the context for this genre’s transition into the fine art market? 

What interests me a lot was there was so much technical and stylistic innovation that happened in fashion photography. So, I love that there was a development of photography through that filter and purpose, but it was always originally meant for the magazine. 

So, when you look at Guy Bourdin, for example, now you get these massive posthumous prints that are huge, beautiful, luscious color. And you think, gosh, they were intended to be on a magazine. And Guy was very conscious of the gutter. So, when you know that, just wow. 

But equally, some fashion photographers work better in a magazine and in a story sequence. But I think it's just so interesting because, as you say, fashion photography has really taken off in the past 10 to 15 years. And as we know, the market started in the 19th century, which came out of the book sales at auction and then went more towards photojournalism and modernism. So, fashion photography was late to the game, even though and maybe because it was part of our daily consciousness of seeing magazines. 

Think of the Avedon portfolio of Paris and that whole fashion story. And like you said at the beginning, museums making monographs and portfolios changed the market. When the Met had the Avedon show in 1978, that was their first retrospective of a living photographer. And while he wasn't exclusively a fashion photographer, I love that they chose to make a portfolio of his fashion images from the late 40s through to the late 50s. And, of course, that period covered the end of the Second World War. And this idea of rejuvenation, and let's go back to fashion and glamour. Imagine being in America looking at American Vogue, seeing women in Paris dressed in new Dior, not stuck in a studio posing, but living in the fashion and having fun. So, I love all these layers that you have in fashion photography. 

I think people overlook that context now. I feel fashion photography is democratic; it is by nature from its origins in magazines. The prices have gone up for the big names and depending on the scarcity of the image and so forth, but it’s still very accessible and relatable. 

Guy Bourdin, ‘Mousehole’, Charles Jourdan, Autumn 1979. Courtesy Sotheby’s 

Masterful technique and handcrafted photographs are crucial drivers for Brandei’s personal collecting. Her collection encompasses diverse themes, including portraiture, architecture, surrealism, and an eclectic range of artists. To close our interview, I asked Brandei what advice she would give to someone just beginning to start their photography collection:

I tell my clients, you shouldn't buy something for the name or the investment value; it doesn't matter if it's 20 pounds or 20,000 pounds; you still have to look at the same criteria. Is it a good print? Is it signed? Does that matter? But do you like it? Is it a color print that's falling apart? If so, know that that you might not have it for much longer. These are all areas that people should understand.

I would say, really try and make friends with experts in the field and build relationships. So, be it a gallerist, an auction house specialist, a curator. How do you do that? Go to exhibition openings, go to photo fairs, and support an institution where you get invited to events directly with photographers. And we all know each other in the photo world, and we will hold each other much more accountable. We want to spread the joy of photography and talk about it. So, I think it's easier for younger collectors to collect because you have that access and proximity to experts that you won't have in other fields. 

Do your homework; it’s so easy now to do research and find what you like. Try and learn the difference between the different techniques because that will be intrinsic to value. Your tastes can change, and you move on, and you evolve. And that's okay, too.

I’m always learning; that’s what makes it fun; every day, I learn something new. For me, bringing photography into conversation with other categories is really important. Photography has always been holistic – it’s not just monetary value but also how important photography has been to so many artistic movements. I think there is a real shift - I’m interested in, and I think collectors are interested in looking more at the craftsmanship and that touch value. I think the value of something made by hand is really interesting; that took time and the whole global story around a work. 

Marlo Broekmans, Self-Portrait, 1983. Courtesy Brandei Estes

To find out more about Brandei Estes’ work with photography, follow her on Instagram @brandei_estes

'Photography in Four Dimensions': Paul Messier on Conservation

Over many decades, Paul Messier assembled the most extensive collection of historic photographic papers in the world. In 2015, this collection was foundational to creating the Lens Media Lab (LML) at Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH). As founding Director of the LML, Paul leads a collaborative research team dedicated to developing methodologies that characterize and interpret the material history of the printed photograph. Approaching cultural heritage collections as datasets, the LML collaborates with communities across Yale and partners with many of the world’s leading collecting institutions.

Helen Trompeteler spoke with Paul about the origins and continuing aims of the collection. They discussed recent projects from his extensive career in conservation and current challenges in the field. 

To begin with, please can you tell me about what prompted you to start your collection? For a long time, such material was often considered ephemeral by museum collecting. So, it seems that you identified a unique focus at the right time.

I'm not an antiquarian at all. I was really after data. I would be lying if I said I knew what I was doing from the first minute. But after a few months of earnest collecting, I realized all this material was out there. It was ultimately Ebay aggregating all of that material. I was always interested in it as a kind of a genome of black and white photography. 

I had this notion that a black and white silver gelatin print — we give it that name in conservation or media identification — but this huge amount of diversity and material history was wrapped up in that material. The stories hadn't been told. 

And that was also coming out of my Lewis Hine research. Such a collection would have been extraordinarily useful. 

Thinking about those major authenticity cases that happened in the art market during the 1990s — surrounding Lewis Hine and Man Ray, for example — please can you briefly summarize how they advanced the field of photography conservation?

Authentication can spur these projects that turn up from the market. Sometimes we think they are isolated incidents, but they represent a lot of gaps. And if you take it seriously, you look at those gaps, and try to build them and then go beyond them. That's really what we tried to do.

Just looking at the collection itself, it's about 7000 examples of papers, from the beginning to the end of the 20th century. It’s now preserved at Yale, where it’s accessible and can be studied, like a seed bank.  That speaks to preservation, artistic intention, and authenticity. It has a lot of different resonances. When you think of it as a scholarly asset, the sky's the limit in terms of what scholars and people are interested in. 

Book of specimen prints on different papers, produced by the Gevaert company circa 1935, showing a wide range of paper texture, gloss, and base color. Image credit: Paul Messier

A recent project at Yale focuses on William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature. [The first photographically illustrated commercial publication was issued in six volumes between 1844 and April 1846, with prints made by Nicolaas Henneman]

What are the aims of this project and some of its key findings?

That’s an ongoing study. We have a partial Pencil of Nature at the Yale Center for British Art. We wanted to basically throw some analytical capacity at the Pencil of Nature and think of it as a primary source. Let it speak to us through our experience, our eyes, but also our instruments. And let it tell us its story. 

I’m not discounting any of the scholarship that’s been invested in Talbot at all. But what happens when you cut that out and just let the objects speak? 

Since the beginning of photography, questions around fading and image permanence have been of great concern. Accordingly, the research team investigated the light sensitivity of this material:

One of the things that we saw was really interesting. We were checking on light sensitivity with a tool that has its home here at the IPCH, a microfade testing device, to determine whether these can be displayed responsibility. And for the most part, the answer is yes. Not all, as there are many variations across the prints and the Pencil of Nature, but for the most part, they’re surprisingly light stable. 

A microfade tester is used to determine the lightfastness of a salted paper print from Henry Fox Talbot’s, The Pencil of Nature held by The Yale Center for British Art. This unit was modified to help determine the sensitivity of the photographs to near ultraviolet radiation. Image credit: Colette Hardman-Peavy

Other analyses included using methods from data science, scraping the Bodleian’s online catalogue raisonné to group prints bound in the Pencil of Nature, and comparing these with prints that were never bound. The LML compiled more than 30,000 images and developed an algorithm that led to identifying causes for deterioration:

We definitely saw a ‘Pencil of Nature’ effect. They tended to be in worse condition overall. We couldn’t tie it back to Henneman’s practice. But there did seem to be traces of organic oxidizing gases coming out of bound volume. And we can only imagine that those concentrations would have been higher when the Pencil of Nature was first made. And so maybe that’s a clue — the inks, papers, and adhesives were creating an adverse microclimate for the prints.

Now we've got our data, our baseline; we’d love partners that have the Pencil of Nature to join. So, we can compare results and build a material database of existing Pencils of Nature.

Front cover of Bill Brandt - Henry Moore, editors Paul Messier and Martina Droth, Yale Center for British Art / Yale University Press (2020). Book Design: Miko McGinty. Image credit: Paul Messier

Last year’s exhibition and publication on Henry Moore and Bill Brandt explored how the historical narrative of both artists completely intertwined with material histories. Brandt’s annotations on the reverse of his prints provide a wealth of information about his intentions when reproducing his work for various media. Please can you give an overview of your work on this project and how your reference collection can inform such studies on one photographer’s lifelong practice?

Brandt is not unique in terms of 20th-century photographers of that generation. He started printing for the printed page when he made a photograph. It wasn't with the art market in mind. The market in mind was the mass media through the vehicle of the printed page. 

Occasionally exhibitions would happen, and he would make substantially different kinds of prints. An example most people would be familiar with would be right at the end of his life, working with the Marlborough Gallery. His Marlborough prints were very much made as fine art objects. He probably would have been amazed at that concept as a working photographer during the 30s and 40s. These embody all of the contextual material-based clues of what a 1970s exhibition print was supposed to do. They have a more grained surface, which reduces gloss so that when you put the print upright, you are not getting a glare. It also breaks down detail. At that point of his life, aesthetically and functionally, he is thinking about broad masses, abstract and contrast forms, almost two dimensions. Double weight papers are a much more substantial object, and he’s got a more flamboyant and expressive signature. 

Compare that to something that would have been made for Lilliput magazine in the 1940s — typically, these ferrotypes with very glossy papers are about increasing tonal range. So, your blacks are much more saturated, and the tonal scale is now longer. And that's important when you go to press because press tends to compress that tonal range. 

The way that ties back to the reference collection is if you look at the diversity of materials available until the late 60s-mid 70s, photographers had to be literate in that diversity and use those materials and that universe of options. Almost every package of paper in the reference collection expresses these four dimensions — gloss, base color, base thickness, and texture. These are the variables, and each photographer has their own approach that can tell you a lot about what they’re trying to do — are they trying to generalize form? Is this an interpretive exercise, or are they just trying to reflect reality?

Packages of photographic papers dating from the 1960s-80s. Image credit: Paul Messier

You have participated in various collaborative student-led initiatives such as a Yale and Princeton project on Clarence H. White and your work with students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. How do you see the role of such collaborations in encouraging greater diversity in the field of photography conservation and changing perceptions of scientific work? 

I frame these very much as about building literacy for the reader. If you're my age, we have seen a completely analog media where you have no choice but to master manipulating materials if you want to make an image. And we've seen that completely change. I'm not sentimental about that change, but it is historic. Because of my interest in material history, and because of the opportunities that I have been given, I'm really fortunate to be able to educate people, that may be digital natives for example, who would not intuitively understand what making an image with those materials would actually entail. What can we learn when we encounter a print and a collection? 

Going back to the Fox Talbot example, what can it tell us as a primary source directly? Maximizing that encounter with that physical object is a form of literacy. And I think given what's going on in visual culture, this is a time when we should make an effort to prolong that, again not from some perspective of sentimentality, but because this is shared culture.

Smaller arts institutions often face social-economic barriers to borrowing artworks or enabling physical access to collections, especially early photography. We discussed these challenges and the relationships between physical and digital access:

It’s a tremendous challenge, but I think every institution with a photography collection can do something within reach to enhance the preservation of your collection. In other words, there are often some relatively inexpensive, fairly minimal efforts that can buy you a greater percentage of preservation before getting into really specialized environmental techniques. 

I do have a problem with the notion, which I'm surprised still exists, that once you have the image, you have preserved the object, which is completely not the case at all. I mean, the object is this unique package of materiality and temporality. That is one of a kind and unique, and that cannot be digitized. 

One of the things that we've tried to do at the Lens Media Lab is develop simple tools to get at these four dimensions — tools that can be deployed widely that can be comparable. 

For example, if I am looking at a László Moholy-Nagy photogram — we did a project at the Art Institute of Chicago not too long ago — we could see clusters form around where he was working at certain time periods. So, if you want to know where your prints fit within this baseline — we can send you these tools and give you a bit of training, and they’re easy to use. Now you've got a data set that you can compare to a larger Moholy material-based catalogue raisonné.

That’s one way that smaller institutions can connect meaningfully with this ongoing research is to tease out meaning from materials by sharing their data sets. At the Yale Institute, we think a lot about pushing our research out the door and making things inexpensive and practical. So, for example, we’re looking very hard at the microfade testing technique from an engineering standpoint to make that technique as widely available as possible. 

The Lens Media Lab also harnesses some AI and machine-driven techniques. For example, the lab uses computation to take a two-dimensional image and essentially make it a three-dimensional model. However, the future role of AI models and methodologies in photography conservation still requires further consideration:

I feel like people can sometimes get lulled into this understanding that since the methodology is science - AI, neural net — it’s more valid. It might be in some instances, but not necessarily, at the end, there is no baseline of truth.  

I would love to see these techniques applied in blind studies where we actually know the result, but the algorithms don't know the result. And let’s compare, then we have a scientific basis and some sort of understanding of the reliability of the technique

Packages of paper from the Messier Reference Collection of Photographic Paper. Image credit: Paul Messier

You previously described your paper collection as the genome of black and white photography. Now, contemporary photographers work across hugely diverse mediums — including film, video, sculpture, and textile, for example. Do you think your collecting activities will evolve to incorporate such broader contemporary material histories? Or do you have other pioneering current material collections to recommend to our audience?

I have a lot of color material, but that was never really my focus — and certainly very little inkjet or digital printing media. 

My friend and colleague Henry Wilhelm has a collection of this material that’s still in private hands. There are others, Mark McCormick-Goodhart and Martin Jürgens; both have a lot of this material.

One of the things I was fortunate enough to do was take a private, individual obsession and turn it into a scholarly asset. So that needs to happen to some of these private collections, if at all possible. Part of that is the recognition that this material is not just ephemera. It is material that has a vital role in ideas of authenticity, preservation, and material history.

That’s a knowledge gap in a way, and that’s maybe the biggest hurdle right now is that these collections don't fit neatly into any sort of museum or archive catalogue. 

The cultural sector has been drastically impacted by the Covid pandemic, with cutbacks to many areas of practice, including conservation. It is often difficult for organizations to fund long-term preventive work on collections unrelated to an exhibition or publication. We discussed these risks, with Paul suggesting that ultimately, communication is key to ensuring the future stewardship of collections:

As conservators and people in the cultural heritage preservation sector, I worry that we don't do enough to communicate. We take it almost as a given that society and culture value the work we do and are willing to invest in that work. We don't do enough to proclaim what the value is and what we're bringing back to the equation. 

What's the relevance of our work? And that’s on us. I feel like we could do a lot more about that, especially at this moment when material-based visual culture is pivoting to a completely disembodied visual culture. We really need to start making this case very clearly. And that, again, ties back to this building of literacy. If we're going to convince future generations that this preservation obligation is something that they should meet and not neglect, we have to work on that literacy. What experience do you have with an object that you can't have anywhere else and that you can't have with a digital surrogate? What does that mean to you? 

To find out more about Paul Messier and the work of Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH), visit their website or follow them on Instagram @yaleipch @paulmessier.