The Photographic Art Market

*Photography and the Art Market* charts the transition of photographs created for aesthetic ends from a hobbyist pastime to a core component of the international fine art scene. This essential handbook explores the structural elements that supported this shift (including dedicated galleries, museum and private collections, festivals, fairs and academic scholarship) and appraises the state of the market for photography today. It is a must-read for all involved in the photography world, including curators, students, dealers and private and institutional buyers.

This guide for aspiring and exhibiting photographers alike combines practice and concept to provide a roadmap to navigating, and succeeding in, the fine art photography marketplace locally, domestically, and internationally. Join former New York gallery owner, international curator, and fine art photographer Thomas Werner as he shares his experiences and insights from leading curators, gallerists, collectors, auctioneers, exhibiting photographic artists, and more. Learn how to identify realistic goals, maximize results, work with galleries and museums, write grants, develop strong nuanced imagery, and build a professional practice in a continually evolving field. Featuring dozens of photographs from international practitioners, and a robust set of resources, this book will ensure you have the tools to give you the opportunity for success in any marketplace. Whether you are a student, aspiring photographic or video artist, or a photographer changing careers, The Business of Fine Art Photography is your guide to starting and growing your own practice.

A leading critic’s inside story of “the photo boom” during the crucial decades of the 1970s and 80s When Andy Grundberg landed in New York in the early 1970s as a budding writer, photography was at the margins of the contemporary art world. By 1991, when he left his post as critic for the New York Times, photography was at the vital center of artistic debate. Grundberg writes eloquently and authoritatively about photography’s “boom years,” chronicling the medium’s increasing role within the most important art movements of the time, from Earth Art and Conceptual Art to performance and video. He also traces photography’s embrace by museums and galleries, as well as its politicization in the culture wars of the 80s and 90s. Grundberg reflects on the landmark exhibitions that defined the moment and his encounters with the work of leading photographers—many of whom he knew personally—including Gordon Matta-Clark, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe. He navigates crucial themes such as photography’s relationship to theory as well as feminism and artists of color. Part memoir and part history, this perspective by one of the period’s leading critics ultimately tells a larger story about the crucial decades of the 70s and 80s through the medium of photography.