photo l.a. opens -- call it Raging Image World

It's a good thing the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport is a building of relatively modest size. Because, as it is, about 70 U.S. and international galleries, including book dealers, line the three aisles of photo l.a., the 18th annual (and now much-anticipated) photography fair that just opened to the public. The number of pictures on immediate view -- on walls and tables; in bins, folders and opened books; on video screens, etc. -- is in the thousands upon thousands. And, if you ask, you'll find that most dealers have more tucked away.

Such is the ubiquity of camera work, from 19th century tintypes to 21st century digital images, and photo l.a. is reputed to be the largest exhibition of its kind. If you can't find something here that knocks you out, you're just not trying.

Still, once you've plunged into Raging Image World, it does take awhile to get your bearings. And if, at the end of the far aisle, you're nonplused by encountering a sweet yellow Labrador retriever that is also a trained guide dog, the explanation comes soon enough: Peter Eckert is a blind person who makes photographs using the senses of sound and touch rather than sight. "I am not trying to depict the sighted world," he says in a handout. "I am trying to show the world I now see using my other senses."

The opening afternoon crowd Friday was sizable though not huge, but certainly enthusiastic. One effect of the economic downturn is that the art market has shed most of the rampaging herd of speculators more interested in chasing investments than in chasing the right works of art. It's just as well -- although expect the crowds to be larger on the weekend (photo l.a. ends Sunday).

-- Christopher Knight

Photo credit: Christopher Knight

Comments

[Grogg]

Well said. May the economic downturn also be responsible for the incredible range of photography on the walls that demands a response--and not just a superficial reaction--from viewers at Photo L.A.? This year's showing is encouraging and inspiring. I found last year's show to an equal degree insipid and sapping.

[Donald Frazell]

Same ole same ole. Old school galleries that have no interest in new phtographer, and pseudo hiptsters trying to draw attention to themselves. Photography as an art form is apparently dead, its all just picture of things, but then art itself is dormant, so why not photography?.

Old school types need to get involved helpin any new talent that may come along, instead of ignroing all, even just sending them to appropriate galleries. But they are as pompous as old master art dealers, and I guess above eveyone else, jsut as the hypesters thing they are cool. Nothing is less cooll than trying to be so

art collegia delenda est