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• Issue #259
• Article

By Michael Diemar

Charming, but problematic Somerset House with temporary pavilion and entrance to Photo London. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

It has been a rough few years for art fairs, with the main reasons being the pandemic and uncertainty over the economy. But the UK has been particularly hard hit, with all the complications caused by Brexit.

In January this year, the Swiss company MCH, which runs Art Basel, announced the cancellation of the London art and antiques fair Masterpiece, launched in 2010 and held at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, citing "escalating costs and a decline in the number of international exhibitors." The writing seemed to be on the wall at the 2022 edition of Masterpiece, the first since 2019, given that the 2020 and 2021 editions had been cancelled due to COVID. There was a distinct shortage of the jaw-dropping works that had made the fair so special.

The sixth edition of Photo London, held in September 2021, was the first major art fair in London after the pandemic, having been postponed twice in 2020 and then moved from its usual May slot. It seemed pretty lacklustre and there had clearly been a scramble to fill the spaces. But Candlestar, the promoter, has shown that it is made of pretty stern stuff and the fair has come out stronger on the other side.

In February last year, it was announced that Creo, established as the World Photography Organisation in 2007, had acquired a 25% share in Photo London. In February this year, it was announced that Kamiar Maleki had taken over the directorship from Michael Benson and Fariba Farshad of Candlestar. And a month later, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was announced as the principal sponsoring partner of this year's edition.

But Photo London still faces some real challenges in terms of attracting a stable audience of serious buyers. It seems to me that Candlestar walked into the same trap that Daniel Newburg did with the first version of Photo London some ten years earlier, that is, starting out with a big, fully formed fair, based on the same concept as Paris Photo, with leading, international galleries, taking in the whole history of photography. The problem there is that this requires a strong, local collector base to make it work for the exhibitors, one that London simply doesn't have.

Martin Parr was named Photo London Master of Photography for 2023.

Candlestar went in the same direction, and, as consequence, several leading American and London galleries simply gave up on the fair after a few years. As one exhibitor commented a couple of months before the fair: "Photo London should have started small, focusing on quality and gradually building a community. People who come to Paris Photo tend to forget that the fair started off in a room and grew from there. It took years to build it into what it is today."

The other problem is the venue. While many describe Somerset House, an elegant, neoclassical building, as "charming", they will quickly add that it simply doesn't work as a venue for an art fair. Many visitors choose to stay in the temporary pavilion in the courtyard and never venture into Somerset House itself. And those who do venture in, tend to stay on the ground floor. There's far less traffic on the upper and lower floors. As for the latter, it's easy to get lost without the maps that are made available in the reception area on the ground floor. The publishers were jammed into a separate space in the east wing and my guess is that many visitors missed them as well.

I suspect there's another problem as well. There are two long-established photography fairs already, AIPAD's The Photography Show and Paris Photo, and it's very much an open question if the photography market can sustain a third big photography fair.

While Photo London hasn't been able to attract hoards of curators and leading collectors from all corners of the globe, it does have other things going for it, including the opportunity to see works from galleries that don't show at Paris Photo and AIPAD. And generally, the price point is a bit lower and, as somebody pointed out to me recently, "First-time buyers tend not to start out with the most expensive Man Rays and Moholy-Nagys. There is a need for works at an entry level." Which is true. While the quality at the fair was uneven, there were some very fine works on offer, far more than I expected.

Altogether there were 110 exhibitors from 55 countries this year for the May 10-15 show. The public program included an exhibition of recent works by Martin Parr, Photo London Master of Photography 2023, an interesting show of British women photographers from the Hyman Collection and the exterior of pavilion was covered with images from "I MATTER", an ongoing outdoor photographic exhibition that raises awareness about children's human rights, organized by Case Art Fund.

Kate, Paula and Robert Hershkowitz. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

I started out in the west wing. Sadly, Stewart & Skeels are no longer showing at the fair and they're sorely missed. But there were other exhibitors here who put on magnificent displays. Robert Hershkowitz showed a wonderful selection of 19th-century masterpieces, including works by Charles Marville, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègre, Fox Talbot, Bisson Frères, Eugène Piot, Duchenne du Boulogne and Colonel Langlois.

Hershkowitz told me, "Sales have been okay but not spectacular. I don't know exactly how it's going to pan out this year. There are a lot things that might happen after the fair. I have sold a beautiful Bisson Frères mountaineering scene from the wall, and another one by them that I had in a drawer. Most of the buyers have been in the game for a long time but it has been great to see so many young people looking and really engaging with the works. And many of them have told me it's the best booth in the fair. For me, that's extremely encouraging, as I will be handing over my business to my daughter Kate. We need engaged, young people coming into the market because in a wider perspective, with the masses of images on the internet, we now live in the age of post-connoisseurship. So having witnessed so much engagement here, I'm hopeful for Kate's future."

In the space opposite, James Hyman was showing British photography by Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Dafydd Jones, Heather Agyepong, Paul Hill, Caroline Coon and others. But he wasn't showing under his own name. Hyman told me, "In previous years, we have exhibited as the James Hyman Gallery. This year, we are exhibiting under the name of the charity we have set up, the Centre for British Photography, which opened its own space in central London at the beginning of the year.

James Hyman. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

"Usually, we would show everything from Fox Talbot and André Kertész to contemporary works. This year, we are only showing works by British photographers and all the proceeds go to the charity and its grant programs. But we were also invited to participate in the public program so downstairs, we are showing an exhibition called "Writing Her Own Script--Women Photographers from the Hyman Collection. The exhibition is a kind of history of British photography, women photographers, from the 1930s to the present. It's a kind of journey, not just images by photographers who happened to be women. It's work that's socially concerned, and it's very much about people. The more recent work is more personal, dealing with issues around physical and mental well-being. I'm really pleased with how it has worked in those spaces and the response has been very good."

Sales had been decent Hyman said, "Yes, we would like to sell works for the charity, but we are doing it primarily as a profile-building exercise for the centre and British photography as a whole. We have sold works by Heather Agyepong, Colin Jones, Shirley Baker, Karen Knorr and Caroline Coon. As with other art fairs, it's the cheapest works that will sell. Within a global market, I think British photography remains very underpriced. I would have liked to achieve more sales but London has always struggled with not having as strong a collector base as does New York and Paris."

Michael Hoppen Gallery's presentation included a strong selection of works by Japanese photographers, Kukuji Kawada, Araki, Tetsuya Ichimura and Masahisa Fukase. And here I also came across the first of a number of Artificial Intelligence-related works at the fair, these by Ori Gersht, who had taken lo-res photographs in the manner of Dutch genre paintings, then upscaling the images, using AI to fill in the details.

Further down the west wing, Viennese OstlLicht. Gallery for Photography showed a selection of powerful works by two of the Vienna Actionists, Rudolf Schwarzkogler and Günter Brus, displayed alongside works by the contemporary Italian artist Francesca Catastini.

OstLicht Gallery's Peter Coeln. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Director Peter Coeln told me, "The Vienna Actionists had a profound impact on the art world, one that is still being felt. People have taken a great interest in the works but it's not exactly decorative so our sales have been achieved with Francesca Catastini."

Coeln also had another reason for exhibiting at Photo London, "OstLicht is not just a gallery; the company also holds specialist auctions, one for photographs and one for rare camera equipment. We wanted to promote the auctions as well and this fair seemed to be a good opportunity so we are making the catalogues available for people to take. There are some wonderful things in the June 2nd auction, including a rare Futurist photograph, "The Slap" taken in 1912 by Anton Giulio Bragalia. There's also a month-long festival, Foto Wien, that runs from June 1-30, so there are plenty of reasons to visit Vienna."

Roland Belgrave exhibited in his usual spot, at the very end of the west wing. He usually does well at Photo London, but not so this year. He presented a solo show with Mandy Barker, an artist who works with marine plastic debris.

Roland Belgrave. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Belgrave told me, "This year has been difficult to put it mildly. It's partly my own fault. I decided to do a solo show with Mandy Barker, which means excluding the other artists I work with, as well as my vintage material. And Barker's work isn't exactly decorative, not something people would buy for their homes, a bunch of plastic hanging over their sofa, making them feel guilty about not doing the recycling properly! And decorative works are a big slice of the market at Photo London. I was hoping to sell to banks and corporate buyers. Well, I had people from the World Bank here, they requested more information but that doesn't mean it's going to lead to a sale.

"I really like Mandy Barker's work, I have always wanted to show it, but it hasn't worked. I said last year that I wouldn't do Photo London again and yet here I am! The same goes for some of the other exhibitors. It's a difficult fair, even for people in the pavilion. But if I came back, I wouldn't do a solo show. I would bring decorative work. I have learnt my lesson!"

Peter Fetterman Gallery had a magnificent space, a large room just left of the reception in Somerset House. Fetterman told me, "People are responding to the beauty and tranquillity of this room. This space is pretty unique. It has wonderful natural light, and a real serenity. Because let's face it, Somerset House as a whole is somewhat discombobulated in terms of the layout, but this space is wonderful. People draw a sigh of relief when they come in here, I sense their body language and how they look at the images.

Peter Fetterman and his "tranquil" exposition space. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

"I brought a selection of wonderful Sarah Moon prints, Lillian Bassman, Cig Harvey, Pentti Sammallahti, Michael Kenna images of Japan and Jeffrey Conley. As for sales, compared to Paris and New York, the London audience takes a long time to make up its mind. People look, wander off, then come back, in some cases a few times. I expect some sales after the fair, because that's often the way it works here. It's a slower pace of acquisition, as long as it takes place sometime. I can understand it, though I'm the complete opposite. I'm impulsive, I strike straight away, as I'm always in fear of losing out."

Last year, Fetterman published a book, "The Power of Photography", based on his lockdown project of the same name. "I'm working on a new book, with images of children. I love making books, and "The Power of Photography" was such a wonderful experience that I need to find more time to do more books, and with my gallery and doing fairs, that's not always so easy. But I plan to publish it next year."

In the east wing, Berlin-based ARTCO Gallery presented a powerful show with works by Gideon Mendel. The South African-born photographer started his career as a "struggle photographer" during apartheid. Mendel told me, "I have always taken a strong activist position, first around apartheid, then HIV and AIDS, and climate change. I see my work as being in the triangle between photojournalism, the gallery world and the world of activism."

Burnt Nikon cameras were part of Berlin-based ARTCO Gallery's powerful exhibit with works by Gideon Mendel. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

On show were works from several projects, covering floodings and fires. In addition to photographs, there was a plastic tricycle, melted by wildfires in Evia, Greece and a display case, with burnt cameras, given to Mendel by Terry Murphy, who lost his home and his huge camera collection during the Marshall fire in Colorado.

Mendel commented, "We have had an incredible response to the work, from curators to the general public. People have been particularly moved by the burnt cameras. The issue of climate change is one that concerns us all. It's a very uncompromising presentation, quite different from other stands at the fair. The market place hasn't responded quite as much as we hoped and sales could have been better. Still, it has been worth it, because the fair has given the work so much visibility."

Close by, I came across Lisbon-based Artemis Gallery, a contemporary art gallery, focusing on VR, AR, AI and digital photography. Among the works on show was a video called "in vivo in vitro in siloco", by Berlin-based duo kennedy + swan.

Artemis Gallery's Manuel Mendonça. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Director Manuel Mendonça told me, "They made this project in collaboration with a university department, which develops nanobots from frog cells. The nanobots are injected into your bloodstream and collect data about your body, transmit it to an AI program which condenses the data and analyses it. If something abnormal is going on, the AI program sends an alert and recommends a visit to a doctor. The video itself was made using a combination of AI and traditional stop-motion technique."

Mendonça was pleased with the fair. "It is the very first time we have shown at a photo fair. The response has been extraordinary. People have been really interested and very open. We are extremely pleased with the sales we have achieved, as well as the fair and the organisation. The guided tours have been really good and we actually sold two works thanks to those tours."

Francesca Fiumano, with the 3D printed "Clockwork Orange". (Photo by Michael Diemar)

There were more AI works in the discovery section downstairs in Somerset House, in the space of London-gallery Fiumano Clase. Francesca Fiumano told me, "We are showing works by Sam Burford, an artist we have worked with for nearly 15 years. He is interested in image transformation, creating something new out of something familiar. Photography is his key media. He uses analogue cameras and the most up-to-date technology to create what he calls, "Portraits of films.", including "The Wizard of Oz" and "A Clockwork Orange". The shutter is open and each film captures about 20 minutes. The films are then edited. Sam uses the data to create 3D sculptures, prints, and paintings. The work is very much process led and the results are beautiful. In the presentation we have three AI works by him, two made with the commercially available technology, and an image of Ingrid Bergman he made in 2017, using an AI program he wrote himself. Or "AI homebrew" as he calls it."

Response to the work had been good. "It's the first time we're showing at Photo London, and I have been blown away by the interest. Sales have been really good though of course we would have liked to sell more. Still, we are delighted with the response from serious photography collectors, photographers, students, lecturers and a few curators, so we are definitely coming back next year."

There was less traffic on the upper floor at Somerset House, which was a real shame because there were fantastic works on show. Parisian gallery Bonne Espérance presented works by Jürgen Schadeberg (1931 - 2020), the German-born photographer who emigrated to South Africa in 1947. In 1964, he moved to London, returning to South Africa in 1985, and then in 2007, returned to Europe. He packed an awful lot in, photographing everything from bombed-out buildings in Hamburg, the struggle against apartheid, rundown housing estates in Glasgow and much else, as seen here on the walls of Photo London.

Close by, New York-based The Music Photo Gallery did a solo show with images by rock photographer Mick Rock, who sadly passed away in 2021. Rock, who was a wonderful guy, in 1972, shot two classic album sleeves within days of each other at the Scala Cinema, then a music venue, Lou Reed's "Transformer", and Iggy and The Stooges' "Raw Power". He was also one of the few rock photographers of the era who had held onto his vintage prints, some of them on show here.

Rolf Art's director Florencia Giordana Braun, with works by Santiago Porter. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Rolf Art, Buenos Aires, presented a group show of four Latin American photographers, Marcelo Brodsky, Adriana Lestido, Santiago Porter and Faciundo de Zuvirio.

Director Florencia Giordana Braun told me, "These four photographers are well established, and they share a commitment to political and social issues. The reception has been great. I think it's because the images resonate with what's going on in society today. We have had really good sales, especially Brodsky's series "1968 The Fire of Ideas", images he took in 1968 of demonstrations in capitals around the world."

Also on the upper floor was, at least for me, the highlight of Photo London, Hong Kong-based Blue Lotus Gallery's presentation of two photographers, Fan Ho and Yasuhiro Ogawa. There was a whole wall of vintage Fan Ho prints, taken in Hong Kong in the 1950s. And they were simply fantastic.

Sarah Greene of Blue Lotus with works by Fan Ho. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Director Sarah Greene told me, "It's the first time we have exhibited at a big fair in the west. The response has been wonderful. There has been incredible interest and enthusiasm among people. I'm amazed by how many people already know Fan Ho's work. They have seen it in books or online, but never seen the actual prints. For others, he was completely unknown, but the prints stopped them in their tracks, prompting an emotional and almost visceral reaction.

"I brought one other artist, Japanese photographer Yasuhiro Ogawa. He has made some wonderful books, including "The Dreaming", which is how I discovered him. We started showing his work two years ago in Hong Kong. I think what they have in common is that they both express the world in a subjective and very poetic way. And Ogawa's work holds its own in the same space as Fan Ho."

I asked Greene about sales. "They have been good enough. My impression is that people don't have that much disposable income, but some of the buyers have made a real effort, digging into their savings, just because they love the works so much. I think we will be back here at some stage, but we are so busy with book publishing and gallery shows that we only have time to do one international fair per year. My strategy is not to stick to one fair but show in a new city every year, so I'm think of Paris or New York for next year."

And so on to the pavilion in the courtyard of Somerset House.

Augusta Edwards went small (in picture size) this year. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

Augusta Edwards came back to the fair this year. She had opted for a small booth, and the presentation was magnificent, with a selection of small prints by Chilean and Brazilian photographers and vintage prints by Chris Killip.

Edwards told me, "Going smaller is I think the way to go at Photo London. Investing in a big space doesn't really work for the kind of work that I show. And it has paid off. Also, in previous years, I have shown in either the east wing or the west wing of Somerset House. The pavilion has more visitors, more of a buzz and feels more like an art fair. I think the fair has improved but there's still a lot to be done. I mean it's still a very local audience. It needs more people from abroad. We are not seeing the international collectors and museums we had hoped for. Also, the quality is a real mixed bag. Attendance has been good but in terms of actual buyers, they are few and far between. I have spoken to a lot of people who have told me they have had a very challenging fair."

I asked Edwards about sales, "We have done very well with the small works we have shown, vintage prints, some unique, by Chilean and Brazilian photographers, including Jaime Villaseca and Geraldo de Barros, priced between 1000 and 3000 pounds. We have also sold a lot of Karen Knorr special edition prints, and done well with Chris Killip, including vintage works, which are very scarce. The exhibitions earlier in the year, at my gallery and at The Photographers' Gallery, and the Thames & Hudson book have helped. We have shown him for 15 years but this is very much his moment. The recognition was long overdue. As for the audience, I think it has come a long way compared to pre-pandemic. It's a bit more educated, although I'm not sure that it has translated into sales for the exhibitors."

Grob Gallery's Louise Grob went big again. (Photo by Michael Diemar)

While Edwards went small, David and Louise Grob of Grob Gallery, decided just like last year, to go big. It was an impressive stand, vintage works by Guy Bourdin, Sam Haskins, Edward Weston, Willy Ronis, as well as large-sized works by William Klein.

A final thought. At the beginning of November last year, it was announced that Creo, in partnership with Angus Montgomery Arts, its majority shareholder, and in collaboration with Candlestar, had launched PHOTOFAIRS New York, with its first edition to be held September 8-10 at Javits Center, Manhattan. This is planned as a contemporary image fair, and according to the announcement, it will be "a dedicated space to explore new trends in the contemporary art market from fine art photo-based works to experimental filmmaking, VR and NFTs. PHOTOFAIRS New York will connect collectors and visitors with international galleries and boundary-pushing artists inviting discourse and interaction."

During a brief conversation I had with Michael Benson of Candlestar at Paris Photo last year, he told me that he hoped to bring some of those trends, as well as exhibitors and collectors, to Photo London in the future. Whether that will translate into a stable buying audience remains to be seen.

Michael Diemar is a London-based collector and consultant. He is also editor-in-chief of The Classic, a new free magazine about classic photography. He is a long-time writer about the photography scene, writing extensively for several Scandinavian photography publications, as well as for the E-Photo Newsletter and I Photo Central.