John A. Bennette, Collector's Focus, Trends in Collecting Photography,
Focus Fine Art Photography Magazine, Feb 207, issue #11
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….Well, that is what the insiders have to say. What more can I add? I spend a lot of time talking to artists and realize that for them the least concern is trend. The idea of trends feels too much like commercial hype. Appriciation and understanding of their vision by others with the hope of sustaining their creative process is what concerns them most. Everything else is fluid. Is not the need for nerattive depth, color and even new larger scale a type of pictorialism? I feel in love (heat) with the photograph recently, the photograph was by Leora Laor, Untitled #154 that was shown this fall at Andrea Meislin Gallery. It was 32x42". Except for the fact that it was a photograph it was almost timeless, painterly. I felt as if I were eavesdropping on a beautiful, yet awkward moment, the rush of a voyeur. The predominate mood was quit longing and detachment filtered through an amber and absinthe-green palette. There were historical and layered suggestive hints, that allusions and my memory reinforced every time I visited. My soul welled with desire, but in the end, it will be a lost love. I wait to see it published somewhere, so I can rip the page out as a souvenir. So what do I feel about trends? Most of them mean nothing to me. Technology is not a trend; the demand for an artist to create is not one either. The struggle between art and life and fashion and what defines them is constant...
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John A. Bennette is a well known New York photography critic and scholar whose passion is collecting and supporting emerging artists. His 1996 AIPAD address on "The joy of collecting", brought him to national attention within the photographic community. He is a frequent panelist and lecturer at photographic symposia nationwide.
