VIDEO: AIPAD Exclusive: Interview with Catherine Edelman, President of AIPAD

“Our strength is to show you… what we think is the best…” Catherine Edelman, President AIPAD

This year, in anticipation of the 36th annual Photography Show that will take place at the Park Avenue Armory April 14 – 17, 2016, galleryIntell and AIPAD, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers joined forces to bring you a series of exclusive video interviews with the Association’s top photography dealers.  As a curatorial and educational platform, galleryIntell has covered The Photography Show for a number of years, and this year we are thrilled to partner with AIPAD as its Exclusive Video Partner.

Our first interview is with Catherine Edelman, President of AIPAD and founder of the eponymous Chicago gallery. We spoke to Catherine about photography’s evolution, its increasing presence in the public’s collective perception, addition of photography t many private and corporate collections, and how technology changed the progress and direction of the medium.

Video interview transcript:

Photography has become a much more present medium in many galleries, museums and private and corporate collections. Could you tell us why it is so relevant in today’s world?

Catherine Edelman: I think photography is the most relevant tool because it can respond immediately in a way that maybe, by process, painting can’t, or sculpture can’t, because it is so immediate. It’s also an understandable and relatable tool.

It’s invaluable for communication and it’s invaluable for art, and you see it exploding everywhere. The photographic medium, whether it’s the mixed media photo-based collages, videos, or paintings, people are just mixing it all up and using that art form as a good foundation. And there are still regular photographers who just take these straight black and white photographs, but there are more and more people who are using it within other art forms and are mixing it all up, which didn’t use to happen.

Broadway on a Rainy Day, Edward Anthony, Albumen Print, 1859 Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

Broadway on a Rainy Day, Edward Anthony, Albumen Print, 1859 Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

How has photography changed over time?

Back in the day, when photography was a big hand-held camera and you had to look down, it was very much a profession that the average person didn’t have access to. Then through instant cameras like Polaroid or other cameras where we sent in our film to a drug store, we all started to understand the access to photography. Most people use cameras to document their own histories. Photographers, who are using it as an art form, use it to document other people and other situations. Predominantly, sometimes their own, but to talk about a politic greater than them.

Fred W. McDarrah Robert Kennedy in Slum Apartment, May 8, 1967 Vintage gelatin silver print. Image courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery

Fred W. McDarrah Robert Kennedy in Slum Apartment, May 8, 1967 Vintage gelatin silver print. Image courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery

Who are the AIPAD dealers and what should collectors be looking for at this year’s Photography Show?

AIPAD, which is the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, started more that 35 years ago by a group of dealers who came together to support the medium. Over the years, of course, we’ve grown to be more than 120 dealers world wide, who are considered to be the experts in the medium, and we pride ourselves on great ethical standards, understanding the medium much more so than any other dealer who is not specifically involved in photography, and the exhibition allows us to showcase that. And so, in the exhibition you see everything from the first photographs ever made: from salt prints, to mixed media, photo-based videos that are behind me, which really have expanded the direction that artists are working today with the medium. So our strength is to show you, obviously what we think, is the best, as dealers, but also sort of give you a history of the medium within a setting over the course of a few days at an art fair. And you’ll see some of these real gems: undiscovered pieces, that might come out of an attic, so to speak, to pieces that could have been made by a recent graduate that haven’t been tested in the market but the dealer thinks there is fantastic because it’s advancing the ideas and concepts behind photography.”

The Photography Show will move to Pier 94 in 2017

Cover image (detail): © James Welling, “001, A+& (from ‘Flowers’)”, 2006, Chromogenic print, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City

Featured images:
Milly, Tom Butler, Goauche on Albumen Print, 2014 Courtesy Charlie Smith, London
Where Is It Now, Marie Navarre Film positive, book page, glass, steel, 1998 Courtesy Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona
Slip 17, Farrah Karapetian, unique photogram, 2014 Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery
Alison Rossiter Nepera Chemical Company Carbon Velox, shipped from works November 8, 1897, processed 2014 (#1), Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery
Broadway, New York City in the Rain, Edward Anthony, Albumen Print Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Church Gate, Sebastao Salgado, Silver Gelatin Print Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery
Dinka Camp, Sebastian Salgado, Silver Gelatin Print Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery
Fred W. McDarrah Robert Kennedy in Slum Apartment, May 8, 1967 Vintage gelatin silver Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery
Reclining Odalisque, Roger Fenton, Salt Print, 1858 Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Der Fotograf, Willi Ruge, Silver Gelatin Print, 1931 Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Kahn & Selesnick, The Reluctant Conscript Courtesy Kopeikin Gallery
Eugène Pelletan by Nadar, Salted paper print from glass negative, 1855 Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sandro Miller, Richard Avedon / Ronald Fischer, Beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9 (1981), 2014, Courtesy Catherine Edelman Gallery
Album d’Études-Poses, Louis Igout, Albumen Silver Prints from Glass Negatives Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Steamboat Lake, CO7 Matthew Brandt Courtesy M+B Gallery

Video installations featured in the interview with Catherine Edelman are by Gregory Scott

Gallery installation images courtesy:
Laurence Miller Gallery, Danziger Gallery, Kopeikin Gallery, Lisa Sette Gallery, Howard Greenberg Gallery,

This video and transcript © galleryIntell and ArtReels Production.