July/August 2008
 In July, we open the exhibition Sacred Places, a stunning array of landscape photographs by the Japanese artist Kenro Izu depicting ancient religious monuments around the world in which, as one critic remarked, "He seems to wrestle the sacred onto paper." To make these gorgeous images, Izu had a special 300-pound camera made, reminiscent of the cumbersome equipment used by the topographical photographers of the nineteenth century. He is one of a number of leading contemporary artists who, using large-scale photography, constitute such a significant part of the current art scene and whose work is snapped up by major collectors for jaw-dropping prices. It was not ever thus.
The first photography exhibition I installed was as curator at Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center in 1978, and it was a retrospective of the work of Detroit-born Harry Callahan (1912-99). Callahan had recently retired after a distinguished career teaching at the Chicago Institute of Design and the Rhode Island School of Design and was widely recognized as an influential figure in contemporary American photography. As his work was new to me, moving the photographs around was the proverbial learning experience, and I was intrigued enough to find out what a Callahan photograph was worth--at least the insurance value on the loan forms. The answer was $200. Thirty years later the same Callahans are now reaching prices close to $50,000, quite an investment and considerably better than 8 percent interest compounded yearly that, over the same period, would have matured into $1,600 or so. Except, of course, in those now innocent-seeming days, no one would have dreamed of buying photography as an investment, nor were there very many individuals building collections of photography.
Another abiding memory of the Callahan exhibition is the number of times I was asked by visitors (and a few local art writers!), "Why is photography art?" Here we were, nearly a century and a half since photography was invented, and the medium was still not widely accepted as the equal of painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. When, in 1983, the DIA paid $67,000 for a (rare) print of Charles Sheeler’s Wheels, it was front-page news in the Detroit Free Press. Many factors--both artistic and commercial-- were soon to change this situation radically and, within ten years, not only had photography become overwhelmingly accepted, it was challenging contemporary painting in terms of scale, presence, and meaning.
By way of example, in the United States, the Starn twins produced dramatic sepia-toned, landscape-like assemblages that covered whole walls. In England, the inseparable Gilbert and George used photography to create veritable stained-glass windows through which they commented on the position of the gay male in British society. Perhaps most significantly, in Germany, individuals such as Berndt and Hiller Becker and Thomas Struth used photography exclusively to make large, sumptuous images that exploited the apparent objectivity of the camera lens--and they were referred to not as photographers, but as artists. The painter Gerhardt Richter, who in the 1980s was only just beginning to receive recognition as a primary force in contemporary art, had long been painting in a deadpan, photographically inspired style, as one among several that he used to explore perceptual issues.
Today, as you walk through the DIA, you will find photography threaded through the modern and contemporary galleries, both as a discrete medium as well as one employed among others as beingthe most effective way for the artist to convey his
or her message. Photography is now widely collected and the value of Sheeler’s work is still on the rise. Several years ago, another of his rare photographic works sold for more than a half million dollars.
Graham W. J. Beal
Director |
