Re: First gallery ' experience'

Hi Kate,
Hang in there, it has taken me 30 years to get anywhere and that is not even being really famous! The gallery owner in Bratislava is ignorant- he is embracing 'art' to be provocative because he offers no 'real' art.
Find a decent gallery and then let us know about it- as there re very few that don't try to cheat you in some way...
Susan
www.susanhuber.com
www.whyte.org
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Ender100@aol.com
  To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
  Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 8:54 PM
  Subject: Re: First gallery ' experience'

  Kate,

  Don't be too sure about that—I think you'll find plenty of gallieries in the US that are pretty dumb about what is good "fine art photography". Don't be discouraged, there isn't a person out there that hasn't been turned down by a gallery and probably more than once. Frankly, I don't understand why about 3/4 of the art of any kind that is hanging in galleries is worth the space on the wall. A year or so ago I saw a show of polaroids thumbtacked to a wall in an upscale gallery and they were priced at $3,000 each. The gallery owner came up to me with this big smile and said "aren't they fantastic?". Well, I will have to commend him for actually approaching someone who entered the gallery and trying to push the work—many gallery owners prefer to sit at their desk and ignore you when you walk in to see a show. But anyway, I stared at him with pained disbelief and asked him when he was taking down the proofs and putting up the final prints.

  I think that alt photo is experiencing a resurgence rather than the other way around as the gallery owner you quoted said.

  Mark I. Nelson
  www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com
  www.PrecisionDigitalNegatives.com
  PDNPrint Forum @ Yahoo Groups
  In a message dated 2/7/06 2:56:42 PM, kate_mocak@zoznam.sk writes:

    Finally I picked up all my courage and showed my alternative prints (gums
    and gums over cyanotype) to the owner of the gallery specialized to
    photography ("Central European House of Photography" in Bratislava). The
    response I got was approximately as follows: he didn't see any added value
    in doing 19th century processes in the 21st century. They are obsolete. He
    didn't see any 'author's statement' in photographing industrial architecture
    because this topic was fully exhausted in the 70s and 80s. On top of that,
    what on earth is the reason to combine old processes with industrial
    architecture. Etc, etc...

    I can accept the fact that my photography lacks the 'author's statement'.
    (Even though until now nobody has been able to explain to me what exactly it
    is.) But saying that alternative processes and pictorialistic photographs
    have nothing to tell to the today's audience is a bit 'too strong coffee' as
    we say here.

    I'm frustrated and have to sleep on it. Just wanted to share this experience
    with you. Hopefully there are other parts of the world where we are not
    regarded as retarded.

    Kate
Received on Wed Feb 8 07:09:35 2006