Los Angeles, California.- Photo L.A. returns to the historic Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for its 21st edition from January 12th through January 16th 2012. Continuing the discourse on photography’s place in the fine arts, Photo L.A. provides dealers from around the globe a platform for the exhibition of vintage masterworks, contemporary photography, as well as video and multimedia installations. This exciting juxtaposition creates the character that is Photo L.A. There will be an opening night benefit gala on Thursday, January 12th, benefiting the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with special host Moby.
In addition to the compelling program of lectures, panels, book signings, and special installations, Photo L.A. is pleased to announce Salon de Tableaux, an area of tabletop presentations showcasing vintage, vernacular and unique photography. This year, the fair is also introducing “photoBOOK” – a forum with guest reviewers offering feedback to photographers on their book proposals. The growth of galleries, world-class museums, art fairs, and outstanding university programs in Los Angeles over the last decade attests to the city’s rising status as a marketplace and destination for curators, collectors, and enthusiasts.
Now in its 21st year, Photo L.A., the longest running art fair west of New York City, continues to showcase emerging and established artists from around the globe, exhibiting with traditional and contemporary art galleries alongside private photography dealers. Photo L.A. opens up discourse on photography’s place in the fine arts, providing a platform for the presentation of new techniques alongside vintage work. Contemporary photography, video, and multimedia installations are shown side-by-side with enduring masterworks from the 19th and 20th centuries. This juxtaposition creates the excitement that is Photo L.A.
To coincide with the J. Paul Getty Museum ‘s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, a segment of Photo L.A.’s programming will focus on this period of post WWII art created in Southern California. In addition, attendees will enjoy a bookstore, seating area, café, coffee bar, video and VIP lounges in their expansive lobby. Docent-led tours of the fair will take place every day hosted by distinguished professors, art critics and curators. Talks include; Jeffrey Henson Scales (Photographer, Photo Editor, The New York Times); Eileen Cowin (Artist); Weston Naef will present Carleton Watkins and His First Collectors, in conjunction with the newly published book, ‘Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs’ (J. Paul Getty Museum 2011). This long awaited book makes known for the first time the scope, breadth and depth of Watkins’s work with the large format camera on the Pacific Coast between about 1860 and 1880. The talk will be illustrated with engravings, maps, daguerreotypes, stereographs, and mammoth-plate images; and Ken Gonzales-Day (Artist and Professor, Chair, Art Department, Scripps College) who will give his audience an opportunity to go behind the scene of an artist’s career and the process of creating his LACMA PAC Prize winning book, Profiled, which explores sculptural depictions of race. Panel discussions will include ‘Collecting Photographs + Art: Public Collections’, ‘The Photography Book Roundtable’, ‘Michael Fried’s Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before Panel’, ‘Collecting Photographs: Private Collections’, and ‘Photographers of the Getty Initiative Pacific Standard Time, Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980’. Visit the fair’s website at … http://www.photola.com