After pre-checking the exhibitor list for this year’s ADAA Art Show, I made my way to the Park Avenue Armory with some degree of photo trepidation. There were no photography specialist galleries included in the fair this year, so there were no guarantees in the offing – whatever photography I might find would come in the booths of the broader contemporary and modern art galleries. But as I walked in, the very first works I encountered, right square in the entry area, were a handsome solo presentation of the photographs of Tina Barney, at Kasmin Gallery’s booth. Barney has a career retrospective on now at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (here), so this small sampler felt like an altogether appropriate way to connect to that larger exhibition.
So my inbound photography fears were immediately allayed, at least temporarily. But as I continued my rounds through the booths, sadly that flush of excitement slowly ebbed away, with only a handful of additional booths showing photography, however broadly defined. To be fair, this was what I had anticipated, but after that promising first encounter, my expectations had been recalibrated, perhaps a little too high.
What follows below is an altogether brief survey of the photography highlights at this year’s fair, organized in slideshow form. A short discussion of each featured work is provided, along with linked gallery names, artist names, and prices as appropriate/available.