Exhibitions Watch: The Boudoir as Affordable Art
There’s a new photo show opening soon in New York that you might want to know about. I got a preview yesterday. The show is great, but what’s really interesting is the gallery that’s putting it up.On March 27, the Lumas Gallery in New York will debut “Boudoir: A Hint of Sensuality,” featuring photograpahy by Michel Comte, Lylia Cornell, GABO (photo above), Jacques Olivar, Howard Schatz, and other photographers.
There’s a new photo show opening soon in New York that you might want to know about. I got a preview yesterday. The show is great, but what’s really interesting is the gallery that’s putting it up.
On March 27, the Lumas Gallery in New York will debut “Boudoir: A Hint of Sensuality,” featuring photograpahy by Michel Comte, Lylia Cornell, GABO (photo above), Jacques Olivar, Howard Schatz, and other photographers. As the gallery notes, “The title of this exhibition refers to the boudoir as “the classical place of transformation through costume and to the joyous sensuality reigning there.”
It’s a beautiful show, to be sure, but I’m really fascinated by the Lumas Gallery. The New York location, which is at 77 Wooster Street in SoHO, is the first of several planned U.S. branches of this art operation. Founded in Germany by Stefanie Harig and Marc Ullrich, the gallery now has branches throughout Europe. The director of the U.S. gallery, Stephanie Yovi, told me there are plans to open more branches in New York and the United States as well.
The idea behind the gallery is intriguing: Essentially, it sells very big digital prints of work by a wide range of photographer. The Lambda prints are gorgeous, and prices for the prints start at about $600 and go up into the several thousands. The prices are kept low because the gallery sells in large editions–up to 100 in some cases—while other prints are sold in open editions. The gallery negotiates deals directly with the more than 100 photographers it represents. The list includes names like Steichen, as well as a wonderful new generation of photographers.
Do I sound impressed? I am. The idea is to open up the notion of collecting to a new, young generation of buyers. The gallery caters to the taste of modern consumers by offering very large prints and by selling them via storefront galleries as well as online. There’s nothing wrong with that: It’s nice to see quality photography being made available to lots of people. It’s one more vision of photography’s future.—David Schonauer