The New Color: The Return of Black-and-White

[jnantz]

thanks for the breakdown edwin -

i am just wishing for a 48" flat panel plazma TV with a "desaturate" button on it.

great signature paulr

-john

[Jim Ewins]

The Bard could make the statement about Ms Cotton; "Much ado about..."

[Robert Hughes]

Edwin's bullet-point breakdown of the Cotton article exemplifies the ways in which specialist language patterns inadvertantly fracture common knowledge. In a way, Ms. Cotton's work (and Edwin's clear translation) point out that art-speak, like legalese, has become the province of a benighted inner circle, intentionally created to concisely describe fine points of the art, yet exist beyond the understanding of mere mortals, perhaps like the special language of the Imperial Chinese mandarin class.

My perusal of the New Century Dictionary of 1927 does not find "auratic", but does have a definition to "aureate": Gilded; golden; golden-yellow. So her "auratic propensity" possibly was a reference to modern photographers' wish to tap into the public's yearning back to a Golden Age of photography as a source material. Very skillful and concise wordsmithy, if you can follow her lines.

[tim atherton]

Edwin's bullet-point breakdown of the Cotton article exemplifies the ways in which specialist language patterns inadvertantly fracture common knowledge. In a way, Ms. Cotton's work (and Edwin's clear translation) point out that art-speak, like legalese, has become the province of a benighted inner circle, intentionally created to concisely describe fine points of the art, yet exist beyond the understanding of mere mortals, perhaps like the special language of the Imperial Chinese mandarin class.

or any even moderately serious scientific paper or article

(I guess I cut my teeth many years ago as a youngster on the continental theologians and philosophers. And although it's been a while, after wading through Karl Barth, Jungel, Schillebeeckx or Merleau-Ponty the language in articles such as these seems fairly crystal clear... :-) )

[tim atherton]

PS - Auratic is basically "having an aura" - or perhaps "possessing/creating an aura" an idea developed by Walter Benjamin (and expanded by others later) especially with regard to photography. It has to do with photography's particular ability to take something fairly ordinary and essentially turn it into something special, worthy of the viewers gaze. There's more to it than that but I think that's pretty much the essence

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

I wonder how do you know about that?

Because it's my job to know about the trends in collecting photography. Ask any gallery or dealer today in New York, LA, or SF about what collectors are buying and you'll hear the same statement. In fact, in the February '07 issue of Focus magazine, we had a pull quote in a John Bennette article that was from Yancey Richardson, owner, director and curator of the Yancey Richardson Gallery, who is also a member of AIPAD, that the biggest trend she sees today is the dissappearance fo black and white photography. Walk into most galleries in Chelsea today, you won't find any black and white.

BTW Anyone had ever seen "old, 8 x 10 small black and white collectors"? truly surprised with emptiness of meaningless statements
-Mark C

In its beginnings as a collectible form of art, through the mid 1990s, 8 x 10 and at the most 11 x 14 photographs were the only ones ever purchased. Rarely was anything bigger than a 11 x 14 purchased for a serious collector. Then, when color fine art photography became a trend in collecting in the mid-late 1990s and what's really taken over almost all of the art photography world right now is largescale (we're talking 80 x 100 largescale) art photography. Look at the AIPAD show over the past 27 years. When the show first started, there was ONLY black and white photography... color photography wasn't taken as a serious form of collectible art photography back then. 10 years ago, only a few galleries had color photography at the show... and this year an overhwelming majority of galleries will be exhibiting largescale color work at the '07 show.

When I had a booth at Photo SF and NY, people only bought largescale color work from my booth and other booths.

So, interacting with the collector and seeing what the really wanted to buy, discussing these trends with curators and dealers and seeing what's being sold at major photography art fairs has given me enough evidence to form the opinion that black and white's hayday is over. Yes, there will always be some collectors to whom are partial to black and white photography...but the market is really 60-40, 70-30 right now...and the proportions will become even more lopsided in the near future.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

There are enough to support the thickest, slickest photography magazine that appears on my local newstand: http://www.bandwmag.com/backissues/index.html. It isn't the world's most adventurous magazine, but apparently people read it.

There absolutely are enough collectors and photographers in the market of fine art photography to support B&W. In 8 years of publication, their circulation is 28,000 according to their website. Look at LensWork and Black & White Photography UK. All of them, including Rassmuesens magazine are great publications and I subscribe to both B&W (US) and LensWork. Whether or not market trends will support growth for both publications so that their circulation can grow above 100,000 remains to be seen.

By my the time my 13th issue hits newsstands, my circulation will surpass both B&W and LensWork theirs in only two years of publication. The reason being? What's going to do better on newsstands? A magazine about football or a magazine about professional sports? While people who are passionate about football may subscribe to both, people who are passionate about all aspects of professional sports, not just one aspect of it will subscribe to the sports magazine. There are more people interested in fine art photography as a whole than just purely black and white photography.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Doesn't the existence of newspapers, which are pervasive as a form of communication and which are chock full of black and white photographs, suggest that black and white as a medium is alive and well?

Actually....no. Instead of using 4 inks they're using 1. So it's cheaper production values.

By the way, show me 5 newspapers here that have their front pages in black and white:

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

[David Karp]

So, interacting with the collector and seeing what the really wanted to buy, discussing these trends with curators and dealers and seeing what's being sold at major photography art fairs has given me enough evidence to form the opinion that black and white's hayday is over.

Is there any chance that these trends ebb and flow? Will it always be this way? Will b&w eventually become more attractive to purchasers? Or is today's trend cast in stone? If so, why do you think that? I am curious.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Maybe the bottom line is the old adage that some subjects just work better in colour and some just work better in black and white.

The trends are reversing actually...commercial photography trends are going more and more towards black and white, while fine art photography trends are going more and more towards color...it's as if the two are trying to imitate each other!