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As Frieze London Turns 20, the Art Fair Trades Risk for Reward, Serving Up Palatable Offerings to Primed Buyers

By in Art World News

As Frieze London Turns 20, the Art Fair Trades Risk for Reward, Serving Up Palatable Offerings to Primed Buyers

There was a sense of intensity and focus among the early-bird visitors to the Frieze art fair (October 11–15, 2023) on its 20th anniversary in London’s Regent’s Park, with smooth entry to the signature white tent that offered a marked contrast to the scrum many visitors complained about last year.

Celebrities including Florence Pugh, Stormzy, and Rami Malek were among the VIPs given early access, but the guest list for the prime slot felt like it was pared back, and skewed more towards serious art world heavyweights who were ready to spend, including American collectors Don and Mera Rubell, Swiss mega-collector Uli Sigg, Italian Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Belgian Alain Servais, and local patrons Paul Ettlinger and Irene Panagopoulos.

All were very complimentary about the fair’s organization this year, and Sigg was particularly impressed with the efficiency of the sandwich queue. Still, things picked up as the day progressed, and by 3 p.m. the tent was heaving with glamorous and eccentrically dressed art lovers. There was no sign of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, although he collects and has been known to attend. Sunak did, however, host a cohort of U.K. arts leaders at Number 10 last night, signaling a vote of confidence in the country’s art market, though he gave few reassurances that his government—which has slashed public funding for the arts and deemphasized arts in education—would be changing tack in real terms. Dealer Thaddaeus Ropac was among the attendees.

“I was happy because this is a very European tradition—in Paris President Macron hosts us at the Elysée—and it’s a positive sign when public figures of this caliber and importance embrace the art world,” Ropac said.

Thaddaeus Ropac, Frieze London 2023. Photo Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

Thaddaeus Ropac, Frieze London 2023. Photo: courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

A lot is at stake this Frieze week, considered the first proper warm-up of the season, a barometer before the big test of the November sales in New York. Following two years of escalating prices and market frenzy, this summer saw a slowdown, and after tepid auctions in Hong Kong, stakeholders are eyeing each other’s behavior carefully this week.

“The last few years were exceptional, and I think we are in a soft landing in the truest sense, but I think it is a good thing,” Ropac said. “People are slower in making decisions, which we like, actually. It is better for all of us to work in this ideal climate, where there is more time to discuss, and without the race of speed and pressure of last year.”

Frieze has done a good job of getting people excited about the fair’s anniversary, an optimism evinced by the 166 participating galleries this year, up 18 percent from last year. And stakeholders are determined to divert any sense of market despondency despite the dismal narrative surrounding London, woven-through with the knock-on effects of Brexit and Covid: inflation, a weak pound, rising interest rates, and growing competition from Paris.

Some are taking a pragmatic approach. “London is on sale,” art advisor Wendy Goldsmith said, nodding to the exchange rate. “That will keep the attraction to Americans, and to the rest of the world who also think in U.S. dollars.”

Still, there was concern that macroeconomic circumstances, plus the unfolding geopolitical events in the Middle East, might put people off a buying mood.

Deborah Anzinger, Untitled (Transmutation 11) (2023). Courtesy Nicola Vassell.

Deborah Anzinger, Untitled (Transmutation 11) (2023). Courtesy of Nicola Vassell.

While some galleries were absent this year (Mother’s Tankstation, Galerie König, and Matthew Brown among them), first-timers included the two-and-a-half-year-old Nicola Vassell gallery, whose founder told me it was a “logical step” to join Frieze as it begins charting an international presence. The gallery is presenting artist Deborah Anzinger in a new section this year titled Artist-to-Artist, for which the fair has invited established artists to curate a booth. Venice Biennale Golden Lion winner Simone Leigh nominated Anzinger, who is still unrepresented but will have a solo show at the gallery next winter. Anzinger is showing a suite of works on paper made with ground-up cookshop charcoal, a fuel used in her native Jamaica. Vassell reported some sales by end of day, and a number of “promising” conversations.

Massimo de Carlo was returning this year after a hiatus after deciding not to take part in art fairs in cities where the gallery has an outpost. This year it decided to reverse course in order to promote its new gallery on Clifford Street in Mayfair. The gallery had sold out its solo presentation of paintings by the Chinese artist Xiyao Wang, priced between €45,000 and €70,000 ($47,700–$74,300), by the time I visited the booth—all likely presold ahead of the fair.

Seventeen, Frieze London 2023 Frieze London 2023. Photo Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

Seventeen, Frieze London 2023. Photo: courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

On its 20th anniversary edition, many were wondering whether Frieze’s organizers would encourage a return to the fair’s roots in experimentation; back in 2003 the Wrong Gallery proudly displayed an empty booth, having brought a notoriously hard-to-sell “constructed situation” by Tino Sehgal, and Paola Pivi invited visitors to roll down a grassy slope. In the end of the day, there were few extraordinary presentations and a lot of paintings, reflective of a curbed appetite for risk-taking in moment of economic downturn.

What was on view included a lot of color, and an emphasis on fun, eccentricity, and a British sensibility. Pilar Corrias’s booth was awash with color thanks to a Sophie von Hellermann mural and carpeting; Patrick Goddard’s army of snails climbing up the exterior walls of Seventeen gallery’s booth was already on hold in the early minutes of the fair, as was a surreal fragmented self-portrait on an oversize charm bracelet by Gillian Wearing at Maureen Paley. Shown in the artist’s solo at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York during the pandemic, it had an asking price of £150,000 ($184,000). 

imageMy Charms(2021). ©️Gillian Wearing, courtesy Maureen Paley.” width=”1024″ height=”683″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG-4941-1024×683.jpg 1024w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/10/IMG-4941-300×200.jpg 300w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/10/IMG-4941-1536×1025.jpg 1536w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/10/IMG-4941-2048×1366.jpg 2048w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/10/IMG-4941-50×33.jpg 50w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/10/IMG-4941-1920×1281.jpg 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>

Gillian Wearing, My Charms (2021). ©️ Gillian Wearing, courtesy of Maureen Paley.

Frieze London’s defining focus is on living artists, and there were plenty of young talents who are growing in demand on view. Contrary to patterns in recent years, where there has been a turn away from the emerging sector during times of economic uncertainty, there was still plenty of demand for the new and now, attributed by gallerists and advisors to the interests of a new collector generation. Pace quickly sold a painting by in-demand artist Pam Evelyn, the youngest artist on its roster, which we understand had an undiscloed asking price of $75,000.

“There’s definitely been a recalibration, but buyers are still active, they’re just more focused now,” advisor Diane Abela said. “I remember when they would just want a name, not caring about the quality of the work. Now they actually want a good work.”

Danielle Mckinney, Hindsight (2023). Photo: Pierre Le Hors. ©the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

Danielle Mckinney, Hindsight (2023). Photo: Pierre Le Hors. © Danielle Mckinney, courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

Collectors were elbowing each other out of the way for a chance to acquire works by Danielle Mckinney in a solo booth at Marianne Boesky. Mckinney’s intimate and cinematic portraits depicting Black female protagonists have gathered a devoted following, and the Frieze presentation marked her first U.K outing after a $201,600 auction debut at Christie’s in the spring. Mckinney was in good spirits on the booth and seemed to be keeping a steady head on her shoulders despite the market clamor. “I’m staying grounded. For me it’s about making a good piece. I recently transitioned from acrylic to oil and I’m focused on technique, not on the market and who is buying it,” she said.

Boesky had sold out the booth in the days preceding the fair, prioritizing museum placements, but that didn’t stop collectors interrupting our conversation to beg for a work. Bucking a trend of escalating primary market prices in recent years as galleries hoped for a share of the speculation, Boesky has opted to keep the buy-in sane, between $45,000 and $65,000. “I wanted to keep prices institutions can afford,” she said, adding that she prefers this approach to the common BOGO practice, where collectors donate a work to a museum in order to win access for one themselves.

Still, Boesky acknowledged the wider slowdown. “This is not a good reflection of the market because this is a solo booth by an artist who is in demand. Elsewhere it is slower, but overall people are still quite active.”

Joan Semmel, White skin (2018). Courtesy: the Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels. Photo by Dan Bradica.

Joan Semmel, White skin (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels. Photo by Dan Bradica.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a more significant presence of older living artists. “Galleries are now trying to take the estates of undervalued, under-the-radar established artists, as opposed to six months or a year ago, when they were all chasing very young artists,” art advisor Sibylle Rochat commented.

Work by Antiguan artist Frank Walter, who is gaining posthumous reappraisal, including in a show on view at the Garden Museum, was attracting attention at David Zwirner and Xavier Hufkens—Zwirner sold multiple paintings priced between $35,000 and $55,000. Also on view at Hufkens, and at Alexander Gray Associates, was the 89-year-old American painter Joan Semmel, whose solar-hued expressionistic feminist nudes are being deservedly recognized institutionally. The works at Alexander Gray were all on hold for collectors in the early hours of the fair (the gallery does not disclose prices), and the painting at Hufkens sold for approximately $200,000.

At Edel Assanti, there was Sylvia Snowden, an 81-year-old abstract painter who was a contemporary of Sam Gilliam; a painting by 83-year-old Color Field painter Peter Bradley—whose auction market has been taking off in the past two years, was on view at Karma with an asking price of $200,000; and Hauser and Wirth sold two works on paper priced at $120,000 from their exquisite solo presentation of sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud. Speaking to this trend, gallery president Iwan Wirth said collectors were “embracing the idea that younger artists and new art don’t have a monopoly on revolutionary thinking and radical risk-taking.”

Alison Jacques, Frieze London 2023. Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy Linda Nylind /Frieze.

Alison Jacques, Frieze London 2023. Photo: Linda Nylind, courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze.

So what do the results this year portend for the market? Many galleries this year chose to take their heavy hitters to Frieze Masters, and the top prices reported by close of day were certainly lower than last year. In 2022, the highest price reported on opening day was $6 million for a Kerry James Marshall painting at David Zwirner. The gallery has since decided not to share secondary market prices, so may well have traded more significant figures, but reported a Gerhard Richter sale for $650,000 among the first day highlights.

Still, there were a number of works reported sold at asking prices of more than $1 million on opening day. Ropac had sold a Georg Baselitz for €1.2 million ($1.47 million), Goodman Gallery parted ways with a major El Anatsui work for $1.9 million, and Tracey Emin paintings sold at White Cube and Hufkens for £1.2 million and £900,000 ($1.47 million and $1.1 million).

It should be noted that a softer market does not necessarily show itself in lack of sales; rather in easier access to once-rare gems, galleries more open to negotiation, and stabilizing prices that had been on a vertical trajectory. All told, the day-one picture was much brighter than feared; as Boesky put it: “The market is not gangbusters, but it’s not bad, either.” We’ll take it.

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See the winners in the latest Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest

By in Photography

See the winners in the latest Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest

Three photos from two Canadian photographers are part of the 2023 Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, whose winners were announced Tuesday night.

Mark Williams, a photographer based in Jordan River, B.C., was highly commended in the animal portraits category for photos of an Arctic fox backlit by the sun and a dramatic drone shot of five belugas surfacing among fragments of sea ice, both captured in Nunavut. Garth Lenz of Victoria was highly commended in the photojournalism category for an aerial, early morning shot of the biggest open excavation on Earth, the massive Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah.

Grand prize winners

The winners of the annual competition were announced at a ceremony in London by the Natural History Museum, which organizes the annual competition.

The grand prize went to Laurent Ballesta of France for an underwater portrait of a shiny, gold horseshoe crab at Pangatalan Island in the Philippines accompanied by three young golden travellie fish. Ballesta previously won the grand prize in 2021, and is only the second photographer to win twice in the competition’s 59-year history.

A gold horseshoe crab with three small yellow and black striped fish above it
Laurent Ballesta of France won this year’s competition for this photo, The Ancient Mariner, of a tri-spine horseshoe crab moving slowly with a trio of juvenile golden trevallie fish. (Laurent Ballesta/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

The young wildlife photographer of the year prize went to 17-year-old Carmel Bechler of Israel for a photo of barn owls in an abandoned roadside building, behind light trails from passing traffic.

In all, 100 photographs were chosen in 19 categories among 49,957 entries from 95 countries to appear in the exhibition.

In the background is a building with graffiti on the walls and two owls in the window. In the foreground are light trails of passing cars.
In the photo Owl House, two barn owls hide in the window of an abandoned roadside building in Israel. It won the young wildlife photographer of the year award for Carmel Bechler. (Carmel Bechler/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

The Canadian photos

Williams captured his two photos in the summer of 2022 while working as a guide at a lodge called Arctic Watch Wilderness Lodge on Somerset Island, which in the summer hosts tourists, researchers studying things like muskox populations and climate change impacts, and, sometimes, cinematographers.

He said he’s excited to share his photos of the region, since not many people get a chance to go up there.

“The beluga one is certainly one of my favourites,” he said from London on Wednesday, where he attended the awards ceremony. But he was surprised that it was chosen by the international panel of judges. “That one is quite arty and out there in my mind.”

Five white belugas are seen from overhead in a dark sea with a few small fragments of white ice.
Belugas Among Sea Ice was highly commended in the animals in their environment category. It was taken in the Northwest Passage, Somerset Island, Nunavut. (Mark Williams/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

The fox photo represented a “rare encounter” he said. He was at a camp on the side of the river around midnight, about to go to bed, when he spotted some movement in the distance that he couldn’t identify with binoculars. He went to have a closer look, and managed to capture an Arctic fox with a ragged blend of winter and summer coats haloed by sunlight. On closer inspection, he realized that it had only three legs. “It comes across as tenacious.”� 

Williams hopes the photos help people relate to the Arctic species impacted by climate change. He noted that many may question whether small actions they take to slow climate change make a difference. “It does make a difference,” he said. “I hope that my imagery speaks to that.”

A massive open pit mine sits in the foreground, with mountains in the background.
The photo Humanity’s Bigget Hole is an aerial shot of the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine in Utah. It was highly commended in the photojournalism category. (Garth Lenz/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

William’s photos of the isolated wilderness contrast sharply with Lenz’s image of a giant, open pit mine.

“It’s part of my bigger project on what the Anthropocene looks like,” said Lenz, referring to the proposed geological epoch marked by humans’ influence on the Earth. Lenz’s photos of Alberta oilsands mines have appeared in two previous Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibitions.

This year’s image was taken in 2017, when he opened an exhibition in Salt Lake City, Utah, and hired a plane to photograph the mine. The ride itself was a reminder of the impact on the landscape — thermals rising up from the massive pit cause severe turbulence. “So we were bouncing around a lot in the air,” Lenz recalled. “My head kept hitting the top of the frame of the window, which of course was open as we smacked around.”

Still, he was determined to capture images of the mine.

“I’m really trying to tell the story of our treatment of the planet,” he said. “We have become so disconnected from the environment that we take everything from — that we allow this devastation to actually occur virtually under our noses… it’s a societal problem that we don’t really see our fate as being [as] closely tied to the health of the planet as it actually is.”

Where to see the exhibition

The touring exhibition opens Friday at the Natural History Museum in London.

It makes its North American debut at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Nov. 25, 

Black Artists of Oregon: Episode 5

By in Native

Black Artists of Oregon: Episode 5
Art Unbound

Art Unbound

Black Artists of Oregon: Episode 5



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1:25:47

This is Art Unbound, a joint production of PAM and the Numberz FM. Featuring Intisar Abioto, the guest curator for the exhibition Black Artists of Oregon on view September 9, 2023 through March 17, 2024.

In this fifth installment of the series Intisar interviews Damali Ayo.

Produced by: The Numberz Podcast Network
Music by: King E.D.O.

Lightroom for Android now comes with Ultra HDR image editing

By in Photography

Lightroom for Android now comes with Ultra HDR image editing

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The good HDR, not the bad kind.

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By Allison Johnson, a reviewer with 10 years of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.

a]:text-gray-13″>If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

An illustration of the Adobe Lightroom app logo.

a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>Lightroom Mobile is getting ready for the HDR photography future.
a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Right in time for Android 14, Adobe has added support for Ultra HDR image editing in Lightroom mobile for Android. Google’s newest OS supports the new image format, and it stands to make a big change for the better in how our smartphone photos look. Being able to make edits in Lightroom will let discerning smartphone photographers have plenty of control over the final product — but it’ll be a while before most people can actually see the finished product on their own devices. Viewing an HDR image requires the right display and software that supports the format, which most people don’t have at the moment.

Importantly, Ultra HDR isn’t the bad kind of HDR we’re all tired of. It uses a wider range of light and dark tones to express an image — closer to what we see with our own eyes — and on an HDR display, that comes across as brighter whites rather than the flat grey tones that we often associate with “HDR” photography. Ultra HDR is how Android phones will record and read HDR photos, and the files are standard JPEGs, so they’re backward-compatible with SDR, or standard dynamic range displays. (If you’re looking for a more thorough explanation, Mishaal Rahman at Android Police has a great write-up.)

Screenshot of Lightroom editing pane showing HDR icon

Screenshot of Lightroom editing pane showing HDR icon

a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>An HDR icon appears in the upper right of the screen when you open an Ultra HDR photo.
Screenshot of HDR editing options in Lightroom.

Screenshot of HDR editing options in Lightroom.

a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>The red portion of the histogram is the additional highlight space that would be visible on an HDR display.

The new HDR support comes via , and right now, it works with the Pixel 7, 7 Pro, and 7A running Android 14. After toggling on an option to import HDR photos in settings, you’ll see a new HDR icon in the upper right corner when you bring one of those images in to edit — tapping it shows you a histogram with the extra HDR highlights visible. If you’re viewing it on a device that isn’t supported, as is the case with my Pixel 8 review unit right now — this portion of the histogram will appear in red.

If you can access HDR editing, you’ll be able to make adjustments as usual and also toggle on a preview for SDR displays. That’s important because once that photo leaves your phone, it will most likely be viewed as an SDR image. You need an HDR display, which recent flagships like the Pixel 8 and iPhone 15 series offer, but the app you’re using to view the image also needs to support HDR images. Apps like Instagram strip an image’s metadata when you post them, so all you see is an SDR image. It’s a real headache. For now, Adobe recommends exporting images as AVIF files, which Google Chrome supports. But until there’s much wider support for HDR image viewing, the best experience is probably going to be right on your own phone.

A Love Letter to the Tenderloin, In Photographs

By in Photography

A Love Letter to the Tenderloin, In Photographs

For the people that regularly frequent, live in and/or still love the Tenderloin and mid-Market neighborhoods, these widely distributed, one-note perceptions of the area are frustrating and frequently worthy of an eye-roll. Outsiders are all too often willing to focus on the worst rather than appreciate the Tenderloin’s small businesses, tasty restaurants, fun bars, long-standing charitable organizations and interesting local characters.

A senior man with white hair and receding hairline pours a drink from behind a small, old-fashioned bar. He is wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and black pants. The bar is full of Christmas lights and lined with mirrors. There are three or four patrons seated at the bar.
‘Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, Turk Street, Tenderloin District, San Francisco 2016’ by Dave Glass. (Courtesy of the Tenderloin Museum)

Enter photographic hero Dave Glass. He’s a San Francisco local that has long documented neighborhoods — and, crucially, the mix of people within them — across the city. Glass had the good sense to spend decades documenting the Tenderloin and Civic Center, and his new exhibition, Central City 1960-2016, reflects an appreciation for those neighborhoods right when it’s needed most. Right when, let’s be frank, so many people have nothing good to say about the area at all.

In the exhibition, on view at the Tenderloin Museum through the end of the year, Glass only has 14 images on display — nine in black and white, five in color. But each is potent, and the collection is carefully curated to reflect the broad swath of life that has always existed in the neighborhood. Cool kids on street corners, anti-war protesters, a smiling baby in a Volvo driver’s seat, a stoic Polk Street watch repairman. They all exist alongside old neighborhood bars and their patrons, liquor store foot traffic, and cops lined up on Market near Sixth.

A line of motorcycle cops block off the entire street. Barricades hold back crowds on the sidewalk behind them. A cinema promises LIVE NUDE GIRLS from its marquee.
‘Market Street Cinema 1985’ by Dave Glass. (Courtesy of the Tenderloin Museum)

Though small, Central City is a fuller — and fairer — picture of the Tenderloin and mid-Market than most of the country is afforded right now.  Glass’ black and white images are the most striking, too, in part because, at a glance, they all appear to be from the same era — despite them spanning 45 years of street life.

Through Glass’ lens, the Tenderloin and its surrounding streets become timeless. There is something undeniably beautiful about that — especially while so much of the country is still talking smack about them.

‘Dave Glass: Central City 1970-2016’ is on view at the Tenderloin Museum (398 Eddy St.) until Dec. 30, 2023. Glass will appear in conversation at the museum with Adrian Martinez and Austin Leong on at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 7 .

How an obsession with artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer helped Ben Moser find himself as a writer

By in Native

How an obsession with artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer helped Ben Moser find himself as a writer
Writer Benjamin Moser
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Houston native Ben Moser’s latest book is called “The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters.”

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Writer Ben Moser is used to writing about other people. The Houston native is known for his extensively researched biographies, such as the book he wrote about Susan Sontag in 2019 that won him the Pulitzer Prize.

But his latest work explores a certain part of his own biography.

In The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters, Moser reflects on the experience he had in his mid-20s when he left the United States for Holland.

There, he fell in love with Dutch painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer, and he tells Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty how those encounters helped him build a life for himself there while helping him confront challenging questions about his craft as a young, aspiring writer who’d just moved to an unfamiliar country.

“I was kind of lost in a way,” Moser said. “I was trying to become a writer. I was trying to start this life. And I also had this whole burden of being a foreigner in this new country and didn’t speak the language and all that. And I found my connection to the country through the art and through the artists.”

The 1633 painting “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn.

Spending time learning about the lives and works of the great Dutch artists helped Moser not only learn about his new, adopted home country, but it also helped him make some realizations about himself as an aspiring writer.

One of the biggest takeaways was a reminder that every artist is only a human and starts from obscurity.

“Even really formidable artists — people like Rembrandt or Vermeer — turn out to be just people in a room like everybody else,” Moser said. “So, when you’re young, it’s kind of discouraging because you think, ‘Well, I’m not Rembrandt or Vermeer.’ But you think, ‘Well, they didn’t start out being Rembrandt or Vermeer either. So, I’m just going to try this. I’m going to just take a stab.’”

The book is a blend of immigration memoir and an artist’s reflection on finding his way to success in a creative pursuit. And it ends in Houston as Moser visits his home town and suddenly gains a new appreciation for the place that made him.

The 1665 painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer.

And, simultaneously as he takes in works by the Dutch masters at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, he recognizes what he learned from those formidable figures in that faraway place.

“If I hadn’t gone away, I couldn’t have learned what I did from them,” he said.

Fittingly, Moser will discuss the book at an event at the MFAH on Oct. 15, which is the opening day of the museum’s exhibition Rembrandt to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the Armand Hammer Collection.

MORE: What Ben Moser learned from Susan Sontag’s secret archives

A Guide To October 2023 Photography Festivals

By in Photography

Foto/Industria, InCadaqués Festival, Hyères Festival, Omnefest, and Lagos Photo are among the festivals we selected this month.

Bologna, Italy / 18 October – 26 November

Mast Foundation’s Biennale is dedicated to the documentation of industry and work through photographic images. Presenting a circuit of solo shows in historical locations of the Italian city of Bologna, this year’s edition will focus on the theme of Game, examining its implications across different fields. Among the 12 exhibitions are ECAL’s Automated Photography, which explores the evolution of the digital image, Andreas Gursky’s images of financial capitalism in Visual Spaces of Today, Erik Kessels’ archival exploration Carlo e Luciana, digging into the personal photographs of a couple traveling for 40 years, Hicham Benohoud’s La Salle de Classe, which turns a Marrakech’ classroom into an improvised photography studio, and Cécile B. Evans’ video installation Reality or Not, telling the story of a radical experiment of reality modification.

Read the full exhibitions program on the Biennale’s website.

Cadaqués, Spain / 5 October – 15 October

From 5 to 15 October, the Spanish city of Cadaqués turns into an open-air exhibition space showcasing the work of 40 photographers. With galleries and cultural spaces being involved as much as cafés, restaurants, walls and streets, visitors have the opportunity to engage with the artists, take part in portfolio reviews, and workshops giving access to analogue processes. Exhibited artists include David Lynch, Weegee, Henrike Stahl, Kamilla K Stanley, Richard Pak, Henri Kisielewski, Chloé Milos Azzopardi among others. Curated by Dustin Dollin, A Fine Mess: Based On A True Story offers a view over skateboarding cultur spanning 20 years, as seen through the lenses of Magdalena Wosinska, Maria Antouanneta Koulioufas, and Dave Van Laere. 

Discover more on their website.

Hyères, France / 12 October – 14 January 2024

Taking place in the prestigious Villa Noailles, the 38th edition of the International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories promotes designers as well as fashion photographers, with particular attention to emerging generations. The public programme includes film screenings, performances, book signings, workshops, dj-sets, and masterclasses. Part of the exhibitions program are Rala Choi’s intimate exploration of love relationships Lovers, Luis Alberto Rodriguez’ visual experience of the body and its movements Vessel, Chiron Duong’s fashion series Eternal: Time is water flowing through the palm, realised as the awardee of the American Vintage Photography Award’s 2022 edition. Archival exhibition Hyères, 1986 will dive into the origins of the festival, while Wardrobe(s) will juxtapose past and present archives, objects, and iconography from Marie-Laure de Noailles’ lost wardrobe.

Find out more on Villa Noailles’ website.

Castelfranco Veneto, Italy / 22 September – 30 October

In the context of historical Villa Parco Bolasco in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, the third edition of biennal festival Omnefest presents a broad reflection on contemporary landscape articulated through events, appointments, and exhibitions. The works on show have been realised between 2021 and 2023, and propose a varied analysis of what nature and landscape are. Among them are Nature, a curated path of 14 site-specific, indoors and outdoors installations by residents and invited artists such as Sasha Arutyunova, Marina Caneve and Giorgio di Noto; Around Nature, a dialogue between photographers Peter Puklus and Massimo Sordi, Index Naturae, presenting a library of more than 100 contemporary photography books, and Insieme, a collaborative and intimate work on Apulia and Veneto by Irina Rozovsky and Mark Steinmetz. 

Explore the full program on their website.

Lagos, Nigeria / 27 October – 31 December

Lagos Photo is a month-long photographic festival launched in Nigeria in 2010. Its 14th edition’s theme, Ground state – fellowship within the uncanny points at the need to restore narratives of mystery, helping to draw meaning out of the confusion of our era. Zanele Muholi, Amina Kadous, Gloria Oyarzabal, Matthew Thorne & Derik Lynch, Carlos Idun-Taiwah,and M’hammed Kilito are just a few of the 38 photographers whose works will be exhibited in Lagos and beyond: for the first time in the festival’s history, exhibitions will indeed extend to the territories of Cotonou, Ouidah, and Port-Novo in Benin, geographically broadening the aim to engage the general public with multifaceted stories of Africa. 

Explore the upcoming program of exhibitions, workshops, presentations and discussions on their website.

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Also open this month:

Festival of Ethical Photography / Lodi, Italy / 30 September – 22 October

Exploring the issue of social injustice, the Italian Festival of Ethical Photography has come to its 13th edition. Exhibitions, meetings, screenings, educational projects for students and many other initiatives will take place in Lodi, with a dedicated section reserved for

works commissioned by NGOs. Find more information on their website. 

Nordic Light Festival 2023 / Kristiansund, Norway / 26 October – 29 October 

The Nordic Light Festival takes place in the Norwegian coastal town of Kristiansund. A program of lectures, exhibitions, gallery talks, book signings, portfolio reviews and films aims at shaping a significant cultural experience lasting from day to night, offering a meeting point for enthusiasts, amateurs, established and emerging photographers alike. Explore the exhibition program on their website. 

Bucharest Photofest 2023 / Bucharest, Romania / 6 October – 15 October 

Photographers, filmmakers, directors, writers and storytellers will explore different perspectives on the theme of this 2023 edition, Identity. Expanding beyond the reach of still images through film screenings, concerts and other events, the festival has the representation of the vast Romanian cultural scene as its goal. Discover more on their website.

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