Art Basel Miami Beach starts today, which means artists, dealers, and wealthy collectors are gearing up for a few days of frenzied buying, selling, and liquored-up party-hopping.
Inclusion in the event is a huge marker of one’s rank in the art world and this year, everyone is buzzing about a new photography exhibit.
Why? Because it’s not the usual snaps of naked, long-haired hipster girls in the forest. Instead, it features fashion photography straight from the pages of our favorite magazines.
The exhibit – “In Fashion ‘07” – includes 200 photos taken by 20 leading fashion photographers including Miles Aldridge, Christiane Draffehn, Matthew Brookes, and Kanjo Take — and is up through Sunday at Miami’s Doubletree Surfcomber Hotel.
The show is seen as a political statement about the status of commercial fashion photographers as artists. The curator, Marion de Beaupre, ask us to think of it , “as an art form created under restrictions.”
Do you see fashion photographers as artists? Do they provoke viewers with arresting and provocative images, or is it too commercial to pass as art?
–ALISON COOL