Julie Saul © Elliot Black Photography

Art dealer Julie Saul was honored for her contributions to photography at last year’s Aperture’s 2010 Benefit. This year she commemorates her gallery’s 25th anniversary with the exhibition 25 Years/25 Artists and an accompanying catalogue. The show features a single photograph from each year of her gallery’s history and will be on view through Friday, August 26th. Among the artists include Luigi Ghirri, Maira Kalman, Sally Gall, Penelope Umbrico and James Welling.

What are some of your favorite photobooks?

Some of the earliest books when I first became interested in photography. There were very few books published on photography so you could virtually own all of the photography books back in the 70s. There was Diane Arbus, there was George Platt Lynes there was Danny Lyon…but there were very few books so you ended up spending a lot of more time really scrutinizing the individual images than you do today because now there are so many you can barely flip through the books that you own. Perhaps my favorite photobook was one given to me when I left the Met’s department of 20th century art where I interned in 1982. They gave me this gorgeous huge George Platt Lynes book that I think was one of the first books published by Jack Woody with Twin Palms, and I loved that book. Then I did a show of his work later at my gallery and somebody stole it! It had been signed by everybody in that department and that was truly one of the worst losses that I have had.

What has been your favorite show you’ve seen this summer?

La Carte D’Après Nature at Matthew Marks, curated by Thomas Demand. I love the fact that it was curated by an artist. I think shows curated by artists are very interesting and it gives me a whole new insight into Thomas Demand’s work. It also includes 50 prints by one of my favorite photographers who I have shown a couple of times over the years- Luigi Ghirri.

You were the first American dealer to show Ghirri’s work, correct?

I was. And I still think that he is a completely brilliant and under-recognized (although probably not for long) European artist. He’s sort of the William Eggleston of Europe in the 70s, and from what I’ve seen from European work of that time, particularly of Italian work, it was very romantic, it was black and white. Ghirri had this very conceptual point of view and worked in color and really understood media so I think that it’s great that he’s finally getting the attention he deserves. Seeing his work in the context of the Matthew Marks exhibition will really be an important step for him.

What are some of your most meaningful relationships that you have had with artists over the years?

Often a long relationship is a good relationship and you can get used to each other and you get closer to each other just like a long term [romantic] relationship. If you look at my 25th Anniversary show, the first artist I ever showed, Andy Bush, is still with the gallery and we’ve certainly had our ups and downs over the years but I’ve been able to gain an understanding of the way he works and thinks by having such a long term relationship. I would say that what makes a good relationship is the artist’s ability and willingness to really collaborate with you. Not to see the gallery as a battlefield, but see it as a matrimonial bed, a place of collaboration, sharing resources and ideas. One of the more fun things I’ve done is working with Maira Kalman who had never really had gallery representation before because she normally does books, theater design, textile design and applied arts. So for her it has been a great adventure, and for me to figure out how to promote some of these works, because she has never thought about trying to fit within the traditional gallery system, its been really fun.

Although you represent artists working in a variety of media, what made you want to specialize in photography?

I started with a specialization in photography because I felt like it was important to have a distinct identity within the larger New York art world. Within my larger academic studies in art history I did my thesis on a Bauhaus photographer, but as you know the Bauhaus is about work in many different media. Moholy Nagy believed that every medium has its proper application so he thought for representational art, photography was the medium and for abstract art, painting was the medium. I identify with, and show a great deal of, photography but my interests and enthusiasms are by no means limited to strictly photography. And furthermore a lot of the artists I represent, actually enjoy working in the way that I described, different media for different projects. I’m very interested in artists who take a very freewheeling approach to the medium.

What are some of things you are most proud of exhibiting over the past 25 years?

Well I think the 25th Anniversary show itself is a good example of that. We do eight or nine shows a year and I’ve had the difficult task of choosing one work from one show during a year where literally hundreds of works have been exhibited.

More information about Julie Saul Gallery.

Click here to buy tickets to Aperture’s 2011 Benefit and Auction, honoring Bruce Davidson, Gerhard Steidl and Robert Anthione.

Interview by Aperture Work Scholar Aliza Sena.

A sheet from Photographic Memory and one from Alex Webb’s The Suffering of Light on press in Hong Kong.

Photo by Alex Webb

A test of the cover for Photographic Memory before the images have been applied.

With our spring titles starting to print, it is a busy time for Aperture. Both Photographic Memory, which explores the role of the photo album in the history of photography, and Alex Webb’s newest monograph, The Suffering of Light, a survey of thirty years of his career, are on press together at the same printer. Alex and his wife, Rebecca Norris Webb, sent me a snapshot from Hong Kong of two press sheets, one from each book, stacked together at the plant. Read about their experience on press with Alex’s book.

Though printing marks the start of the book’s life in the world, it is often a bittersweet moment for me, as an editor, because it signals the end of the bookmaking process, which is the most fun and rewarding part of my job. I like to think that when a book has been a pleasure to create, this shows in the final product. At least I hope this is the case for Photographic Memory, which I’ve been working on for two years in collaboration with the Library of Congress and author Verna Curtis, a curator of photography there. It’s been an amazing experience. I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with handmade albums by some of photography’s most important figures—like F. Holland Day, Edward Sherriff Curtis, and Walker Evans—and to gain new insight through Verna’s expertise. So, in turn, will those who read the book! A few of my favorites include an album by Leni Riefenstahl of the 1936 Olympics that culminates in a spectacular diving sequence; an album that Jim Goldberg made in a registry book from the rundown California hotel where he shot portraits of the inhabitants; an extraordinary family album by Danny Lyon; and an album containing beautiful, almost haunting mug-shots from a Philippine Prison in 1916.

I was thrilled to receive a test of the cover in the office, struck by how handsome it looked even without the tip-on photos in place and also by how different it became as a real thing, as opposed to the printouts and PDFs I had grown accustomed to poring over. Watching the book make this transition from files to object is magical, not unlike photography itself.
—Denise Wolff

Mug-shots from the 1916 Bureau of Prisons Album

Alex Webb was featured in Aperture Magazine 181 and Aperture Foundation published his book Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names.

Click here to purchase Aperture Magazine 181

Click here to purchase Alex Webb’s Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names