Who Are You Looking At?

In this age of art fairs and biennials, the art-viewing experience is often one of over-stimulation and under-nourishment. Who hasn’t experienced the mind-numbing drift through an endless maze of white walls, desperate for a new discovery while coming up empty-handed? Most of us are so fanatic in our scouting missions that when we bump into friends or colleagues, we quickly put them in our service. “What have you seen that is good?” we ask, hoping their answers will help narrow or refine our own search. It is often through such chance meetings, when we are offered fleeting opportunities to see through others’ eyes, that our own discoveries are made.  

For this, our annual photography issue, Art on Paper asked fifteen photography experts each to share with us the work of an under-known artist that had recently caught their eye. The exercise provided us an introduction to works we hadn’t seen before. But it also offered a glimpse into what makes these curators, writers, and photographers tick, as well as a preview of what we might expect from them in the not-so-distant future, in the form of exhibitions and books.

Who are they looking at, and where are they looking? You might not be surprised to learn that several are looking east, to photographers working in China, Korea, and Taiwan. Some are looking at artists that make work others wouldn’t consider photography per se—room-sized installations that join photography with an array of other mediums. A few are looking at and thinking about the work of artists they recently encountered by happenstance (e.g., walking by a gallery) and that left a lasting impression on them. And in two situations, the contributors are revisiting photographs by artists they were introduced to years ago.

We would like to thank the contributors for their intellectual generosity, for making their musings public, and for letting us look, if only briefly, through their eyes.

—The Editors

Geoffrey Batchen: Richard Beard

Charlotte Cotton: Arthur Ou

Brian Dillon: Nina Katchadourian

Philip Gefter: Hans Eijkelboom

Clare Grafik: Pieter Hugo

Mark Haworth-Booth: Curtis Moffat

Karen Irvine: New Catalogue

Roxana Marcoci: Jan De Cock

Alison Nordstrom: Constantine Manos

Jason Oddy: Samantha Robson

Sandra S. Phillips: Pictures from China

Michael Rush: Sam Jury

Ann Thomas: Spring Hurlbut

Anne Wilkes Tucker: Seung Woo Back

Deborah Willis: Sheila Pree Bright