NEW YORK, NY.- The AIPAD Photography Show New York, one of the world’s most important annual photography events, will be held April 4-7, 2013, at the Park Avenue Armory. Presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD), the fair is the longest-running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography.

More than 70 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum-quality work including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs, as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. The 33rd edition of the show will commence with an opening night gala on April 3, 2013, to benefit inMotion, which provides free legal services to low-income women.

“AIPAD continues to be at the forefront of the photography market,” noted Catherine Edelman, President AIPAD, and Director, Catherine Edelman Gallery. “Known for their scholarship and expertise, AIPAD galleries are shining light on extraordinary photographs by modern masters and emerging artists, images made in the last year by some of the most important artists working today, as well as relatively unknown work that is ripe for public exhibition. New and established photography collectors are anticipating another extraordinary exhibition.”

EXHIBITORS
Exhibitors will include galleries from across the U.S. and around the world, including Europe, Asia, and South America. Six galleries will exhibit at AIPAD for the first time: Brancolini Grimaldi, London; Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp; Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn; M97 Gallery, Shanghai; P.P.O.W., New York; and Sage Paris. An exhibitor list is available at aipad.com/photoshow.

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
A solo exhibition of work by James Welling will be exhibited by David Zwirner, New York. Welling has been questioning the norms of representation since the 1970s, exploring and experimenting with the elemental components of the photographic medium. His work is held in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York.

Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, will offer a one-person exhibition of work by British photographer Damion Berger, who was once as an assistant to Helmut Newton. Berger’s recent series, Black Powder, documents firework celebrations from around the world. He uses glass plate negatives, multiple exposures, and unusual combinations of focus and aperture for the results, which are as dramatic as the pyrotechnic explosions.

A number of riveting portraits at AIPAD will be on view, including a series by Belgian artist Frieke Janssens entitled Smoking Kids. The digital chromogenic dye prints of children smoking were inspired by a YouTube video of a chain-smoking Indonesian toddler. As the artist notes, “I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking, rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act.” The work will be exhibited by Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago. No real cigarettes were used to make the images. Instead, chalk and sticks of cheese were used as props, while candles and incense provided the wisps of smoke.

P.P.O.W., New York, will offer portraits and work by Martha Wilson, Carolee Schneemann, and David Wojnarowicz, all of it inspired by the human body. M97 Gallery, Shanghai, will show portraits by Luo Dan, who uses the collodion wet plate photographic process invented in 1850. Spending several months traveling with a portable darkroom in remote and mountainous regions of China’s southern Yunnan Province, Luo Dan depicts people living in China’s undeveloped regions, where the way of life has remained largely intact for hundreds of years. Yu Xiao’s surreal images of children from the 2012 Nursery Rhymes series will be shown at 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing.

Extraordinary landscapes from around the globe will on view at AIPAD, including work showing the effects of Hurricane Sandy. An image by Stephen Wilkes, of a roller coaster standing in the ocean at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, will be exhibited by Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe. Work by Matthew Brandt from his recent Lakes and Reservoirs series can be seen at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. The L.A.-based artist photographs lakes and reservoirs around the western United States, then submerges each resulting C-print in water collected from the subject of the photograph. Matthew Brandt’s images are included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Edward Burtynsky’s life’s work is to document humanity’s impact on the planet, so when he shoots a photograph, it is often from an airplane or helicopter. His new riveting geometric aerial landscapes from the Texas Panhandle showing irrigation systems in the high plains will be exhibited by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

Since 2005, Robert Burley has traveled across North America and Europe documenting the exteriors and interiors of the buildings that manufactured traditional film products such as Kodak and Polaroid. Burley’s mastery of large-format photography is a fitting tribute to a once thriving industry laid quickly to waste by digital technology. The work will be on view at Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, and can be seen in a new book, The Disappearance of Darkness, published by Ryerson Image Centre and Princeton Architectural Press.

A portrait by Mariana Cook of one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi, will be exhibited by Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyvile, IN. Cook traveled to Burma in 2011 shortly after the Nobel Peace Prize winner was freed from house arrest. The portrait will be included in the upcoming book Justice: Faces of the Human Rights Revolution by Cook, which captures pioneers of the human rights movement from around the globe.

Edward Weston’s The Marion Morgan Dancers, California, 1921, will be on view at Galerie Johannes Faber, Vienna. The elegant composition of the nude dancers was made in collaboration with Margrethe Mather – whom Weston called “the first important person in my life” – and reflects Weston’s early pictorialist style and Mather’s sensitive eye. A pensive Frida Kahlo is the subject of Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s gelatin silver print from the 1940s at Throckmorton Fine Art, New York. Seydou Keïta’s charming portrait Three Malian Women, 1957-60, will be offered by Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York. Keïta is considered to be the first generation of African photographers to cater to the needs of a populace that was transitioning from French-colonial governance to independence, experiencing population increases and economic growth.

Early work from the birth of photography will also be a highlight at AIPAD. James Hyman Photography, London, will focus on three great French photographers of the 19th century: Edouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, and Charles Negre. Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York, will show great masters of British and French 19th-century photography, including William Henry Fox Talbot, Linnaeus Tripe, and Gustave Le Gray.