It seems that each spring, the first time I can leave the winter coat behind is the day The AIPAD Photography Show opens at the Park Avenue Armory. OK, so I went a day later this year - close enough!

While AIPAD is thought of as the premier photo show for vintage museum quality images, this year’s edition presented a more contemporary face. Among the 79 exhibitors, there were numerous installations featuring new work. Paul Kopeikin of Culver City, who was showing work by Chris Jordan [below, left], suggested that as the stock of blue chip vintage prints has been absorbed into collections, more room for contemporary work begins to open up at fairs such as AIPAD. That seemed to prove out on my first visit yesterday, so here are some of the installations that caught my eye:

Left: Chris Jordan at Kopeikin Gallery. Right: Richard Renaldi at Robert Morat Galerie.

At Weinstein Gallery of Minneapolis, MN, selections from Alec Soth’s Broken Manual series are on view, some of which were featured in his recent show at the Walker Art Center. Stark portraits of renegades, loners, and outliers inhabit his forlorn landscapes and are editioned in large scale. Soth will participate in a panel discussion on photography book publishing on Saturday (Information follows).

Chris Jordan at Kopeikin Gallery of Culver City, CA. An extension of his ongoing theme of mass consumption and waste, Plastic Bags, from Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait takes classic works of art, including Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and Georges Seurat’s La Grand Jatte as a point of departure for the artist’s obsessive digital mosaic method of creating images from close-ups of trash, it this case, 230,000 plastic garbage bags, the number of such used around the world every ten seconds.

Left: Yancey Richardson Gallery. Right: Yossi Milo Gallery. All photos: Peggy Roalf.

At Andrea Meislin Gallery, three from Daniel Bauer’s Cloudcukooland, or Nephelokokkygia, a direct reference to the city conceived and initiated by two dropout Athenian citizens and constructed by birds in Aristophanes' comedy of the same name, are on view. In one, a Bucky Fuller dome, once the Winston Churchill Pavilion from the 1964 Worlds Fair, has been converted into an aviary in Corona Park, Queens. Adjacent is an apartment block in Israel whose tetrahedral forms echo those of the dome. The structure, which had been constructed for an exposition, was subsequently converted to low cost housing, and has undergone whimsical revisions by its tenants.

Richard Renaldi ’s Smashed Water Tower, Electra Texas at is on view Robert Morat Galerie of Hamburg together with another piece from the Figure and Ground series. Two of Renaldi’s “Anti-Bechers”, these iconic images offer a strange - and identifiably American - perspective on the disastrous effects of tornadoes in the American West. At Bryce Wolkowitz, a video work by Jim Campbell, widely considered one of the pioneering artists of the twenty-first century can be viewed on a flat screen led panel so crisp and clean it creates a visual haiku of the information age.

Left: Jim Campbell at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery. Right: Robert Bergman at Eric Franck Fine Art.

The AIPAD Photography Show runs through Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67^th Street, 11am to 7pm except on Sunday, 11 am to 6pm. Information or 202-367-1158.

The AIPAD Photography Show will present a schedule of panel discussions on Saturday, March 19, 2011 at the Veteran’s Room at the Park Avenue Armory. 

The panels include PHOTOGRAPHY NOW: HOW ARTISTS ARE THINKING TODAY, which will discuss the issues contemporary photographers and artists are dealing with now.  Among the panelists are Julie Saul, Julie Saul Gallery, and artists Shirin Neshat and Alec Soth.

PICTURES INTO PAGES: PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK PUBLISHING NOW will explore how now more than ever, beautiful photography books are in demand, coveted by many, and considered an important part of a collector’s repertoire.  Speakers will include Steven Kasher, Steven Kasher Gallery; Eric Himmel, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief, Abrams; Lesley Martin, Publisher, Aperture Foundation; Nion McEvoy, Chairman & CEO, Chronicle Books; Anthony Petrillose, Managing Editor, Rizzoli; and Gerhard Steidl, Publisher, Steidl.

NEW CURATORS/NEW DIRECTIONS will focus on the work of a photography curator at a top museum.  Curators will discuss their goals and reflect on how photography has become more integrated into both exhibitions and collections over the last 10 years.  The speakers will include Rick Wester, Rick Wester Fine Art, Inc.; Simon Baker, Curator of Photography and International Art, Tate; Roxana Marcoci, Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum Of Modern Art; Britt Salvesen, Department Head and Curator, Photography Department, Prints and Drawings Department, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Brian Wallis, Chief Curator, International Center of Photography; and Matthew S.  Witkovsky, Curator and Chair, Department of Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago.

THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE: BEHIND THE SCENES AT AIPAD GALLERIES will review how leading AIPAD dealers organize exhibitions and work with collectors.  Speakers will include Jill Arnold, Director of Business Development, AXA Art Insurance Corporation; Howard Greenberg, Howard Greenberg Gallery; Peter MacGill, Pace/MacGill Gallery; Yancey Richardson, Yancey Richardson Gallery; and Martin Weinstein, Weinstein Gallery.

AIPAD AND THE IPAD: NEW TECHNOLOGY AND PHOTOGRAPHY will look at how all forms of new media technology are affecting the field of photography – from bloggers and Facebook to Flickr and YouTube.  Speakers will include: Barbara Pollack, artist and arts journalist; Jen Bekman, Founder + CEO, 20x200 | Jen Bekman Projects; Bill Charles, Bill Charles Represents, New York, and Scott Dadich, Executive Director, Digital Magazine Development, Conde Nast.

Tickets are $10 for the panel discussions and are available on a first-come first-served basis.

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