Report: Photo LA 2006

Whenever we do anything with this project it always seems to bring out the best in people. This past weekend Terry Etherton of Etherton Gallery brazenly devoted an entire wall to celebrating the photographs from Sex Machines at Photo LA. And if you've ever been to Photo LA, you know that space is precious. Terry had a beautiful space filled with great art by Larry Clark, Joel Peter Witkin, Emmet Gowin, Edward Cutis, Fredrick Sommer and other luminaries who define the history of photography....and then devoted his outside wall to Sex Machines. Terry Etherton is fearless and inspired.

The LA VOICE reports:
It's a chewy, multilayered slab of modern photography. A Cibachrome'n'platinum trade show. Smoochfest for rich, white photo collectors. Visual porn for Leica-toting photo geeks. Artgasm. It's the sort of show where you're as likely to see a young woman smirking moonily at Timothy Archibald's Sex Machines as to hear a dealer coo, "We make the finest photography books that are made today..."

We met Missy from Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery in Texas, Lawrence Miller discussed his killer Les Krims show at Lawrence Miller Gallery in NY, Joslin Van Arsdale of Photo Eye Gallery was busy selling the work of Mona Kuhn and Julie Blackmon but made time to dig into the Blackmon archives for me. Susan Anderson premiered some great work on kid's beauty pagents and Jan Kesner shared a box of vintage prints by Roger Minick from his brilliant and influential series titled "Sightseerers". Genius photographers Arthur Tress and Gary Schneider were at the thursday nite party cackling over some astronomical print sale that just went down...