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<\/p>\nA hailstorm rattled against the 85 tonnes of glass that make up the vast curving roof of Olympia\u2019s Grand Hall, while dark clouds cast shadows across the booths below. Yet the mood was light\u2014giddy, even\u2014as Photo London (until 17 May) opened for previews on Wednesday (13 May) at its new home in West Kensington. And that mood was reflected in some lively sales by Thursday afternoon, the first of four public days, by which time the weather had switched between late winter and early summer and back again, changing by the minute.<\/p>\n
Paris-B Gallery reported a sale of three works to one buyer coming to \u00a3100,000, including two by Chinese artist Yang Yongliang. In Camera, also from Paris, sharing a booth with L Parker Stephenson Photographs from New York, had sold both the vintage and the modern print of Jane Everlyn Atwood’s Auto Portrait (Serpent)\u2014the hero image used for the fair\u2019s promotion\u2014for \u00a313,000 and \u00a32000 respectively. <\/p>\n
Robert Hershkowitz was having a strong fair, including sales of works by PH Emerson and Frederick Fiebig, just a couple of months after the eponymous dealer in early European photography had died. Radius Publishing had sold 40 percent of its stock by Thursday lunchtime. And there was anecdotal chatter that pointed to the beginnings of a good fair for many others too, where prices range from \u00a3100 to \u00a3400,000, but where the low-to-mid-thousands is the norm.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the location that has raised the cheer. This traffic-choked corner of the capital, described by the Evening Standard as \u201can unwelcome slab of London real estate to all but the lanyard-wearing classes\u201d, is attempting a revival, including the \u00a31.3bn refurbishment of Olympia\u2019s exhibition halls, which is ongoing into 2027. <\/p>\n
Somerset House, the fair\u2019s home for the previous decade, was marmite to galleries and visitors alike. The Thames-side setting and its stunning courtyard, so often bathed in sunshine during previous fairs, are fondly remembered. But its warren of small rooms spread across various wings and floors of the historic neoclassical building complex was not. Photo London was maddeningly difficult to navigate. <\/p>\n
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Alfredo Jaar, Searching for Africa in Life<\/p>\n
Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery<\/p>\n
This week, no one seems in any doubt that Olympia is the superior venue, providing a more business-like atmosphere, and the light and space to be seen. It\u2019s such an obvious observation that it risks understatement, says Michael Benson, one half of the husband-and-wife team that founded the fair a decade ago. \u201cWe need to listen to what our galleries are saying to us, and they were beginning to say, quite seriously, \u2018We can’t come back to Somerset House. It’s just too difficult for us to do business\u2019…. We would get people saying, \u2018I got missed. I saw [film producer and collector] Michael Wilson walking past my booth, and he never came in.\u2019 It’s very difficult to miss anyone at Olympia. It\u2019s a much more democratic way of doing a fair. There’s no part of it that feels like it’s not getting its fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t do any harm either that London\u2019s collector class tends to live West. But it is still a gamble. When the first iteration of Photo London (launched by dealer Daniel Newburg in 2004, before its takeover by Reed Exhibitions, owner of Paris Photo) relocated from the Royal Academy of Arts to Old Billingsgate three years later, it was a disaster. But the reason wasn\u2019t the location alone. And a large part of the success of the current fair\u2019s relocation in the other direction was the opportunity to inject new energy and, under the directorship of Sophie Parker, bring in some much-needed quality control. <\/p>\n
In the past, the popular end of the market\u2014music, fashion, celebrity portraiture\u2014felt overrepresented, while more \u2018serious\u2019 work shown by institutions was absent, perhaps presumed unpalatable for market tastes. It resulted in a confusing rift for visitors, and the sense that Photo London was not the place to measure the pulse of the medium. The fair has done much to address this, with an expanded Discovery section devoted to young galleries, and much more space given over to the independent book publishers that are the beating heart of contemporary photography.<\/p>\n
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