From interior design to investment: Expert explains charm of art photography

MANILA, Philippines — With lockdown restrictions easing, many establishments began reopening, including art galleries in the Philippines.

In Greenbelt 5 mall in Makati City, among the art galleries that reopened is YellowKorner, believed to be the first of its kind in the country to specialize in art photography.

Opened in Manila last February, National Arts Month, YellowKorner was founded in 2006 by Paul-Antoine Briat and Alexandre de Metz because they wanted to share their passion for photography to the world and to become the leading publisher for art photography, said Stephen Elizaga, the Manila gallery’s general manager.

“I believe that art photography is an underrated art form and we want to introduce this to the public,” Elizaga shared when asked why the gallery with over 80 branches worldwide, from Paris and New York to Shanghai and Tokyo, opened doors to anyone who appreciates art in Manila.

Due to the digital age, almost anyone with a camera or camera phone can claim to be a photographer. But what sets their over 250 photographer-artists apart, said Elizaga, is that they were featured in a gallery or museum and were picked by a committee of professional photographers and art curators to make sure that they meet the brand’s standards.

Any photographer, the general manager said, can contribute to the gallery for as long as the photographer’s work undergoes screening by the brand’s committee. Each photo from the gallery comes with a certificate and a serial number certifying every photo is one-of-a-kind and was printed in a European laboratory, and not digitally mass-produced.

Beach photos were among the gallery’s bestsellers as these can instantly brighten any space, especially for those who want to bring the beauty of the outdoors indoors during the quarantine. Portraits such as Formento+Formento’s “Smoke Break Cinecitta” are also popular among collectors, said Elizaga.

Manila, according to the GM, is lucky to be one of only 50 galleries in the world to have a copy of Formento+Formento’s iconic colored photo of a smoking nun.

For those into art as investment, pictures by legacy photographer Slim Aarons go up and down in value because his works are only distributed by the Getty Foundation, an American institution awarding grants for outstanding visual artists.

“Art is very subjective. Some people respond to sculpture, paintings. Some people respond to photography because it captures a moment,” Elizaga said, explaining what elevates photography into an art form.

'Art survives' 

Despite the challenges posed by novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, art experts predict that the art industry would be able to bounce back since having tangible assets could become more attractive as other investment options collapse.

Christie's president Jussi Pylkkanen said they had not experienced "falling appetite from our buyers."

The "truth is that art survives disaster," art economics expert Kathryn Brown, from Britain's Loughborough University, told Agence France-Presse.

"People continued to buy art during the First World War. You can look at correspondence between the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writing from the trenches to a dealer in Paris, telling him what art to buy." —  Reports from James Pheby with Thomas Urbain of AFP