By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Some of the art world's most prominent photographers are helping improve the financial picture for CEPA Gallery. Nearly 100 artists donated works to be be auctioned Saturday night at CEPA's 7th biennial Photography Art Auction.
There are a lot of stars in the photography world whose names appear on the auction catalog. Many of them are names you'd easily recognize. People such as Cindy Sherman, William Wegman, Ellen Carey. And, of course, one of Western New York's most revered photographers, Milton Rogovin also added his work to the CEPA auction block.
But why? Gary Nickard is an Assistant Art Professor at UB. He's also a past director of CEPA and a past curator for other respected New York alternative art spaces. Nickard says artists realize government funding is no longer coming to the rescue.
"Organizations like CEPA and Hallwalls serve an artist's constituency. So, if the artists want these organizations to continue to exist, to be there to present interesting new work, then the artists need to belly up to the bar and start supporting them," Nickard said. "Giving prints to the CEPA auction is one way of doing that."
Nickard says the new self-supporting model really isn't new. He says organizations like CEPA were artist-run long before the time when government funding was the mainstay.
"They arise out of a community of artists," Nickard said. "Their funding when they were first created was provided largely by the artists themselves. They were staffed by the artists. And so they represent organizations which are expressions of commitment by the arts community."
And Nickard joins that community in continuing the tradition. One of his pieces of photography is on the CEPA auction block. You can view the entire catalog online at CEPA's website. The auction takes place Saturday night at 7:00 in the atrium of the Market Arcade downtown.