Vince Aletti

About Episode 98

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha is joined by legendary photo critic, curator, and collector Vince Aletti. Vince reflects on his early days as a music critic for Rolling Stone before joining the Village Voice as an arts editor, where he also began writing about photography. Later, as the photography critic at The New Yorker, Vince became a deeply admired voice in the field. Photographers hoped he would write about their work because his reviews were always perceptive, beautifully written, and profoundly generous of spirit.

Sasha and Vince also revisit a personal milestone: Vince was the first critic to review an exhibition at Sasha’s gallery, featuring photographs by the late Paul McDonough—a review that helped launch both Paul’s career and Sasha’s as a gallerist. In addition, they explore Vince’s unparalleled collection of photo ephemera, a lifelong passion that has not only preserved vital archives of lesser-known work but has also inspired acclaimed photobooks and exhibitions.

About Vince Aletti

Vince Aletti is a writer and curator based in New York City. His writings on music and photography have been published widely. Between 1973 and 1978 Aletti wrote a highly prescient weekly column on the emerging disco scene for Record World magazine, and between 1987 and 2005 he was the art editor and photography critic for The Village Voice. His writings have also appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, and Vogue Italia, among many other publications. His book Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines was published by Phaidon in 2019. The Drawer was published by Self Publish, Be Happy in September 2022 and went on to win the 2023 Aperture/Paris Photo Photobook of the Year award.  An exhibition at White Columns inspired by The Drawer in 2024 was Aletti’s fifth collaboration with the gallery, following on from his 2008 exhibition Male: Work from the Collection of Vince Aletti; the 2014 exhibition of Robert Kitchen’s work, and the 2019 exhibition of Ed Baynard’s work (both curated by Aletti); and the 2008 White Columns publication of Aletti’s collected writings on disco, Disco File, which was subsequently republished in an expanded edition by DJ History/D.A.P.

Which book is a favorite one you continue to revisit?

Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photography Books of the 20th Century made me aware of the importance of books to photographers, especially early in their careers, but any time they had control or serious involvement in the content and design of the project. I wrote half the texts for that book and learned something with every one. It inspired my book Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines.  

What advice do you have for emerging photographers / artists?

Look at everything: at books, exhibitions, films, magazines, Instagram. Understand the history of the area you want to work in and keep up with what your contemporaries are doing. You won’t like everything you see, but that should make you more confident in what you do like. 

Is there a book by another photographer has influenced you in your career?

A Book of Photographs, the catalog to a show drawn from the collection of Sam Wagstaff and Other Pictures, another catalog, documenting a small number of found photographs in the collection of Thomas Walther. Both books made me look more closely at vernacular photographs, both to understand their influence on modernist and avant garde photography and to appreciate the fact that the maker of a great photograph can be totally anonymous. 

Artist Links:

Website

People & Resources:

Paul McDonough, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Andrew Roth, Peter Hujar, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt, Lisette Model, Brassai, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Carol Squiers, Wolfgang Tillmans, Brian Wallis, Bruce Weber, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Collier Schorr, Nan Golden, Sage Sohier, Bruno Ceschel, The Walther Collection

Physique

The Drawer

Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines