By Conor Risch

This past April 23–26, reviewers and photographers gathered in Portland, Oregon, for the 2009 Photolucida Portfolio Reviews. Over the course of four days, reviewers saw work during 50 20-minute reviews with photographers, at a portfolio walk at the Portland Art Museum, and in informal reviews requested by photographers.

PDN asked three of the 2009 Photolucida reviewers to single out one or two portfolios they liked and tell us what struck them about the work, what if anything they would have changed about the project or the edit, and what they thought was the ideal context for the work. Finally we asked if the reviewer had plans to work with the photographer, or if they made suggestions about where the photographer might find exposure for their project.

Brian Paul Clamp, owner of ClampArt in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, is the second of our three reviewers. Clamp elected to talk about the work of Sarah Malakoff, whose photographs of interesting, often quirky interior spaces caught his eye.

To read Clamp’s review of Malakoff’s portfolio please open the “Photo Gallery” link above.

Part one of the series, featuring Photographic Center Northwest gallery director Ann Pallesen’s review of Rita Bernstein’s work, can be found here.

Below is the bio and description of ClampArt that Clamp submitted to Photolucida:

Brian Paul Clamp is the owner and director of ClampArt, a gallery in Chelsea in New York City specializing in modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on photography. ClampArt mounts ten to fifteen exhibitions per year featuring the work of emerging and mid-career artists. Mr. Clamp opened the gallery in 2000 after completing a Master of Arts degree in Critical Studies in Modern Art at Columbia University. For eight years prior to that Mr. Clamp served as the director of a gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side specializing in late 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings. Aside from exhibitions at his own gallery space, Clamp has curated numerous photography shows at various venues throughout the United States, and has reviewed photographers’ portfolios on dozens of panels over the past several years. Mr. Clamp is the author of numerous publications on American art to date, and also occasionally contributes written work to various art periodicals.

Mr. Clamp is most interested in reviewing developed and innovative bodies of work suitable for exhibition. All types of imagery are welcome—from documentary to landscape, still life to conceptual. However, Mr. Clamp is not interested in reviewing commercial work intended for stock or advertising.

Aside from offering criticism and critique of the photography itself, Mr. Clamp can also provide advice and direction in terms of promoting projects. In exceptional cases, ClampArt is able to offer exhibition opportunities to artists. Several artists on ClampArt’s current roster were first discovered at Photolucida.