VISUAL ARTISTY
Photography was long the poor cousin of the more
celebrated visual arts; as recently as ten years ago,
leading fashion and art photographers would
struggle to get their work shown in galleries or sold
to collectors.
Now photography is one of the hottest art mediums, as new record prices are set for works by photographers as different as the abstract master Andreas Gursky and fashion heroes like the late Helmut Newton. And the Canadian Jeff Wall has become perhaps the leading art photographer in the world, his often hauntingly spare images created with a simplicity of vision that belies the complexity of emotional narratives within them.
In recognition of the place of photographs at art's top table, London's magisterial V&A museum has just opened a new permanent Photographs Gallery to show more of its matchless selection of historical photographs. The gallery is a chronology of photography from its invention until the 1960s, starting with a daguerreotype taken in Trafalgar Square in 1839, and including surrealist works by the likes of Man Ray.
In London right now you can hop from the V&A's
masterly new rooms to a compelling show of some
of Wall's most mesmerising images, on show at
White Cube in Mason's Yard. On the following
pages, we present some highlights from both. 
