A Minute with Will Vogt

Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.

I began acquiring art through some friends who worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I’d collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim. My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists making excellent (and still affordable!) work whom you haven’t heard about... yet.

Sorry for delay….not sure if anyone noticed but I guess we will start it back up. During this “break,” I have been trying to focus more on my actual career which is a realtor here in north Florida. I’ve also been a book collector/dealer for the last 15 years or so. It falls under this newsletter I do where it allows me to support an artist/published/bookshop and buy something from an artist where chances are, I won’t be able to buy an original work from. I’ve been lucky to partner with some great retailers recently and have a selection of books (for sale) at :

Dana Lee : Bowen Island, BC

Lawson Fenning : Los Angeles, CA

Dunes Gallery : Portland, Maine

** a soon to be announced pop up in Charleston, SC

To stay updated on book things, follow on IG GOODSTUFFGOODSTUFF

I came across Will Vogt’s work through past guest, Blake Andrews. Blake is both a great photographer and a great art book reviewer. A lot of the books I buy are because of Blake and his opinion on what makes a great photography book (Read his review HERE). I bought Vogt’s book, These Americans, and have enjoyed going through it. When Will posted about his next book, I reached out to ask him some questions on the work and his future plans. Thanks Will.

How did the first book come to fruition?

FIRST BOOK ORIGIN

WV: After taking photographs for almost 50 years, I had the good fortune to meet my editor, Jennifer Garza-Cuen, at a museum opening in 2017. I was very impressed with the photographs she had on display that night and that chance meeting led to a mentorship that has contributed mightily to the publication of both of my books.

In the fall of 2019, Jennifer won a Rauschenberg Fellowship and left for Florida for a couple of months. Before she went, I handed her a hard drive containing my entire archive — more than 70,000 images at the time.

When she returned, she told me the photographs I had taken in the 1980s would make a great book and suggested we collaborate. I was excited by the idea and it turned out to be a perfect Covid project. Trust me, there was a lot of work involved finding old negatives and sorting through decades of material. We kept at it for the next three years and These Americans was published in 2023. To my great surprise, it was warmly received by critics and friends and is now sold out.

What differentiates the first book to this new one?

WV: Over the last 20 years, my photographic style has evolved from a snapshot aesthetic, strongly influenced by Robert Frank and Gary Winogrand, to a more tableau-driven approach. The advent of digital photography also allowed me to capture larger scenes and bigger groups of people.

I am still photographing the lives and lifestyles of the same friends and family members, who are now 25 years older than when they first appeared in These Americans. In Behind the Hedges, you will see the gentle aging of those subjects alongside images of the next generation.

Plans for a 3rd book?

WV: I certainly hope so. My archive has doubled in the last decade, so there is still a lot to unpack. I began my love of photography shooting 1960s rock icons like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and have taken thousands of music photographs since then. That could very well be the next project.

How do you organize this 50 year + archive?

WV: It’s actually closer to about 140,000 images now. The work we did during Covid on These Americans brought most of the older material into good shape and the newer digital images are much easier to catalogue. That said, there is always something to rediscover.