Art is like dating. There is love at first sight, but also those loves that last. At YCL we’re looking for those ever-unfolding stories, those relationships that never get old and always surprise.

A Love Story with Photography by Co-Founder Anicka

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My starting point: I don’t love photography, it doesn’t surprise me the way other mediums do.

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We go to Future Fair, I love the duo booth by Trotter&Sholer and Swivel Gallery. There are some photographs that surprisingly catch my eye, super tender, fantastic colors - all in a bowl of fruit. I think about them for a good week, wondering why.

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I meet Joseph Cochran II at one of our parties, he came with a few other artists. I learn he is a Director of Photography for a documentary film in addition to being a photographer himself. I was intrigued. I later piece together that he made those photographs I saw at Future Fair. Now I’m really intrigued.

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Hillary learns more about Joseph’s work, tells me she wants to do an exhibition with him. Weaves these tales of a body of work made over such a period of time it’s more than that, is a language in and of itself spanning continents. I of course agree.

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In the making of this exhibition I am just along for the ride. Hillary and Joe select photographs, I trust them but honestly - I’m not sure. Until I see them in person and oh my god my mind is BLOWN. They are like entities on their own, framed without borders and without glass, the pigment is so deep. The selection stories interweaving across a decade.

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I learn more about Joe, his life, his work in government, activist groups, photo collectives, in China, Italy, and here in New York. I find out in an artist talk he did for YCL how he thinks about photography and the people, the people! Captured in these photographs. I’m hooked.

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I keep learning more about Joseph and the new work he makes keeps unfolding. That’s the kicker, it’s not photography that I don’t like, it’s that I fall in love with specific practices. And I know that my love affair with Art is when I’m challenged and proven wrong.

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Now I’m saving up for an edition of Home (2019). It’s one of the artist’s only self portraits.

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