From her first encounter with photography to the opening of her gallery…
Yancey discovered photography when she was in graduate school studying art of ancient Greece . She explains that her reward when she had read ancient art history all day was to look at photography magazines in the library of her university (SMU Dallas, Texas).
In 1979, she wrote an essay about photography as a universal language, at a time – she says – “ where she didn’t know much” and was awarded a fellowship at the Whitney museum in New York. She explains that before the 80’s the Whitney was neither collecting nor showing photography. She convinced the director to modernize the museum’s collection and spent a year curating photography shows.
In 1980, she became a private dealer buying and selling vintage work and managing private collections. It didn’t take her long to realize that she wanted to represent living artists too and help them build a career. One of the first she worked with was Alex MacLean, an aerial photographer. That’s where she realized that she needed a space to exhibit her artists work, she opened her first gallery on Broadway in Soho in 1995. After 5 years, she moved into a “raw, concrete, just-transformed warehouse” in Chelsea.
A good memory…
Yancey shared a few stories with me but my favorite is her description of the young members of AIPAD, in bathing suits, playing water volleyball in the pool in a conference center in Virginia where they had gathered to rethink AIPAD’s mission.
She laughs and adds: “ We were all doing a lot of meetings, and a lot of drinking!”
A photograph that has a special importance in her life…
A portrait of her daughter Grace when she was 8 weeks old, photographed by Adam Fuss as part of his baby series. Yancey knew Adam and loved his work and asked him if he would make a piece for her. She says it was a miraculous moment of her life to be a new mom at 42 and she wanted something very special. Adam invited her and her newborn to his studio for the day. She says she was very curious and grateful to be part of Adam’s creative process and also very excited to actually get to see the end product – would she like it?
Her answer sounds like honey: “I looooooved it. The picture is so ethereal, it is not just a portrait of a child, it tells something bigger”.
In her bedroom…
A 4 panel piece by David Hilliard, a Sally Mann, a Vik Muniz and 2 black and white photographs of herself and her husband in their 20’s.
If she was a famous photographer…
“Cindy Sherman – she has always been able to work for herself and by herself… She has been so influential and so impactful. … Her show at Moma was quite extraordinary and it made it clear that she must be the most important contemporary living female photographer today”.
Stéphanie de Rougé
