“Aaron Stern — On Exhibiting the Photograph as an Object”

Exhibition: One of One

Venue: Abri Mars: 53a Stanton St, New York, NY 10002)

Dates: September 5 – October 25, 2025

Interview by: James Maher

Japanese translation by: Miwa Susuda

Aaron Stern: Hi, my name's Aaron Stern. I'm a curator working between the Americas and Europe, and welcome to my show One of One at Abri Mars.

James Maher: Tell us about the show. I know you've done a similar idea in different places first—how did this all come about?

Stern: The show was conceived for a gallery in Mexico City called Anent Gallery during the Zona Maco art fair. The idea was to have a picture looked at as more of an object. With the amount of images that are created every day, mostly due to camera phones—there's a bit of malaise around photography, especially when you're looking at it on a small two-inch screen. So I was trying to think of a way that would engage people and make them want to come out and see this show, or any show in person. And that was to come up with looking at Polaroids, small prints, and ephemera—Polaroids especially—framed a certain way. I thought it would be more engaging in person. The show was really well received and a gallery in London called Webber asked me to bring it to London, and it was again well received, and so we brought it here to New York. The show has changed every time. I tried to make it more geared towards that city while leaving a couple bodies of work. So when it came to New York, we changed it again, to keep it fresh and to remix it.

Maher: How did you first get connected with Mexico City being a New Yorker?

Stern: I did a show last May that was printed all on Xerox; it was approximately 36 to 54 inches per piece, and some were even bigger, 72 by 108—and it was in a 10,000-square-foot space. The goal for that show was to create a mass audience at the opening; to do it during Frieze, which is mostly painting. And it was meant to try to buck the art fair thing and make it this big turnout, which it was. I think maybe 2,000 people came to the opening and it made a big splash. Ana, who owns Anent Gallery, saw the show in person and she was opening the gallery and reached out to me. She asked me to come up with something different, because her space was quite small. I remembered a show at David Zwirner in 2009 that Philip-Lorca diCorcia did. He had a book that coincided with the show called Thousand, and it was a thousand Polaroids. Rather than framing and traditionally hanging a show, they created a shelf that went around the circumference of the gallery, and each Polaroid was placed on the shelf. It was this really immersive, engaging experience that stuck with me. That's how I came up with the idea for these shows—it was to try to create something in a different way, but in a similar experience, that’s talked about and thought about and gives people a different perspective on how to see pictures. Especially now—I mean, in 2009 there was no iPhone, so it's even more important now, I think.

Maher: You’ve written about the experience of the big photos, such as the Jeff Wall’s, or the Gursky’s. Which is a great experience of course, but this feels more accessible; it feels community oriented. Similarly to your thoughts about the issues of the digital world, can you speak about bringing fostering a community aspect within the show. It's a group show, a community show.

Stern: Absolutely. The massive light boxes of Jeff Wall are incredible. If I could afford to do that, I would do that all day. But most artists can't afford to print that size and frame that. The barrier to entry to do a show is really high, especially for photography. It's very expensive with many rounds of proofing. The framing takes months and months. And with all these shows, that's the main idea behind them conceptually—it's to try to show photography in an affordable way and show artists that wouldn't normally be able to afford to show work they want to in a certain way. And this—both the Xerox and this show are utilizing that idea. 　Some of the frames are just using plexi sheets with small metal hooks against the wall. I think it elevates the photo. It looks really nice and it's quite affordable. Shaniqwa Jarvis is using these family photo plexi cubes that you would buy on Amazon—they're very inexpensive. She's utilized that and recreated it in a way that shows her work. That's the driving force behind these shows: to show work in a non-precious yet still elevated way.

Maher: And you can have the wall space in New York to show them as opposed to the big, big ones.

Stern: Yeah, definitely. This gallery, Abri Mars—run by Fairchild Fries—is also much smaller than say a Gagosian or a Hauser, which could house, you know, eight-foot size light boxes.

Maher: Can you tell us about the photographers?

Stern: This is Rebekka Deubner, based in Paris. She is a photographer there and I’ve been following her for several years. She showed this work in Paris Photo back in 2023. I was particularly drawn to it, and how she framed the photos in these plexi boxes. The photos themselves are unique—one-of-one—handprinted in the darkroom. She had lost her mother suddenly and she took her mother's clothing and used an enlarger to create these cameraless photographs. I'd never seen anything like this before. The prints are beautiful and the presentation as a whole, with the framing and the type of print, really stands out to me.　This is a young photographer named Gray Sorrenti. She's mostly known for her fashion work, including major campaigns for Saint Laurent and Apple. She's been taking pictures since she was probably six. Her father is a very well-known fashion photographer named Mario Sorrenti who is also in the show. She was born with a camera in her hand—like a master mechanic would teach their son or daughter how to be a mechanic—that is her life. She's one of the most knowledgeable people I've known in photography at the young age of 24, and she has been taking Polaroids since she was a kid. These are a set of them that she made into one piece, some featuring her friends, herself, and landscapes. It's also nice to see personal work from someone who predominantly only shows their professional work. There's nothing like this that I've seen of her work out in the world, so it's really special to have something like that.

Stern: Next is Philip-Lorca diCorcia, a legendary photographer who had the show at David Zwirner in 2009. These are three of the Polaroids that were in that show called Thousands, and we were lucky enough to have them on loan for the show. They’re the only traditionally framed pieces in the show. Thank you to David Zwirner for giving them to us for this exhibition. They're beautiful.
When I first asked for these pieces for the February show in Mexico City, it was too complicated to bring them to Mexico City and back. This is sort of a full-circle moment to have them here in this show since they were the inspiration. He’s also a photographer that I've looked up to and whose work has inspired me when I used to be a photographer many years ago.　This is Hsu. He's a professional skateboarder and photographer based in Los Angeles. His photos are very in the moment; very Weegee almost. He uses a police scanner to capture unexpected disasters, car accidents—just happenings in Los Angeles—and this is one of those pictures. He heard that a fire hydrant exploded and went to the scene. It's just this incredibly euphoric image. I saw it on his Instagram and asked him if he had taken it with an actual camera, and he had, so we got a scan and had this printed.
Jerry has an incredible following of fans of his work. I've been a fan for many years and it's special for me to have him in the show since I've always wanted to work with him. I'm really drawn to his pictures. They're always very much a moment. And I think that's—in this sea of images that we see—I think he has done a great job of standing out and making his work feel unique. It's great to have him in the show.

Maher: You made a zine for his work and had a signing last week?

Stern: Yeah, so for every show I like to choose one artist to do a zine with—just something small, 20 pages or less—and feature a few of the photos from the exhibition. We had a book signing for it last week and we had a great turnout. Jerry happened to be in town in New York, so he was here to do that. There's maybe a handful of copies left.
Aaron Stern: Alright, so this is Juan Brenner. He's a photographer based in Guatemala. Juan is mostly known for his almost documentary fine-art type of images. I had not seen this work before from him. It's a series of Polaroids that he used to create one image. He was photographing a theater group in Guatemala and positioned them to make this mural-like piece. It's sort of Avedon/David Hockney-ish, which is why I was drawn to it.
Daniel Arnold is a New York-based photographer, born in Wisconsin. Daniel and I connected probably 10 years ago. I've always really liked his work and I decided to show these images because they're much different from the typical street photography image that he's really well known for—especially this Steiner photo. It's a beautifully composed picture that I've been drawn to for many years. I think it's my favorite photo he's ever taken. It's interesting to show people a different side of his work. 　We spent a lot of time in the pandemic running into each other on the street. I think we were the only two people in the beginning that I would see out in the world. And we've talked about doing a book and a show of this type of work for many years. He's been in all three shows and it's special to be able to show this work here at this gallery.

Maher: So when you went through his work, did you show him the photographs that you liked and kind of go through it together?

Stern: Yeah, I did. He has a website that is really unique. You can type in a keyword and it will show you every image that would apply to that keyword. If you were to type in “landscape” or “interior” or “Christmas” or whatever, it generates a series of many pictures for you to see. I've never seen anything like it. It's very cool. So, when we were talking a year ago about what to show, he and I sat down, we ran that a few times to see what we would come up with. And then afterwards he also picked a few images that I felt went well with what I picked.　This is Irina Rozovsky. She is a Russian-born American photographer. The series that these photos are from is called Mountain Black Heart, photographed in Eastern Europe. Both photos are pictures that I've known about for many years, especially this one. I've always loved this picture. The image on the left is interesting to me because it looks like there's blood in the water, but it's actually Coca-Cola and a reaction to the algae. It's a really unique image.　This artist is named Mark Borthwick. He's also known for a lot of his fashion work. Mark is based in Central Portugal now. We did a project 10 years ago; there was a book I published called Dialogues and Impaired Photography and Poetry, and Mark was part of that book. We spoke several times on the phone to come up with what to show. Mark said that since moving to Portugal, he's had a lot of time to go through his archive, and he showed me some of these handmade journal-like booklets. He came up with an idea to deconstruct some of these journals and include Polaroids to make these handmade collages for the exhibition. So they're all unique, one-of-one, and specifically made for this show.
These Polaroids are by Mario Sorrenti and they're about 25 years old. They were made in the process of documenting his exhibition called The Wall, which was a large, wall-size collage of his work that included large-format prints, ephemera, his handwriting, and Polaroids. He photographed the entire exhibition using a large-format camera. The Polaroids were used to test the light before each large-format photo was made. If you look at them closely, you can see many images within this one image. They’re almost a show within a show. Each Polaroid is like its own small collage. They're really unique and beautiful, and my favorite thing in the show.

Maher: I think that's a good point to highlight about the show: even though it's a smaller space, you manage to pack a lot of visuals in a cohesive way, even though there are many types of prints, styles of work, and even framing styles. There is a lot to see, but you have to get close.

Stern: Yeah. My favorite part of the show is that we've utilized a small space and managed to include a lot of work without it feeling overwhelming. A lot of the shows I have been doing are in smaller galleries, younger galleries, and I want to show as much work as possible. I want you to feel like you've come to the show and experienced a lot, not just come to see one artist or one image.　These are two Polaroids from Barbara Ess from the eighties, and they are on loan to us from her gallery, Magenta Plains. I would like to say thank you to Olivia Smith for loaning us these. Barbara Ess died in 2021. She was a photographer, a No Wave musician, and she taught at Bard College for 30 years. She's especially known in this New York region for her work and for her teaching. A lot of people who came in to see her work were students of hers, and these are pretty unique from her body of work. The first Polaroid she took with Dolly Parton on television. And the other a Warhol-like Polaroid. We've framed them using pieces of plexi and metal hooks.
This artist is Shaniqwa Jarvis. She was born in New York on the Upper West Side, and now is based in Los Angeles. The cubes were made—similar to Rebekkaa Deubner, Shaniqwa had just lost her mother, and when she was going through her mom's apartment, she saw these plexi cubes that are primarily used to show, you know, family photos. They're very inexpensive and she has repurposed them, gluing her own small prints on all five sides of each cube. We've hung them in a way that is sort of floating on the wall. They conceptually fit perfectly with the show because they feel like objects. You can see them from all angles. It's a unique way of showing this work. She also made a one-of-one photo collage, framing it in a way where all three photographs are one piece. I showed a similar piece in Mexico City and she created this piece specifically for the show. Finally we have Mike Brodie. He's a photographer that is highly influential. In 2013, he came out with a book called A Period of Juvenile Prosperity. The book was very well received. Vince Aletti, a really well-known art critic, wrote about the book for The New Yorker. And it's been influential to me and to many other photographers and filmmakers. Mike hopped trains for several years and documented his life doing so all over the country. He was deliberately taking photos; it wasn't something he did on a whim. He went out on the first train and knew it would be photographically very interesting. I didn't know this until I spent more time with Mike, that he did this very purposely. He bought a Nikon camera and a Polaroid camera and photographed everything in a way that was intentional. And knowing that makes the pictures even more interesting to me—that he deeply cares about what he was doing and still does today. We have Polaroids loaned to us by his friend and longtime editor Paul Sheik, who owns TBW Books, the photobook publisher. Thanks to Paul.

Maher: Can you just tell us about your background? You started off as a salesman, which sounds like an interesting job.

Stern: I first moved to New York in June of 2001, just a few months before 9/11, and I slept on some couches and applied for a job to be a door-to-door salesman, selling high-speed internet and phone service to businesses. I wore a suit and tie every day. I sat in a cubicle, did not have a computer, and every day I would go out into the world and knock—literally knock—on doors, to try and get business. And I did okay. It paid really well, and it got me an apartment in New York. I saved some money and met some really interesting, funny people that wound up leading to a marketing job for a liquor company, then an agency, and I bounced around in that world for a while. Then I started my own creative agency, which lasted for several years. All this time I was taking pictures. I started a photo diary of everything that I was seeing, which was a lot of music, behind the scenes, fashion, celebrity, and more fine-art pictures. A small publisher had been following along and approached me about a book. They already had the concept to show this crescendo of how it felt to be at a concert. A lot of the pictures I was taking were more about the ambiance, images that maybe would be overlooked at a concert, which was what my eye has always been drawn to in every situation. I love that they saw that and got that about my work. That book got a show with a really big turnout. It led to another book, which led to a commission from Vogue and other magazines and commercial work. I was a photographer for many years. Then in 2013, a friend of mine Terrance who was a real estate developer—the economy was not great in New York and he couldn't rent a space that was in the East Village—encouraged me to open a gallery or project space and said I could use the space until the economy turned around. I had that space for about a year and put on several group shows. The first was called You Can Count On Me, and it brought together a lot of predominantly New York-based artists. Daniel Arnold was one of them, so it’s cool to have him in this show and still be showing his work after all these years. A lot of the photographers in that show I still work with today and I'm very close with. I really enjoyed that experience. We made a zine for it. The next show was a war photography show. One of my closest friends, Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini, a veteran war photographer who spent about 10 years in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Together we curated that show and made a book for it. We did several other shows over that time period and that work led to a lot of other curatorial work. I really enjoyed not thinking about my own work. It gave me a chance to work with other artists, which I really enjoyed. I've also done several hotel projects where I curated art for the hotels, which led to what I'm doing now.

Maher: When you first got the space, did you envision going in this direction long-term? Was it part of the plan?

Stern: I've always had a knack for bringing people together and knowing how to put the pieces together to create a good turnout; to create something that would be interesting to different people. A lot of shows that I see are really great, and they are geared towards one audience. And I've always tried to think of ways to gear an exhibition towards many audiences. My group of friends is the inspiration for that. I have a diverse group of friends that are real estate developers, painters, photographers, actors, musicians, chefs—from all different walks of life. I love bringing them all together because they're all so different. And that's sort of my approach to curating as well. And I think this show is a good testament to that.

Maher: I've just been reading your newsletter, and similarly the content that write about—is diverse as well, writing about the arts and city and a variety of topics. Can you tell us about that experience?
Aaron Stern: Sure. In 2023, I started a newsletter called Another Newsletter, and it's my way of dumping my brain onto the page. I have a lot of different references that I uniquely connect to: a poem that reminds me of a photograph that reminds me of a painting that reminds me of a movie that reminds me of a scene that I saw happen unfold on Seventh Avenue, tying it into what's happening politically and culturally. It's just how my brain works. In conversation it might make a little less sense, but on the page I think it does. I'm a very visual person, so I really enjoy piecing it all together. It's mainly an exercise for myself, to put all these things in one place and to see if anyone else out there is thinking the same way. It has a little micro following and it's been a really fun way to also explain every exhibition that I'm working on. In the attention economy, it’s really difficult to keep people focused on things. And I hope that the newsletter is a resource—a way of seeing what I'm doing and sort of explain more about my thinking behind everything.
James Maher: I enjoy how you write with short, choppy, powerful sentences. It reads really well in newsletter format.
Aaron Stern: I definitely thought about that. Like I was saying before, we're in an attention economy. I want to be able to keep people's attention without losing them, you know, a third of the way in. I think it's the way a lot of people think; it's the way a lot of people consume media, in short, sporadic bursts. TikTok, Instagram Stories, our attention spans are being pulled in so many different directions all day long. It's sort of the way I think, the way I speak, and it is the way I write. To that. I think it is more easily consumed.

Maher: You seem like a scrappy individual. Can you just talk about your brain and describe yourself a little bit, if you don't mind?

Stern: Sure. Yeah. I think I am someone that is easily distracted, but in this day and age, I don't know how anyone could not be easily distracted. I try to use all these different things to focus my brain—curating a show or writing the Substack. There's a lot of shit that's being thrown at you, and you want to find a way to sift through it and not get lost.
To me, time is the most precious thing in life. I think our brains, as we get older, process time differently—more quickly. And, you know, I think when you're a little kid, the days feel long. And when you're older—30, 40 plus—the days feel shorter. I think that's because your brain is processing that time differently. I'm just trying to find a way to squeeze every minute of the day out and have it be enjoyable and creative, to learn something and be curious about things. That's really how my brain works. I can't shut it off because I'm worried that I'm going to miss something. I want to see everything; I want to hear everything; I want to eat everything. And I don't want to miss a minute of my life.

Maher: It's interesting to hear that. Often it seems like the individuals with similar ‘distracted’ brains are the ones who figure out how to put these diverse ‘distractions’ all together in a cohesive, focused way. Thank you for your time!