In April, author and photography critic Vince Aletti will receive the 2024 AIPAD Prize, an award that honors those who have deeply understood and played a pioneering role in promoting this art form.

This is part of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) Photography Exhibition, which takes place from April 25 to 28. Vince Aletti is honored for his contributions to the cultural scene of New York City, where he began his work in the 1970s.

Thinking about photography all my life

“I love art in general, but I only write about photography. I have looked at it and thought about it almost all my life,” Aletti told Vanity Fair magazine.

“My dad was an amateur photographer, so I grew up in a photo lab in the attic. We had a lot of US Camera books, which were collections of the best photos of the year, from commercial to fine art,” he added.

Vince Aletti’s home is also an art space. Today, his East Village apartment is filled with more than 10,000 neatly stacked books and magazines. Writing reviews, organizing exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, and editing art books, he has turned his passion for photography into a full-time career after spending about two decades writing about music.

“Before writing about photography, I was a rock critic for 20 years. I wrote about music for various magazines, including Rolling Stone and Creem . Gradually, I started covering photography exhibitions at The Village Voice , then became their chief photography critic and art editor. Then I moved to The New Yorker and wrote weekly exhibition reviews,” he recalls of his career transition.

Criticism from the audience's perspective

Before receiving the award at AIPAD 2024, Aletti spoke with Vanity Fair about his early career, the next 30 years he spent writing photography reviews, and his passion for books and magazines.

When asked about the pioneers in music criticism, Vince Aletti mentioned some big names including Richard Goldstein, Bob Christgau, Lester Bangs and Jon Landau.

From them, he learned to critique from the perspective of an audience rather than a specialist, a trait he carried into his later career. “I don’t try to dictate. I encourage people to come and see what’s going on and think about it.”

Aletti confirms his close relationship with Peter Hujar, an American photographer known for his black-and-white portraits. “He taught me how to see things. I find it interesting to try to guess what Peter is focusing on that I don’t notice myself,” Aletti says.

When it comes to photography criticism, when Aletti writes for The Voice magazine, he often does long pieces, through conversations with photographers, many at the beginning of their careers.

He was interested in how they dealt with their work. “I think we all understand that art doesn’t come from some noble place, it comes from hard work, sometimes against a lot of odds,” he added.

Collecting books and magazines because of love for… cover photos

In an interview with Vanity Fair , Vince Aletti revealed his penchant for collecting books and magazines. His living room is filled with publications he bought on eBay in the past four months. Nearby are stacks of books and magazines he has recently collected or plans to reread.

“Sometimes I buy magazines because I’m drawn to the cover. They’ll sit on top of a stack for a short time before being overtaken by other books,” he said.

Vince Aletti's fashion magazine collection alone is a massive one. He wants to archive every issue of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar from the 1930s to the present.

“I started buying some fashion magazines because they had great covers by Penn or Avedon. Then I realized they had photos by these two photographers that had never appeared in a photo book,” Aletti revealed. From then on, he decided to collect them all.