Photography Highlights from the 2014 Armory Show, Part 2 of 2

For background information on this year’s Armory show and the format of these slideshow reports, head back to Part 1 of this summary (here).

This portion of the report covers the left side remainder of Pier 94 and all of Pier 92.

Roberts & Tilton (here): A pelican hovers over Ed Templeton’s gathering of surfers, beach girls, and kissing teens. Priced at $18000 for the installation.

PPOW Gallery (here): Political imagery, including the burning Twin Towers, has been digitally stitched together, with the resulting prints woven together like Vietnamese textiles. The effect is a curving, swishing intermingling of visuals. A unique work by Dinh Q. Lê, priced at $50000.

Howard Greenberg Gallery (here): This booth was a mix of vintage and contemporary works, with Joel Meyerowitz getting prime placement with his recent grid of still lifes from Cezanne’s studio. But Saul Leiter never ceases to amaze, the painterly colors in this small composition so vibrant and lively. Priced at $7500.

Galeria Filomena Soares (here): Just when we thought ruin porn had reached its end, these photographs of abandoned, decaying trains on the Spanish/French border (often with snow in the destroyed aisles) bring us back to the lush textures and soft colors of peeling paint and splintered wood. Jaime de la Jara, priced at €7000.

Postmasters (here): Here’s another work for the definitional edge of photography, a crisp set of 7 algorithm-driven images of gradients and rectangles, collapsed into a shifting lenticular print. Rafaël Rozendaal, priced at $9500.

Loock Galerie (here): A nude playing with optical perception, with gridded paper behind her, wrapping the platform on which she sits, and printed on the single sheet she holds, together flattening the negative space. Charlie White, priced at $12000.

Yossi Milo Gallery (here): Strong new works by Alison Rossiter, found in the back room. What’s different is a slightly larger set of papers (making the resulting array larger) and a two-toned coloring of grey and black, adding another facet to her options for geometric abstraction. Priced at $18000.

Galerie Bob van Orsouw (here): An 18 image typology of teenage marching band players from Texas, displayed on the outside wall of the booth, full of feathered caps, ill-fitting uniforms, and awkward faces. Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, priced at $126000.

Max Wigram Gallery (here): John Houck’s Aggregates series just seems to get better and better with each new iteration. The color stripes in this new work are more pronounced, and the rehotographed folds still pack a conceptual/visual punch. Priced at $14000.

i8 Gallery (here): This massive grid of isolated houses in the still harsh Icelandic spring has a surprising sense of enterprising warmth. It’s not a distant, conceptual typology highlighting subtle differences in architecture or setting, but more a celebration of spirit. Olafur Eliasson, priced at $200000.

Yancey Richardson Gallery (here): Grids of dots, overlapped and layered into a sliding optical scale, backed by a gradient, and inkjet printed on cotton linen paper. Bryan Graf, priced at $7500.

Ratio 3 (here): This series of works was my favorite at the show. Miriam Böhm’s origami folded rephotography exercises are refined and sophisticated, foreground and background distances (and corresponding angles/faces) being manipulated and relayered. It’s hard not to stand in front of them and think about how optically smart they are. Priced at $6000.

Sean Kelly Gallery (here): A clever early 1970s conceptual puzzle, playing with the orientation of white lines on the roadway. Each image by Anthony McCall (it’s not a diptych) is priced at $25000.

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (here): Erin Shirref recently joined the team at Sikkema Jenkins, so these recent book plate collages were tucked into the back of the booth. They’re a deceptively simple merging of well-proportioned abstract forms. Priced at $5000 each.

Galerie Nathalie Obadia (here): Not many photographers have created a unique color palette like that of Youssef Nabil. Who else makes such an instantly recognizable aquamarine blue? No one. Priced at $55000.

Galerie Eva Presenhuber (here): These new works by Sam Falls add a new element of patterned ikat fabrics to his light fading experiments. When I asked the price ($22000 each, but all sold), I was given a look of such pitying incredulousness that they must have gone quickly.

Sims Reed Gallery (here): A Gerhard Richter squeegee abstraction, captured in luminous gelatin silver. Priced at $36000.

Robert Klein Gallery (here): This is the kind of composition that renews your faith in the power of smart photography. Love the dangling legs. Alex Webb (in Cuba), priced at $5500.

Gerald Peters Gallery (here): I had no idea that Romare Bearden made collages out of photographs, contact sheets, and film strips, so this was my educational moment of this fair; this work brings together jazz greats like Louis Armstrong. Priced at $75000.

Galleria Repetto (here): While Michelangelo Pistoletto is better known for silkscreen printing on mirrors, this work is printed on thick plastic, allowing the two photographs to move back and forth on sliding rails. When the images are moved, the doubled silhouette of dots shifts and reforms. Priced at $130000.

Marc Selwyn Fine Art (here): Given the excitement around the MoMA retrospective, it wasn’t surprising to see plenty of Robert Heinecken works on offer at the Armory. I’ve always enjoyed Heinecken’s color photograms of food, this one mixing a chili dog with saltines and popcorn. Priced at $17500.

Alan Cristea Gallery (here): This mirrored self portrait by Richard Hamilton takes lenticular printing back to the mid 1970s. Priced at $16000.

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Read more about: Alex Webb, Alison Rossiter, Anthony McCall, Bryan Graf, Charlie White, Dinh Q. Lê, Ed Templeton, Erin Shirreff, Gerhard Richter, Jaime de la Jara, John Houck, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Miriam Böhm, Olafur Eliasson, Rafaël Rozendaal, Richard Hamilton, Robert Heinecken, Romare Bearden, Sam Falls, Saul Leiter, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, Youssef Nabil, Alan Cristea Gallery, Eva Presenhuber, Galeria Filomena Soares, Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Galleria Repetto, Gerald Peters Gallery, Howard Greenberg Gallery, i8 Gallery, Galerie Loock, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Max Wigram Gallery, Postmasters, PPOW Gallery, Ratio 3, Robert Klein Gallery, Roberts & Tilton, Sean Kelly Gallery, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Sims Reed Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Yossi Milo Gallery, The Armory Show

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