Walker Evans, American Photographs @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A total of 57 black and white photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung against white walls in a single room gallery on the 4th floor of the museum. Aside from one bulletin page (found in a glass case), all of the works are vintage gelatin silver prints, made between 1929 and 1936. The exhibition was organized by Sarah Hermanson Meister and Drew Sawyer. A 75th anniversary edition of American Photographs has been published by the museum (here) and can be purchased in the bookshop for $35. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: At this point, some 75 years after its first display, there isn’t much to debate about Walker Evans’ American Photographs. It was the first one-person exhibit of photography at the MoMA in 1938 (a ground breaking feat at the time) and the accompanying catalog became a defining classic for the photobook genre. The photographs that made up the exhibit and book have influenced generations of downstream artists, capturing Depression-era America with a sense of exacting clarity and respectful austerity. Whether his camera was pointed at flourishes of 19th century architecture, examples of vernacular culture, or scenes of intimate social reality, his images consistently found a careful balance between poetic dignity and straight-on directness. These were, and still are, undeniable masterworks in the history of the medium, full stop.

Given the historical importance of the anniversary and the deserved reverence applied to these images, the curators of this show were actually faced with some thorny issues. Should they stay true to the original exhibition and recreate it with meticulous attention to detail (so as to preserve the artist’s original intent), or should they reinterpret the body of work in search of new insights and fresh connections? In many ways, their answer lies somewhere in the middle, more a “spirit of the law” effort than a blind adherence to the original specifics. This show is smaller than its predecessor (many of the original 100 images edited out), opts for frames rather than prints glued directly to the walls (no surprise there, given the rarity of the vintage prints on view), and alternates the sequencing of the images between direct image by image fidelity and wholesale reordering. The photographs themselves are no less impressive, but the look and feel of the exhibit is somewhat different.

Part of the contemporary resonance that comes from this exhibit is its connection to the current Renaissance in photobook publishing. American Photographs was one of the first photobooks to be designed and sequenced with a perfectionist’s eye for intent; Evans made careful decisions about which pictures went in which order, and how the two sections of the book worked together. No self-respecting photobook enthusiast has failed to spend hours poring over this volume and considering how it was put together. So if the curators of the current show were making a case for the importance of this work in the history of photobooks, and were making a particular point about the genius in the sequencing, I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t try to recreate Evans’ layout exactly. While the exhibit does have sections which follow his sequencing image by image, most of the walls remix the images into new lines of visual thought. This is not to say that the new sequencing is any less eloquent or well considered; in fact, some of the new groups and progressions seem clearer in terms of the hand offs between adjacent photographs. But if I’m a purist, they aren’t exactly what Evans laid out, and if we’re celebrating his fierce bookmaking intent, then I think we’re off the mark just a bit.

The other new idea introduced here is the sense of broader context with the rest of American art. This exhibit is not huddled off in the photography galleries flanked by the history of photography, but dropped directly into the progression of the permanent collection of paintings and sculpture. To get to the Evans gallery, the viewer must first pass through the Abstract Impressionism of De Kooning, Pollock, Newman, and Rothko; to its side lies a gallery of Rauschenberg and Johns, and it is followed by the beginnings of Pop Art (Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Ruscha). While the chronological progression is slightly off (the Evans photographs are from the mid 1930s), Evans’ placement amid this pantheon is well deserved. There are fascinating connections in every direction: the bold contrast between Evans’ puritanical restraint and the heroic gestures (and scale) of the AbEx painters, the dialogue between Evans’ vision of America and the one implied by Jasper Johns’ encaustic flag or a Rauschenberg combine, and the interest in vernacular signage and cultural signifiers starting with Evans and being reconsidered by the Pop artists. It is long overdue to see a major photographer placed on equal footing with other bold faced artistic names, and found to be just as influential and critical to our understanding of the evolution of American art.

So while much of what is on view here will be familiar to most photography fanatics, the astonishing quality of the photographs is undiminished and the small riffs on the canon that have been introduced help keep the exhibit fresh. Those that were hoping for a historical rehanging of the original icon will be somewhat disappointed, but Walker Evans’ American Photographs remains a landmark body of work, and I expect when we see it again in another 25 years, it will be even more integrated into the larger narrative of the American artistic experience.

Collector’s POV: Since this is a museum exhibition, there are, of course, no posted prices for the works on view. Evans’ prints are routinely available in the secondary markets, with dozens of prints coming up for auction every year, mostly later prints and broken up portfolios. Recent prices have ranged from $1000 to nearly $200000, with vintage prints of his most iconic images at the top end of that range.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Features/Reviews: New York Times Lens (here), New York Times (here), New Yorker (here), Ahorn (here), MoMA Inside/Out (here)
Through January 26
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing the work of 29 artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung/displayed throughout both floors of the museum. The exhibit was curated by Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers, and Joanna Lehan. A catalog of the exhibit was recently published by Prestel and the ICP (here and here). (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2013. Photographs by John Berens.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on view and image details as background:

  • Roy Arden: 1 video, 2007
  • Huma Bhabha: 2 chromogenic prints with applied ink and acrylic, 2010 and 2013
  • Nayland Blake: 1 installation, 2013
  • A.K. Burns: 1 five channel video, 2011
  • Aleksandra Domanović: 3 stacks of inkjet printed paper, 2010
  • Nir Evron: 1 35mm black and white film, 2011
  • Sam Falls: 3 photograms, 2011, 1 enamel on archival pigment print, 2012, and 1 hand dyed linen and metal grommets, 2012
  • Lucas Foglia: 7 chromogenic prints, 2006-2010, 1 zine, 2012
  • Jim Goldberg: 1 wall installation of marked gelatin silver prints, chromogenic prints, inkjet prints and Polaroid prints, 2013
  • Mishka Henner: 3 inkjet prints, 2011
  • Thomas Hirschhorn: 1 video, 2012
  • Elliott Hundley: 1 large scale collage, 2010
  • Oliver Laric: 2 digital videos, 2010 and 2012
  • Andrea Longacre-White: 3 archival inkjet prints, 2013,
  • Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: 1 installation (storefront windows), 2013
  • Gideon Mendel: 6 chromogenic prints, 2007-2012 and 1 video, 2013
  • Luis Molina-Pantin: 17 chromogenic prints, 2004-2005
  • Rabih Mroué: 7 inkjet prints on high gloss paper, 2012, 1 video, 2012
  • Wangechi Mutu: series of 10 collages, 2013
  • Sohei Nishino: 2 lightjet prints, 2006 and 2013
  • Lisa Oppenheim: 4 black and white photographs, 2012
  • Trevor Paglen: 3 chromogenic prints, 2010-2013 and 1 video, 2010
  • Walid Raad: 3 archival color inkjet prints, 2012
  • Nica Ross: 1 performance, 2013
  • Michael Schmelling: 38 chromogenic prints, 2005-2009
  • Hito Steyerl: 2 videos, 2004 and 2012
  • Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse: 3 large scale lightboxes, 2008-2010
  • Shimpei Takeda- 5 autoradiographs, 2012

The exhibit also includes 5 shelves of self published photobooks, displayed in the stairway area. The complete list of the books on view can be found here.

Comments/Context: By its very nature, a biennial or triennial exhibition is an attempt at summing up, a snapshot in time meant to be representative of the larger trends of the moment. For the most part, these kinds of exhibits fail, mostly because the objective is so large and the answer so small (and often diffuse) that the viewer is left dissatisfied with the mismatch; these shows mostly turn into grab bags of disconnected work that are fun to walk through, but leave no lasting impression. But once in a very long while, the curators of a biennial or triennial get it just right, and find their way to a tightly edited selection of works that successfully tell the story of the current times. This ICP Triennial is one of those unexpected outlier exhibits, and certainly one of the best group shows of photography to be seen in New York this year.

The main success of this show lies in its deft articulation (albeit indirectly) of the key sea change that has happened in photography in the past decade or so. Now would be the time most writers would trot out the “digital revolution” and leave the cliché hanging out there for everyone to nod their heads in agreement, as if they understood. But the fact is, we’ve spent the last ten plus years trying to figure out what that phrase really means, generally without a succinct and coherent answer. What comes through in this exhibit is a permanent and important change in what I’ll call the “workflow” of photography. In the previous age (which we might call “analog”, but that might be misleading), there was generally only one workflow: start with a point of view or subject, take out your camera, and deliver your artwork as a final print. Right now, in this moment, there are a seemingly endless set of workflows available to photographers, artists, and anyone else who wants to mix together disparate media. Once again, we start with a point of view or subject, but then both the choices for methods and outputs quickly multiply. Images can be captured with a camera, drawn/appropriated from a physical or digital archive, generated with a computer, constructed in a darkroom, or recombined as a mutant hybrid. Artworks can take the final form of traditional prints, moving videos and films, self published books, physical objects of nearly any form, or digital files with only an Internet presence. The photographic reality of this moment is “freedom of workflow” and this exhibit offers countless examples of how this idea is manifesting itself as innovative artwork.

In many ways, this show is a brocade of ideas, methods, and outputs, recombined in different ways and interwoven to highlight connections. It’s easy to tie threads through examples of concerned documentary ideas (Gideon Mendel and climate change/flooding, Shimpei Takeda and the Fukushima disaster, Rabih Mroué and the Arab Spring uprisings), examples of collage methods (Elliott Hundley’s massive, stick pin conglomeration,  Sohei Nishino’s multi-perspective city maps, Walid Raad’s hybrid artifacts, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse’s towering apartment building lightboxes), and examples of image aggregation (Roy Arden’s digital archive, Jim Goldberg’s full wall installation of prints, Thomas Hirschhorn’s iPad of gory violence, Oliver Laric’s videos of unexpectedly connected imagery). With the same set of artworks on view, we could just as easily draw commonality through the investigation of the changing nature of communities, the broadening use of “photographic” video, the exploration of physical materials and hand crafted additions, and many other themes and approaches. As the title of the exhibit says, we’re not in an age of chaos, just “a different kind of order”.

A few pieces deserve closer examination. Thomas Hirschhorn’s video of a disembodied hand skipping through a series of images on an iPad is at once revolting and mesmerizing; it is the single most memorable artwork I have seen all year. Fingers dance across the surface of the tablet, flipping images forward and back, stopping to enlarge a bloody injury, an exploded head with brains spilled out, or a pile of rotting corpses from some unnamed riot or revolution. Every image is disturbing, and then after time, there is a sense of becoming numb to the astonishing violence. The work is at once both video and still imagery, with a sense of the curiosity of human touch and the endlessness of the Internet’s access to images we’d rather not see.

Rabih Mroué’s discussion of a hand held video made by a bystander during the Syrian uprisings is equally complicated and chilling. In the video, a citizen journalist points his cell phone camera at a shooter in the street, only to have the man turn and fire, the camera tumbling to the ground in a cackle of static, presumably signaling the death of the cameraman. The surrounding walls of the video room are covered in large scale prints of pixelated imagery of various gunmen, the whole installation a deconstruction of how videos like these are being made and what they are showing us.

And finally in the stairwell, an enormous metal scaffolding creates a stairway up to a series of five overstuffed bookshelves full of recently produced photobooks and zines, showing off a dizzying array of styles and options for delivering photographs in book form. The inclusion of such a display in this major exhibit is a testament to just how pervasive self publishing has become, and how important it is as a newfound creative outlet. It sounds the trumpet that the revolution has been legitimized and that we need to take these new photobooks seriously as valid art forms.

All in, the ICP curators have found a way to successfully capture the “nowness” of contemporary photography, while still keeping the diverse exhibit manageable. While I would have liked to have seen even more examples of cameraless digital experimentation, for the most part, they have chosen works that touch on the multiplicity of the current age, while still providing lots of connection points between divergent ideas, methods, and final outputs. When we step back and look at the exhibit from afar, it slowly takes the form of a network, a matrix of interconnected points that the viewer can trace and follow like router hops. It represents the new way we need to think about the medium, not as one monolithic entity, but as a series of loosely bound, ever reconfiguring, photographic ideas.

Collector’s POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Given the diversity of artists and mediums on view here, we’ll dispense with the usual discussion of secondary market history.
Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New Yorker PhotoBooth (here), GalleristNY (here)
Through September 22nd
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

Viviane Sassen, In and Out of Fashion

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2013 by Prestel (here). Hardcover, 296 pages, with 250 color images. The volume includes essays by Nanda van den Berg and Charlotte Cotton, and a spread by spread bibliography of Sassen’s fashion work from 1998 to 2012. (Spread shots below.)

Comments/Context: For all its attempts to catch our eye with outlandish styling and elaborate set-ups, much of contemporary fashion photography still follows the simple underlying formula of the model and dress (or other accessories) given front and center attention. As a result, no matter how fresh, original, or shocking the surrounding trappings might be, the central compositions have a familiar, generic uniformity to them; there are only so many ways to pose a model while still explicitly featuring the fashions. A casual flip through any thick fashion monthly will quickly clarify the conventional boundaries most fashion photographers are working within.

These genre-defining methods are what make Viviane Sassen’s fashion photographs seem so unexpected. In comparison to the standard fare, her work brashly defies the normal routines, breaking quietly accepted visual rules left and right. This hefty volume is a retrospective look at Sassen’s fashion photography from 1998 to 2012 and offers a seemingly never ending stream of strange surprises. Her pictures are the opposite of obvious or straightforward, forcing the viewer to do a double take just to puzzle out what is going on; she plays on our ingrained expectations, and takes every opportunity to upend those short hand assumptions.
Sassen’s compositions are built with a knowing eye for how the camera sees. Her models become sculptural human forms, where clothing is almost incidental to the posing of the limbs and torso. Bodies are bent, arched, and contorted in unusual ways, often further fragmented by the reflections of a mirror or made surreal by the intertwining of multiple models into one unlikely mass of arms and legs. Odd camera angles and vantage points (upside down, twisted, off kilter) add another layer of disorientation, making the flattening out of the visual field and the interplay of space even more mysterious. In nearly every shoot, she has rejected any kind of thematic narrative or clichéd setting (a day at the beach, a glamorous nightclub, a city woman on the street etc.) and instead opted for something much more inconclusive, abstract and conceptual.
Sassen takes this innovation further by disregarding another foundation rule of fashion photography – the idea that we need to see the model’s face. In image after image, she obscures faces, covering them with dark shadows, hair, or simply the rotation of the body getting in our way. At first, this lack of looking eye to eye is meaningfully disconcerting; there is none of the usual back and forth connection we have come to expect. But this visual device forces the viewer to return to the sculptural realm, where beauty is seen in the shapes and forms on view. Sassen can then additional layers of extremity by punctuating a composition with intense light or bold color. Body paint, color filters, flares of color, neon light streaks, or simply the unexpected introduction of a brightly colored prop (a green garden hose, red shoes, an orange scarf, a yellow piece of construction paper) help to unbalance things. By the time all these ideas are crammed into one frame or shoot, Sassen’s brand of surreal glamour has become ravishingly unconventional.
Seen across more than a decade of work, the originality in Sassen’s eye is proven to be remarkably varied and consistent; time and again, she has done something startling, kicking us out of our visual ruts. Hers is the kind of work that always keeps us guessing, making us active and engaged participants in her images, rather than glassy eyed zombies mindlessly searching for the next fashions to consume.
Collector’s POV: Viviane Sassen is represented by Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town (here); she does not appear to have consistent representation in New York. More broadly, her work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Exhibit: Huis Marseille Museum, 2013 (here)
  • Features/Reviews: Time LightBox (here), photo-eye (here),  Feature Shoot (here)

Model/Arbus, Great Photographs of the 20th Century @Hasted Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 35 black and white photographs, alternately framed in black (Model) and white (Arbus) and matted, and hung against white walls in the entry and the three rooms of the main gallery space. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, with a mix of vintage and later prints on display. The exhibit includes 15 photographs by Lisette Model, taken between 1934 and 1954, and printed in the 1940s and 1950s. These prints range in size from 12×10 to 20×16 (or reverse), and no edition information was provided. These works have been paired with 20 photographs by Diane Arbus, taken between 1961 and 1971, with one image printed and signed by Arbus, the rest printed later by Neil Selkirk and stamped by the estate. These prints range in size from 14×11 or 26×25 (or reverse) and generally come from editions of 50 or 75. The show also includes 1 video on Arbus. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The student/teacher relationship in the realm of art has always been a tricky one. Every teacher wants his or her students to find their own unique artistic voice, but given the close relationship and nature of the ongoing feedback, it is somewhat inevitable that some of teacher’s artistic ideas will trickle down into the work of the student, especially if the two have an affinity for the same kind of subject matter or are partial to a similar aesthetic approach. This show probes the nature of that influence, by pairing the work of Lisette Model (the teacher) and Diane Arbus (the student) in direct, side-by-side juxtapositions of photographs with visual echoes. It’s a smart, well-edited reconsideration of portraits we have seen before, highlighting the connections and contrasts between the two.

In many ways, the selection and sequencing of the images in this exhibit is designed to highlight the parallels between Model and Arbus. The connections start with similar subjects, where both artists made portraits of pairs/couples, wealthy ladies in fancy hats, people wearing costumes, distorted faces, and stately grande dames and barons at white tie society functions. Other images trace more elemental compositional repetition, from subjects with raised arms or lying on their sides, to those seated in chairs with elbows bent or hands in their lap. When seen together in this manner, the argument for influence is pretty persuasive.

But interestingly enough, even with all the echoes and look alikes on view here, this hanging made me even more aware of the fundamental differences in style between Model and Arbus. Model’s work, with its own connections to the grotesqueries of German Expressionism, has an inherent distance to it; her subjects are seen much more formally, even when she’s right up close. They are more like specimens to be observed, often seen with a dark, harshness that is on the edge of confrontational. Jump ahead thirty years to Arbus, and her approach is much more intimate. Her eccentrics and oddballs are seen from within rather than from afar; in each and every image, there is a sense of direct personal connection between the photographer and the sitters. Based on these pairings, even if we can ascribe some causal relationship between Model’s encouragement and Arbus’ ultimate choice of subjects, Arbus has fundamentally replaced Model’s judgmental eye with her own accepting embrace.

In a summertime full of light hearted group shows, this double bill has some welcome heft to it. It gives us a credible sampler of two masters of the medium, and thoughtfully investigates their interconnected relationship.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The Model prints range in price from $12000 to $45000, while the Arbus prints range from $7500 to $90000. Model’s work is generally available in the secondary markets, with roughly a dozen or so lots up for sale in any given year. Recent prices at auction have ranged between $2000 and $62000. Arbus’ work is much more ubiquitous at auction, both in the photography and contemporary art sales. Recent prices have ranged from roughly $5000 to up over $600000.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here)

Model/Arbus, Great Photographs of the 20th Century
Through August 16th

Hasted Kraeutler Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Motoyuki Daifu, Project Family

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2013 by Dashwood Books (here and here). Softcover, 50 pages, with 35 color images. There are no texts or essays included. (Spread shots below.)

Comments/Context: Motoyuki Daifu’s flash lit photographs of his overstuffed family apartment in Yokohama easily cross over into visual chaos. The place itself is filled to the brim with parents, brothers and sisters, laundry, dirty dishes, cats, and the ever multiplying clutter of daily life. His images take a diaristic look at life in these cramped quarters, using a loose snapshot aesthetic to capture the eye popping density of color and texture seemingly found in every direction. Stepping into this environment full of visual stimuli for even just a moment is a bit overwhelming.

The best images in this thin volume reduce the mess into barely controlled still lifes, where a sink overflowing with dishes, a kitchen table of condiments, or a pile of bagged garbage and recycling turns into an overlapping riot of bright color. In these works, the jumbled too muchness of the stuff fills the frame to the breaking point. Other photographs introduce family members into this busy world, where open mouthed sleepers lie sprawled amid the debris and a snatched bowl of noodles offers a fleeting moment of peace. Daifu’s photographs of his siblings add a sliver of surreal humor to the proceedings: three full-mouthed teenagers stare in the same direction with stunning similarity and the seemingly rolled back eyes of a brother punctuate tooth brushing and the face down passed out end of a meal. Even in all this claustrophobic, right-on-top-of-it chaos, there is a surprising amount of quiet tolerance and easy going joy.

Part of the charm of this book is its endearing warmth; the glare of Daifu’s flash never turns harsh or particularly critical. (This was also true of his last project, Lovesody, reviewed here.) Rather than turn these pictures into pared down formal exercises, he has embraced the rush of cacophonous energy found in his home and let it run free. His photographs reject the entire notion of deadpan observation, and instead bring some low key personality back into the artistic discussion.

Collector’s POV: Motoyuki Daifu is represented by Lombard-Freid Projects in New York (here). His work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Feature: American Photo (here)

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