Thomas Demand @Matthew Marks

JTF (just the facts): A total of 3 large scale color photographs hung unframed against white walls in the front gallery space, with 1 video projection shown in an adjacent darkened viewing room. The photographs are c-prints mounted on plexiglas, ranging in size from 55×45 to 79×118. The film and sound installation has a projected size of 148×197. No edition information was provided on the checklist. All of the works were made in 2011 or 2012.(Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Thomas Demand is one of the reigning kings of the contemporary photographic installation. Starting with a source photograph, the artist creates an elaborate cut paper construction, reproducing the scene in exacting detail, but paring it down to a composition of geometric solids and shapes. He then photographs the resulting installation, making an image that is a recognizable representative of the original, but abstracted from its truth and reality. This generalization process drains away context and specificity, creating a simplified visual language that is both intellectual and reductivist. Demand is a kind of meta-matician, his works occupying an analytical space above the place where photographs normally operate.

His newest photographs continue his use of this meticulous methodology, documenting Whitney Houston’s last meal at the Beverly Hilton, the shadowy vault at the Wildenstein Institute where dozens of long missing paintings were recently found, and the control room of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant after the evacuation. When seen via Demand’s cardboard short hand, the settings are neutered, our reactions and emotions muted by the subtle rigidity of the abstractions. There is still something sadly poignant about the disarray of sugar packets and leftover salad dressing on the room service cart and the jumbled white ceiling tiles which float like elegant weightless origami above the knobs, switches and computer readouts, but the feelings are detached and aloof rather than hot and immediate. His translation has sucked the juice out of these moments, leaving them dry and academic, like empty ghosts of themselves.

The short film on view amplifies the focus on Demand’s astounding craftsmanship. Beginning with YouTube video taken by a security camera on a cruise ship during a heavy storm, Demand painstakingly recreated the ship’s cafe, with its seating arrangements of chairs and tables and its bright orange counter with a cash register and bar supplies. Over the course of 2400 individual frames, the objects were then moved inch by inch (with apparent understanding of the laws of physics), the resulting full speed film depicting the crashing back and forth of the entire scene as the ship rocked and tumbled. There is something impressively precise and scientific about this work, where the furniture rumbles across the frame like a herd of buffaloes, the wind blows, the pendant lights sway, and the bucket of lemon slices topples over, all with increasing violence until the chaos subsides, straws, napkins and a lone pink shoe left strewn amidst the destruction. It’s hard not to enjoy the whole raging spectacle, but there isn’t much emotional payoff; I found myself feeling respect for Demand’s prowess as a set builder (and wondering about how the sound was synched to the imagery), rather than paying much attention to the fate of the ship and its passengers.

Curators have long had a love affair with Demand, as his work is both conceptually rigorous and wholly original, and I do think there is something very intriguing about using increasing abstraction to push a photograph to the edge of its ability to communicate meaning. But there is a cerebral quality to this construction exercise that often times leaves me cold; my brain engages with systematic nature of his recreation process, but the pictures ultimately fail to grab me. Finding this tipping point of engagement and leaving the abstract physical objects to imply narrative is part of the interest of course, and I actually found these newest works by Demand more engaging than some of his prior efforts. His work seems to me more about questions than answers, the resulting images almost always unresolved.

Collector’s POV: Unfortunately, even after two visits to the gallery and repeated emails to the directors and staff, I was unable to get anyone to respond to my simple questions about the prices and the edition sizes for the photographs on view. There was no printed checklist with prices on it, and the usual pass off to the sales director was never followed up, which is puzzling, since I would assume collector inquiries would merit at least cursory attention. I’m not sure if this was just inadvertent incompetence or deliberate indifference, since I have had nothing but perfectly friendly and cooperative encounters with the gallery in the past.

In any case, if I subsequently find out the price information, I will post it in the comments; other collectors who have had more success than I are encouraged to do so as well. On the auction front, Demand’s work is becoming more routinely available in the secondary markets, with at least a handful of works up for sale every year. Recent prices have ranged between $15000 and $260000 for the works in small editions (3, 5, or 6), while works from larger editions (100) have typically found buyers between $1000 and $5000.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New Yorker (here), ARTINFO (here), TimeOut New York (here)

Thomas Demand
Through June 23rd

Matthew Marks Gallery
522 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Julia Fullerton-Batten, Persona @Jenkins Johnson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the divided main gallery space, a smaller side room, and the area behind the reception desk. All of the works are c-prints, made between 2005 and 2012. The prints are sized 40×54, in editions of either 5 or 7. (Installation shots at right.)
Comments/Context: Julia Fullerton-Batten’s new photographs are filled with the edgy tension of unspoken communication. Unlike her previous projects where solitary teenage girls were symbolically staged amidst miniature theme parks (Teenage Stories) and suspended in midair (In Between), her newest tableau pictures introduce the complex melodrama of relationships, her scenes constructed to maximize uncomfortable anxiety and simmering, stylized emotion.
In Mothers and Daughters, pairs of females are seen together, spanning the entire cycle from a young mother with an infant daughter to a middle-aged daughter with an elderly mother. The familiar scenes (kitchen, garden party, wedding dress, leaving home etc.) are pared down and dreamlike, with subtle gestures and body language telling the stories of tenderness and dependency, separation and rebellion, distance and misunderstanding. Matching dresses and echoes of hair and posture reinforce obvious similarities and connections between the mothers and daughters, while the changing emotional bonds between the pairs play out over time with fragile, unspoken intensity.
In Awkward, Fullerton-Batten’s teenage girls are matched with equally moody adolescent boys, and the pairs circle around each other with heightened, uneasy awareness. Eyes are averted and glances are stolen, the bumbling sexual tension thick and unfulfilled. All the interaction in these pictures is indirect, the desire to connect offset by the fear and embanrassment of doing so, leaving both subjects in uncomfortable isolation. The girls (nearly always in willowy nightgowns or dresses) are often staged as the object of the boys’ gawky, hungry attention, neither side particularly adept at controlling their emotions. The dramatic lighting and the almost too perfect faces take these scenes out of the realm of reality and into something more like fantasy or memory.
Nearly all of these single frame stories have something unsettling about them, a dissonant note leaving the viewer without resolution. Behind the veneer of glossy correctness in these set pieces, the emotional landscape Fullerton-Batten is exploring is surprisingly raw and conflicted. These new works have moved beyond symbolic interior studies of adolescent sentiments toward more complicated and stylized depictions of specific thoughts and reactions. Her taxonomy of emotions now includes nuanced situations and changing roles, heightened to a place just short of the breaking point.
Collector’s POV: All of works in this show are priced at $12900 each, except the four prints from the older Teenage Stories series, which are priced between $17000 and $21000 each. Fullerton-Batten’s work has only just begun to enter the secondary markets in the past few years, so gallery retail is still likely the best option for interested collectors.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:

Julia Fullerton-Batten, Persona
Through June 30th

Jenkins Johnson Gallery
521 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Jim Dow in the food court at Grand Central Terminal

In a recent mad dash through Grand Central to catch a train, I swung through one of the central seating areas of the food court on the lower level and saw some images that looked awfully familiar. Upon closer inspection, they were indeed the works of Jim Dow, printed on large photographic transparencies and displayed on the lightboxes usually reserved for ads. It was certainly an unexpected surprise to find a fine art photography exhibit in this venue.

Selections from this body of work (entitled American Studies) were on view at Janet Borden last summer (review here), so I’ll forgo repeating a full discussion here. There are a total of 20 lightboxes on display (2 are duplicates on both sides of the seating area with explanatory text), 12 of which are bordered by bright colors (3 each in orange, blue, yellow and green). The show edits down to just food related subject matter: drive-ins, snack bars, food trucks, roadside restaurants and classic American signage of burgers and ice cream. The bright colors and intense neon in many of the images really pop when backlit.

Apparently the show will be up until November, so make sure to take a look between your rushed bites of a sandwich or slice.

JR on the High Line

Another JR mural has popped up along my normal gallery pathways, this time up on the High Line near the 30th street entrances. Covering the entire side of a building, it’s much wider than the other one I saw a few weeks ago on Mulberry and Prince (here), although it’s clearly from the same series. Its background dot pattern is optically bold and the scale of the eyes-closed face is imposing, even from far away. Helpfully, this one has slightly more information printed on it: a title Brandon Many Ribs, Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota, and the logo of his Inside Out Project (here). JR is represented by in New York by Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here).

Joni Sternbach, Surfland, Revisited 2006-2011 @Rick Wester

JTF (just the facts): A total of 38 black and white photographs, framed in blond wood and mounted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique tintypes, made between 2006 and 2011. The prints are either 8×10 or 11×17; there are 34 of the smaller size and 4 of the larger size in the show. A single glass case contains 1 limited edition book with a tintype (in an edition of 10) and 1 gravure (in an edition of 25). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Joni Sternbach’s surfer tintypes have been shown in small groups at various art fairs in recent years, and so will likely be familiar, or at least recognizable, for many collectors at this point. This show is the first in-depth New York exhibit of her work from this project, and so offers the chance to dig deeper and see a broader sample of these object prints.
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Sternbach is one of a growing number of photographers who have turned away from the digital revolution, instead looking back to the dusty catalog of antique photographic processes. There is a physical slowness to these efforts, a glorious rediscovery of forgotten chemistries and laborious steps, and an embracing of the nuances and unpredictabilities of chance elements. What is tricky about such approaches is that it is easy to make pictures that look self consciously old timey. What is more difficult is to find ways to make these old processes new and relevant once again.I think the reason that Sternbach’s wet plate collodion tintypes have been so well received is that she has chosen her subject matter so effectively, finding a way for the resulting images to simultaneously look freshly modern and quietly timeless. Her athletic subjects (both men and women) stand in board shorts and wetsuits, with sun bleached hair and tanned skin, alternately holding streamlined short boards and huge double height long boards that tower overhead. They pose along rocky beaches and expanses of sand, with the power of the sea never far from view. As individuals or in groups of two or three surfers, they stare into the camera with a sense of controlled grace and stoic dignity. The images tell simple personal stories without being overly nostalgic; some square jawed surfers look like they could have stepped right out of the 1950s, while others have a strength and confidence that seems very immediate. Sternbach has deftly used this alternative process to document a subculture, relying on its strengths to help her capture both its goofy hilarity (mermaids) and its poetic honor.

In seeing more of these prints together as one body of work, I think the quality of the darkness comes through as the defining attribute. It isn’t so much that the photographs are sepia toned; it is the level of detail and boldness of engagement that emerges from the deep, rich tonality of the tintypes that is so unexpected. The process substitutes a velvety, thick atmosphere for the blinding light and immense scale of the windswept beaches, making the portraits surprisingly intimate and self contained. When all the pieces come together just right, the images shimmer back and forth between the appearance of history and the reality of vivid life.
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Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced at either $4400 or $6300, based on size. The limited edition book/tintype combination is $4500, and the gravure is $1800. Sternbach’s work has not yet entered the secondary markets in any significant manner, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here) and tumblr (here)
  • Exhibits: Southeast Museum of Photography, 2012 (here), Peabody Essex Museum, 2009 (here)

Joni Sternbach, Surfland, Revisited 2006-2011
Extended through August 10th

511 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Brancusi: The Photographs @Bruce Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 32 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung in the entry area, front room, main gallery space and back room. All of the photographs are vintage or early gelatin silver prints, taken between 1917 and 1936. Physical dimensions range from roughly 5×4 to 16×12 or reverse. A catalog of the exhibit is available from the gallery. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The photographs that Constantin Brancusi made of his sculpture and studio are much more than static evidentiary documents of end product art objects and an overfilled workshop space. They do something quite a bit more radical, employing photography as an expressive method to entirely reinterpret these iconic works, using the interchange of light and shadow to expand our perception of the sculpted forms. Picking up from the small selection of Brancusi photographs in the Original Copy show at MoMA two years ago (review here), this show goes further in exploring how Brancusi used his camera to carefully control and expand our experience of his own work, in the process making photographs that stand on their own as fully formed artworks .Brancusi’s images of individual sculptures show him experimenting with reflected light, shadow, glare, viewing angle, scale, background color, and even multiple exposures to heighten our awareness of texture, form, and drama. Several of the rough wooden sculptures are lit with harsh direct light, turning the three dimensional objects into flat two dimensional shapes in dark black, echoed by multiple shadows on nearby walls. Sculptures made of brass/bronze and other shiny metals capture brilliant flashes of brightness and energy, or reflect artist’s tripod in hidden self-portraits. Ovoid marble objects become soft and silky, or turn and pose amid lengthy shadows. An upwards view of one of his famous Endless Columns turns the bumpy totem into an angular thrust skyward. And Brancusi’s series of thin, elongated vertical birds are transformed by all these visual effects in turn: black birds with white highlights, white birds with multiple black shadows, and golden birds with radiant glints.
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Brancusi’s wider studio views go beyond the singular attention paid to individual works and explore a deeper sense of spatial interaction between the various sculptures, pedestals, bases, and other objects in the workshop. Pairings accent contrasts of shape, form, and weight (thin and thick), while wider views mix scales into a dizzying jumble of blocky geometric forms and more refined objects. Textures overlap, and the natural light from the overhead windows brings areas of light and dark to the carefully arranged installations. When flattened into two dimensions by the camera, the studio views become complex abstract compositions, filled with interlocking relationships and spatial connections, with particular resonance in the shifting back and forth layering between figure and ground.While these photographs were certainly successful in increasing (or reinforcing) my appreciation for Brancusi’s talents with a chisel or an axe, I think the pictures definitively show that Brancusi was equally adept at controlling mood and emphasis with his camera. This is a well-edited gathering of deceptively complicated vintage photographs, well worth the time spent to savor their intricacies.

Collector’s POV: The prices for the prints in this show range from $45000 to $250000. Over the past decade, Brancusi’s photographic work has been intermittently available in the secondary markets, with roughly a handful of lots up for sale in any given year. Recent prices at auction have ranged between $5000 and $84000.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Reviews: New Yorker (here), StyleZeitgeist (here)

Through June 23rd

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Evelyn Hofer @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 41 black and white and color photographs, alternately framed in white and black and matted, and hung against white walls in the two room gallery space. 21 of the prints are dye destruction prints, sized 16×20 or somewhat larger (24×30?). The other 20 are gelatin silver prints, sized 16×20. The images were taken between 1962 and 1997, with most made in the 1960s. No edition information was available. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Danziger Projects has recently taken on the representation of the estate of Evelyn Hofer, so this exhibit covers her work in a retrospective manner, a first pass over a variety of projects, locations and subjects across roughly forty years. The images show a fundamental understanding of the technical and compositional differences between black and white and color photography, and a thoughtful approach to picture making that played to the strengths of each palette and process.The straightforward formality of Hofer’s black and white portraits bears a certain resemblance to those of August Sander, but her subjects are captured with a bit more environment around them, making their personal stories richer and more evocative. Gravediggers in long black coats armed with unusually long shovels pose in a narrowing alle of dark evergreens, while the headwaiter at a London Club stands with extreme seriousness and competence in his waistcoat and medals amid the hunting paintings and dark wood paneling. Mods in skinny jeans, a girl with a beehive harido, and even a quirky man in a dog funeral parlor (complete with flowers and caskets) get equally structured and formal treatment, keeping these portraits fresh and lively while still giving them a sense of universal timelessness.

Hofer’s color work builds on the same sense of exacting precision, but she deploys it in these images with much more awareness of the balance of color across the frame. A man’s lime green pants pop next to a bright pink door, and the bold target and red lettering on the yellow sign of a Coney Island shooting gallery is set off by a royal blue sky and the pink wall below. Policemen alternately pose in front of frothy pink cherry blossoms and the intense red of a beer billboard, while women in funky hats and sunglasses stand outside a Harlem storefront church, flanked by a kaleidoscope of colored windows. Given that these images were taken in the mid-1960s, Hofer was clearly on the cutting edge in terms of understanding how color would permanently change the nature of photography. Like the black and whites, they remain crisp and effective, particularly since their use of color is so strong.

I came away from this exhibit impressed both by Hofer’s consistent sense of control and by her obvious adaptability. She clearly understood which tools worked best in which circumstances, using shadowy black and white for a dapper Parisian guard, and color for the silvery flash of a Cadillac tailfin. Very, very few photographers working during this same time period straddled black and white and color with such success. This quiet, unassuming show is proof positive of her steady versatility.
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Collector’s POV: The images in this show are priced between $9000 and $18000. Hofer’s work has only been sporadically available in the secondary markets in recent years. Prices have ranged between $1000 and $11000, but this range may not be entirely representative of the true market for her best work.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Obituary: NY Times (here)

Evelyn Hofer

Through June 22nd
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527 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011

Marco Breuer, Condition @Von Lintel

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 works, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are made of chromogenic paper, which has been alternately exposed, folded, scratched, scraped and burned. Physical dimensions range from roughly 10×8 to 39×29, and each work is unique. All of the works are dated 2012. A small catalog of the exhibition is available from the gallery. (Installation shots at right, along with two up-close detail images.)

Comments/Context: Photography and drawing are two disciplines that don’t seem, at first glance, to have much natural affinity for each other. While some photographers have experimented with long exposures to “draw” with light (using flashlights, candles or even lasers) and others have manipulated darkroom chemicals to produce handmade gestural effects, for the most part, these artistic methods have generally tended to stay separate. There is something intrinsically expressive and immediate about putting pen or pencil to paper that the multi-step mechanical process of photography wasn’t really designed for.
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Marco Breuer is one of the few photographers who has consistently tried to make these two artistic circles overlap, merging the light sensitivity and chemical processes of photography with the physicality of direct interaction with the paper of drawing, via countless unexpectedly ingenious methods over the years. His newest works find him tinkering with electric hot plates and frying pans, which he has uncoiled and straightened out into magic wands that glow with intense heat. Using these makeshift tools like a conductor’s baton or a calligrapher’s brush, he has mixed hand-drawn motion with the effects of heat and light on photographic paper to create works that explore interlocking layers of line, texture, and color.

The two up-close image fragments at left and right provide samples of how Breuer has used the wands to interact with the paper. Horizontal and vertical lines are etched and burned into the surface (sometimes after a step of folding the paper into grids of rectangles), while light from the orange heat turns some of the backgrounds a bright, shifting, swimming pool blue. The movement is often all-over expressive and passionate (almost manic in some cases), then receding to something more subtle, dispersed and melancholy. Burn marks, cat scratches, and thin scars create a spectrum of chance colors when interacting with the chemical coated papers: yellows and browns give way to misty light blues and wispy greys, with splashes of vibrant red or purple scraped away like a Richter squeegee. A few add another layer of colored exposure, an unexpected hint of green underneath the jittering lines.

Breuer’s unconventional methods bring rough physicality back to photography, where the final image object shows the literal signs of its making. These abstract works have a sense of touch, of surface topography, of finger driven carving. Overall, I was impressed by the innovative originality in the range of elegance and complexity in these works, and Breuer has clearly shown once again that the idea of merging photography and drawing is altogether less improbable and foolhardy than we might have assumed.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced between $5500 and $19500, based on size, and many were already sold when I visited the show. Breuer’s work has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is still the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Interview: Artlog (here)

Marco Breuer, Condition
Through June 23rd

Von Lintel Gallery
520 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011

Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 multi-panel mixed-media works, framed in brown wood with cream colored mounts, and hung in a divided two room gallery space on the 3rd floor of the museum. Each work is made up of three sections: an ordered group of pigmented inkjet prints displayed in 1-4 panels, a single narrow panel of explanatory text and image details, and a third panel containing other related photographs and ephemera. All of the works are dated 2011. A think monograph of this entire body of work was published in 2011 by MACK books (here) and is on display in a glass case. A newspaper style catalog is available for free in a rack outside the exhibit. As an aside, most of the works on view came from the collection of Michael and Jane Wilson. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Taryn Simon’s newest photographic project dives deeper into the nature and definition of history than any of her previous work. It explores how photographs, text, and other documents can be used to piece together a story, providing clues and context while still leaving many questions unanswered. Her works are like exploded files from an archive, presented with an eye for order and classification, teasing out buried multi-generational narratives of struggle, violence, and survival.

From afar, Simon’s panels are totally indecipherable. Row upon row of deadpan faces (and in one case, rabbits in vitrines), strictly laid out in a genealogical tree from eldest to youngest, stare out at the viewer, devoid of recognizable context. Only after the textual background on the middle panel is read can the stories start to unfold. The people are surviors (or remains) of the Srebrenica massacre, or Ukranian orphans, or Jewish settlers, or the countless offspring of a Kenyan polygamist healer. Tied up in each of these narratives is the study of inherited consequences, of descendants being trapped by the decisions (or fate) their ancestors. An Indian man was mistakenly declared dead by the local land office, thereby throwing the ownership of the land into confusion for his entire family. A legal adviser to Hitler and a PFLP airplane hijacker permanently alter their family histories. And hundreds of Australian rabbits die testing poisonous strains of viruses used to control the exploding population, descendants from an original group of 24 introduced over 150 years earlier. It seems there is no escape from the effects of choices made long ago.

The third panel of each work is a kind of grab bag of evidence; photographs, documents, and other ephemera are offered as related facts or footnotes to the larger stories. These items and artifacts further probe the idea of how historians edit and connect, and how seemingly random pieces of information are tied together to tell a broader, more comprehensive story. In one work, Simon documents a family chosen to represent China by the State Council Information Office. Alongside these photographs and the accompanying background text, Simon has included a gift bag provided by the SCIO. It is a surprisingly resonant data point (almost ominously comic) used to reinforce just how controlled her interaction with this agency was, deftly undermining the veracity of the family story she is supposedly telling.
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In these works, the documentary photographs are just one element that supports the creation of an entire narrative. And while all of the stories (constructed from both text and visuals) are presented with a kind of cohesive, scientific rigor, the structured, conceptual analysis isn’t conclusive; the patterns are there to be observed, but the process of creating the history itself is also on view. In the end, these works are an examination of the components of history, and how they are fit together to uncover and discern meaning.

Collector’s POV: Given this is a museum show, there are of course no posted prices. Taryn Simon is represented by Gagosian Gallery in New York (here) and Almine Rech Gallery in Paris and Brussels (here). Simon’s work has only recently begun to enter the secondary markets, so no definitive pricing history has yet emerged. As such, gallery retail is likely the only real option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Features/Reviews: Aesthetica (here), Artnet (here), Cool Hunting (here), Photograph (here),  Independent (here)

Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII
Through September 2nd

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Core Samples of Contemporary Photography

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what a useful history of contemporary photography for the recent decade (2000-2010) should or might look like, and I’ve come up wholly frustrated by the status quo. If you go to any book store, the kind of thing you will find on this topic (if you find anything at all) is a theme-based selection of representative photographers, bunched into buckets (staged, appropriated, manipulated, process driven, performance, etc.), with a few images from each along for the ride as examples. Perhaps there will be backgrounds on each photographer, discussions of high level prevailing trends and a stab at a comprehensive essay. All well and good, but this kind of analysis isn’t particularly useful or actionable from my point of view, mostly because it glosses over the important chronological details of what was happening year to year. What I think needs to be understood is the interaction between photographers and their projects on an annual basis, so it is possible to trace who came first and in what order original ideas percolated through the artistic world.

As a starting point, what I think someone needs to do is build out a list of the top 50 photographers of the period (by whatever definition you might choose), and then detail each of the projects they did during the decade (good and bad, known and unknown) and the years in which they worked on those projects. As an example of what I mean, see my amateur hour infographic below of 5 photographers who I think would be in the top 50 (I’m no graphic designer, and I don’t warrant that the data presented is either complete or correct – in fact I know it isn’t, but it’s good enough for illustrative purposes):

What I think this kind of presentation does is that it gives clarity on the progression of an artist’s own projects and makes it much clearer to see the interactions with other artists working contemporaneously. Look at the three vertical lines, in 2001, 2004, and 2007. By ticking down the chart (or drilling a core sample), it is now possible to see what each of these photographers was doing at the time. If you want to overlay political (say 9/11, elections or the economic crisis), social, technological, or art world events, it becomes easy to see what the responses were and how long they took to percolate through the system.

So to build out the history of 2000-2010 in contemporary photography, you start with the top 50 as I mentioned before, to get a comprehensive visual on overall trends. Then you drill down into the top subgenres we already use as a rough and ready taxonomy (say abstract, or portraiture, or street etc.), and pick a top 15-25 or so in each genre (with particular attention to major influencers), repeating the ones from the top 50 that are relevant and adding others, thereby expanding the overall coverage further. Slicing and dicing this way would really generate some surprising insights I would think (as would some multi-layered Venn diagrams of intersecting genres, but that’s an idea for another post). What is critical to success here is meticulous data collection and superlative graphic design. From there, example images and tying the findings into a coherent narrative (driven by what the data says) are the last tasks. The one drawback I can see here is handling those photographers whose work is not easily separated into discrete projects, series, books, or the like. In this case, I think the easiest and best solution is to select a few highlight images that stand in as representatives of a photographer’s changing interests, subject matter, or style, even though this glosses over some work to work variation and evolution.

What I like about this kind of approach is that it is far more data driven than most art history texts or coffee table surveys. It uses fine-grained chronology to filter ideas and provide context in ways that we overlook far too often I think. To make sense of the confluence of ideas, approaches, and technologies that have driven contemporary photography in the chaotic past decade, I think we need to reconsider the tired “group show” summary approach and search for new ways to synthesize, analyze, intepret and communicate the wealth of data that is already available.

Lisa Oppenheim: Equivalents @Harris Lieberman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 black and white photographs, framed in brown wood and unmatted, and hung in the entry, the main gallery space and the smaller back room. 20 of the works are unique black and white photographs, each sized 24×20 and dated 2012. The original negatives for these images were dated 1870s, 1876, 1908, 1913 and 2011. The other 5 works in the show are unique photograms, sized 24×20 and dated 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Lisa Oppenheim’s photographs lie in one of those intersections of overlapping ideas and methods that are so increasingly crowded it is hard to categorize her work into one discrete genre. Her images often start with appropriation, followed by an in-depth investigation of process bordering on performance, all wrapped up in a sense of conceptual rigor and knowing historical reference. It’s a heady mix of background steps and visual allusions, perfect for those who like to parse an artwork into its component parts.

In the Smoke series, Oppenheim begins with images of swirling smoke-filled skies from both long ago oil field fires, refinery explosions, and volcanic eruptions and more recent looting and rioting, and crops them down to abstract billows of cloud formations. She then exposes and solarizes these images using actual fire, both connecting to the original events being depicted and exploring the nuances of the photographic process. A handful of versions are made from each negative, creating a small series of minute variations of light and dark in the clouded sky. Areas of brightness and shadow shift and solidify, in some cases reversing tonality entirely. The title of the show, Equivalents, is of course a reference to Stieglitz’ ephemeral cloud photographs, so it’s clear that Oppenheim is not only aware of the footsteps in which she is following, she is interested in exploring some of the same subtleties of abstraction, albeit in a multi-layered contemporary manner.

The successively folded layers of delicate lace found in the Leisure Work series are a direct reference to Fox Talbot’s early experiments, but with a more conceptual performative twist. In a progression of five images, Oppenheim folds the lace on top of itself over and over again, the final image looking like the unrecognizable dense output from a microscope; seen together, the works are both brainy and intricate. The series of four photographs in the back room starts with a 19th century long exposure view of the moon passing overhead, and then using differing amounts of moonlight to reexpose the negative, Oppenheim creates a set of variations, from a misty grey wash to a high contrast arc. Once again, the subject of the photographs becomes one with the process.

While all of these images have roots in the past, there is a deep sense of both new thinking being applied and real physical involvement taking place. Her works provide both the surface enjoyment of getting lost in the tiny nuances of the ever morphing clouds, watching as the edges of a static form brighten and darken in successive iterations, as well as the thoughtful sense of historical awareness, giving the images an added layer of rich conceptual context.

Collector’s POV: All of the prints in this show are priced at $6500 each. Oppenheim’s work has not yet become consistently available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Review: Wall Street Journal (here)

Lisa Oppenheim: Equivalents
Through June 16th
.
Harris Lieberman
508 West 26th Street
Ground Floor
New York, NY 10001

Ari Marcopoulos: Wherever You Go @Marlborough Chelsea

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 large scale black and white photographs and 1 video projection, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space and the entry area. All of the prints are pigment prints, most on rice paper. 3 of the 89×60 works are unique, while 1 is available in an edition of 3+2AP. The other 6 photographs are 55×36 (or reverse), in editions of 3+2AP. All of the photographs are dated 2012. The digital video is 65 minutes long, in an edition of 5+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)
Comments/Context: Ari Marcopolous’ photographs have an imperfect, grainy roughness that gives his work a sense of unadorned, rebellious authenticity. Taken with a simple point and shoot camera and often decorated with the built-in digital time stamp, his snapshots are then further degraded by multiple layers of printing, not unlike a zine photocopying process, resulting in images that are both starkly straightforward and surprisingly soft given their textural grittiness.

Three large black prints dominate this show, the multiple layers of printing making them nearly abstract. While a shadowy form emerges from one and white stripes slip along the sides of the other two, the lush surface texture of the prints is what is unusual; the content has become illegible, allowing the process to become the subject.The rest of the photographs inhabit a dirty middle grey, where the shoulders and fingers of young men are covered with grime, and graffiti (or its muted, painted over absence) lingers nearby. Two images of the massive body of New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler are the most striking of this group, his muscled shoulders and narrow waist creating an exaggerated triangular form when seen from behind. In the second image, Chandler rears back pulling up his black t-shirt to show a paragraph of inspirational text tattooed along his right side. Both photographs are powerfully sculptural, while still retaining Marcopolous’ smudged underground realism.

While not every one of these images resonated with me, I was most interested by the recurring idea of an alternate photographic aesthetic, where traditional crispness and clarity have been traded for something purposefully rougher and less controlled. Marcopolous’ photocopy look reminded me of Moriyama and the Provoke era Japanese photographers, as applied to facets of contemporary American subculture. His visual approach matches his chosen subject matter well, capturing its truths and spirit without cleaning them up.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The unique 89×60 prints are $18000 each. The editioned 89×60 print of Tyson Chandler is $15000. The smaller 55×36 prints are $8500 each. Marcopolous’ work has not yet become consistently available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Features: Wall Street Journal (here), New York (here), Tyson Chandler’s blog (here)
  • Exhibit: 2010 Whitney Biennial (here)

Ari Marcopolous: Wherever You Go
Through June 16th

Marlborough Chelsea
545 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

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