The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A total of 210 photographs, films, and photobooks, from 80 different photographers/artists, variously framed and matted, and hung in a series of connecting rooms on the third floor of the museum. The works span the period from 1910 to 2009, and are drawn the museum’s permanent collection of photography. The exhibit was curated by Roxana Marcoci. (Installation shots at right.)

In each room, a list of photographers with work on view is provided, with the number of photographs/films/books and image/publication dates in each in parentheses:

Gallery 1
Man Ray (5 gelatin silver prints, 4 photogravures, 1 book and 1 film, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1931)
Paul Eluard and Man Ray (1 book, 1935)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (5 gelatin silver prints and 1 film, 1923-1925, 1925, 1926, 1930)
Florence Henri (1 gelatin silver print, 1928)
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler (1 film, 1921)
Edward Steichen (1 gelatin silver print, 1932)
Berenice Abbott (1 gelatin silver print, 1935)
Charles Sheeler (1 gelatin silver print, 1927/1941)
Paul Strand (1 photogravure, 1916)
Alfred Stieglitz (1 gelatin silver print, 1910)
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Gallery 2
Herbert Bayer (1 gelatin silver print, 1928)
Florence Henri (1 gelatin silver print, 1937)
El Lissitzky (1 gelatin silver print, 1 book and 2 magazines, 1924, 1928, 1929)
Paul Citroen (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1923, 1927)
Aleksandr Rodchenko (7 gelatin silver prints and 12 magazines, 1923, 1924, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1928-1930, 1930)
Gustav Klutsis, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Sergei Senkin (1 magazine, 1924)
Gustav Klutsis (1 magazine, 1931)
Solomon Telingater (1 magazine, 1931)
Dziga Vertov (1 gelatin silver print and 1 film, 1929, 1930)
Walker Evans (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1936, 1938)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1933/1968, 1952)
Tina Modotti (1 gelatin silver print, 1928)
Claude Cahun (1 gelatin silver print, 1928)
Andre Kertesz (2 gelatin silver prints, 1929, 1933)
Horst P. Horst (1 gelatin silver print, 1939)
Jan Lukas (1 gelatin silver print, 1933)
Hans Bellmer (1 gelatin silver print and 3 books, 1934, 1935-1937, 1936, 1949)
Grete Stern (1 gelatin silver print, 1949)
Georges Hugnet (1 collage, 1935)
Imogen Cunningham (1 gelatin silver print, 1932)
Edward Weston (1 palladium or platinum print, 1925)
Man Ray (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1924, 1927)
Unknown (1 gelatin silver print, 1921)
Jacques-Andre Boiffard (2 books, 1929, 1930)
Germaine Krull (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1927, 1929)
Albert Renger-Patzsch (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1928, 1930)
August Sander (2 gelatin silver prints and 1 book, 1928, 1929)
Max Burchartz (1 gelatin silver print, 1928)
Josef Albers (1 set of 12 gelatin silver prints, 1931)
Umbo (1 gelatin silver print, 1927)
Raoul Hausmann (1 gelatin silver print, 1931)
Berenice Abbott (1 gelatin silver print, 1930/1950)
Maurice Tabard (1 gelatin silver print, 1929)
John Heartfield (1 gravure, 1932)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (2 photomontages, 1925)

Gallery 3 (small side room)
Gerhard Ruhm (1 set of 17 photomontages/text, 1959)

Gallery 3
Lee Friedlander (21 gelatin silver prints, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987)
Helen Levitt (40 color slides in projection, 1971-1974)
Michael Schmidt (4 gelatin silver prints, 1965-1967)
Kikuji Kawada (1 gelatin silver print, 1960-1965)
Daido Moriyama (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1967, 1968)
Tetsuya Ichimura (1 gelatin silver print, 1964)
Ryoji Akiyama (1 gelatin silver print, 1970)
Shomei Tomatsu (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1961, 1966)
Robert Frank (2 gelatin silver prints and 2 books, 1955, 1956, 1959)
William Klein (1 gelatin silver print and 1 book, 1955, 1956)
Harry Callahan (1 gelatin silver print, 1959)
Roy DeCarava (1 gelatin silver print, 1952)
Dorothea Lange (1 gelatin silver print, 1957)
Garry Winogrand (2 gelatin silver prints, 1969)
Diane Arbus (1 gelatin silver print, 1967)
Richard Avedon (1 set of gelatin silver prints, 1971)

Gallery 4A
Valie Export (2 gelatin silver prints with ink, 1972, 1976)
Mel Bochner (1 set of cards/envelope, 1970)
Eleanor Antin (1 set of postcards, 1971-1973)
On Kawara (3 sets of postcards, 1977)
Stephen Shore (9 postcards and 1 chromogenic print, 1972, 1973/2002)
William Eggleston (1 dye transfer print, 1969)
Robert Adams (6 gelatin silver prints, 1968, 1969, 1970)
Bernd and Hilla Becher (2 gelatin silver prints, 1970, 1982)
Joel Sternfeld (1 chromogenic print, 1979/1987)
Ed Ruscha (15 books, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968)
John Baldessari (1 set of gelatin silver prints with oil tint and polymer paint, 1986)
Gordon Matta-Clark (1 silver dye bleach print and 1 film, 1974, 1978)

Gallery 4B
Robert Heinecken (6 silver dye bleach prints, 1988)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (2 chromogenic prints, 1990-1992)
Martha Rosler (12 pigmented inkjet prints, 1967-1972/2011)
Sigmar Polke (9 gelatin silver prints with applied color, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975)

Gallery 5
The Atlas Group/Walid Raad (1 set of 100 pigmented inkjet prints, 1996-2004)
Paul Graham (1 set of 6 pigmented inkjet prints and 1 book, 2004/2008, 2007)
Carter Mull (1 chromogenic color print with pasted chromogenic color print, 2009)
Joann Verburg (1 set of 2 chromogenic color prints, 1991)
Jules Spinatsch (1 pigmented inkjet print and 3 videos, 2003)
Harrell Fletcher (7 sets of pigmented inkjet prints, 2005)
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Comments/Context: With the job of head photography curator currently vacant, this year’s annual rehanging of the permanent collection of photography at MoMA marks a period with the team in transition. In the past, this show was the work of the curators as a group and had a more institutional point of view, but in recent years, the rehang has been given a more personal feel under the hand of a single curator. This year’s effort has been organized by Roxana Marcoci, and its thematic construct tilts away from a traditional history of the medium, taking a more anti-establishment view of the progression of artistic ideas. Instead of a parade of beloved and easily recognizable photographic masterworks, this exhibit follows the path of avant-garde and experimental movements of various kinds, tracing lines of criticism, dissent, and rejection of the mainstream. It’s a more radical history than we’re used to, riskier and less obvious than the one we all carry around in our heads.

The kind of vanguardism that Marcoci is interested in doesn’t really begin until the early 1900s, so the entire 19th century is thrown overboard here. The story starts with Man Ray and Dada, Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus, and a handful of images awash in the glory of skyscrapers and industry. The playfulness of Many Ray’s rayographs is juxtaposed with the intellectual rigor and sobriety of Moholy-Nagy’s photographs and still lifes, and Steichen and Sheeler carry the banner of Modernism. Each mini-section is puctuated by a film, making the differences in vision more clear; Moholy-Nagy’s A Lightplay, Black White Gray is a mesmerizing onslaught of rotating, shifting, abstract forms and interplays of light, while Sheeler and Strand’s Manhatta captures the frenetic pace of the city.

The next room continues the between the wars theme with samples of Constructivism, Surrealism, and works from the New Objectivity movement. An entire wall is devoted to images by Rodchenko, offset by examples of letterpress pamphlets and magazines using many of the same images combined with vivid typography and graphic design. Surrealism is led by Bellmer and Kertesz, with an additional dividing wall covered with distorted eyes and faces. Krull, Renger-Patzsch and Sander make up the short history of New Objectivity (where is Blossfeldt?), matched by iconic photobooks from each, including Krull’s geometric masterpiece Metal.

As we cross into the 1950’s, the named artistic movements start to disappear, and the definition of the avant-garde starts to shift. As a result, the narrative of this show becomes more diffuse, with individually driven social and political criticism coming to the forefront a bit more. A small selection of gritty Japanese works (both photographs and books from the likes of Moriyama, Tomatsu and others) is well-paired with Michael Schmidt from Germany (an excellent choice) and Frank, Klein and Arbus from America, as they all developed unique and ultimately influential visual vocabularies. The rest of the room felt less in line with the “new visions” construct, especially the out of chronological order Friedlanders from the 1980s.

Moving into the 1970s in the next room, Conceptual photography takes the lead, followed closely by the New Topographics and the emergence of American color. Books, postcards, and other materials are seamlessly merged with the photographs, giving Bochner, Kawara, and Ruscha appropriately equal footing with the likes of the Bechers, Robert Adams, and Matta-Clark. The entire corner containing Valie Export’s body configurations, Eleanor Antin’s lines of rubber boots, and Stephen Shore’s dull small town postcards is particularly strong.

As is often the case in these historical summary shows, when we reach the 1980s and beyond, the prints and the series projects get physically larger, so less diversity tends to get shown in the last few rooms. This is a real problem, as complex trends get boiled down to a small number of not necessarily representative works. In a room meant to encompass the 1980s and 1990s, we have a group of 1970s experimental works by Polke, a series of Martha Rosler’s Vietnam war-charged collages (also from the 1970s), a group of Heinecken’s magazine composites, and a pair of diCorcia portraits. All of these work inside the construct of opposition to mainstream cultural values and the creation of new aesthetics. I’m just not convinced however that these four adequately tell the entire story of changes that were going on during that twenty year period. As an example, while we might argue about whether the Dusseldorf school was avant-garde enough or not in this definition, it was undeniably an influential movement/vision and leaving it out altogether seems puzzling. Perhaps we’re just back to small rooms that won’t hold all the pictures we might like to see.

The final room highlights new visual motifs from Graham’s time-lapsed series work to Walid Raad’s exploration of archival material (car bombs). Given the newness of the work here, the vanguardism and eventual downstream influence is less clear, although all of the pieces have an angle of social or political commentary. Whether these disparate themes congeal into nameable historical movements is too early to tell, but experimental questioning in all its forms is still very much alive and well.

In general, I like the fact that the MoMA is offering alternative views of history for us to examine and evaluate; we’d be bored by the same old anointing of champions. But if you’re looking for Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Irving Penn, or many other household names, this show will both sorely disappoint you and perhaps open your eyes to some new perspectives. While its overarching scholarly theme gets stretched thin in places, the exhibit does provide a coherent outline of the development of avant-garde ideas in photography and their ongoing and continued relevance to the evolution of the medium. The story peters out a bit toward the end, but that may have more to do with the ever changing definitions of what is in and outside the mainstream and the atomisation of trends, than with any lack of pushing the edges of the artistic envelope.

Collector’s POV: Given this is a broad museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices, and with such a wide range of work on view, we’ll pass on the usual secondary market analysis for this exhibition.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

Previous permanent collection installations: 2011 (here), 2010 (here), 2009 (here), 2008 (here)

The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook
Through April 29th (2013)

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

Photography Is @Higher Pictures

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of a total of 27 photographic works by 20 different photographers/artists, variously framed and mounted, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space and the back viewing room. All of the works were made between 2008 and 2012. Edition size/information for each piece was not available on the checklist. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists are included in the show, with the number of works on view and image details in parentheses:

Lucas Blalock (1 c-print, 2011)
Matthew Brandt (1 c-print soaked in Fall Creek Lake water, 2009)
Talia Chetrit (1 gelatin silver print, 2011)
Joshua Citarella (1 c-print, 2011)
Jessica Eaton (1 archival pigment print, 2010)
Sam Falls (1 acrylic, pastel, and watercolor on archival pigment print, 2011)
K8 Hardy (2 c-prints, 2011)
John Houck (2 archival pigment prints, 2012)
Katherine Hubbard (4 Polaroids, 2012)
Sarah Anne Johnson (2 chromogenic prints, embossed and screen printed, 2011)
Anouk Kruithof (1 inkjet on Hahnemuhle Baryta paper with favorite color sheets, 2011)
Andrea Longacre-White (1 archival inkjet print, 2012)
Adam Marnie (1 inkjet photographs mounted on displaced wall, 2011)
Aspen Mays (1 archival inkjet print, 2008)
MPA (1 c-print, 2012)
Illiana Ortega (2 archival pigment prints, 2010)
Emily Roysdon (1 gelatin silver print, 2010)
Matthew Stone (1 archival inkjet on wood, 2011)
Arite Vierkant (1 uv print on sintra, 2012)
Letha Wilson (1 cement, c-prints, 2012)

Comments/Context: Trying to pin down an exacting definition of “contemporary photography”, an ultimate list of what’s in and what’s out, has proven to be an elusive, frustrating, and perhaps even delusional, pastime. Do we distinguish between or eliminate camera-less images, photograms, darkroom effects, collage, montage, and rephotography/appropriation? Or do we just include anything and everything that has its output as a photographic print, regardless of the intermediate processes used to make it? Where are the edges and bright lines? These kinds of questions and debates have become even more puzzling with the increasingly broad use of digital technology and the advent of countless new printing processes. The boundaries of our photographic playing field are getting murkier every day.

This smart show declares this kind of old school thinking tired and outdated. It sees contemporary photography at the nexus of interdisciplinary art making, where the definitional intersections between traditional photography and painting, sculpture, performance art, collage, computer-based art, and other less well defined genres are less clear or even important. Processes and techniques from various disciplines are layered on top of each other, creating hybridized end products that defy easy categorization. We’re now living in the in-between spaces and borderlands of art, where the rules are less well enforced and the outcomes less predictable, and this multivalent thinking is offering new avenues for exploration and experimentation.

There really isn’t a single straightforward “photograph” in this entire exhibit. Letha Wilson merges nature photographs and cement into an abstract object with textural roughness and slashing elegance. John Houck starts with computer-generated all-over grids of color, which are then repeatedly folded and rephotographed to create subtle undulations and angles. Jessica Eaton’s piece begins with a pile of sculptural blocks which are then painstakingly masked off in-camera in small squares, resulting in a single aggregate exposure that becomes a shifting, chance-driven geometric mass of color. Matthew Stone starts with a seemingly classical nude, overlays it with a draped fabric reproduction, and outputs the image on wood, creating a multi-layered, fleshy distortion with unexpected textural warmth. Talia Chetrit resizes everyday coins into a deceptive trail of conceptual breadcrumbs. And Lucas Blalock turns Tums (or are they SweetTarts) into a decorative pattern of pink and purple spots. Performances are staged, photographs are overpainted, collage elements are added, and unconventional ideas and methods are free to spread and evolve, sometimes melding two or three previously separate approaches or discrete steps into a unconventionally heady brew.

I think this kind of show is a message from the future. It indicates that the simplistic Photoshop effects of a decade ago are far in the rear view mirror. What lies ahead, at least on the bleeding edge, is the mature investigation of multiple media in concert, with the artist employing increasingly sophisticated levels of control to achieve his/her desired results. The camera is just one tool in the overstuffed tool box, and the thought patterns we bring from the world of vintage photography will be increasingly irrelevant. This show is fresh, and challenging, and unexpected, and this new style of “photography” is going to knock us out of our comfort zone until we begin to accept that the edges we once drew around the medium have been erased.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows, listed alphabetically by photographer/artist:

Lucas Blalock: $3300
Matthew Brandt: $4500
Talia Chetrit: $2500
Joshua Citarella: $1800
Jessica Eaton: $6500
Sam Falls: $6000
K8 Hardy: $6000 each
John Houck $4000 each
Katherine Hubbard: $1200 each
Sarah Anne Johnson: $4500 each
Anouk Kruithof: $1500
Andrea Longacre-White: $2000
Adam Marnie: $3000
Aspen Mays: $2800
MPA: $1500
Illiana Ortega: $3300/$3400
Emily Roysdon: $8000
Matthew Stone: $8500
Artie Vierkant: $4000
Letha Wilson: $3000

In general, none of these photographers/artists has much, if any, secondary market history. As a result, gallery retail will be the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

Lucas Blalock artist site (here)
Talia Chetrit artist site (here)
Jessica Eaton tumblr (here)
John Houck artist site (here)
Matthew Stone artist site (here)
Letha Wilson artist site (here)
Feature: ARTINFO (here)

Photography Is

Through May 26th

Higher Pictures

980 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10075

August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth Century @Edwynn Houk

JTF (just the facts): A total of 34 black and white photographs, framed in black and mounted, and hung against almond colored walls in the main gallery space. All of the works are posthumous gelatin silver prints with black borders, printed by Gerd Sander in 1990. 29 of the prints are roughly 10×7, in editions of 12. There are also 5 larger prints, ranging from 23×13 to 23×18 in size. The images were originally made by August Sander between 1906 and 1940. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I doubt that there are any words worth adding to the celebration of August Sander’s landmark photography project Citizens of the Twentieth Century. His ambitious and exhaustive portrait of the German people has influenced generations of photographers from across the globe, as evidenced by recent paired showings here in New York with both Seydou Keïta (here) and Boris Mikhailov (here). Edwynn Houk as recently taken on representation of the August Sander family collection, and this show is a foundation sampler of images from this iconic project.

The prints in this exhibit are not vintage rarities, but posthumous prints made by Gerd Sander relatively recently. So instead of the warm patina of age, they have a sharp crispness of silver tonality, making them seem surprisingly modern. The pastry cook, the bricklayer, the boxers, the three young farmers, the pairs of children, the soldier, they are all brisk and refreshed rather than tired. Several of the images have been enlarged to roughly twice the original size (I had never seen these before), but they too are clean and lively.

While this show doesn’t give us any particularly new or original insights on August Sander, seeing a strong grouping of his portraits like this one never fails to impress. It’s proof that greatness doesn’t age, and that the true masters of the medium can be revisited time and again without becoming stale.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The 10×7 prints are either $4500 or $6000. The larger prints (roughly 23×16) are either $12000 or $18000. Sander’s photographs are widely available in the secondary markets, including portraits, landscapes, and later prints/portfolios made by both Gunther and Gerd Sander. As a result, prices vary widely, from as little as $1000 for lesser known images to more than $100000 for iconic vintage portraits.

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

Transit Hub:

Feature: Wall Street Journal, 2008 (here)
Exhibit: SFMOMA, 2002 (here)

August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth Century

Through May 12th

Edwynn Houk Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10151

Mary Ellen Carroll: Federal, State, County and City @Third Streaming

JTF (just the facts): A total of 70 black and white and color photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung in a single room gallery space with small dividing walls. 24 of the images are a set of cibachrome prints entitled Federal, each 20×24, editions of 5+1AP, from 2003. The other 66 images are a set of black and white Polaroids entitled Kruder and Dorfmeister, each 4×5, in a unique edition, from 1999-2000. The show also includes various letters, permits, and other ephemera from the Federal project, along with 2 large silkscreens on vellum, 3 watercolors, 1 neon sign and 1 work made of enamel on metal. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Mary Ellen Carrol’s unassuming photographs of public architecture in Los Angeles raise a surprisingly rich set of conceptual questions. In two separate projects, she set out to document local government buildings, loosely drawing on formulas introduced by Ed Ruscha and the Bechers. But her results aren’t bound up in clever groupings or rigorous variations; instead they probe both the nature of forgettable public structures and the changes in attitudes toward government after 9/11.

In Kruder and Dorfmeister, Carroll took straightforward black and white pictures of all 66 public libraries within the Los Angeles city limits. While most of the buildings are modest one story structures, an amazing variety of styles and approaches have been employed. There are libraries in strip malls, on street corners, in leafy neighborhoods, and in shopping storefronts, in every manner of brick, stucco, and institutional concrete imaginable. Unadorned and unimposing, they fade into the background, a nondescript government service both inextricably woven into the community and taken for granted. Nearly all of the libraries front the street in one way or another, a nod to the realities of LA’s car culture.

In the Federal project, Carroll used a Guggenheim fellowship to fund an effort to film the Los Angeles Federal Building for 24 hours straight. While this project was clearly related to her previous work documenting other government buildings, in the aftermath of 9/11, the atmosphere of security and fear had dramatically changed the willingness to support such an activity. The countless letters, permits, approvals, and hoops she had to jump through over the course of a year and a half are evidence of just how reluctant the government was to cooperate. In effect, she was turning the tables, watching those who were now watching us (the FBI is one of the departments housed in this building), almost like a piece of performance art. The photographs themselves document a view from the LA National Cemetery, the bulky structure covered in a grid of windows. As the hours pass from day to night and back again, the lights in the offices go on and off, creating changing patterns of small blocks. There is an eerie sense of surveillance, in both directions.

I came away impressed by the symbolic nuances that Carroll has uncovered in government architecture, and by the shifting sense of what those buildings represent to us as citizens. While these photographs have a deadpan aesthetic, there is nothing cool and detached about them – the looking going on here is much more active and urgent than it appears.

Collector’s POV: The photographs in this show are priced as follows. The Federal project portfolio of 24 prints is $38000, while the Kruder and Dorfmeister project set of 66 prints is also $38000. Carroll’s work has little secondary market history, 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)
Reviews: Artforum (here, scroll down), Artcritical (here)

Mary Ellen Carroll: Federal, State, County and City
Through May 19th

Third Streaming
10 Greene Street
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10013

Liu Bolin: Lost in Art @Eli Klein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 21 large scale color photographs, unframed and hung in the two main gallery spaces, a small back room, and a portion of the downstairs gallery. All of the works are chromogenic prints, mounted on Sintra and faced with Plexi, and made between 2007 and 2011. The prints come in four sizes: 25×32, 37×47, 47×59, or 58×79, in edition sizes of 6 or 8. There are also two sculptures on display, from 2007 and 2012. A catalog of the exhibit is available from the gallery. The downstairs space includes an unrelated group of 22 diptychs by Zhang Dali. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The eye-catching works of Chinese artist Liu Bolin are at once “photography” and “performance art”, mixing the optical illusion effects of a camera-based image with the physical demands of an artistic performance. His underlying formula is remarkably consistent: find an appropriate location and then paint his entire body in such a way that he can stand in the scene and seem to disappear. The process is painstaking and lengthy, but the camouflage generally works and he becomes remarkably invisible.

My initial reaction to this conceptual approach was that it seemed like a gimmick, an overly decorative Where’s Waldo kind of game. But when Liu chooses his settings well, the idea of a human becoming invisible starts to gain more power. In front of a wall of stuffed animal pandas or colorful soft drink cans, he’s lost in consumerism and China’s burgeoning economic power. In front of an outdoor kiosk covered in flyers from job seekers, he’s lost in unemployment and the challenges of migration to the big cities. In front of the Ground Zero construction site and a wall of remembrance tiles here in New York, he’s lost in the meanings and resonances of that event. The visual trickery is always clever; it’s when the symbolism is well chosen that the motif is most successful. The exhibit also includes a selection of images made in collaboration with famous fashion designers. Jean Paul Gaultier and Angelea Missoni disappear into signature fabrics and patterns, while Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Piccioli of Valentino and Alber Elbaz of Lanvin vanish into displays of their work. The metaphorical message is less clear here, but the images are still striking.

In many ways, these photographs are straightforward and easy to like. But the best of these works are more than just a sight gag; they offer layers of additional meanings and readings that go beyond the fun and magic. In my view, these are the images that will ultimately have the most durability, as they add complex cultural questions to the entertainment.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size. The 25×32 prints are $9000, the 37×47 prints are $12000, the 47×59 prints are $15000, and the 58×79 prints are $36000. Liu’s work has only just begun to find its way into the secondary markets for photography, but there have been too few sales to chart any kind of reliable price history. As such, gallery retail is still likely the best option for interested collectors.

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

Transit Hub:

Reviews/Features: Harper’s Bazaar (here), Time LightBox (here), Designboom (here), Fashionista (here), Arrested Motion (here)

Liu Bolin: Lost in Art
Through May 11th

Eli Klein Fine Art
462 West Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Tim Hetherington @Yossi Milo

JTF (just the facts): A total of 35 color photographs and 2 videos, hung in the front and back galleries and in a side viewing room. All of the prints are digital c-prints. The images from Liberia are framed in raw wood with no mat, and were taken between 2003 and 2007. The prints are sized 36×36 or 47×47, both in editions of 18+4AP. The images from Afghanistan are alternately framed in black and white with no mat, and were taken in 2008. The images are sized 18×24, 30×45, or 60×43 (or reverse), all in editions of 18+4AP. Both of these bodies of work have been released in book form: Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold published in 2009 by Umbrage (here) and Infidel published in 2010 by Chris Boot (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Tim Hetherington’s show at Yossi Milo is at once both triumphant and disheartening. I sure this audience is already completely familiar with Hetherington’s tragic story, and of his death last year covering the uprising in Libya. Here was an artist who routinely took his life in his hands to tell stories he thought were important, and who ultimately paid a massive price for this dedication. When I saw these pictures more closely and in more depth, it was hard not to feel a huge amount of respect for his talent and sacrifice, while also being heavily weighed down by the thoroughly discouraging outcome.

Hetherington’s images of the conflict in Liberia are open ended and diffuse in terms of their narrative. They seem less intent on furthering a certain point of view and instead center on turns of color and composition, in the context of an active rebellion. A splash of red carpet punctuates an airport military parade, a blue wall poses as a backdrop for a band of child soldiers, lush green tree limbs are framed by jagged white tiles, and a red jacket is interrupted by the circle of a rubber tire. Tiny details provide anchors for formal, single frame stories: a casually placed grenade, a bloody foot, a plastic spoon tucked in a waistband, or a patterned dress offset by rockets in both hands. Together, the whole body of work is atmospheric, the murky orange dusk and the penetrating gaze of a child soldier providing an overarching sense for the feel of the place.

I think that Hetherington’s images from Afghanistan will end up being THE images from this particular war; put them on the shelf with icons by Capa and Smith and the rest of pantheon of great war photographers. What is astounding about these pictures is their sense of being inside the brotherhood. The playful wrestling, the roughly applied kiss to a reluctant recipient, the Infidel tattoo worn with pride and honor, these are stolen moments of relaxed downtime in an otherwise horrific situation. The series of sleeping soldiers captures the real vulnerability of these heroes; they’re not standing at attention in perfect dress uniforms, they’re asleep like any other young men, mouths open, bodies curled up, like boys in bunk beds. These works are particularly poignant when hung as a large group, when nearly the whole squad is seen at rest. The individuals then become something universal, a representation of the fragility of those we send off to fight our battles. A short film (also called Sleeping Soldiers) then juxtaposes these calm still frames with the out of breath anxiety and tension of a firefight, with bombs going off, helicopters passing overhead, and echoing chaos all around. Together, they provide an extremely strong, visceral sense of what this war feels/felt like for those on the ground. (Restrepo, Hetherington’s documentary film made with Sebastian Junger, tells this story much more broadly and is a must see.)To get such an unvarnished, unguarded look at the reality of contemporary war is rare indeed, and Hetherington clearly needed to establish an unusual bond of trust to make these photographs. This then brings us back to the sadness of this show. The work itself is evidence of an increasingly mature and original artistic voice, but the story abruptly ends here. So while we can be rightly angry and frustrated by this turn of events, Hetherington’s many indelible images of the human side of the throes of war provide a permanent record we can respectfully celebrate and remember.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced based as follows, based on the project/series. The images from both the Liberia series and the Afghanistan series range in price from $5000 to $9500, with multiple intermediate prices based on size and in ratcheting editions. Hetherington’s work has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the best option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

Magnum Photos page (here)
Reviews/Features: Washington Post (here), American Photo (here), Daily Beast (here), Stellazine (here), Examiner (here), Huffington Post (here)

Tim Hetherington

Through May 19th

Yossi Milo Gallery
245 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Michael Collins: Pictures from the Hoo Peninsula @Janet Borden

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 color images, hung in the divided gallery space. The chromogenic color prints come in two sizes: 48×60 (framed in brown with no mat, in editions of 7) and 20×24 (framed in black and matted, in editions of 15); there are 7 images in the large size and 3 in the small size on display. All of the works were made in 2011 and 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Michael Collins muted photographs of English marshlands and salt flats have the timeless quality of Dutch landscape paintings. In a palette of understated greens, browns, and greys, his images of rotting wooden barges at low tide seem like a mournful song for this lonely graveyard of beached carcasses. Time has left this place behind, and soon enough, muddy waters and stringy grasses will reclaim what’s left of these abandoned hulks.

Collins’ large format photographs are extremely detailed, so every decayed plank and seaweed covered hull is rendered with gorgeous crispness. The curved shapes of the barges still have a hint of their old elegance, but they are now mostly decomposing skeletons, the color leached out to an almost monochrome dullness. Stubby dock pilings stand up like bones in the misty skies, a path through the sand and grass leading nowhere. Barges are left to rot where they lay, as solitary sculptural figures or as jumbles of decomposing lumber washed together by the ebb and flow of the squelching water.

These pictures are quietly meditative and subtly romantic, and I think my takeaway from them is the thought that the contemporary landscape genre need not necessarily be postmodern, ironic and/or overtly harsh to be effective. These are well-crafted images that tell a small, rich story. They capture the passage of time, the evolution of the land, and the changing priorities of the community, all in a handful of elegantly silent frames.
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Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced in ratcheting editions. The 48×60 prints start at $8000 and rise to $11000, while the 20×24 prints start at $3000 and rise to $5000. Collins’ work has not yet found its way to 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/Reviews: Financial Times (here), New York Photo Review (here)

Michael Collins: Pictures from the Hoo Peninsula
Extended through May 15th

Janet Borden, Inc.
560 Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography @Katonah Museum

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 75 works (116 total photographs) by 36 different Chinese artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in the two main gallery spaces and the connecting entry area. All of the works were made between 1994 and 2011. The exhibit was curated by Miles Barth and will travel to the Krannert Art Museum and the San Jose Museum of Art. (Installation shots at right courtesy of the Katonah Museum of Art, photography by Margaret Fox.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of photographs on view and image details in parentheses:

Righter Gallery

Adou (2 gelatin silver prints, 2006)

Chen Wei (1 archival inkjet print, 2010)

Jiang Pengyi (1 chromogenic print, 2009)
Li Lang (1 digital pigment print, 2001)

Li Wei (2 digital pigment prints, 2005, 2008)

Liyu + Liubo (6 digital chromogenic prints, 2006, 2007)
Liu Ren (1 digital chromogenic print, 2007)
Lu Guang (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2010)

Lu Hao (1 set of 4 color photographs, 1999)

Peng Rong (1 color photograph, 2008)

Qiu Zhijie (1 color coupler print, 2005)
Rong Rong (1 set of 4 hand tinted gelatin silver prints, 2000)

Wang Qingsong (1 set of 3 chromogenic prints, 2003)
Weng Fen (4 digital chromogenic prints, 2000, 2002, 2009)

Xu Zhen (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2005)

Yang Yi (1 digital pigment print, 2007)
Zhang Lijie (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2010, 2011)

Zhang Xiao (4 digital chromogenic prints, 2006-2008, 2007, 2008, 2009)
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Beitzel Gallery

Cao Fei (1 digital chromogenic print, 2002)
Chen Qiulin (1 color photograph, 2002)

Huang Yan (1 chromogenic print, 2005)

Liu Zheng (12 gelatin silver prints, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, printed in 2006)
Muge (3 gelatin silver prints, 2004, 2006)

O Zhang (17 chromogenic prints installed in greenery, 2006)

O Zhang (3 digital chromogenic prints, 2008)
Sun Ji (1 digital pigment print, 2005)

Tamen (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2007)
Tian Taiquan (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2006)
Wang Jin (1 chromogenic print, 1995)
Wang Wusheng (3 gelatin silver prints, 2007)

Weng Fen (1 set of 10 digital chromogenic prints, 2001-2010)
Yao Lu (2 chromogenic prints, 2007, 2009)

Zhang Huan (1 set of 9 chromogenic prints, 2000)
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Entry Area

Maleonn (3 digital chromogenic prints, 2005, 2006, 2007)
Yu Haibo (1 digital chromogenic print, 2005)

Zhou Hai (2 digital chromogenic prints, 2005)

Comments/Context: It’s been eight long years since the groundbreaking 2004 ICP/Asia Society show of contemporary Chinese photography, and while the chaotic art scene in China continues to evolve at a blistering pace, from a fixed perch in New York, it’s nearly impossible to stay current on what’s actually going on. So it was with much anticipation that I made a visit to the Katonah Museum of Art’s current group show, with the hopes of getting an update on how things have continued to change over the intervening years. If this tightly edited sampler-style exhibit is any guide to the reality on the ground, the melting pot of interconnected ideas surrounding the country’s wholesale economic, social, and cultural transformation has become even more complicated and nuanced than expected, and the resulting art has moved beyond simplistic Chinese cliches intended for Western audiences to more mature investigations of everything from consumerism to environmental destruction.While the show is not organized thematically, there are certainly a handful of underlying ideas that present themselves again and again in the chosen works. Given China’s rich artistic and cultural history, it is inevitable that contemporary artists would be forced to thoughtfully engage with the past, picking through the centuries of excellence for those portions to discard and those to renew. This back and forth dialogue between the traditional arts and those of this moment is captured in a number of memorable pieces. Zhang Huan blackens his face with calligraphy, while Qiu Zhijie draws characters with light. Wang Wusheng makes imposing foggy mountainscapes reminiscent of ancient Chinese painting, while Yao Lu reinterprets these same forms using construction rubble and green netting. Huang Yan paints traditional landscapes on his face, and Wang Qingsong builds classic floral still lifes out of frozen meat and vegetables. Respect and subversion are offered in equal doses, highlighting the challenges of balancing the aesthetics of old and new.Western style consumerism and the expansion of mega cities are another face of this old/new reconciliation. Cao Fei’s dog faced people crawl on all fours dressed head to toe in Burberry plaid, while Li Lang’s studio portraits of the traditional Yi people include boom boxes and bright white tennis shoes. Weng Fen has three separate bodies of strong work in this show that all touch on these related themes: a diptych of “family aspirations” which juxtaposes patriotic Mao suits/red dresses with Western suits/briefcases, a pair schoolgirl profiles against expansive modern cityscapes, and a William Christenberry-like series of ten images of the city of Haikou, which is slowly engulfed by massive urban sprawl. Li Wei’s portrait of his wife and daughter, precariously seated on the raw girders of a new building while he is lifted feet first into the air, makes the personal uncertainty surrounding such rapid expansion all the more unsettling.What we haven’t seen as much of in the telling of the “new China” story is the rebirth of documentary and photojournalistic efforts. Happily, this show collects a number of examples of unflinching, nuanced reporting. Muge chronicles the societal transformations created by the Three Gorges Dam, while Zhou Hai documents the lives of steel workers. Environmental damage is captured by both Lu Guang and Zhang Xiao. And overlooked stories, from deformed citizens (Zhang Lijie) to mass produced art forgeries (Yu Haibo) finally have a voice. It is a hopeful sign that truth telling is becoming somewhat easier, after decades of suppression and censorship.Finally, this show gathers together plenty of examples of quirky rule breaking and symbolic eclecticism. A man in a tuxedo marries a mule dressed in pink taffeta to protest his repeated visa denials (Wang Jin), dream-like sheep fill Tiananmen Square (Liu Ren), mechanical ants head toward the futuristic Water Cube (Peng Rong), kids pose in “Chinglish” t-shirts in front of historic landmarks (O Zhang), and groups of kids wrestle with PhotoShopped George Bush and Kofi Annan (Xu Zhen). Creative boundaries are being stretched, not always completely successfully, but at least with genuine freshness and spirit.

What I think I like best about this show is its quiet optimism. Of course, there are many complex perhaps intractable problems facing contemporary China, but this exhibit proves that the burgeoning artistic community is increasingly ready to meet these challenges, using everything from beauty and insight to mockery and satire to bring thoughtful, unvarnished context to these issues. New Yorkers, this is the best short term opportunity that you’re likely to get to catch a glimpse of the current state of Chinese photography, so hop the Metro North train to Katonah and don’t miss this well-chosen cross section of recent work.
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Collector’s POV: Given this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. While most of the photographers in this show lack New York gallery representation, I have listed below what I could track down for those that do. If there are other representation relationships in other cities in the US, or in China for that matter, please be encouraged to add them to the comments for the benefit of all:

Adou: Pace/MacGill Gallery (here)
Cao Fei: Lombard-Freid Projects (here)
Liu Zheng: Yossi Milo Gallery (here)
Muge: Anastasia Photo (here)
O Zhang: CRG Gallery (here)
Wang Wusheng: Barry Friedman (here)
Yao Lu: Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here)
Zhang Huan: Pace Gallery (here)

Similarly, very few of these artists have any secondary market history in the US. Zhang Huan and Wang Qingsong have the most consistent auction activity; for virtually all the rest, gallery retail is likely the only real option for interested collectors at this point, and this assumes being able to find an appropriate representative to contact, either here in New York or elsewhere.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

Reviews: Bedford Record Review (here)

Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography
Through September 2nd

Katonah Museum of Art
134 Jay Street
Katonah, NY 10536

Anne Collier @Anton Kern

JTF (just the facts): A total of 19 photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space and the smaller back room. All of the works are c-prints, made in 2011 or 2012. In the main gallery, physical dimensions range from roughly 47×61 to 51×72; in the back room, all of the prints are 29×24 (or reverse), with one exception at 49×40. No edition size information was provided on the checklist. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Anne Collier’s fascination with the conceptual underpinnings of photographic ephemera continues to be a rich vein for artistic exploration. Her recent work furthers her accumulation of paper-based cast-offs and found objects related to photography (record covers, books, calendars, magazines, postcards, and other items of less obvious categorization), which are then given antiseptic still life treatment in pure white surroundings. Her approach focuses our attention on these artifacts, and the cultural tendencies they indirectly represent.

While there are plenty of decontextualized nudes on view in the main room here, the most striking are those that were originally from camera ads. Product shots of cameras and text blurbs float in front of a casually posed black and white nude, artfully placed to partially conceal (or highlight) areas of attention. In another, entitled Caravaggio by Nikon, a nude woman emerges from a darkened background, covered by something approximating a hand towel. When placed in this pristine contemporary setting, their datedness is both absurd and revealing.

The postcard still lifes in the back room work their target viewers in a different way. Instead of using shapely nudes to attract men, cameras and light meters are placed amidst other accoutrements of high living: scotch, cigars, driving gloves, sunglasses, maps (and a globe), flowers, ties, and photo albums. These works almost look like Outerbridge still lifes, with their bold nostalgic colors. Their message that a camera is a must-have accessory for the well turned out man is clear. And once again, their outmoded details make them quirky evidence of changing attitudes.

Collier’s detached, commercial photography approach to documenting these items adds a layer of increased scrutiny, beyond what an exhibit of the original materials would have provided. Her isolation makes the objects and their inherent worldviews more visible, sharpening our ability to see them for what they are and to consider how much has changed (or not) in the intervening years.
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Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The larger prints in the room are $18000 each. The smaller prints in the back room are $11000 each, with the larger image in the back at $16000. Collier’s work has only just begun to find its way into the secondary markets, but there have been too few sales to chart any kind of reliable price history. As such, gallery retail is still likely the best option for interested collectors.

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

Transit Hub:

Reviews/Features: Interview (here), Frieze (here)

Anne Collier
Through May 12th

Anton Kern Gallery
532 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011

Alex Prager, Compulsion @Yancey Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 color photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space, the project room, and throughout the office area. A short film, La Petite Mort, is being screened in a small side room. The chromogenic prints from Compulsion come in 9 paired diptychs (in editions of 6) consisting of one large image and one smaller image of an eye. The large images range in size from 48×20 to 59×72; the eyes are each 20×23. There is also one grid of six eyes which is 43×72 (in an edition of 3). The 6 film stills from La Petite Mort in the project room are each 13×25, in editions of 6. A signed catalog of the exhibit is available from the gallery for $35. Companion exhibits of the same body of work are also on view at M+B in Los Angeles (here) and Michael Hoppen in London (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: As Alex Prager’s star rises in the world of contemporary photography, I’ll admit to being a bit of a reluctant but emerging convert. It’s undeniable that the hype around her work has reached a fever pitch. And when I asked for the show checklist, I got a reply I haven’t heard in years: the show is basically sold out. What? I said. I visited the show after it had been open for roughly a week. Everything already gone, except for a few stragglers in the back room? That’s certainly evidence of strong interest in her work. Good for her.

But so what’s going on here? When I first wrote about Prager’s work two years ago, I felt a very distinct Cindy Sherman echo. Nearly all of those images were portraits, many quite close up, and her retro styling and melodramatic scene setting felt like the Untitled Film Stills, with a more hysterical LA noir vibe. Cinematic references to Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch were thrown around like candy. That show was followed up by Prager’s inclusion in MoMA’s New Photography show in 2010 where she showed a mix of older work and her newest short film; this gave her an institutional stamp of approval and kicked off a few high profile commissions.

Fast forward a couple of years and Prager is back with a new body of work and another short film. At this point, the look and feel of her work has become a signature style. From saturated colors and women in trouble, to throwback dresses and big wigs, a Prager photograph is now easily identified from across a room. Her recent images step back quite a bit from the earlier intimate portraits and settle on wider scenes and atmospheric situations. Each narrative turns on a disaster: a house fire, a flood, a roadside accident (with a scary looking coyote), a sinkhole in the middle of 110, a capsized ferry with floundering passengers. Paired with each dreamlike setup is a single large eye, often doused with mascara (reminiscent of one-eyed Bill Brandts from decades earlier, but more dramatic). We’re overly eager spectators at these tragedies, and being sternly watched at the same time. While the visual device is a bit heavy handed, it reinforces the feeling of Weegee-esque back-and-forth voyeurism.

The Sherman connection now seems overly simplistic. Prager has evolved her art toward the Vancouver crowd (Wall, Douglas, Graham) and their unique brand of staged reality. But she has done so on her own terms, with a distinct styling and bright Southern California light that is wholly her own. I struggle a bit with her craftsmanship, in that many of the images seem distractingly blurred or over enlarged, while others don’t hide the crisp PhotoShop manipulations with enough deftness. But then again, maybe the kind of perfection I am expecting isn’t necessary here. Perhaps that subtle roughness and obviousness is part of the loose allure of her brand of story telling.

All that said, many of the scenes on view here are striking and memorable. A woman hangs like a rag doll from the span of an electric tower, another is blown through the air (losing her purse in the process), a third is dangling from the bumper of a car, while a fourth is ensnared in a tangle of telephone wires. This is well constructed, puzzling tragedy, and the images have the feel of watching from an assembled crowd of gawkers. She’s successfully built the suspense and drawn me in. The short film, La Petite Mort, running in the viewing room, expands this narrative form, as a woman is blown off a set of train tracks and into a nearby pond, only to emerge dry into the critical eyes of a group of bystanders, where she proceeds to faint/die. The dissonant dramatic music makes the whole thing seem simultaneously overdone and perfect tuned. It’s a period piece, with a new layer of in-on-the-joke conceptual rework.

So is Prager’s work a guilty pleasure or is it smartly mining visual/cultural stereotypes to create new kinds of contemporary story telling? I suppose it’s both at some level, but I think she deserves credit for defining her own playing field and then consistently continuing to expand it. My conclusion is that it’s overly easy to linger in the retro fabulousness of her world, and thereby overlook the fact that Prager’s work is getting better and more complex with each successive project.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The Compulsion diptychs are $18000 (as a pair). Smaller individual images of the large scenes and of the eyes from Compulsion are available for $8000 and $6000 respectively (in editions of 9). The La Petite Mort prints are $6500 each. As I mentioned above, these prices are perhaps theoretical at this point if the show is well sold, so check with the gallery directly about what is still available. Prager’s work has also started to show up the secondary markets in the past few years, with prices ranging from roughly $3000 to $17000.

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

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Reviews/Features: New York (here), Vogue (here)

Alex Prager, Compulsion
Through May 12th

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Moyra Davey, Spleen. Indolence. Torpor. Ill-humour. @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 photographic works and 1 video, hung in the North and South gallery spaces and the entry area. The North gallery contains the video, Les Goddesses, 61 minutes, in an edition of 5, from 2011. The entry area contains 1 unframed grid of 25 c-prints from 2012, each with postage, tape and ink. Each print is 12×17, and the work is unique. The South gallery contains 1 unframed grid of 16 c-prints from 2011, each with postage, tape, ink, and labels with text supplied by Lynne Tillman. Each print is 17×12, and the work comes in an edition of 3. This gallery also contains 5 triptychs and 1 singe image. These works are unframed gelatin silver prints, sized 20×16, in editions of 3, taken in 1979. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Moyra Davey’s unabashedly analog, through-the-mail grids seem to have touched a curatorial nerve of late. They are intellectual, autobiographical, engaged with the written word, and an antidote (or corollary) to the flood of digital imagery that has engulfed photography. Her grids were included in the New Photography show at the MoMA last year and are now part of the Whitney Biennial (both linked below). Not many can claim that double play in such a short time span.

In this new show, Davey offers two recent grids, a video, and a selection of earlier vintage work. The Trust Me grid is a collection of still lifes: the contents of a medicine cabinet, a blue glass bottle, a group of shopping bags, a tiled wall, bugs caught in a spider web, strands of hair on the edge of a bathtub, a stuffed animal bunny, which are then woven together into a kind of anti-narrative form with snippets of text by Lynne Tillman. They are pictures about stories, rather than stories themselves. The Subway Writers grid is more literal; strangers on the subway read with a pencil, scribble in notebooks, or get lost in words amidst the chaos around them. They float in thought bubbles, oblivious to the din. It is writing as refuge from the crowd.

The vintage black and white photographs the South gallery have a Brown Sisters feel to them, but with an undercurrent of simmering sibling hostility. Four dark haired sisters pose in matching striped shirts, but there is a subtle closed reluctance here, a dark, arms crossed grudging compliance. Bodies are cut down into arrays of tattoos or tank tops in other shots, but the mix of familial emotions is never far from the surface. Davey probes some of this historical terrain in the video, Les Goddesses, where autobiographical scenes of family and close friends are examined via more cerebral investigations of various texts and essays. Her approach to telling (and/or reading) her personal story is inextricably mixed with a more rigorous arms length analysis.

I think the appeal of Davey’s work at this particular moment in photographic history derives from the earnestness with which she is digging into the relevance of the photographic image in one’s own personal history, as well as its connections to the written word as part of an overall redefined narrative form. In a time when the digital age is threatening to dumb down our discourse, Davey is re-exploring her own relationship with photography in a serious, high-minded, and thoughtful manner.

Collector’s POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows. The grid in the entry space is $40000, while the grid in the South gallery is $45000. The vintage prints from 1979 are $18000 each. Davey’s work has not yet reached the secondary market, so gallery retail is still the only viable option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

Exhibits: New Photography 2011 @MoMA (here), Whitney Biennial 2012 (here)

Moyra Davey, Spleen. Indolence. Torpor. Ill-humour.
Through May 6th

Murray Guy
453 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

Frank Gohlke, One Thing and Another @Howard Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A total of 34 black and white photographic works, variously framed and matted, and hung in the main gallery space and the book alcove. The main exhibit includes 8 diptychs and 10 single images hung in pairs, while the book alcove has 16 single images. (Installation shots at right.)

The works in the show come from the following projects/series. For each, the number of works on view is listed, accompanied by additional print details:

Ten Minutes in North Texas (5 gelatin silver prints mounted to aluminum, each 53×38, in editions of 5, taken in 1995 and printed in 2011)
Unpacked (3 pigment prints, each 24×60, in editions of 5, taken in 2008-2009 and printed in 2012)
Aftermath (3 pairs of 2 gelatin silver prints, each 14×18, edition AP, taken in 1979/1980 and printed in 1980/1982)
Mt. St. Helens (2 pairs of 2 gelatin silver prints, each 10×24, in editions of 15, taken in 1983/1990 and printed in 1993)
Grain Elevators (9 gelatin silver prints, ranging from 7×7 to 14×11, taken and printed between 1972 and 1974)
Landscape/Untitiled (4 gelatin silver prints, ranging from 9×9 to 14×11, taken and printed between 1973 and 1975)
Untitled (3 Polaroid type 50 series prints as a set, each 3×4, unique, taken and printed in 1971-1972)

Comments/Context: I’m not sure if it is a larger trend or just a quirk of New York gallery scheduling, but this is the third show I’ve seen in the last month or so that has used paired images to explore the idea of elapsed time in photography. Frank Gohlke’s use of this conceptual structure is altogether different than that of Paul Graham and Eve Sonneman however. In contrast to the jump cut, attention shifting jerkiness of these two, Gohlke’s images are astonishingly calm and meditative. Time passes in Gohlke’s works as well, but it does so deliberately, with ample time for reflection and investigation. The other glaring difference is that both Graham and Sonneman are primarily interested in activites and perceptions of the humans (or themselves), while Gohlke is centered on the evolution of the land.

Aside from a group of vintage grain elevators and other landscapes in the book alcove, all of the works in this show are diptychs or pairs, with varying amounts of time between the first and second images. In both his Mt. St. Helens volanco eruption photographs and in those made in the aftermath of a Witchita Falls tornado, Gohlke turns the usual “before and after” motif on its head, making it “after, and then later”. The first image in each pair is a catalog of destruction: blown down trees, piles of ash and deep craters, or houses turned to rubble, roofs ripped off, and neighborhoods decimated. The second image is a story of healing, rebirth, and starting over, years later. New evergreens have sprouted up and craters have silted over, or straight sidewalks and new one story houses have once again become neat and tidy communities. Both man and nature are seen to be remarkably resilient in the face of disaster.

Gohlke’s newest pictures shorten the interval between shots down considerably, in one series down to just ten minutes. In these deceptively unassuming images of broad Texas scrublands and prairies, the changes are extremely subtle: the path of the clouds, the wind on the grass, the movement of a river, or the shading of the sunlight. They require patience, and quiet, and contemplation, and they reveal a kind of solemn, pared down poetry of ever shifting tiny details. Their pleasures reside not in the cleverness of their conceptual framework, but in their deep and humble respect for the texture of the land itself.

The final set of pairs are a real surpise in the context of Gohlke’s photographic history: paper abstractions made from carboard packing boxes. Piled up in clusters and jumbles of angles and geometries, and then alternately seen at different times of day or from slightly different viewpoints, they are intricate puzzles of lines and planes, full of formal realignment and dilation. What started out as a pile of throw away debris clearly turned into a more complicated exercise in photographic seeing.

Gohlke’s work has an old school sense of nuance that we seem to be forgetting in these fast paced times. He still values rhythm and lyricism, tempered by thoughtfulness and a sense of history. He continues to look intently at the world around him, eschewing the interruptions and distractions, seeing the details that only come from consistent, sustained attention.

Collector’s POV: The works in the show are priced as follows. The diptychs from Ten Minutes in North Texas and Unpacked are $10000 each. The pairs of prints from Aftermath are $20000 or $25000, while the pairs of prints from Mt. St. Helens are $10000. The vintage Grain Elevators are $10000 each, while the vintage landscapes are $15000 each. The set of Polaroids is $15000. Gohlke’s work has only been intermittently available at auction in recent years. While prices have ranged between $3000 and $6000, this may not be entirely representative of the market for his best work. As such, gallery retail is likely still the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Interview: Terrian.org (here)

Frank Gohlke, One Thing and Another
Through May 5th

Howard Greenberg Gallery

41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

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