Andy Freeberg, Guardians @Andrea Meislin

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the divided gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made in 2008 and 2009. The prints are available in two sizes: 30×45 or reverse (in editions of 6) and 40×60 or reverse (in editions of 3). A monograph of this body of work was published in 2008 by Photolucida (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In recent years, the trend toward academic art making might easily have led us to conclude that increasing conceptual complexity was a requirement for some measure of artistic success. And yet, this backdrop of pervasive, brainy seriousness makes the elegant simplicity of Andy Freeberg’s Guardians project all the more remarkable. At first glance, a series of photographs of museum guards and the artwork they protect seems a unlikely winner. We can quickly imagine the probable look alikes, the tedious boredom, and the quirky juxtapositions, and the premise itself seems like the kind of one-liner heavy thing someone else has already done.

But the images in Freeberg’s series go far beyond this obviousness. They ask us to step back and consider art in context, to see the treasures of Russia’s finest museums not just as items to be checked off after consulting the wall label, but as objects that stand in relation to everything around them: the wall colors, the light, the moldings, the frames, the position and gestures of the guards, and the people themselves. The art he sees is in the entire environmental experience, the back and forth dialogue between the “center” and the overlooked surroundings. There is a conceptual kinship with the work of Louise Lawler here, but with a softer, more human touch.

Freeberg’s visual echoes between the retired Russian women and the nearby artworks cover a wide swath of ground, from hair styles and facial features to poses and clothing color. A glass case of wide eyed mummy masks is flanked by an equally alert guard, while the jowled cheeks of a Malevich self-portrait are surprisingly similar to those of his protector. The patterned shawl of a guard sits underneath an equally swirling blue Matisse tablecloth, just as a striped shirt recalls the sculpted sideways drapery of a nearby ancient statue. And a modest, hands-clasped guard is a doppelganger for the nervous young girls before a country dance in a painting by Kugach, almost as though she was an extension of the painted scene herself. In every case, the pairings are done with an eye for detail and a respect for the dignity of the guards; they never degrade into overly clever jokes made at the expense of the sitters. In unexpected ways, the presence of the guards enhances the overall of seeing the art, highlighting aspects of the work we might have missed.

What’s exciting about these pictures is that they use photography to force a recalibration of seeing. They are less about the amazing paintings and sculptures on display and more about the space around them, and the shifting relationships between people and the installations of art. They are a “hiding in plain sight” revelation, innocuously simple but consistently rich and thought provoking.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced based on size. The 30×45 prints are $6000 each and the 40×60 prints are $7500 each. Freeberg’s work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail remains the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

 

Robin Rhode: Take Your Mind Off the Street and Paries Pictus @Lehmann Maupin

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 multi-panel works and 1 single image photograph, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the two separate gallery venues. Each of the multi-panel works is made up of a series of 16×24 c-prints, gathered into sets of 8, 9, 12, 15, or 16 prints. All of the works were made in 2012-2013 and are available in editions of 5+2AP. The round single image photograph is sized 73×73. The show also includes 2 metal sculptures suspended from the ceiling in the 26th Street location and a series of crayon-colored wall decals in the Chrystie Street location. All of the photographs are on view at the 26th Street location, except for 1 set of 8 prints (switchblade) shown on the second floor balcony at Chrystie Street. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Robin Rhode’s photographic works distill an unlikely mash-up of artistic styles and genres into cleverly simple visual vignettes. Mixing equal parts hip-hop street art and active performance with a photographic approach that reaches back to Marey and Muybridge, his mini-stories play out with flip book style lightness and ease. Told against the backdrop of anonymous walls and using himself as a kind of subtly comic straight man, his works play with camera-viewed flatness and perspective, using iterative stop motion steps to create a linear progression of time and narrative.

Most of Rhode’s series are step-by-step charcoal drawings (black on white or white on black) that find the artist interacting with the evolving hand-drawn scene behind him. Huge feathers fan out in an arc, a car spanner spirals overhead, and a massive comb makes crossed striations on the wall. Unexpected scale and optical trickery often play a part: an oversized afro pick pumps up a tangled ball into a big circle, birds fly over a barbed wire fence, and ships multiply across a wavy sea tracked by sight lines drawn straight from Rhode’s eyes. Motion is indicated by cartoon swooshes, giving the bounce of a basketball, the curved climb of a bicycle, and the speed of a car the appearance of movement. Rhode’s works give the one-liner of street art more degrees of freedom, allowing basic visuals to morph and change.

These recent works feel slightly less subversive and reactionary than previous works I have seen by Rhode; they have less political edge and more carefree wit. I think this softens their impact, tipping the balance away from social critique and toward nimble ingenuity. This doesn’t diminish their imagination or originality, but it reduces their perceived weight. These works ask less of us, and as a result, feel more like exercises in whimsy.

Collector’s POV: The photographic works in these shows range in price from 50000€ to 75000€ based on size/number of panels. Rhode’s work has not been consistently available in worldwide photography auctions; when it has shown up, it has generally been placed in the Contemporary Art sales. Recent prices have ranged between $30000 and $35000, but these numbers should be taken with a degree of caution as my data from these sales is less comprehensive.

 

 

 

Zwelethu Mthethwa, New Works @Jack Shainman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the entry, the divided main gallery space, and the two smaller side rooms. All of the works are digital c-prints, made in 2010 or 2012. There are three projects represented in the show: The Brave Ones, Hope Chest, and The End of An Era, and each of the images in each series comes in a large and small size, as follows – The Brave Ones (54×72 in an edition of 1+1AP and 27×36 in an edition of 3+1AP), Hope Chest (60×80 in an edition of 1+1AP and 24×33 in an edition of 3+1AP) and The End of an Era (49×67 in an edition of 1+1AP and 24×33 in an edition of 3+1AP). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Zwelethu Mthethwa’s newest show of portraits certainly ranks among the best work he has produced in his already successful career. In three separate projects, the South African photographer probes the subtleties and depths of personal identity, via the unlikely costumes of members of the Nazareth Baptist Church, the battered hope chests of elderly women, and the hostel room furnishings of anonymous migrant workers. The pictures tell rich stories of the past, the present, and an aspirational future, consistently bursting with thick, astonishing color.

Making the choice to reject your traditional Zulu heritage and join an insurgent Christian church is likely a hard one for any young man. But to do so and then proudly wear the hybrid British/Scottish garb of kilts and bow ties, knee socks and puffy yarn head pieces is enough to test anyone’s resolve, especially in a culture with such strong definitions of masculinity. No wonder Mthethwa called these sitters The Brave Ones. Posing in the verdant green of the bush under solitary shade trees, young men stand with languorous defiance, in pith helmets and green ribbons or sporting red checked skirts and starched white shirts. It’s a smart inversion of the stereotypical tribal pose, capturing an unexpected willingness (or need) to break from the crowd.

Mthethwa’s portraits of women with their hope chests are even more confident and powerful. Weathered women who have seen it all pose with their chests, often resting on them or guarding them with reverent attention. The wooden boxes are heavy and solid, filled with treasures and possessions reaching back to the hopeful time before the woman was married. Many miles have clearly passed since then for all of the subjects, but even though times have changed, the chests have lost none of their traditional importance. One woman in a shiny orange and black dress sits atop her chest flanked by her matching tractor, while another wearing a bright red hat with silver rivets waits primly alongside hers under a blue umbrella. The dusty red earth tries to swallow up one woman’s padlocked chest, and a jumbled pile of luggage and blankets threatens that of another. Interior wall colors throb with bold intensity, the sparse painted rooms often organized with the chests as their centerpiece furnishing. The simple image of a woman in a pink headscarf sitting in a green plastic chair before her chest, drenched in a flood of peach light, is at once penetratingly poignant and quietly breathtaking.

Mthethwa’s third project, The End of an Era, reprises his earlier images of empty interiors, allowing the details of a tidy room to tell its inhabitant’s story. Here one room is covered edge to edge in World Cup team shots and soccer cutouts from newspapers, while another is a study in the contrasting patterns of a blanket, a wooden divider, and a painted wall. Others focus down on specific objects: the orderliness of a set of combs and toiletries (the soap delicately paced and a shard of mirror carefully centered on the table) or the solitary candle on a makeshift bedside table. The pictures are clear evidence that even in the humblest of conditions, people find ways to make a place personal, leaving behind traces of themselves.

More generally, I think this show cements Mthethwa’s position as one of the important innovators in contemporary photographic portraiture. He has a brilliant sense for how clothing, objects and environments are representative of a sitter’s most strongly held beliefs, and how the subtle interaction between them can reveal something that would otherwise be hidden.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced based on size and series. Prints from The Brave Ones are either $26000 or $18000, those from Hope Chest are either $28000 or $18000, and the ones from The End of an Era are either $26000 or $18000. Mthethwa’s work has become more available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $5000 to $28000.

 

 

 

 

 

David Hilliard, The Tale is True @Yancey Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 multi-panel photographic works, mounted and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space and the back project room. All of the works are made up of between 2 and 4 archival pigment print panels and were made in 2011 and 2012. The individual panels come in two sizes: 20×24 or reverse (the works in editions of 12) and 40×30 or reverse (the works in editions of 7). The are 9 small panel works and 4 large panel works on display. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: David Hilliard’s newest works have a uniquely East Coast American feel. Set in and around his family’s Cape Cod house, his quiet narratives capture the essence of Yankee thriftiness and its deeply held belief in the simple, the functional, and the unassuming. The pictures are rooted in the charm of the unchanging and the patina of age, but also tell the story of unspoken familial distance and stubborn ritual.

The word panorama tends to get thrown around a lot when describing Hilliard’s multi-panel works, but I’m not convinced that this characterization is entirely accurate. A panorama sweeps and pans, moving from edge to edge in one continuous motion. What Hilliard is doing is something more akin to standing in one place and letting your attention wander – your eye turns along a single axis, connecting adjacent but discrete frames into one perception. Each scene has multiple parts, where details come to the forefront in sequence. In these pictures, the details are richly emblematic of a certain kind of life. Inside the house, it’s dusty sailing paintings, mismatched crockery, worn threadbare rugs, faded toile wallpaper, and the practicality of a tea kettle and a crackling wood stove. Outside, it’s weathered shingles, rusty yard tools, and a wicker chair pulled down onto the dock. The bright light of the morning is never far away, streaming in through the crackled paint of the window frames and offering an ever present vista to the sea.

Hilliard uses the trappings of the house to help chart the emotional landscape of the family, particularly the tenuous, formal relationship between father and son. Lone figures rattle around in the old empty rooms, following the patterns and common behaviours of past generations. The connections are few and far between and time is slowed down to a crawl, where a solitary swim, a slowly smoked cigarette, or a rest on the dock is a moment of reflection or meditation. Reading a left behind book fills the afternoon, and rebellion is measured out by taking one impractical bite from every fruit on the table.

I like the restraint found in these new photographs, where the muted tones of the enduring setting are part and parcel of the subdued human relationships. Hilliard’s narratives are often open ended, but their mood here is surprisingly complex and conflicted, built on the steadiness of a family that is at once comforting and stifling.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced based on the size and number of panels in the work. For the works based on 24×20 panels, prices are $3100 (2 panels), $4600 (3 panels), or $6200 (4 panels). For the works based on 40×30 panels, prices are either $5600 (2 panels) or $8300 (3 panels). Hilliard’s work has recently begun to show up in the secondary markets, with prices ranging between roughly $2000 and $6000.

 

 

 

 

Hendrik Kerstens @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 large scale color photographs, mounted and unframed, and hung against white walls in the two room gallery space. All of the works are pigment prints face mounted to Diasec, made between 1994 and 2012. The prints are shown in three different sizes: 24×20 (in editions of 5 or 6+2AP), 40×30 (in editions of 6 or 10+2AP) and 60×50 (in editions of 5 or 6+2AP). there are 6 prints in the largest size, 7 prints in the middle size, and 4 prints in the smallest size on display. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I have seen and written about the work of the Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens several times over the past few years, so I was certainly aware of what I would likely encounter when visiting his newest show (post Sandy flooding) at Danziger Gallery. But I have to say I was totally and utterly surprised when I walked into the gallery. His portraits have been transformed into glossy objects – rather than being shown in traditional nondescript black frames, they are printed large and face mounted to Diasec like the work of many of the Dusseldorf and Helsinki school graduates. For me, it was an electric wow moment, the push and pull of old and new in his photographs energized and amplified by the modern presentation.

The show is a mini-retrospective sampler of Kerstens’ work, going all the way back to his early portraits of his daughter Paula and mixing in brand new images from the past year or two. It traces both her transformation (from young girl into young woman) and his ongoing refinement of craft and technique. For those unfamiliar with Kerstens’ approach, suffice it to say that he has brewed up an original alchemical mix of painting and photography, borrowing traditional dark background poses, the careful handling of light, and the subtle treatment of skin from the masters of Dutch portraiture and blending them together with anachronistic modern props and accessories, creating graceful photographic portraits that look and feel like museum treasures and then abruptly upend your sense of order. At this point, the Marie Antoinette bubble wrap headdress, the plastic shopping bag cap, the cloth napkin wimple, and the paper towel roll turban have all become contemporary classics.

The good news is that Kerstens’ pictures are getting better and better. New portraits of Paula find her sporting a drooped cake icing spout, a thick stack of paper doilies that perfectly mimics a starched lace collar, and a flyaway high pointed bonnet in silvery aluminum foil. There’s even a rearing equestrian portrait (with a nod to David) with Paula calmly looking over her shoulder. Given the large size of these prints and the new mounting approach, the works hold the wall with tremendous authority, while still retaining their sense of reserve and refinement.
I think the durable excitement of these works lies in their uncertain, shifting dialogue between competing forces: painting and photography, traditional cultural icons and modern realities, sober seriousness and sly wit, celebrating and undermining. They are at once classically beautiful and sublimely ridiculous, which ensures they won’t ever be boring.
Collector’s POV: The images in this show are priced based on size and place in the edition. The 24×20 prints range from $8000 to $18000, the 40×30 prints start at $12000 and go up to $75000, and the 60×50 prints begin at $22000 and rise to a lofty $160000. These prices are a significant step up from previous prices I have seen and likely represent broadening demand for his work. Kerstens’ work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

 

 

Narcissister, Narcissister is You @Envoy Enterprises

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are c-prints made in 2012. Each is sized 40×30 and comes in an edition of 2+1AP. The exhibit also includes 2 sculptures (masks arranged in front of mirrors) and 1 video. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: At first glance, it might be tempting to label the photographic self-portraits of the performance artist Narcissister as contemporary derivatives of Cindy Sherman and dismiss them outright without much consideration. And while the kinship with Sherman’s work is undeniable (particularly the challenging late 1980s/early 1990s work which was largely left out of the recent touring retrospective), I found Narcissister’s parade of thrown together personas to be authentically creepy, beginning with a playful campy lightness, and with further looking, slowly becoming quietly pathetic and disturbing. It may seem like we’ve seen this work before, but I think there’s a nugget of something new here worth exploring.

All of Narcissister’s self-portraits feature the blocking mechanism of a facial mask, in this case a Barbie-style, flat-eyed painted plastic face, often broken, roughly cut in half, or taped together along scarred edges. The obscuring effect is straightforward (we can’t see who she really is), but somehow the glamorous mannequin mask ends up being off-putting, the sitters trying so hard to be perfect but ultimately failing. Her characters are all exercises in personal exaggeration (the overbig afro, the gaudy pink nails, the matchy matchy hat and dress, the enormous fake breasts, the platinum blonde wig, the big gold earrings), and her backgrounds are rumpled and makeshift, as though the studio was a thrown together afterthought. The whole set-up flows neatly into the obsessive, distracted world of narcissism, of self-interest taken to extremes and of excessiveness that turns into something a bit ugly. The two sculptures allow the viewer to fleetingly peer into this world, to see out through the eyes of the Narcissiter masks – and yes, that’s me in the bottom image, sporting an enticingly grotesque new look.

In the end, I liked the balance between hiding and revealing in these pictures and the undercurrent of broken desperation that palpably flows from each constructed character. While photography may not be Narcissister’s primary artistic mode, each of her personas arrives with a subtle jolt: flashy, eye catching, and unexpectedly emotionally layered.

Collector’s POV: The photographs in this show are priced at either $4000 or $4500, depending on the place in the edition. The sculptures are priced at $5000 each and the video is NFS. Narcissister’s work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is still likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

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