Naked before the Camera @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 75 photographic works, variously framed and matted, and hung (or displayed in cases) in a series of three connecting rooms on the museum’s second floor. The exhibit was curated by Malcolm Daniel. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Room 1
Brassai (1 gelatin silver, 1931/1950s)
Nadar (1 salt, 1860-1861)
Julien Vallon de Villeneuve (1 salt, 1853)
Charles-Alphonse Marle (1 salt, 1855)
Franck-Francois-Genes Chauvassagnes (1 salt, 1856)
Eugene Durieu (1 albumen, 1853)
Felix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1 albumen, 1857)
Unknown (1 albumen, 1870)
Gustave Le Gray (1 albumen, 1856)
Unknown (2 salt, 1856)
Thomas Eakins (1 platinum, 1885)
Louis Igout (1 book of albumen pose studies, 1880)
Unknown (1 book of albumen figure studies, 1890s)

Room 2
Nadar (1 albumen, 1860)
Oscar G. Mason (1 book with collotypes with applied color, 1880)
Alphonse Bertillon (1 book with gelatin silver prints, 1902)
Bertrall (3 cyanotypes, 1881)
Paul Wirz (2 gelatin silver, 1912, 1922)
George Washington Wilson (1 albumen, 1892)
Circle of Albert Londe (1 albumen, 1890)
Eadweard Muybridge (1 collotype, 1887)
Paul Wirz and Paul Baron de Rautenfeld (1 book with gelatin silver prints, 1925)
Brassai (3 gelatin silver, 1931, 1932/1950, 1932/1960)
Man Ray (2 gelatin silver, 1930, 1935)
Franz Roh (1 gelatin silver, 1922-1925)
Hans Bellmer (1 gelatin silver with applied color, 1936)
Andre Kertesz (1 gelatin silver, 1932)
Bill Brandt (4 gelatin silver, 1949, 1953, 1960, 1979)
William Larson (1 gelatin silver, 1966-1970)
Lady Ottoline Morrell (2 gelatin silver, 1916)
George Platt Lynes (1 gelatin silver, 1930)
Germaine Krull (1 gelatin silver, 1928-1929)
Edward Weston (3 gelatin silver, 1925, 1936/1954, 1936/1960)
Paul Outerbridge (1 carbo, 1936)
Unknown (4 gelatin silver, 1950s)
Guglielmo Pluschow (1 albumen, 1890s)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype in wooden viewing case, 1854)

Room 3
Irving Penn (2 gelatin silver, 1949-1950)
Emmet Gowin (1 gelatin silver, 1967/1982)
Harry Callahan (2 gelatin silver, 1950, 1954)
Robert Mapplethorpe (1 gelatin silver, 1976)
Jennifer Johnson (1 platinum, 1995)
Diane Arbus (2 gelatin silver, 1963, 1968)
Garry Winogrand (1 gelatin silver, 1971)
Larry Clark (1 gelatin silver, 1972-1973)
John Goodman (1 gelatin silver, 1976)
John Coplans (1 gelatin silver, 1984)
Hannah Wilke (2 gelatin silver, 1978)
Jim Jager (1 gelatin silver, 1980)
Mark Morrisroe (1 gelatin silver, 1987)
Mark Beard (1 book of Polaroid transfers, 1992)
Robert Flynt (1 book of inkjet prints, 2009)

Comments/Context: I have to give the Met credit for trying to be more daring, at least in its own way. The flashy marquee lights with NAKED in all capitals announcing this small show are something one could have never imagined seeing in this hallowed institution a few years ago. But don’t be fooled by the attempt at an erotic peep show atmosphere. While there are more full frontal penises than normal and a masturbating 19th century woman makes a cameo appearance, this is still a very conservative show, with a strong bias toward the old rather than the new. There is no bondage Araki, no explicit Heinecken, no confrontational Newton, no S&M Mapplethorpe or Opie, no huge blurry Ruff pornos. We’re naked, but we’re still at the Met.

As usual, the Met’s powerhouse holdings in the 19th and early 20th century are the most impressive and coherent part of the exhibit. The first room of 19th century work holds some of the standouts of genre; the Nadar and Durieu nudes on view are two of the most elegant photographic nudes ever made, and the Eakins double male nude in platinum is an undeniable masterpiece. Moving into the next room, it becomes clear that Malcolm Daniel has taken an extremely broad reading of “naked” in this show. Where Stieglitz, Steichen, and the Pictorialists would normally be (most likely left out because they were recently on view, but still a glaring omission), there is a wall of scientific photographs (hermaphrodites, diseased bodies, and corpses), followed by another containing ethnographic and anthropological images (Indonesian pygmies, Zulu girls, and natives from Papua New Guinea). The challenge with this approach is that “naked” umbrella is so huge that nearly anything fits under it; I couldn’t help but feel like randomness was starting to take over and the connections between the works were becoming less relevant.

The story then jumps to European modernism and surrealism with Brassai, Man Ray, Roh, and Bellmer, followed by an interlude of distortion with Kertesz, Brandt and William Larson. The ground is still pretty solid with Weston (doesn’t the Met have better Charis on the sand prints than these two?), Penn, Callahan, and Gowin (I think a Minor White male nude would have worked well here too), but roughly post 1950, I lost the trail, and the show becomes more of a jumble. While the Mapplethorpe portrait of Patti Smith is of course an icon, I’m surprised than a more formal Mapplethorpe nude (either male or female) wasn’t chosen. The Arbus portraits make sense (although they are very rippled/warped), but the Garry Winogrand street scene and the Hannah Wilke inclusions left me puzzled. With such a broad curatorial definition, anything goes I guess, but all three rooms could have been filled with images of naked performance artists, why the two of Wilke in particular? Another real mystery is why there is no color photography at all in this show, aside from the Outerbridge carbro on a side wall.

So while the intentions were good here, I think the execution is lacking, especially in connecting the vintage black and white work to the contemporary world. This isn’t the first show in these rooms that has run off the rails as it left the 1950s. The Met needs to do a better job of connecting the dots between its vast holdings and more recent artistic activity when it takes on a broad topic like this one, or it should be happy to stay focused on its areas of traditional strength. The photography on view here is certainly of high quality, but the thematic construct is too diffuse to be very enlightening or educational.

Collector’s POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Reviews: NY Times (here), Artnet (here), Daily Beast (here), Flavorwire (here), American Photo (here)

Through September 9th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Francesca Woodman @Guggenheim

JTF (just the facts): A total of 125 photographic works, variously framed and matted, and hung in a winding series of rooms in the 4th floor annex galleries. The majority of the prints are vintage gelatin silver prints, made between 1975 and 1981. Physical dimensions range from roughly 3×3 to 40×40; the diazotype (blueprint) works are much larger, some as large as 37×92. Additional videos and artist’s books are also on view. The show was curated by Corey Keller of SFMOMA. A hardback exhibition catalogue is available for $50 (here). (Installation views of  Francesca Woodman, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, March 16–June 13, 2012 courtesy of David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation)

The exhibition is divided into four chronological groups. For each section, I have listed the title and the number of works included:

Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1978
58 gelatin silver prints
1 video screen (11 minutes of selected videos)

Italy, 1977-1978
31 gelatin silver prints
1 case (1 artist’s book, 5 pages displayed)

MacDowell Colony, Peterborough County, NH, 1980
8 gelatin silver prints
1 diptych
1 triptych

New York, 1979-1981
17 gelatin silver prints
4 blue diazotypes
3 brown diazotypes
2 chromogenic prints
1 case (1 artist’s book, 10 pages displayed)

Comments/Context: Early on in this comprehensive retrospective of Francesca Woodman, there is an image of the artist from 1975, standing in an abandoned room with two doors, wearing a flowered frock with a petticoat underneath, her arms and hands angled like she is casting a spell. My reaction to this picture was like a lightning strike: my God, I thought, look at how young she is. At this point, she is 17, in her freshman year at RISD. This show covers the next six years of her life: her years at school, her junior year abroad in Rome, a summer in New Hampshire, and her first few years trying to make it as an artist in New York, before she kills herself at the age of 22. Everything happens so fast, and suddenly she’s gone.

The mythology that has grown up around Francesca Woodman since her death is as dense as a thicket. She has been adopted by an entire spectrum of academics and scholars, who have found nuggets of what they wanted to find in her many enigmatic pictures. She has been labeled a feminist, a Surrealist, a narcissist, a child prodigy, a Victorian Goth girl, a spiritualist, and a mature and gifted artist born fully formed. Having spent some time parsing a selection of these essays and thinking more carefully about the works on view, my conclusion is that she belongs in a Stieg Larsson title: The Girl Who Was Hijacked By Critics. The visual and subject matter seeds of these various theories are all there, it’s the vehemence of the competiting and often contradictory arguments that seems over-reaching to me, given her short period of art making.

Corey Keller from SFMOMA has done a fantastic job of editing the work down into a clear and concise chronological summary, with well defined periods and coherent transitions. Her lucid catalog essay doesn’t take sides, but offers a valuable sense of historical context. I resonated strongly with her connection to the 1978 MoMA show Mirrors and Windows, and placing Woodman in a line of psychological self expressionists going back to Minor White. I also found Rosalind Krauss’ original analysis of the 1986 Wellesley/Hunter show to still be right on the mark. Her thesis is that Woodman’s experimentation with space, with serial imagery, with formal elements and symbolic items, and with herself as a gestural nude model are all byproducts of the student problem sets she was doing (both assigned for class and self imposed).

As I traveled through the chopped up galleries, which do more to confuse the flow of the show than to support it by the way, I could see Woodman taking an idea and pushing at it, making it more personal, testing its edges. She climbs into glass cases, plays with plastic wrap and taxidermy, disappears into scraps of flaking wallpaper, and flits in and out of shadows like a blur. She casts herself as angels and demons, re-envisions empty space, and uses mirrors as both a space modifier and an introspective vehicle. More importantly, I had the strong impression that she didn’t have it all figured out – she was searching and experimenting, and doing so with a level of youthful intensity, vulnerability and openness that makes her work refreshing. I was fascinated by her performative interactions with fly traps, eels, and splashes of black paint, and by her odd birch bark arm coverings from the summer interlude.

But let’s be clear, she wasn’t an artistic genius in college. She was undeniably talented, but still raw and unfinished (which is part of her allure). This is what makes her later work (just a few years later mind you) so achingly sad. In those final years, she was exploring a number of truly interesting directions. Her artist’s book with rough shapes inserted into an Italian geometry text (an almost square, the curve of a chair) have the feel of a more cerebral Conceptual path. The large diazoptye collages of bridges/tiaras or zig zag arms seem to follow toward Rauschenberg (albeit in a personal, not obviously postmodern, way). Her two small color photographs buried on a side wall are much more mature in terms of her use of layers of angled space and striping; perhaps she might of had a career headed toward formal abstraction. And her experiments with lingerie, furs, and jewelry might have led her to a more aggressive feminism. I really was left with a sense of wow, given more time, she might have taken any or all of these roads to go somewhere strikingly new. She had all the raw material, but the story is incomplete.

In the end, I came away with a clearer conclusion about the messiness of Woodman’s short artistic career. While this sounds contradictory, I found her both less impressive and more impressive than I had previously given her credit for. Less, in that I think the mania/cult of personality around her has clouded our judgment about her student work, and more, in that her best works are evidence of the beginning of something that might have been transformative. Of course, the story has no ending, except for the one we imagine, so there is no way to say whether she would have flown high or flamed out. So the debate will continue, with its extreme allusions and scholarly arguments, none of which can ever be proven wrong. It is my hope however that the crisp, even handedness of this well-constructed show will remind us that Francesca Woodman was a talented young woman with an entire artistic career ahead of her, and what we have as souvenirs of her life are small, preliminary fragments of what might have been.

Collector’s POV: Given this is a museum retrospective, there are of course no posted prices. Woodman’s work has been intermittently available in the secondary markets for more than a decade, with a handful of lots coming up for sale each year. Vintage gelatin silver prints have ranged from roughly $5000 to $45000 in recent years. I could only find one public diazotype sale in the last decade, at $52000. Collectors should also be aware of posthumous prints made in 1999, in editions of 40. Woodman is represented in New York by Marian Goodman Gallery (here), who has a small show of her diazotypes on view in the gallery’s 3rd floor project space. In the recent run of art fairs, vintage Woodman GSPs seemed to be consistently retailing in the mid 30s. Also, Woodman’s massive (and spectacular) Temple diazotype collage is on view in the Spies in the House of Art show at the Met (here).
Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Reviews: NY Times (here), New Yorker (here), Slate (here)
  • Exhibit: SFMOMA, 2011 (here)

Francesca Woodman
Through June 13th

1071 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10128

August Sander/Boris Mikhailov: German Portraits @Pace MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 black and white and color photographs, hung against grey walls in the main rooms of the gallery. All of the works by August Sander (11 prints in total) are gelatin silver prints hinged to board, framed in blond wood, and taken between 1924 and 1943. Each image is sized roughly 10×7, in an edition of 12. All of the works by Boris Mikhailov (12 prints in total) are archival pigment prints mounted to Sintra, framed in white, and taken in 2008. Each image is sized 29×20, in an edition of 5. A monograph of Mikhailov’s body of work, Maquette Braunschweig, was published by Steidl in 2009 (here). There is no photography allowed in the gallery, so the installation shots at right are via the Pace/MacGill website.

Comments/Context: The pairing of contemporary portrait photography with the work of August Sander has now become a kind of subculture of exhibition all its own. Given Sander’s wide ranging influence in the genre, showing paired juxtapositions of old and new offers an opportunity to set a baseline and provide aesthetic comparisons. Using Sander’s formal portraits as a kind of gold standard, these exhibits both reinforce Sander’s importance, and provide visual connections across photographic history.
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Sander’s foil in this show is Ukranian photographer Boris Mikhailov, and the pairing is particularly apt since Mikhailov just did a recent series of portraits of German citizens from the town of Braunschweig. So not only are their stylistic parallels to discover, but their are also social and cultural angles to be explored, separated by 70 years. The selection of Sander images has been meticulously edited and hung, placing like poses and profiles in small groups, rigidly reinforcing commonality and repetition in the gestures and looks.
Mikhailov’s newer portraits are even more strict in their composition: crisp head shot profiles against deep black backgrounds. This approach accents the line of the profile, and the details of chins, noses and foreheads become more prominent, like a figure and ground illusion. Mikhailov’s portraits take Sander’s idea of the subject who is both an individual and a type to its logical extreme, where images of the men and women show quirks of hair style, skin, personality and genetics, while seeming anthropologically scientific at the same time. The portraits are simultaneously wholly contemporary and unabashedly classic, connecting to Ruff’s deadpan frontal portraits from the late 1980s and Old Masters paintings with equal power.
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In general, this is a thoughtful, subdued pairing, which to some degree mutes in the freshness of Mikhailov’s works. This duet highlights ties to the past, reinforcing historical links and echoes, where a more contemporary pairing might have given the Mihkailov portraits a more radical frame. Regardless, it’s a refreshingly solid one two punch of German portraiture.
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Collector’s POV: The photographs in this show are priced at as follows. The Sander prints are $4500 each. 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. The Mikhailov prints are $7500 each. Mikhailov’s work has only been sparsely available at auction; prices have ranged between roughly $3000 and $30000, but the number of lots up for sale has been small. As a result, gallery retail may still be the best option for those collectors interested in his work.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Exhibit: August Sander: People of the Twentieth Century @Getty, 2008 (here)
  • Mikhailov Feature: Deutsche Bank ArtMag (here)

Through March 5th

32 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Brian Ulrich, Is This Place Great or What: Artifacts and Photographs @Julie Saul

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 color photographs and 17 retail artifacts, framed in white with no mats, and hung in the entry and main gallery space. All of the photographs are pigmented ink prints, taken between 2005 and 2011. Physical dimensions include 24×20 or reverse (in editions of 15), 26×20 (in editions of 6), and 40×50/40×52 (in editions of 7). The artifacts include a large neon sign, a set of 10 door pulls, and a set of 6 pages of price labels (individually framed). A monograph of this body of work was published by Aperture in 2011 (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Brian Ulrich’s decade long look at the rise and fall of American consumerism has deservedly received widespread praise and exposure. His photographs of flashy retail outlets, depressing thrift stores and disposal units, and most recently, the empty hulks of abandoned malls have together told a complex and sometimes harrowing story about the “buy now” world we have created for ourselves. Seen together in book form, in well-edited, deep groups of pictures from each sub-series, the overarching project is a powerful, sometimes tough document of an entire, arguably discredited, 21st century lifestyle.
Ulrich’s current show isn’t really a broad sample of this massive project or a greatest hits parade. Instead, it is more like a complement to what we have seen before, combining a handful of familiar pictures with a few new/unseen ones and a selection of sculptural retail objects salvaged by Ulrich along the way. To my eye, it is a particularly polarized selection, bringing together the opposite extremes of hollow optimism and exhausted pessimism: the huge YES, the exuberant rainbow food court, and the back hallway sign Is This Place Great or What? are matched by the series of failed incarnations of a Circuit City, and images of tired storefronts (one is a camera store). The photograph of a vast expanse of steel mill flanked by a vast expanse of Wal Mart and Home Depot is particularly telling: we’ve traded one massively scaled failing industry for another.
While there are far less photographs on display than I might have hoped, the scaveneged objects do fit quite well into the overall narrative. The huge neon FAST FOOD sign (with its speedy font) reminds us of the days when fast food was cool, when we were proud of being able to crank out a cheap burger and toss it in your car window in seconds flat. The broken, buzzing sign is a fabulous sculptural Pop Art remnant. The door handles from Montogomery Ward are equally emblematic: finely milled steel pulls, with a mirror image M and W logo on each. The production values of the entire shopping experience were clearly very carefully managed, even if the store went out of business.
Having spent quite a bit of time with the book, I’m a fan of this multi-layered work, and would like to see it shown in New York in a more comprehensive way. But in such a small one room space, it’s hard to do justice to such a far reaching project, and as a result, this show seems more like a coda or a refrain: it gives us a few notes of the melody we’ve heard before, but adds some new twists to keep us thinking.
Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The smaller 24×20/26×20 prints are $2800 each. the larger 40×50/40×52 prints are $6300 each. The pages of labels are $5000 each, the set of door pulls is $14000, and the neon sign is $25000. Ulrich’s work has not yet entered the secondary markets in any meaningful way, so gallery retail remains the best option for interested collectors.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Exhibit: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011 (here)
  • Features/Reviews/Interviews: The Great Leap Sideways (here), American Photo (here), Time LightBox (here)

Through May 5th

535 West 22nd Street

New York, NY 10011

Stan Douglas: Disco Angola @David Zwirner

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 large scale color photographs, framed in black with no mats, and hung in the smaller front room and larger back gallery space. All of the images are digital c-prints, mounted on Dibond aluminum, made in 2012. Physical dimensions range between 39×57 and 74×105, and each image (regardless of size) is printed in an edition of 5+2AP. Each image title includes a fictional date of 1974 or 1975. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The nature of photographic truth is perhaps the defining conceptual question that the digital age has forced us to reconsider. The relative ease with which images can now be manipulated, wholly fabricated and broadly reproduced has called into question the very heart of what it means to be “documentary” as well as whether we can still derive meaning from the idea of a singular “decisive moment”. These are complicated, unruly lines of thinking that form the center of the debate about what photography can and should become.

In his last few projects, Stan Douglas has been probing many of these thorny issues. Last year, he showed work in which he posed as a mid 1940s Weegee-like press photographer, making painstakingly period-accurate black and white pictures of crime scenes and gangsters. In this recent show, he has fast forwarded a few decades, now modeling himself as a 1970s era photojournalist, with one leg in the underground disco scene in New York and the other covering the war for independence in Angola. Once again, he has staged images which mimic the look and feel of the times (flash lit smoky interiors with crowded dance floors and coat checks paired with images of rebel checkpoints and escaping refugees), their large size and digital crispness the only clues to their artificiality.

I think the ideas here are the most important: if Douglas can faithfully recreate clubs filled with polyester suits, afros, ass cheeks, and kung fu dance moves with the kind of offhand snapshot aesthetic that matches the time and place, how are we as viewers to separate photographic fact from fiction? If soldiers doing martial arts exercises in far off civil wars can be so effectively faked, how are we to judge the photojournalism we take for granted? Douglas’ photographs challenge our sense of authenticity and break our trust with the camera. We can longer be entirely sure that the moment we think we see is the one that actually occurred.

What I also find intriguing is that if we assumed these images were “real” and resized them down to smaller proportions, I doubt we’d find any of them particularly memorable in the context of their “true” times. But as contemporary examples of meticulous photographic restaging, their underlying conceptual structure makes the images much more rich and complex; their power lies in their inauthenticity. All in, this is the kind of show that is designed to upend your expectations, and that off balance uncertainty is what makes these images worth thinking about further.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced at $40000, $45000, $50000, $60000, $65000, or $75000 each, based on size. Douglas’ work has only been intermittently available at auction in recent years, with none of his more recent larger scale images coming up for sale. So while secondary market prices have ranged between $1000 and $35000, this data may not be entirely representative of his entire body of work. As such, gallery retail may still be the best option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Reviews/Features: Daily Beast (here), Village Voice (here), ARTINFO (here)

Stan Douglas: Disco Angola
Through April 28th

David Zwirner
525 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011

Matthew Pillsbury: City Stages @Bonni Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white photographs, generally framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. The archival pigment ink prints each come in three sizes: 13×19 (edition of 20), 30×40 (edition of 10), and 50×60 (edition of 3); there is also one wider panoramic image shown in a 32×78 size (edition of 10). The images were taken in New York in 2011 and 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: At this point in his photographic career, Matthew Pillsbury’s long exposure approach, complete with its wispy ephemeral figures, has become a kind of visual signature. From across a room, it’s easy to spot one of his works and think “OK, there’s a Pillsbury” and not really think more about it. I imagine this is both a blessing and a curse for the artist. The challenge is of course to both repeatedly find new subject matter that lends itself well to elapsed time picture making and to extend his recognizable visual motif in new directions.Pillsbury’s recent photographs capture classic New York moments and locations without falling into the trap of seeming overly familiar or tired. His choices revel in movement: the spinning of the carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the chaos of the packed Jing Fong Dim Sum restaurant, the swinging band at Jazz at Lincoln Center with the headlights of Columbus Circle in the background, and the jumble of TV cameras and press on the roof of the Marriott Marquis on New Year’s Eve. Like 19th century spirit photographs, his images document the traces of people who are no longer there, who come and go, leaving behind only a ghostly trail of light; the city itself endures and is indifferent. While other images in this show have more obvious drama, my favorite was the photograph of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zucotti Park, who are reduced to a shifting, undulating pile of bags, tarps, and huddled people, underneath the quiet canopy of trees (on the right in the bottom installation shot).

It takes some artistic confidence to think that original images can still be made of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the World Trade Center light tribute, or the fountains in Washington Square Park. But Pillsbury pulls it off with surprising success, showing us facets of our city that are only visible when time is compressed.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size, in ratcheting editions. The 13×19 prints range from $2200 to $3000, the 30×40 prints range from $5000 to $9000, and the 50×60 prints range from $10000 to $15000. The panoramic Above Times Square print is $10000 as shown in the “medium” size. Pillsbury’s work has started to become more available at auction in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $2000 to $14000.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub
  • Artist site (here)
  • Review: NY Times 6th Floor (here)

Through April 28th

41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Mitch Epstein @Sikkema Jenkins

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 large scale black and white photographs, framed in black with no mat, and hung in the entry, the main gallery space, and one of the back rooms. All of the prints are selenium toned gelatin silver prints made in 2011/2012. The works on view are sized 68×54, in editions of 6+2AP; a smaller 40×30 size is also available for each image (but not on display), also in editions of 6+2AP. (Installation shots at right.).

Comments/Context: It doesn’t take much thinking to quickly come up with a list of photographers across the history of the medium who have made great images of trees. Starting in the 19th century, Fox Talbot, Le Gray, Cuvelier, Watkins, Kinsey, and Muybridge and many others might be the beginning of a small sampler. Cross into the 20th century and the list explodes: Atget, Renger-Patsch, Stieglitz, Strand, Adams (both Ansel and Robert), Sudek, Friedlander, Porter, on and on, evolving into a more conceptual realm with folks like Rodney Graham, Myoung Ho Lee and Robert Voit. With his new work, Mitch Epstein has stepped into this long line of tree lovers, documenting the towering, ancient specimens that hide in and around New York city.
Epstein’s photographs are decidedly old school: large format black and white works, rich in detail and tonality. Most are portraits of the individual trees, capturing their idiosyncrasies and personalities with up close botanical attention. These pictures are classically beautiful, documenting thick trunks, cascading branches, and spindly growths, square in the frame (with just a tiny bit of elevation) and rendered with meticulous care.
The challenge with this kind of perfect image making is that it loses the hand of the photographer. In many of these photographs, it’s hard to see Mitch Epstein. A few of the images step back just a bit to give a sense of the larger human context (a foggy Staten Island neighborhood, the wintry apartment buildings of Washington Square, or a row of Korean storefronts in Queens) and these juxtapositions and small ironies seem to connect better to the ideas in Epstein’s earlier work. There is more of a sense of the tree being surrounded by the encroaching human environment, and persevering/triumphing against the odds, and I found these works more fresh and successful. I think the concept of time scale (that of tree versus that of the city around it) could have been explored even more.
These prints are very large, and I think this is a case where the scale is a bit too much. At this size, there is an opportunity to fall into the pictures, to be drawn in from across the room and enveloped in their stories. I’m sure this was the point, and given the massive size of the trees themselves, I guess I can understand the logic. But I couldn’t help feeling like the photographs were too big, and that a slightly smaller size would have made the encounters less operatic and more intimate.
All in, these are certainly well made, formally strong tree photographs. I think the ones that go further and tell broader contextual tales are more representative of Epstein’s approach to photography, and as a result, I think this subset will be the group that is the most durably intriguing.
Collector’s POV: The 68×54 prints in this show are priced at $28000 each; the smaller 40×30 prints which are also available are $15000 each. Epstein’s work has become more available in the secondary markets in past few years, but the volume of prints for sale has still been very small. Prices for those lots that have come up for auction have ranged between $3000 and $15000.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • NY Times Magazine (here)
  • Interview: NY Times 6th Floor (here)
  • In Focus: The Tree @Getty (here)

Through April 14th

530 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

2012 AIPAD Review, Part 2 of 2

This is Part 2 of my 2012 AIPAD Review, covering the New York area galleries and a few others located in the larger Northeast (organized alphabetically). The rest of the galleries from around the world, as well as the background on the format I am using, can be found in Part 1 (here).

Bonni Benrubi Gallery (here): Matthew Pillsbury (2), Karine Laval (2), Massimo Vitali (1), Paolo Pellegrin (2), Abelardo Morell (4), Jim Marshall (3), William Gottlieb (2), Amalie Rothschild (1), Linda McCartney (2), Chris Payne (2), Simon Norfolk (1). In this intricate new work, Morell seems to be heading toward Sommer’s cut paper collages. (priced at $5000)

Danziger Gallery (here): Robert Frank (8), Christopher Bucklow (1), Karen Knorr (2), Garry Fabian Miller (6), Hendrik Kerstens (2), Susan Derges (2), Chris Levine (1), Yuji Obata (4), Evelyn Hofer (4). My interest in Kerstens’ portraits persists, and the two new images in the booth here hold the wall with authority. The aluminum hat is strangely lovely. (priced at $10000)

After seeing so much abstract work from Miller, I was surprised to discover these brand new photograms of flowers. They are small and delicate, in soft colors. (priced at $10000)

Keith De Lellis Gallery (here): Flip Schulke (1), Irving Penn (7), Horst P. Horst (2), Cecil Beaton (1), George Platt Lynes (1), Florence Meyer Homolka (1), Richard Avedon (1), Ruth Bernhard (3), Gleb Derujinsky (1), Margaret Bourke-White (3), Edward Steichen (4), Jorgen Roos (3), Eric Schaal (2), Nino Migliori (1), Herbert Matter (3), Brassai (2), Keld Helmer-Petersen (1), Arnold Newman (1), Weegee (1), Simpson Kalisher (2), Beauford Smith (3), Marvin Newman (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Alexander Rodchenko (1), Barbara Morgan (1). There was plenty of fabulous vintage work in this booth, anchored by a group of Steichens, with help from several Bourke-Whites and Bernhards. This 1925 Steichen boat (tucked on a side wall) was my favorite image in the entire fair. (priced at $125000)

Gitterman Gallery (here): Gita Lenz (2), Frederick Sommer (1), Edmund Teske (3), Arthur Siegel (1), Hiroshi Sugimoto (3), Adam Bartos (1), Ralph Eugene Meatyard (9), Saul Leiter (2), Robert Frank (1), Leon Levinstein (1), Nan Goldin (1), Edward Weston (1), plus 2 bins. A classic Weston industrial image – Middletown, OH steel smokestacks from 1922. (priced at $300000)

Howard Greenberg Gallery (here): Edward Steichen (2), Berenice Abbott (1), Jaromir Funke (1), Sid Grossman (5), William Klein (3), Bruce Davidson (4), Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1), Jerome Liebling (1), Martin Munkacsi (1), Robert Frank (1), Bill Brandt (1), Brett Weston (1), Dorothea Lange (1), David Goldblatt (1 diptych), Saul Leiter (7). This 1915 Steichen is one of the most iconic florals in photographic history; not to be missed. (priced at $275000)

Higher Pictures (here): George Dureau (5), Jessica Eaton (4), Emily Roysdon (12). I like that these new Eaton abstractions are getting more and more visually complex. (priced at $4000)

I hadn’t ever heard of George Dureau until Kim gave me some background on him. Apparently, Mapplethorpe knew him in the early 1980s and admired his work. The aesthetic affinity is quite clear, especially in the made nudes of men with amputations. (priced at $4000)

Edwynn Houk Gallery (here): Joel Meyerowtiz (1), Vera Lutter (1), Robert Frank (1), Man Ray (1), Sally Mann (1), Bill Brandt (5), Alfred Stieglitz (1), Sebastiaan Bremer (1), Lee Friedlander (1), Dannyn Lyon (1), Herb Ritts (6), Stephen Shore (1), Robert Polidori (1). The series of close up Brandt eyes on the back wall of this booth was an unexpected treat.

Robert Klein Gallery (here): Jessica Backhaus (5), Francesca Woodman (8), Cig Harvey (4), Henri Cartier-Bresson (2), Walker Evans (2), Aaron Siskind (1), Mario Giacomelli (1), Brassai (1), Lee Friedlander (1), Berenice Abbott (2), Irving Penn (5), Harry Callahan (3), Edward Weston (2), Elliot Erwitt (1).

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Inc. (here): Louis-Emile Durandelle (2), Charles Soulier (2), Julia Margaret Cameron (3), Rufus Anson (1), William Henry Fox Talbot (6), Henri Courmont (1), Jospeh Vicomte Vigier (1), Eugene Cuvelier (1), Gustave Le Gray (1), Unknown (2), Edward Steichen (2), Guillaume Duchenne De Boulogne (1), Etienne-Jules Marey (1), Putnam & Valentine (1), Guillaume Duchenne De Boulogne and Adrian Tournachon (1), Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1).

Robert Mann Gallery (here): Julie Blackmon (4), Leo Goldstein (1), Lisette Model (1), Dan Weiner (1), Weegee (1), Aaron Siskind (1), David Vestal (1), Fred Stein (2), Jorn Vahnhofen (1), Lewis Baltz (1), Robbert Flick (1), Henry Wessel (1), Richard Misrach (2), Jeff Brouws (1), Joe Deal (2), Michael Kenna (4), Chip Hooper (1), Minor White (1), Ansel Adams (1).

Yossi Milo Gallery (here): Sze Tsung Leong (1), Ezra Stoller (2), Lise Sarfati (2), Tim Hetherington (8), Doug Rickard (2), Alison Rossiter (3), Chris McCaw (2), Matthew Brandt (1), Pieter Hugo (1).

Yancey Richardson Gallery (here): Kenneth Josephson (4), Andrew Moore (1), Victoria Sambunaris (1), Laura Letinsky (1), Olivo Barbieri (1), Rachel Perry Welty (2), Bernd and Hilla Becher (1 set of 9), Sharon Core (4).

Julie Saul Gallery (here): Rineke Dijkstra (2), Justine Reyes (2), Charlotte Dumas (2), Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao (1), Reiner Gerritsen (1), Gonzalo Puch (1), Didier Massard (1), Sarah Anne Johnson (1), Miroslav Tichy (5), Gerard Petrus Fieret (2), Nikolai Bakharev (4).

Michael Shapiro Photographs (here): Irving Penn (3), Andre Kertesz (2), Josef Koudelka (1), Jaromir Funke (2), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Imogen Cunningham (1), Elmer Blew (1), Harry Callahan (1), John Gutman (1), Ansel Adams (2), Dorothea Lange (1), Edward Weston (2), Robert Frank (7), Walker Evans (1), Edward Steichen (1), William Klein (1), Minor White (4), and a wall covering selection of small Jefferson Hayman works. I thoroughly enjoyed the layered shadows in this cut paper Funke. (priced at $80000)

The crusted snow by White was an image I had never seen before and is apparently unique; I liked its sinuous figure/ground form. (priced at $18000)

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Edward Weston (1), Lotte Jacobi (1), Edward Steichen (1), Robert Frank (1), Aaron Sikind (2), Lisette Model (4), Andre Kertesz (5), Constantin Brancusi (6), Trine Sondergaard (1), Ryan Weideman (6), Michael Wolf (2), Trine Sondergaard & Nicolai Howalt (5), Keith Smith (28). Bruce has a show of Brancusi photographs coming up, and from the looks of this small selection of prints, it’s going to be a superlative exhibit. This shiny gem was priced at $250000.

While the idea is straightforward, I liked these enveloping snowstorm trees by Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt on the outside of the booth. The whiteout is supremely silent.

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs (here): Chris Killip (1), Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (2), Walker Evans (1), John Cohen (4), Mike Disfarmer (1), Andre De Dienes (1), Erwin Blumenfeld (1), Claude Tolmer (1), Anton Bruehl (1), Gyorgy Kepes (1), Gordon Koster (2), W. Eugene Smith (2), Jan Yoors (3), Inge Morath (1). Parker spent some time giving me some further context on 1970s/1980s British photography and introducing me to the terrific early 1970s photographs of Byker by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. (priced at $2500/$3000)

Gallery 339 (here): Philip Toledano (1), Edward McHugh (4), Richard Kagan (2), Amanda Means (1), Ion Zupcu (4), Tetsugo Hayakutake (1), Martine Fougeron (2), Rita Bernstein (2), Yuichi Hibi (3), William Larson (2), Nadine Rovner (2).

Rick Wester Fine Art (here): Richard Avedon (2), Ralph Eugene Meatyard (2), Cindy Sherman (1 diptych), Bill Brandt (3), Joni Sternbach (2), Christian Vogh (1), Marilyn Minter (1), Andres Serrano (1), Laurie Lambrecht (1, 1 diptych), Sharon Harper (1), Sandi Fifield (1), Ken Schles (2), Irving Penn (2), Stephen Shore (1). As collectors of Brandt nudes, we are always on the look out for vintage prints that come out of the woodwork. This was the best Brandt nude I saw at the fair. (priced at $24000)

Sasha Wolf Gallery (here): Andrew Borowiec (6), Peter Kayafas (4), David Nadel (4), Katherine Wolkoff (8), Tribble and Mancenido (1), Paul McDonough (4), Eleanor Carucci (4), TrujilloPaumier (8).

Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here): Edward Burtynsky (2), Ola Kohlemainen (1), Jim Campbell (1), Niko Luoma (1), Susanna Majuri (2), Shirley Shor (1).

David Zwirner (here): A solo booth show of the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia (11). Glad to see Zwirner showing at AIPAD and embracing the photography world. This small sampler spanned many of diCorcia’s projects, including a couple of newer works.

2012 AIPAD Review, Part 1 of 2

With two sessions at this year’s AIPAD under my belt (the opening night event and a solid bunch of hours yesterday afternoon), I can say with confidence that the overall sophistication of this anchor event in the NY photo year continues to increase. There are less overcrowded, bin stuffed booths, more well edited and thoughtful displays, and slowly but surely, a little more contemporary work is creeping into this traditionally vintage affair. The gala Wednesday evening was polished and well attended, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing countless old friends, and meeting some of the many collectors, curators, critics, artists and gallery owners that I had previously known only by email or reputation. Year after year, there is an evolution away from casual, table based selling and a movement toward more refined service.

While I left my notebook at home on opening night, I was more systematic yesterday, covering the fair aisle by aisle, booth by booth. My notes cover approximately 40+ booths in some level of detail, generally listing the photographers with works on view, the number of prints on display, and in some cases, specific works that I thought merited attention or were new. Of course, my coverage of this show is perhaps more personally biased towards our own collecting interests than normal, and there is a significant amount of vintage work on display, so my apologies in advance if my selections are overly dominated by black and white. Also, I have generally refrained from talking about work which I have recently covered in review form; this provides some limits for my discussion, especially for those galleries that have opted for a sampler from the current stable.

My review is divided into two parts. This first part covers a selection of the out of town galleries, in alphabetical order. The second part will cover some of the New York galleries, as well as a few close by Northeastern neighbors. Covering this entire sprawling show in exhaustive detail is beyond the scope of what I can realistically deliver, so please don’t take it personally if I have omitted your gallery or your work. My goal is to give readers a flavor of what I thought was intriguing and thought provoking, not to provide an analysis of every image on view, in the bins/flat files, and under the tables.

Stephen Bulger Gallery (here): Robert Bourdeau (4), Andre Kertesz (2, 1 diptych, 1 set of 5), Gilbert Garcin (6), Fausta Faccipone (1), Allison Rossiter (11), Clive Holden (1 set of 4), Scott Conarroe (1), Dave Heath (1 set of 6), Jospeh Hartman (1), Benoit Aquin (1). Lots of new abstract poured/dipped chemical Rossiters here, a few almost like landscapes or starry skies.

John Cleary Gallery (here): Susan Burnstine (3), Maggie Taylor (3), Ansel Adams (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (2), Robert Mapplethorpe (1), Robert Doisneau (1), Gordon Parks (1), Willy Ronis (1), Sanko Abadric (1), Renate Aller (2), David Fukos (2), John Chakeres (2), Brett Weston (2). Had a thoughtful discussion about pricing in the market for Mapplethorpe flowers in this booth, triggered by the Tiger Lily on display priced at $40000.

Stephen Daiter Gallery (here): John Gossage (2), Imogen Cunningham (3), Art Sinsabaugh (2), Adam Fuss (1), Andre Kertesz (4), Harry Callahan (1), Stanley Kubrick (1), Weegee (3), Sid Grossman (1), Marvin Newman (1), Aaron Siskind (1), Minor White (1), Frederick Sommer (2), Alex Webb (4). I continue to find Sinsabaugh’s elongated Midwestern landscapes to be powerfully original; this one was priced at $16000 and already sold.

Catherine Edelman Gallery (here): Gary Briechle (9), John Cyr (9), Daniel Beltra (1), Viktoria Sorochinski (4), Lauren Simonutti (10), Kelli Connell (2), Gregory Scott (1). Briechle’s gelatin silver prints from wet plate collodion negatives are darkly old school. Look closely at scar on this wrinkled hand, echoed by the gathering of the sleeve (reasonably priced at $1400 each). John Cyr’s images of the developer trays of famous photographers (Mann, Siskind, Gowin, Davidson etc.) were also drawing a crowd.

Etherton Gallery (here): Harry Callahan (7), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (4), Frederick Sommer (6), Emmet Gowin (4), Allen Ginsberg (1), August Sander (1), Duane Michals (1), John Gutman (1), Wright Morris (2), Henry Wessel (3), Ansel Adams (2), Richard Misrach (3), O. Winston Link (2), Ralph Gibson (2), Lee Friedlander (2), Horace Bristol (1), Peter Stackpole (2), Rodrigo Moya (1), Ted Croner (1), Flor Garduno (1), Joel-Peter Witkin (1), Eikoh Hosoe (1), Aaron Siskind (4), Michael O’Neil (1), Danny Lyon (4). I think the flash lit mid 1970s night Misrachs are among his best; I enjoyed this one with its spiky verticals and the long exposure light trail in the sky.

Eric Franck Fine Art (here): Karen Knorr (3), Josef Koudelka (3), Graham Smith (6), Chris Killip (4), Martine Franck (4), Andy Warhol (3), Ogawa Gesshu (3), Heinz Hajek-Halke (4), Gaspar Gasparin (6), Henri Cartier-Bresson (5), Norman Parkinson (5). I continue to be impressed by Killip and Smith and wish their work was more consistently on view here in New York. There was also a terrific Warhol of stratified neckties on a side wall.

Halsted Gallery (here): Irving Penn (4), Jaromir Funke (1), Brassai (1), Wynn Bullock (1), Edward Weston (4), Andre Kertesz (2), Michael Kenna (1), Barbara Morgan (1), Bill Brandt (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Arnold Newman (2), Lucien Herve (1), Berenice Abbott (4), Cornell Capa (1), William Clift (1), Carleton Watkins (2), Don Hong-On (1), Margaret Bourke-White (1), Annie Leibowitz (1). This intimate, reasonably priced ($12000) Funke abstraction from the late 1920s was a quick seller.

Paul M. Hertzmann Inc (here): Sherril Schell (1), Clarence John Laughlin (1), Ei-Q (3), Ansel Adams (6), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Edward Weston (2), Alfred Stieglitz (1), Dorothea Lange (1), Man Ray (1), Carlotta Corpon (1), Eugene Atget (1), Dennis Stock (1), Frank Espada (1), Joe Schwartz (1), Roger Schall (1), Minor White (1), Ruth Bernhard (1), Gerard Petrus Fieret (1), plus 4 bins. Someone (annoyingly) snapped up this sublime Schell of Penn Station almost immediately, as it had a red dot just minutes into the evening gala.

Paul gave me a short primer on Japanese photographer Ei-Q (aka Hideo Sugita), who was apparently of Eikoh Hosoe’s teachers. I very much enjoyed this densely layered photogram, made using cut paper stencils and modifications to the negative. (priced at $22500)

There were also a handful of small 1930s vintage Ansel Adams prints on view, as well as a lovely solarized calla lily by Corpon.

Michael Hoppen Gallery (here): Shomei Tomatsu (3), Miyako Ishiuchi (1), Issei Suda (1), Kishin Shinoyama (1), Hiroshi Hamaya (2), Daido Moriyama (2), Valerie Belin (2), Noe Sendas (3), Bruce Bernard (3), Sigmar Polke (1), Guy Bourdin (4), Boris Savalev (1). I liked the bold patterns of the Moriyama fishnet stocking variants here. Two new muted black and white Belins dominate the main wall.

James Hyman Photography (here): Pierre Manguin (3), Henri Le Secq (2), Bisson Freres (2), Charles Negre (4), Edmund Bacot (2), Louis Alphonse de Brebisson (1), Edmund Nicolas (1), Pierre-Emile-Joseph Pecarrere (1), Amedee Varin (1), Edouard-Denis Baldus (2), Vallou de Villeneuve (1), Henri Ange Eugene Mailand (1), Gustave Le Gray and Auguste Mestral (1), Anonymous (3), Neurdein School (1), Paul Strand (1), Edward Weston (1), Francesca Woodman (1), Lucien Clergue (2), Arthur Siegel (1), Harry Callahan (2), Eugene Atget (4), Tony Ray-Jones (4). The inside of the Hyman booth has been transformed by a well-edited selection of 19th century French church/monastery images, complete with muted light, a sculptural fragment in the center, and images of gargoyles high on the walls.

Jackson Fine Art (here): George Georgiou (2), Chip Simone (4), Frank Horvat (2), Todd Selby (1), Greg Lons (4), Todd Murphy (3), Mona Kuhn (4), Vivian Maier (3), Ruud Van Empel (3).

Kopeikin Gallery (here): Irving Penn (1), Jeffrey Milstein (2), Lee Friedlander (2), David Schoerner (1), Harry Callahan (3), Katy Grannan (2), Sally Mann (1), Peter Beard (1), Robert Frank (1), Andy Freeberg (1), Garry Winogrand (3), Chris Jordan (1), Marta Soul (1), Moby (1), Kevin Cooley (1). I liked the smaller black and white Grannan portraits in this booth best. Jordan has reworked Van Gogh’s Starry Night in thousands of colored plastic lighters, a bit more painterly and Vik Muniz-like than previous images of his I’ve seen.

Lee Gallery (here): Walker Evans (1), Julia Margaret Cameron (1), JB Greene (1), Bisson Freres (1), Carleton Watkins (1), Charles Negre (1), Harry Callahan (7), Robert Adams (4), plus 4 bins. The Lee’s booth was dominated by a string of exquisite vintage Callahans across the back wall. Below are two nudes that came out of the boxes for a closer look: a terrific early (mid 1960s) Barbara Crane, and a sculptural 1934 Weston of Charis.

M+B (here): Matthew Brandt (7), Matthew Porter (3), LeRoy Grannis (4), Lisa Jack (4). Brandt was the big story in this booth, with 3 images on a nearby outside wall made by submerging the large prints in the bodies of water they depict (leading to abstract, acidic swirls) and 4 works made out of different flavors of brightly colored chewing gum hung across the back wall.

Monroe Gallery (here): Nina Berman (4), Eric Smith (2), Rikki Reich (2), Steve Schapiro (6), Carl Mydans (1), Grey Villet (4), Bill Eppridge (7), Paul Schutzer (1), Carl Iwasaki (1), Bob Gomel (1), Martha Holmes (2), John Dominis (1), Stephen Wilkes (2). A startling Berman of a veiled woman with her diploma is on the outside wall.

Richard Moore Photographs (here): Peter Sekaer (2), Dorothea Lange (3), Marion Post Wolcott (1), Walker Evans (1), Ben Shahn (1), Ansel Adams (4), Sonya Noskowiak (1), Imogen Cunningham (1), William Post (1), Helen Levitt (1), Weegee (2), Percy Loomis Sperr (4), Eadward Mybrudge (1), plus 3 bins. The eye catching Cunningham Magnolia Blossom had a major tear, which had been repaired quite well but clearly changed its value by an order of magnitude.

Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd. (here): Aaron Siskind (3), Arnold Newman (1), Brassai (1), Jerry Uelsmann (2), Lee Friedlander (1), Paul Strand (1), John Szarkowski (1), Paul Caponigro (1), Minor White (3), Edward Weston (1), Ansel Adams (1), Brett Weston (1), Berencie Abbott (1), Harry Callahan (2), Andre Kertesz (2), Todd Webb (4), Laura Gilpin (2), Eliot Porter (6), Diane Arbus (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (2), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (2), Van Deren Coke (2), Roy DeCarava (1), W. Eugene Smith (1).

Barry Singer Gallery (here): Elyn Zimmerman (2), Lewis Hine (1), Edmund Teske (1), Arnold Newman (2), W. Eugene Smith (1), August Sander (2), Joel-Peter Witkin (1), Garry Winogrand (1), Robert Doisneau (1), John Albok (1), Marcia Resnick (1), Lou Stoumen (3), Ansel Adams (2), William Dassonville (1), Bill Brandt (1), Brett Weston (1), Wilson Bentley (1), Charles Jones (1), Edward Weston (1), Robert Graham (7), Herb Ritts (1), Jack Welpott (1), plus 4 bins.

Joel Soroka Gallery (here): Lynn Bianchi (1), Cig Harvey (4), Franco Donnagio (1), Berencie Abbott (2), Jindrich Vanek (1), Man Ray (1), Johan Hagemeyer (1), Ilse Bing (1), Brassai (1), Brett Weston (1), Gyorgy Kepes (3), Beatrice Helg (4). While there was an excellent group of Kepes abstracts along the back wall, this elegant Hagemeyer floral caught my eye, fully priced at $40000.

Weinstein Gallery (here): Alec Soth (5), Helmut Newton (1), Robert Mapplethorpe (5), Robert Polidori (3), Vera Lutter (4), Nancy Rexroth (18). Three huge Polidoris of India cover the entire back wall of the booth; one is a dense warren of overlapping slum geometries. The Soths are from Bogota, the Lutters from Venice.

Weston Gallery (here): Oliver Gagliani (2), Harry Callahan (2), Marion Post Wolcott (2), George Tice (1), Sonya Nostowiak (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Danielle Nelson-Mourning (2), Hill & Adamson (2), Linnaeus Tripe (1), Charles Aubry (1), Andre Kertesz (1), Robert Frank (1), Johan Hagemeyer (1), Edward Weston (4), Paul Strand (2), Wynn Bullock (1), Ansel Adams (8), Imogen Cunningham (2).

Part 2 of the review can be found here.

Shared Vision: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography @Aperture

JTF (just the facts): A total of 127 black and white and color photographs, variously framed and matted (although most are displayed in blond wood), and hung in the main gallery space, separated by two dividing walls. All of the prints come from the collection of Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla. The show was curated by Ben Thompson and Paul Karabinis, in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville. A catalog of the collection was recently published by MOCA and Aperture (here). (Installation shots at right.)

The show is divided into thematic/subject matter groups. For each section, the photographers included have been listed, followed by the number of works on display and their dates in parentheses.

Entry
Louis Faurer (1, 1947)

Poses and Gestures
Diane Arbus (2, 1965, 1966)
EJ Bellocq (1 diptych, 1912)
Brassai (2, 1932)
Manuel Alvarez Bravo (2, 1935, 1938-1939)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1, 1944)
Imogen Cunningham (1, 1931)
Bruce Davidson (1, 1958)
William Eggleston (1, 1972)
Walker Evans (1, 1932)
Louis Faurer (1, 1946)
Graciela Iturbide (1, 1993)
Yousuf Karsh (1, 1954)
Leon Levinstein (1, 1958)
Lisette Model (1, 1940)
Andrea Modica (1, 1992)
Cirenaica Moreira (1, 1999-2002)
Man Ray (1, 1933)
Alec Soth (1, 2002)
Paul Strand (1, 1954)
Edward Weston (1, 1921)
Garry Winogrand (1, 1968)

Minor Matters
Wynn Bullock (1, 1951)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1, 1954)
Mario Cravo-Neto (1, 1989)
Bruce Davidson (1, 1966-1968)
Rineke Dijkstra (1, 1993)
Flor Garduno (1, 1996)
Mario Giacomelli (1, 1957-1959)
Emmet Gowin (1, 1974)
David Hilliard (1, 2005)
Peter Hujar (1, 1981)
Loretta Lux (2, 2004)
Sally Mann (4, 1987, 1989)
Mary Ellen Mark (1, 1987)
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1, 1961)
Polixeni Papapetrou (1, 2006)
Swapan Parekh (1, 1995)
W. Eugene Smith (1, 1946)
Jock Sturges (1, 1987)
Roman Vishniac (1, 1939)
Garry Winogrand (1, 1960)

Invisible Sight
Eugene Atget (1, 1906)
Wynn Bullock (1, 1957)
Paul Caponigro (1, 1968)
Elger Esser (1, 1996)
Laura Gilpin (1, 1930)
Mark Klett (2, 1990, 2003)
Clarence John Laughlin (1, 1941)
Richard Misrach (1, 1999)
Abelardo Morell (1, 2010)
Josef Sudek (1, 1967)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (1, 1993)
Massimo Vitali (1, 1998)

Urban Exposures
Berenice Abbott (1, 1933)
Robert Adams (1, 1968-1971)
Olivo Barbieri (1, 2002)
Edward Burtynsky (1, 2004)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1, 1953)
Bruce Davidson (1, 1959)
Robert Doisneau (1, 1948)
Walker Evans (1, 1941)
Robert Frank (2, 1956)
Lee Friedlander (1, 1962)
Andre Kertesz (2, 1948, 1954)
Ray K. Metzker (1, 1964)
Marc Riboud (1, 1953)
Alfred Stieglitz (1, 1901)
Thomas Struth (1, 1991)
Catherine Wagner (1, 1989)
Weegee (1, 1945)
Garry Winogrand (1, 1962)

The Insistent Object
Bernd and Hilla Becher (1, 1968-1973)
Harry Callahan (1, 1942)
Imogen Cunningham (1, 1957)
Harold Edgerton (2, 1957, 1960)
Mitch Epstein (1, 2000)
Adam Fuss (1, 1999)
Man Ray (1, 1931)
Aaron Siskind (1, 1944)
Frederick Sommer (1, 1939)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (1, 1980)
Edward Weston (1, 1931)

Subjective Inventions
Bianca Brunner (1, 2004)
Richard Misrach (1, 2007)
Vik Muniz (1, 1997)
Cindy Sherman (1, 1980)
Laurie Simmons (1, 1991)
Mike and Doug Starn (1, 2001-2004)
Miro Svolik (1, 1986)
Ruth Thorne-Thomsen (2, 1979, 1987)
Jerry Uelsmann (1, 1996)
Joel-Peter Witkin (2, 1982)
Francesca Woodman (1, 1977-1978)

The Form of Content
Laurent Elie Badessi (1, 1998)
Bill Brandt (2, 1951,1954)
Harry Callahan (2, 1948)
Roy DeCarava (1, 1953)
Mario Giacomelli (1, 1961-1963)
Beatrice Helg (1, 2005)
Peter Keetman (1, 1959)
Andre Kertesz (1, 1938)
Robert Mapplethorpe (2, 1983)
Andrea Modica (1, 1996)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1, 1939)
Andres Serrano (2, 1987, 1988)
Alfred Stieglitz (1, 1923)
Edward Weston (1, 1927)
Minor White (2, 1959, 1961)

Comments/Context: As photography collectors ourselves, my wife and I likely have more interest in other people’s collections than your average gallery goer. While of course the art itself is what matters in the end, the process of making trade-offs and choices is endlessly fascinating (at least to me), and seeing how others have made their own decisions and followed their own rules and systems provides context and contrast for how we attack the same task. Our photo library has an entire shelf full of catalogues of other people’s photography collections (private, corporate, and public) and each one has its own personality and flair.

One of the books that has been on our shelf for more than a decade now is a selection from Sondra Gilman’s vast collection, published in the late 1990s. The book is organized into loose thematic sections, groupings that aren’t strict or rigid, but allow for non-obvious juxtapositions across time period, subject matter, and stylistic approach. The edit mixes iconic images and relative unknowns with equal measure, but each image always has some hook, something special or unexpected to draw the viewer in.

The reason I am going over this background is that I think it says something very important about how Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla think about photography. This current show of their collection is also thematically grouped, but the themes and ideas have changed over the past 15 years. Some of the same pictures have been included in this edit, others have been left out, to be replaced by those on the sidelines last time, or by new acquisitions. My point here is that they have not approached collecting as a monolithic checklist to be methodically completed year after year, but as something more organic and open-ended, where pictures gain new resonances as they are mixed with new neighbors. We too try to effect this kind of refreshing and renewal by rotating the pictures on our walls, but given the scale of their collection, Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla have a tremendous opportunity to continually remix their visual stimuli. My guess is that this is a constant source of interest for them, as there are always new things to discover in great photographs.

Even in this reduced selection of images, this collection rivals most museum permanent collections of photography. It is strongest in classic 20th century black and white imagery, and many will be astounded by the parade of rare vintage icons that are on display. In many cases, these are not just great images by Abbott, Kertesz, Alvarez Bravo, Cartier-Bresson, Frank, Winogrand, Weston, Siskind, White, and countless others, but these are the best known, the most well loved photographs that these masters made, all in vintage examples. While it would be easy to drift by these familiar pictures and feel like they have been seen before, the fact that they are all vintage and all in one private collection is nothing short of breathtaking.

But what I like about this exhibit is that doesn’t have the aura of showing off that it could have given the strength of the material. It has opted for something more eclectic and personal, an organization that proves that these pictures aren’t individual trophies, but are together as a collection a kind of living organism that is always evolving. Each new acquisition has the potential to rebalance the entire body, changing how one picture relates to another. The sections of portraits, children, landscapes, urban scenes, still lifes, staged/manipulated imagery, and formally driven images might seem predictable as themes, but mixing a Brandt nude, a White peeling paint, a Moholy-Nagy photogram, a Kertesz distortion, a Stieglitz equivalent, a Keetman raindrop screen, a Mapplethorpe nude, and a Serrano piss and blood composition (just part of the formally driven section) isn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill group show. While all the pictures can easily stand alone, together they are evidence of broad curiosity and passion for the medium.

Apart from the lack of 19th century work, this single show is a close to a comprehensive history of photography as you will find outside our major museums, so don’t miss the chance to see these treasures before they disappear from public view once again.

Collector’s POV: Not only is this a non-selling venue, but the vintage prints in this collection would undoubtedly fetch some stratospheric prices should they ever come back into the market. So we’ll forgo the usual price discussion for today, with the tangible reminder that a lifetime of collecting exceptional examples of iconic photographs can certainly generate significant value.

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

Transit Hub:

  • ARTnews Top 10 Photo Collectors (here)

Shared Vision: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography
Through April 21st

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001

Catherine Opie: High School Football @Mitchell-Innes & Nash

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 color photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the entry and the large main gallery space. The works are c-prints, made between 2007 and 2009. The portraits are sized 40×30 or 30×22, and the wider game scenes are sized 48×64. No edition information was provided on the checklist. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Catherine Opie’s recent photographs of American high school football are cunningly understated and subtle. At first glance, they reminded me of the individual posed portraits taken on picture day and of the countless action shots taken by parents standing on the sidelines. They have all the trappings of the familiar, the look of pictures we have seen before, and yet upon closer inspection, there is something anthropological about her gaze, an investigation of this ritualistic behavior from a fresh vantage point.

Her posed portraits (either 3/4 or full body) capture the boys in their shoulder pads and uniforms, with sweaty faces and matted helmet hair. The players run the gamut from the swaggering and confident to the timid and gentle, a whole spectrum of male attitudes (both real and fabricated) on display. There is strength and vulnerability, toughness and defensiveness, grown up man and young boy, all mixed together in the stew of adolescence. While the settings are completely different, I saw some parallels between this work and Rineke Dijkstra’s beach portraits.

Opie’s images of the games in progress are equally compelling and unexpected. All of the photographs are taken at ground level, with the painted lines of the green fields radiating outwards and large expanses of open air above the turf. In each case, the field is shown in the context of the surrounding land, alternately hemmed in by mountains, palm trees, towering evergreens, big sky deserts, and leafy suburban streets. Many were taken at night, when the lights were on and the skies opened up with downpours of rain. While there is of course action on the field (often small and seemingly insignificant), the pictures document the surrounding community, and the role of these games in that larger society. There is a strong sense of theater, of being out on the field in front of the whole town, of striving to prove worth or strength for all to see.

These photographs really grew on me as I spent more time with them. As the wary parent of a middle school aged football player myself, it was as if Opie had shown me a side of my own sideline haunting that I had never really understood or internalized before. They show why the boys play, how they create and try on masculine personas for themselves, and how the community is stitched together by the support of the team. Perhaps what is most impressive here is that Opie has found so much rich and nuanced material right where most of us have routinely overlooked it, out on the playing fields of every town in America.
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Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The 40×30 portraits are $20000 each and the 30×22 portraits are $15000 each; the 48×64 scenes are $40000 each. Opie’s work has started to show up in the secondary markets with more regularity in recent years. Prices have ranged between $1000 and $17000, although not many of her larger prints have come up for sale.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Reviews/Features: New Yorker (here), PhotoBooth (here), Lenscratch (here)
  • Exhibit: LACMA, 2010 (here)
Through April 14th
534 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

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