Alison Rossiter, Reduction @Milo

JTF (just the facts): A total of 27 works, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique gelatin silver prints, made on expired photographic papers from 1915-1950, and processed in 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

The show contains the following:

9 single images, each 12×10 (hung as a grid)

4 diptychs, each image 24×20, framed separately

7 diptychs, each image 9×7, framed together

7 diptychs, each images 12×10, framed together

Comments/Context: When you first walk into Alison Rossiter’s new show, you might be forgiven for thinking she is a painter, channeling Morris Louis and Barnett Newman using an inky black monochrome palette. Get up close to the works however and you will see they are not actually paintings but photographs, her high contrast abstract forms made by depositing chemical developers (pouring, dipping, etc.) over decades-old expired photographic papers.

In an age when digital technology is forcing many traditional photographic paper makers out of business, her process-centric, darkroom-based works are a conscious look to the past. Her works bring together the physical craftsmanship of the hand made, with the elements of chance introduced by the decaying papers. Blobs of developer pool and puddle in their own ways, and some of the papers have become tinted a light almond, adding softness to the otherwise hard-edged geometric compositions.

Rossiter’s abstractions alternate between crisp, angular forms of dark and light, and amorphous organic lumps that resemble Rorschach inkblots. When I first walked into the gallery, I was most drawn to the bold sharpness of the cool squares and lines; they seemed altogether familiar. But after a few moments, I started to think that these works covered ground that had already been well farmed by any number of painters from the last 50 years, and I became more interested in the bulging and shifting black amoebas. These images seem to better combine the unanticipated and accidental with the conceptual construct of mining the unexpected treasures of the old papers. I like the fact that they are more unplanned and indefinite.

I think the underlying question raised by these works is whether an exciting new visual vocabulary can be developed (no pun intended) using these kinds of processes. “Painting” with chemicals and allowing for chance reactions aren’t enough; the results need to take us places we haven’t been before. I think the best of the works here have started to go somewhere original, and I will be interested to watch as Rossiter continues to push the edges of photographic abstraction even further.

Collector’s POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows. The 12×10 single images are $2350 each. The larger 24×20 diptychs are $4950, while the smaller 9×7 diptychs are either $3350 or $3400. The 12×10 diptychs are $3900 each. Rossiter’s work has not yet reached the secondary markets in any meaningful way, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. I first saw Rossiter’s work at Stephen Bulger’s booth at AIPAD; he also represents the artist (here).

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

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Review: New Yorker (here)

Alison Rossiter, Reduction

Through October 30th

Yossi Milo Gallery
525 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction Results: Important Daguerreotypes by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, October 7, 2010 @Christie’s

The results of Christie’s single artist daguerreotype sale last week were undeniably strong, with Total Sale Proceeds coming in at over $2.8 million, just under the total high estimate. More than 36% of the lots sold above their estimate range, and with the overall Buy-In rate just over 20%, it was a convincing performance for scarce 19th century work, and a continued validation of Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s place in early photographic history.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 74
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2020000

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $2978000
Total Lots Sold: 58
Total Lots Bought In: 16
Buy In %: 21.62%
Total Sale Proceeds: $2873375

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 1
Low Sold: 1
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 00.00%
Total Low Estimate: $2000

Total Low Sold: $1375

Mid Total Lots: 50
Mid Sold: 40

Mid Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total Mid Estimate: $1301000
Total Mid Sold: $1286000

High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 17
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 26.09%
Total High Estimate: $1675000
Total High Sold: $1586000

The top lot by High estimate was lot 3, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, 261. Paris. 1841. Etude de plantes, at $140000-160000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $242500.

86.21% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of eight surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 2, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Self-portrait, 1841, at $194500

Lot 22, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, 132. Constantinople, rue sous le petit champ des morts., 1843, at $56250

Lot 30, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Zouk. Syrie. tombeau, 1844, at $134500

Lot 32, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, 249. Liban. Les Cedres. Suite., 1844, at $50000

Lot 60, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Jerusalem, Tombeaux de Zachariah et Bnei Hezir, Vallee Kidron, 1844, at $122500 (image at right, top, via Christie’s)
Lot 67, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Jerusalem, Al Wad, rue dans la vielle ville, 1844, at $98500

Lot 69, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Jerusalem, fortifications Porta Aurea, 1844, at $60000

Lot 70, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Jerusalem, Porta Aurea, 1844, at $105400 (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: Photographs, October 8, 2010 @Phillips

The results of Phillips various owner Photographs sale last week were generally a bit weaker than those at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in prior days. Phillips still covered the total low estimate, but the overall Buy-In rate was much higher (over 38%). Both the special sections of Callahans (5 for 18) and Bernhards (7 for 26) had relatively rough outings, and there were few positive surprises.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 410
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3804800

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5451700
Total Lots Sold: 254
Total Lots Bought In: 156
Buy In %: 38.05%
Total Sale Proceeds: $3987800

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 260
Low Sold: 151
Low Bought In: 109
Buy In %: 41.92%
Total Low Estimate: $1669700

Total Low Sold: $951125

Mid Total Lots: 138
Mid Sold: 93

Mid Bought In: 45
Buy In %: 32.61%
Total Mid Estimate: $2742000
Total Mid Sold: $2027675

High Total Lots: 12
High Sold: 10
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total High Estimate: $1040000
Total High Sold: $1009000

The top lot by High estimate was tied between two lots: lot 47, Robert Frank, Trolley-New Orleans, 1956/1970s, and lot 64, Richard Avedon, Brigitte Bardot, Hair by Alexandre, Paris Studio, 1959, both at $100000-150000. The Frank sold for $158500 and the Avedon sold for $170500, but neither was the top outcome of the sale. The top outcome was lot 22, Irving Penn, Pablo Picasso at La Californie, Cannes, 1967/1978, at $182500.

96.06% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were only five surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 55, Irving Penn, Chef, New York, 1951/1967, at $134500 (image at right, top, via Phillips)

Lot 218, Allen Ginsberg, Heroic Portrait of Jack Kerouac, New York, 1963/Later, at $16250 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)

Lot 241, Peter Beard, Rhino Roping (for release in Tsavo), Kenya, 1977, at $16250 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)

Lot 269, Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968, at $18750
Lot 387, Alex Guofeng Cao, Warhol vs. Mao, After Mapplethorpe, 2009, at $10000

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips De Pury & Company

450 West 15th Street

New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Photographs, October 6 and 7, 2010 @Christie’s

The results of Christie’s various owner Photographs sale last week fell right in the heart of the estimate range, bringing in proceeds just over $5.5 million. Even though three out of the top six lots failed to find buyers, a large number of positive surprises across the auction helped generate momentum. The overall Buy-In rate came in just under 25%.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 349
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $4565500

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $6795500
Total Lots Sold: 263
Total Lots Bought In: 86
Buy In %: 24.64%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5571538

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 189
Low Sold: 142
Low Bought In: 47
Buy In %: 24.87%
Total Low Estimate: $1193500

Total Low Sold: $1026938

Mid Total Lots: 137
Mid Sold: 104

Mid Bought In: 33
Buy In %: 24.09%
Total Mid Estimate: $3302000
Total Mid Sold: $2821100

High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 17
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 26.09%
Total High Estimate: $2300000
Total High Sold: $1723500

The top lot by High estimate was lot 32, Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, at $250000-350000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 12, Ansel Adams, Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942/1960s, at $338500.

83.27% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of twenty surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 16, Irving Penn, Lorry Washers, London, 1950, 1967, at $128500

Lot 17, Irving Penn, Child of Florence, 1948, at $74500

Lot 35, Man Ray, Madame Xupery, 1935, at $62500

Lot 45, Irving Penn, The Palm of Miles Davis (New York), 1986/1992, at $146500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s)

Lot 65, William Eggleston, Untitled, 1971/1996, at $74500

Lot 78, Joel Sternfeld, Fiesta de Quince, 94th Street and Jackson Mill Road, East Elmhurst, Queens, August, 2004/2005, at $23750 (image at right, top, via Christie’s)

Lot 100, Lise Sarfati, Suzannah #23, Hillsboro, OR, 2003, at $13750 (image at right, middle, via Christie’s)

Lot 117, Wim Wenders, Lounge Painting, Gila Bend, Arizona; and Sundries, Las Vegas, New Mexico, 1983-1989, at $7500

Lot 129, Alec Soth, Fairway Motor Inn, 2005/2006, at $10000

Lot 140, Todd Hido, Untitled #2690, 2000, at $23750

Lot 142, Robert Adams, Berthoud, Colorado, 1976/1989, at $68500

Lot 146, Stephen Shore, 5th Street & Broadway, Eureka, CA, September 2, 1974/2003, at $7500

Lot 174, Robert Frank, Billie Holiday, St. Nicholas Arena, NYC, 1954/1960s, at $30000

Lot 176, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Malcolm X, 1961/1968, at $22500

Lot 213, Irving Penn, Rag and Bones, London, 1950/1976, at $104500

Lot 274, William Eggleston, En route to New Orleans, 1971-1974, at $50000

Lot 309, Berenice Abbott, El at Columbus Avenue and Broadway, Lincoln Square, NY, 1929, at $30000

Lot 325, Levy and Cohen, Views of Richmond, 1865, at $21250

Lot 326, John Moran, Portico, Construction of the Bank of Pennsylvania, 1867, at $32500

Lot 345, Minor White, Two Barns, Dansville, New York, 1955/Later, at $7500

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie’s

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Laura Letinsky: After All @Yancey Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 large scale color photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space. The prints come from two recent series: The Dog and the Wolf and Fall, both from 2008-2009. The images from The Dog and the Wolf are chromogenic prints, made in editions of 9, ranging in size from 29×41 to 43×53. The images from Fall are archival pigment prints on Hanhemule paper, also made in editions of 9, ranging in size from 41×58 to 48×58. A monograph of these bodies of work was recently published by Damiani (here) and is available from the gallery for $50. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: Laura Letinsky has made a photographic career out of deconstructing the idea of a tabletop still life. Her images of the aftermath of a meal or the remains of a party are executed with the same sense of formality and control that is the hallmark of 17th century Dutch sill lifes, and yet her works are a complete inversion of these familiar bowls of fruit, a richly conceptual meditation on topics as diverse as the nature of change, the beauty of chance, and the decaying of life.

Letinsky’s newest works follow two separate lines of aesthetic thinking. The images from Fall are engulfed in an abstract whiteness, where the angles and shadows of the walls and tabletop become a serene minimalist environment for the investigation of a single object: a crumpled white paper cup, a group of black cherries (with pits and stems), and a used plastic sundae container and spoon from McDonald’s. The images from The Dog and the Wolf are altogether darker and messier. Gone is the perfect bright light, replaced by darker greys; tablecloths are rumpled and flower vases are shattered and broken. The collected items are exceedingly random and unexpected, perhaps symbolic, perhaps not: an octopus, a group of chocolate truffles, a purple ribbon, a dead bird, a multitude of tiny gold balls, a narcissus bulb, a bent strand of blue wire, loose pistachio shells, orange rinds, and egg shells. In these images, disarray reigns: leftover and forgotten fragments are abandoned in a heap or strewn across the table. The compositions are often wide open, taking in more of the broadness of the table, or looking down from an angle, changing the interaction between the objects in two dimensional space.

While not every one of these groupings and set-ups held my attention, I like the way Letinsky consciously subverts the viewer’s expectations. The best of the works drift between being beautiful, in an anti-still life kind of way, and being wholly conceptual, in a brainy theoretical manner. I think this contrast gives her photographs additional layers of intellectual meaning and provides a jolt of contemporary energy to an exceedingly traditional genre.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the images from The Dog and the Wolf are either $5000 or $5500 each, while the images from Fall are either $6500 or $7000 each. Letinsky’s work has little or no secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

University of Chicago faculty page (here)
Reviews: New Yorker, 2010 (here), TimeOut Chicago, 2010 (here), Frieze, 2003 (here)
Interview: Evan Sklar (here)

Laura Letinsky: After All
Through October 30th

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

Chris Killip, 4 + 20 Photographs @Amador

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against grey and off-white walls throughout the gallery space. The works on display were printed using a mix of processes: most are gelatin silver, but there are a few inkjet prints included as well. All of the prints are 24×20 in size (or reverse) and are uneditioned. The images were made in Northern England between 1974 and 1988. Most of the prints are modern prints made recently by Killip himself; a select number of vintage prints are also on view. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Even after many years as a collector, the intricacies of how the markets for photography operate often still puzzle me. I wonder: how is it possible that until now a photographer as talented and influential as Chris Killip has failed to have a solo gallery show in the US? Curators and institutions have long known his work, and In Flagrante is widely recognized as one of the great photobooks of all time. How is it then that he doesn’t have a broader following? It’s a complete head scratcher.

This show gathers together a mix of the known and unknown Chris Killip, a few images that might be familiar and a number of pictures that have never been published. The works document the lives of ordinary people in the North of England during the 1970s and 1980s as the governments of Margaret Thatcher and others worked to dismantle much of the country’s aging industrial base. The pictures might be classified as ‘social documentary’, but I think this label overlooks the strength of emotion that simmers underneath his photographs.

Killip is able to capture a whole range of related feelings through the turn of an arm, an expression on a face, or the stance of a man in an overcoat. These images uncover despair, weariness, anxiety, and boredom from the inside, and with a sense of empathy that makes the situations achingly real. He then uses careful juxtapositions to both express glimmers of hope and simultaneously undermine them. Children play amidst the squalor of housing projects or on building scaffolding (like an improvised jungle gym) with dirty smokestacks in the background. A family sits on a blanket in their Sunday best, surrounded by trash and worn out grass. Gardens of roses and brussel sprouts are flanked by broken fences, rubbish bins, and plywood walls covered with torn posters. ‘True love’ is chalked on a brick wall near a sidewalk strewn with newspapers and garbage. Confrontation and violence seem just outside the frame, as the society slowly breaks down under the weight of declining prospects. Neighbors are reduced to peeping out of their windows, fearful of the world outside.

In seeing these images in person for the first time, I felt a direct connection to the work of David Goldblatt, to the telling of larger, more complicated stories through the nuances of smaller everyday moments. There is the same sense of making pictures that have a pointed political message, by catching the contrasts but without highlighting the obvious. Individually and together, Killip’s images tell the sad stories of slow, relentless decay and of the harsh tests to their resilience that these people have had to repeatedly endure.

I came away from this show with an increased appreciation for both Killip’s compositional skills and craftsmanship, as well as his ability to single out resonant moments that can help outsiders to better understand the plight of his subjects. It’s an impressive body of work, full of durably memorable images of the edges of hopelessness.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the contemporary prints are $4500 each, while the vintage prints are $10000 each. Surprisingly, Killip’s work has not yet become widely available in the secondary markets. A few recent prints have come to market in the past few years, fetching prices between $3000 and $6000, but there are so few data points, it is hard to chart much of a line. As a result, gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point, and Amador is Killip’s sole representative in the US. The artist is also represented by Eric Franck Fine Art (here) in London.

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

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Harvard faculty page (here)
Book: Errata Editions In Flagrante (here)

Chris Killip, 4 + 20 Photographs
Through November 13th

Amador Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Photographs, October 6, 2010 @Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s began the main event Fall Photography auctions last week with a generally solid outing. The results were right within expectations, with an overall Buy-In rate just over 25% (a little higher than normal) and Total Sale Proceeds that fell at the lower end of the estimate range. The outcome was roughly equivalent to that of Sotheby’s various owner offering last April.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 265

Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $4364500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $6512500

Total Lots Sold: 198

Total Lots Bought In: 67

Buy In %: 25.28%

Total Sale Proceeds: $4970754

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 113

Low Sold: 86

Low Bought In: 27

Buy In %: 23.89%

Total Low Estimate: $911500
Total Low Sold: $636191

Mid Total Lots: 128

Mid Sold: 92
Mid Bought In: 36

Buy In %: 28.13%

Total Mid Estimate: $3066000

Total Mid Sold: $2194063

High Total Lots: 23

High Sold: 19

High Bought In: 4

Buy In %: 17.39%

Total High Estimate: $2535000

Total High Sold: $2140500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 29, Rufus Anson, Two Actors from the melodrama ‘Robert Macaire‘, 1850s, at $250000-350000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 182, Robert Frank, US90, En Route to Del Rio, Texas, 1955/c1970, at $266500, against an estimate of $80000-120000. (Image at right, top, via Sotheby’s.)

78.28% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of nine surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 95, Dorothea Lange, Drought Refugee from Polk Missouri, Awaiting the Opening of Orange Picking Season at Porterville, California, 1936, at $104500 (image at right, middle, via Sotheby’s)

Lot 110, Ruth Orkin, American Girl in Italy, 1951/1985, at $53125

Lot 140, Man Ray, Still Life Composition With Chess Set, Plaster Casts, and ‘A L’Heure De L’Observatoire – Les Amoureaux‘, 1935-36, at $170500

Lot 156, Jaromir Funke, Composition, c1925, at $74500

Lot 161, Andre Kertesz, Andre Kertesz portfolio, 1925-39/1981, at $116500
Lot 182, Robert Frank, US90, En Route to Del Rio, Texas, 1955/c1970, at $266500

Lot 187, Irving Penn, Chimney Sweep (B), London, 1976, at $68500

Lot 218, Helmut Newton, Vivian F. Hotel Volney (American Vogue) New York, 1972, at $16250

Lot 261, Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, 1969, at $86500 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby’s)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Sotheby’s

1334 York Avenue

New York, NY 10021

Bettina Rheims @Edwynn Houk

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 large scale color photographs, alternately framed in thick black and brown with no mats, and hung in the entry, main and side galleries. Neither process information nor physical dimensions were given on the gallery checklist. The works were made between 1991 and 2005 and are available in editions of either 3 or 5. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The portraits and nudes of Bettina Rheims are a potent cocktail of celebrity, fashion, and tangled hair naturalness. Her images capture strong female personalities (known and unknown) in a kind of Annie Leibovitz meets Helmut Newton aesthetic, bringing together direct confrontation and edgy voyeurism, with a twist of subtle French seduction.

Her more commercial celebrity shots avoid obvious perfection, finding confident beauty in small staged moments: Monica Bellucci in a red shirt dress pouring ketchup on spaghetti (her jet black hair in a snarl), Marion Cotillard brazenly posing in lingerie and boots with a pool cue, model Anne Pedersen blowing a bubble while wearing green sparkly mascara around her intense blue eyes, and Heather Graham writhing on a white shag rug holding a crushed can of Tab. Rheims’ glamour is messy and unkempt, bold and aggressive.

Her nudes are similarly disheveled, staged in flowery hotel rooms, but her quiet models display a more conflicted mix of emotional states. Reserved and demure partially clothed poses are punctuated with flashes of skin, taking ordinary scenes and amplifying their sexuality, the softly romantic settings becoming charged with surprising eroticism.

All of Rheims‘ images, even the most subtle and vulnerable, have a sense of unflinching defiance, of the women confidently taking on the gaze of whoever might be looking. As such, these pictures vigorously grab your attention, reversing the normal power of the viewer, forcing you into an interaction controlled by the self-assured subject on the wall.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced at either $22000 or $32000 depending on size. Rheims‘ work has become quite a bit more available at auction in recent years, with a number of lots up for sale every year. Prices have ranged between $2000 and $45000, with celebrity portraits (particularly of Madonna) at the top of that range.

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

Transit Hub:

Artist site (here)
Book: Bettina Rheims: Retrospective (here)
Interview: Artinfo (here and here)
Feature: NY Times T Magazine (here)

Bettina Rheims
Through October 30th

Edwynn Houk Gallery

745 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10151

Jessica Backhaus, I Wanted to See the World @Laurence Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 51 color photographs, framed in white and matted, and densely hung in the entry and main gallery spaces. All of the works are c-prints, in one of three sizes: 40×30 (in editions of 8), 24×20 or reverse (in editions of 8 or 15), and 14×11 or reverse (in editions of 15). The show contains 4 prints in the largest size, 22 in the middle size, and 25 in the smallest size. The various works are drawn from four different book projects. There are 11 images from Jesus and the Cherries (2001-2004), 17 images from One Day in November (2002-2008), 11 images from What Still Remains (2004-2008), and 12 images from I Wanted to See the World (2010). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: It was likely William Eggleston who first popularized color photographs of simple everyday objects made special through the sheer force of his focused attention. This concept of grabbing a seemingly random fragment of life and infusing it with significance has now morphed into an entire genre of contemporary photography, with practitioners with styles as different as Wolfgang Tillmans, Rinko Kawauchi and Paola Ferrario. In the past decade, German photographer Jessica Backhaus has also been exploring the nature of the incidental via a series of book projects, sampled here in a kind of mini-retrospective first New York solo show.
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Backhaus‘ approaches her overlooked objects with a sense of crisp, formal purity, and an eye for radiant color: red cherries in jars, orange carrots on the edge of a sink, a blue tennis ball in the gutter, a pink blanket on a clothesline. She explores the found geometries in the zigzag of carpeted stairs, the curvature of glasses of water, and the decay of a partially eaten apple or peeling sky blue paint. Water makes a repeated appearance, often infused with reflected, smeared color; her images capture drips, rivulets, wet pavement, and a variety of fogged, damp or sprinkled surfaces.

Backhaus takes this investigation of wetness to an entirely new level in her most recent body of work. These pictures document the reflections of colored buildings in the canals of Venice, her camera pointed down at the dappled, moving surface of the water. The bright colors become swirled, rippled and distorted, at turns broken and abstract. The color effects are both impressionistic and painterly, exercises in the marbling of pink and green, purple and yellow, or red and brown. They are images you can get lost in, endlessly following the intersecting waves and transitions.
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Together, this is a satisfying introduction to Backhaus‘ work, spanning both the power of pared down simplicity and the lyricism of visual complexity.
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Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows: the 40×30 prints are $5800 each, the 24×20 prints are $3600 each, and the 14×11 prints are $2500 each. Backhaus‘ work has not yet reached the secondary markets in any meaningful way, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Artist site (here)
Reviews: New Yorker (here), Photograph (here, scroll down), Photo Booth (here)
Book review: 5B4 (here)

Jessica Backhaus, I Wanted to See the World
Through October 30th

Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Auction Previews: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, October 15 and 16, 2010 @Sotheby’s London

Sotheby’s has the final slot in the London Frieze week sales, with its Contemporary Art Evening and Day auctions on the 15th and 16th. The top photography lots include work by Gursky, Uklanski, Prince, Gilbert & George, and Sherman. Overall, there are a total of 28 photo lots available across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate of £2608000.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 1
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £4000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 15
Total Mid Estimate: £224000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 12
Total High Estimate: £2380000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 6, Andreas Gursky, Pyongyang IV, 2007, at £500000-700000. (Image at right, top, via Sotheby’s.)

Here is a list of the photographers who are represented by more than one lot in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Gilbert & George (3)
Darren Almond (2)
John Baldessari (2)
Elger Esser (2)
Florian Maier–Aichen (2)
Vik Muniz (2)
Cindy Sherman (2)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Contemporary Art Evening
October 15th

Contemporary Art Day
October 16th

Sotheby’s
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970 @Bruce Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A group show of 97 color photographs, variously framed and matted, and hung throughout the front, main, and back gallery spaces. The works on display were made between 1950 and 1970 by 11 different artists. Details on the photographers and prints included in the show are below, with the number of images and relevant specifics in parentheses:

Harry Callahan (9 dye transfer prints, made between 1951 and 1970, most printed later, ranging in size from 7×7 to 10×14)
Marie Cosindas (9 works: 5 archival inkjet prints, made between 1965 and 1968, printed in 2010, ranging in size 8×10 to 12×17, 3 dye transfer prints, made and printed in 1966, ranging in size from 11×14 to 13×15, and 1 c-print, made in 1966, printed in 1970s, 12×15)
Ernst Haas (5 works: 4 dye transfer prints, made and printed between 1953 and 1960s, ranging in size from 11×17 to 15×22, and 1 chromogenic print, made in 1969, printed later, 30×40)
Saul Leiter (8 chromogenic prints, made between 1956 and 1959, printed later, all 14×11)
Inge Morath (8 archival pigment prints, made between 1957 and 1965, printed later, all 13×18 or reverse)
Marvin Newman (9 archival inkjet prints, made between 1953 and 1956, printed 2010, all 13×19)
Ruth Orkin (7 archival inkjet prints, made c1950, printed 2010, all 11×14 or reverse)
Eliot Porter (10 dye transfer prints, made between 1950 and 1968, all 10×12 or reverse)
Arthur Siegel (6 dye transfer prints, made c1950, all but one vintage, ranging in size from 7×10 to 10×12)
Pete Turner (6 dye transfer prints, made between 1963 and 1970, printed 1970s, ranging in size from 11×15 to 40×60)
Garry Winogrand (20 slides, made between 1950-1970, shown as projected slide show)

Comments/Context: Given the overwhelming dominance of color photography in our lives today, it’s altogether surprising that the art historical narrative for this particular medium is still rather fluid and incomplete. Earlier this summer, the Starburst show at Princeton (review here) helped clarify the exciting period between 1970 and 1980, when Eggleston, Shore, Sternfeld and many others took color photography in a variety of new directions. But what was happening in color prior to that time has received much less scholarly attention. This ambitious gallery show attempts to step into that murky void, providing a companion piece covering the two decades prior to the 1970s color explosion.

One of my most important takeaways from Starburst was that the 1970s photographers found new ways to liberate themselves from the bonds of traditional subject matter. That show was filled with everything but the normal; it was filled with the quirky, the political, the mundane, the suburban, the conceptual, and even with color as the subject in and of itself. In contrast, when I walked through this show chronicling the period just before the 1970s, my strong reaction was: this is mostly black and white photography made in color. There is a heavy dose of street photography, mixed with a few landscapes, some portraits, and a still life or two, and with a few exceptions, most of the images are rooted in a recognizable black and white aesthetic.

The conclusion I draw from ideas underlying this show is that there really was a violent schism in the 1970s, a breaking away from what had come before. I can’t say that I have ever heard that any of the notable 1970s color photographers say they were influenced by any the artists on view in this show (deepen my understanding in the comments if you can add something specific), and seeing this work, I can’t say that I am particularly surprised. To my eye, the impressionistic work of Saul Leiter (which I am finding increasingly amazing as I see more of it) and a few of Harry Callahan’s dye transfers are the only images that seem to consistently reach for something beyond the boundaries of black and white. The others have moments when a single image crosses into the new world, but that innovative energy isn’t sustained.

Overall, I think the gallery deserves credit for digging into a subject that needed some further investigation and for putting together a varied exhibit of representative work. This show is full of complex issues and ideas to keep your brain busy, but unfortunately the work itself is mostly forgettable. Even if all of the work isn’t durably original, as a whole, this period of change is still an important historical link worth understanding. In many ways, this is a show of transitional, now extinct species, which tried to adapt to the new environment, but in the end, lost the battle of natural selection.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows:

Harry Callahan: $8500 or $9500 each
Marie Cosindas: dye transfers $15000 or $20000 each, c-print $7500, recent inkjet prints $3000 each
Ernst Haas: dye transfers between $25000 and $40000 each, chromogenic print $5250
Saul Leiter: $4000 each
Inge Morath: $2600 each
Marvin Newman: $3000 each
Ruth Orkin: $2750 each
Eliot Porter: most $2500 to $3000 each, one print at $12000
Arthur Siegel: between $8500 and $20000
Pete Turner: small sizes $5000, large sizes $38000
Garry Winogrand: not for sale

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

Transit Hub:

Reviews: Wall Street Journal (here), New York Photo Review (here)

Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970
Through October 23rd

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

Auction Previews: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, October 14 and 15, 2010 @Christie’s King Street

Christie’s comes to market second in the Fall London season, with its Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day auctions at King Street on the 14th and 15th. The top lots include Gilbert & George, Sherman, Gursky, Wall and Demand. Overall, there are 40 photography lots on offer across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate of £1714500.

Here’s the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 5

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £20500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 18

Total Mid Estimate: £254000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 17

Total High Estimate: £1440000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 21, Gilbert & George, Frozen Youth, 1982, at £250000-350000. (Image at right, top, via Christie’s.) The next highest lot is lot 44, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (#412), 2003, at £100000-200000, a very scary clown indeed. (Image at right, bottom, via Christie’s.)
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Here is the list of photographers who are represented by two or more lots in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):