Richard Renaldi: Touching Strangers @Hermès

JTF (just the facts): A total of 22 color photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the atrium gallery space at the top of the store. All of the works are chromogenic prints made between 2007 and 2010. The prints on display are each 24×20 or reverse, made in editions of 12+2. A larger size is also available, 40×33 or reverse, in editions of 3+2. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Richard Renaldi’s recent portraits are built on a deceptively simple construct that turns out to be much deeper and more complex than you might initially expect. The idea is straightforward: bring two generally unlikely people (or groups of people) together and ask them to pose for a portrait. The wrinkle here is that Renaldi has required the sitters to touch each other: to embrace, hold hands, intertwine their arms, or otherwise get much closer than two strangers normally would.
While at first glance, some of these images have the look of large format family snapshots, the overall effect is often a wonderfully strange and awkward moment, where cultures clash, invisible boundaries are reluctantly crossed, and stereotypes are broken down. A closer look reveals unexpected connections between these people, where ethnicities, ages, genders, and personality types seem to melt away, and honest and authentic emotions seem to come through. The gestures run the gamut from stiff and wooden to tender and moving, exposing an entire spectrum of subtle social interaction.
.
I found myself drawn to those portraits that not only brought stark opposites together, but also maximized the available color and texture in the environment. Reginald and Nicole pose on a vibrant yellow concrete sculpture, Carlos and Alex stand in front of a lime green wall, and Lindsay and Mark square off in front of a pattern of cinder blocks. The image of Julie and Xavier was the most memorable picture for me; she in her wedding dress holding a champagne bottle, he in his yellow bandanna and oversized baseball shirt, oddly dissimilar, yet able for just a moment to come together and share their common humanity.

Collector’s POV: While this isn’t a selling show, prints from this series are available directly from the artist (linked below). The 24×20 prints start at $2500 and escalate to $5000 based on the place in the edition. The 40×33 prints start at $4500 and escalate to $6000. Renaldi’s work has not yet surfaced in the secondary markets, so interested collectors will need to follow up at gallery retail or directly with the artist.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Interview on Conscientious (here)
  • Review: Wallpaper (here)
  • Foundation d’enterprise Hermès (here)
Through May 28th
The Gallery at Hermès
691 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10065

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A total of 306 black and white photographs, alternately framed in white and black and matted, and hung in a series of 8 rooms on the sixth floor of the museum. The works span the period between 1929 and 1989. The entry to the exhibit contains a collection of large scale color maps that chart the photographer’s worldwide travels in meticulous detail. There are 5 glass vitrines scattered throughout the exhibit (each running the length of an entire wall) containing magazine spreads. Two large seating areas (tables/chairs) stand at the center of the exhibit, with exhibition catalogues available for further review.

After 4 images in the entry hall and 6 images used to show differences in printing techniques, the exhibit is divided into 13 discrete sections, which wind around in a rough figure eight pattern across the various rooms, using different colors of grey paint to set off different areas. The titles of these sections (which are slightly different than those in the exhibition catalog in some cases) are listed below, with the number of images on view in each in parentheses:

  • Early Years (34)
  • After the War, End of an Era (21, with 1 case)
  • Old Worlds: East (13)
  • Old Worlds: West (22)
  • Old Worlds: France (17)
  • New Worlds: USA (22, with 1 case)
  • New Worlds: USSR (17, with 1 case)
  • Photo Essay: The Great Leap Forward, China, 1958 (37, with 1 case)
  • Photo Essay: Bankers Trust Company, New York, 1960 (15)
  • Portraits (34)
  • Beauty (10)
  • Encounters and Gatherings (26)
  • Modern Times (28, with 1 case)

The show was organized and curated by Peter Galassi, Chief Curator of Photography at MoMA. After its run in New York, the exhibit will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago, SFMOMA, and the High Museum in Atlanta. A detailed exhibition catalog, with a thoughtful and well-researched scholarly essay by Galassi and detailed background information (including the maps), is available from the museum for $50 or $75, depending on the binding (here). (Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the exhibit, so there are no installation shots for this show.)

Comments/Context: As you make your way to the top of the escalator on the sixth floor of the MoMA, if you can block out the chaos of the gift shop, the audioguide station, and the thronging crowds for a moment, the staggering floor to ceiling maps of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s worldwide travels as a photojournalist will come into view. While you might be tempted to rush into the galleries to see the photography, I’d suggest taking a moment to let these hopelessly detailed maps wash over you a bit, to take in the multi-colored squiggling lines that criss-cross the continents decade after decade, and to consider the many challenges Cartier-Bresson faced in both getting from one far flung exotic or politically charged locale to the next, and in making his pictures when he got there.

Like many collectors I expect, I have become almost overexposed to the artist’s best known images. But the real life context of the maps reminded me of how much more to the story there really was beyond the early greatest hits, and just how hard it was going to be from a curatorial standpoint to both capture all that he did in his long career and somehow organize it into an easily communicated shorthand. Curator Peter Galassi has done his best to weave various threads together, alternating between chronological, geographic, structural, and thematic approaches in presenting the works, creating a interlocking brocade of ideas. But in the end, Cartier-Bresson remains more elusive than you might expect; the “decisive moment” tells part of the story, but certainly not all of it, and even the best organizational intentions left me with a sense of wondering how it all should fit together.

The exhibition begins chronologically with Cartier-Bresson’s early 1930s work, and these pictures strongly stand out in terms of their Modernist, avant–garde and Surrealist influences. The first room contains many of the photographer’s best known and most innovative vintage images, and together, they feel like a fresh, self-contained body of work, rooted more in compositional experimentation, literature, and left-wing politics than in what we now call photojournalism. As I moved into subsequent rooms, I was struck by how Cartier-Bresson seemed to leave this aesthetic behind, or perhaps to refine it for more everyday use, moving more toward neutral observation and away from conscious aesthetic exploration.

After a room of images from the post-WWII period, Cartier-Bresson’s output is roughly grouped by geography, selecting single images from different decades and assignments, loosely sorted into a “before and after” of old and new worlds. Images of Asia, Europe, and France in particular chronicle pre-industrial cultures, while shots of the US and USSR document economic expansion and growth. Galassi then does a deep dive into two photo essays (one of the Great Leap Forward in China and one of financial workers at Bankers Trust), trying to show the more detailed process and context in Cartier-Bresson’s single subject projects – long captions add an unexpected level of reporting background, while multiple images help to tell a narrative with more vantage points. The final sections of the show are then grouped thematically by subject matter, starting with a large collection of portraits, and ending with images of crowds and modern society.

In virtually all of the work after the second World War, all the way through into the 1970s, Cartier-Bresson was remarkably consistent in his crafting of photojournalistic vignettes. Most pictures are a self-contained story, often capturing subtle social cues, glances, and gestures that have coalesced into a composition that captures the juxtaposition of different people. Whether in India or France, China or the US, he was able to reduce the chaos around him into clear relief, highlighting the figures and their cultural interrelationships. Expressions, facial emotions, fleeting encounters, and unexpected action form the basis of virtually all of his best images.

On one hand, seeing hundreds of these images can make them seem a bit formulaic, but in the context of those maps at the beginning, I saw his repeated search for certain themes and ways to construct a picture as mechanisms for simplifying the unusual situations and tough challenges he continually encountered all over the globe. It seems he had already discovered how to be successful in telling the kinds of stories he wanted to tell, and he refined his eye and approach to fit his needs over the long decades of his career. It was all a matter of moving and waiting until the moment was right; it sounds so effortless, but a massive show likes this is proof that it took an enormous amount of dedication to his craft.

Overall, this retrospective does a fine job of providing a larger framework for considering Cartier-Bresson. It successfully forced me to get beyond his iconic early work, to appreciate a broader sample of his images from various decades, and to see patterns and evolutions in his style. That said, I can’t help wondering if many more targeted exhibitions will now be necessary to really unravel the complexities of his work between 1945 and 1975; the narrative still seems messy and unfinished. But perhaps this is the mark of a thought-provoking exhibition: it provides some of the answers, but leaves many more open-ended clues and puzzles for future study.

Collector’s POV: Cartier-Bresson’s prints are ubiquitous at auction, with dozens of prints available each and every season. Prices have ranged from $1000 to $200000 in recent years; obscure images and later prints are generally at the bottom end of that range, with vintage prints of the iconic images at the top. That said, even later prints of his most famous works are now regularly pricing above $10000, so prices continue to inch upward. Active collectors of Cartier-Bresson’s work shouldn’t miss the small selection of prints at the beginning of the show that highlights the differences in prints made by the photographer and various labs over the years. I was interested to learn that early prints made by the photographer himself were very muted in tone, and that later prints have black borders and are signed on the front, a handy heuristic for auction previews and the like.

Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Exhibition site (here)
  • Reviews: NY Times (here), New Yorker (here), Daily Beast (here), Wall Street Journal (here)
  • Charlie Rose interview with Galassi, Frank and Sire (here)
  • Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (here)
  • Magnum Photos page (here)

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century
Through May 22nd

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

Auction Preview: Africa, May 15, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips continues its 2010 series of themed sales next weekend with a grouping of works gathered under the umbrella of “Africa”. The auction includes photographs by African photographers, as well as those by Western photographers taking on African subjects (quite broadly defined). Out of a total of 233 lots on offer, there are 75 lots of photography mixed in, with a total High estimate for photography of $554700. (Catalog cover at right, via Phillips.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 62
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $272700
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 12
Total Mid Estimate: $202000
Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 1
Total High Estimate: $80000
The top lot by High estimate is lot 61, Yinka Shonibare, Un Ballo in Maschera (I-X), 2004-2005, at $60000-80000. (Image at right, via Phillips.)
The following is the list of the photographers represented by more than two lots in this sale:
Seydou Keïta (7)
Malick Sidibé (7)
George Rodger (6)
Sebastião Salgado (5)
Hugo Bernatzik (4)
Zwelethu Mthethwa (4)
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
May 15th
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

Museum Profile: David Little and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

When a well-respected and long sitting curator is replaced by a new face (especially when parachuted in from the outside), there is an inevitable mix of excitement and trepidation. Will the new person continue on the same trajectory as the old, or chart a new strategic course for the department? How will the priorities for the collection and the exhibitions calendar change?

Regular readers here will know that I am interested in how collectors can better connect with museums, particularly those that are outside one’s own specific geographic region. I am fascinated with the question of what’s “hiding” in museums around the world, and how collectors who have affinities for certain types of work can connect with like-minded curators wherever they may reside; in my view, this is currently extremely inefficient or next to impossible (i.e if you are passionate about Photographer X, how can you discover which museums hold lots of this artists work and are excited about it, which ones have substantial holdings but are focused on other things, and which ones have small holdings now but would like to own more?). In pursuit of making the photo collector-museum relationship more transparent, I began a series of museum profiles a couple of years ago, where I outlined the details of the photography residing in smaller venues, complete with concrete collections data and acquisitions priorities. In my view, if museums don’t communicate what they’re interested in, how can collectors (beyond the local acquisitions committee) hope to get involved?

When David Little took the job as Curator of Photography and New Media at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in late 2008, he was stepping into some big, empty shoes. Ted Hartwell had founded the photography department in 1973 and been with the museum for decades. He had put on many ground breaking exhibitions and nurtured generations of photographers from the Twin Cities and further afield. And he had built an encyclopedic collection of approximately 11500 images, focused on American photography from 1900 to 1960 with breadth and range across all periods, and particular depth in documentary work, photojournalism, and pictorialism.

I contacted Little last summer and asked him if he’d be willing to talk a bit about the status of the collections (even though the MIA couldn’t remotely be called a “small museum”), and more importantly, how he was thinking about the challenges that lay ahead. Little’s background includes stints at the Whitney and MoMA, with a particular strength in education and new media. I’m happy to report that Little was willing to provide some detailed information on the collections, as well as to answer some pointed questions about his going forward plans. So let’s start with some quick background.

Currently, the MIA holds approximately 11500 photographs, with a solid mix of all periods of the medium (5% pre-1900, 60% 1900-1980, 35% post-1980). A decent portion of the collection is up on the website (4600 images from more than 400 photographers) and can be easily searched here. Major holdings include works by Gilles Peress, Walker Evans, and various Magnum photographers. Details on key contributors and supporters over the years can be found here; in particular, there are permanent venues at the museum designated for both the existing photography collection (Harrison Galleries) and contemporary work (Perlman Gallery). As such, a broad set of photographic imagery is always on view at the MIA, a claim not many museums can actually make.

The Photography department is staffed by Little and Associate Curator Christian Peterson, who is a specialist in Pictorialism and in the MIA’s collection. Elizabeth Armstrong, Curator of Contemporary Art, is also involved in the photography program. Recent photography exhibitions have included:

  • Southern Exposure: Photographs of the American South (on view now)
  • Josef Sudek and Czech Photography (2009/2010)
  • New Pictures: Noriko Furunishi (2009/2010)
  • Tom Arndt’s Minnesota (2009)
  • Masterpiece Photographs from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts: The Curatorial Legacy of Carroll T. Hartwell (2008/2009)
  • Friedlander: Photography (2008)
  • Peter Henry Emerson and American Naturalistic Photography (2008)
  • Alec Soth: Sleeping by the Mississippi (2008)
  • The Search to See I and II: Photographs from the Collection of Frederick B. Scheel (2007/2008)

Several hundred photographs have entered the collection in the past few years; works are typically acquired via donation or through a dedicated acquisitions budget for photography. The museum also has a Photographs Study Room that can be reserved on weekdays by appointment (call (612) 870-3183).

Given that Little’s expertise is grounded in contemporary art and theory since 1960, it’s clear that he is interested in photographs that address the larger themes and issues that circulate within this broader artistic field, rather than in the internal debates rooted inside the traditional photography community. With a “classic modern collection” as a backdrop, and a larger institutional context that spans thousands of years and multiple cultures across the globe, he wants to build on the photo collection’s strengths in documentary and photojournalism, but “with more of a contemporary twist”. Little feels “we can articulate visual and intellectual connections that are difficult to do in museums focused on art of the last 100 plus years”. This boils down to a near term focus on acquiring works from 1968 onward, in both photography and new media, and extending outward “in relationship to our encyclopedic collection as a whole”.

Several brand new initiatives are already heading in this direction. The Art ReMix program is based on a simple, but extremely powerful, idea. Take contemporary art (mostly photography) and juxtapose it with art in other parts of the museum – literally, hang the pictures in the midst of the other permanent collection exhibitions. Works by Thomas Struth, Marco Breuer, JoAnn Verburg, Alec Soth, Lorraine O’Grady, Kota Ezawa, Sharon Core, and Cindy Sherman (among others) are now spread across the museum (out of the photography ghetto), challenging visitors to “think about ideas that they never considered”. This effort is paired with a new exhibition, Until Now, Collecting the New (open through August 2010), which focuses on recent work in a variety of media. The New Pictures series is another show of commitment to and engagement with fresh and experimental work. This solo series began last year with Noriko Furunishi, and Marco Breuer is the featured photographer right now. Both Art ReMix and New Pictures have their own websites/blogs (here and here) to draw out further discussion and interaction with their audiences.

In the fall, yet another nod to contemporary photography will be on view – a group show entitled The Embarrassment of Riches: Picturing Wealth, 2000-2010. It’s clear that Little is focused on ramping up the engagement with visitors. In his view, “I want the shows to be relevant to the experiences of audiences. The great power of photography is the way in which it circulates in the world, and even more so in a networked global culture. I will capitalize on this.”

An interesting question for the future is how an MIA with a renewed focus on contemporary photography will balance the efforts of the Walker Art Center across town, in terms of their respective roles/”brands” in the community/region and their relationships to the cadre of talented local artists. Little says, “there are many narratives and positions to articulate in contemporary art and there is plenty of room for both institutions to stake a claim for the most important art. New York is proof of that, with the Whitney, MoMA, the New Museum, the Guggenheim, and the Met, each with distinctive programs.”

All in, Little seems energized by the concept of taking a deep and important collection of photography and recontextualizing it for the current times. He seems open to engaging with local collectors and those from further afield, and bringing exciting and complex photographic work to Minneapolis. It’s a tough job to take over for such a well-liked figure as Ted Hartwell, but David Little seems to be hard at work, leveraging the past while making the job his own.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404

Auction Previews: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, and the Halsey Minor Collection, May 13 and 14, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips finishes up the Spring Contemporary Art season in New York at the end of next week, with the Halsey Minor Collection and a two-part various owner sale. There are a total of 93 lots of photography available across the sales, with a total High estimate for photography of $3157000.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 34
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $225000
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 45
Total Mid Estimate: $1032000
Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 14
Total High Estimate: $1900000
The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 13, John Baldessari, Two Cars, One Red, in Different Environments, 1990, at $300000-400000. (Image at right, top, via Phillips.)
Here’s the list of photographers represented by more than two lots in the sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):
.
Hiroshi Sugimoto (7)
Dennis Hopper (6)
Florian Maier–Aichen (5)
Richard Prince (4)
Matthew Barney (3)
Gregory Crewdson (3)
Nikki Lee (3)

While it isn’t one of the top lots, this Wolfgang Tillmans caught my eye due to its relationship to the other cutting-edge scientific, mathematical, and computer-based photography I have been enamored with recently. (Lot 151, Wolfgang Tillmans, Supercollider (Refraction), 2003, at $40000-60000. Image at right, via Phillips.)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Minor), here (Part I) and here (Part II).
May 13th
Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

W. Eugene Smith, The Jazz Loft Project @NYPL for the Performing Arts

JTF (just the facts): More than 200 images, mostly framed in black and variously matted, and hung against dark blue walls in a large ground floor gallery space. A few prints have been enlarged significantly and mounted without frames. Many of the images on display are proof prints, and are generally small in size (roughly 7×5 or 6×4); others are printed somewhat larger in a more “final” print style. At the back of the exhibit, there is a large video screen showing outtakes of Smith working, and 6 smaller screens playing episodes of the Jazz Loft Project series. There are 4 glass cases housing reel to reel tapes and Smith’s recording equipment, various equipment cases, Smith’s telephoto lens, and a selection of LIFE spreads, as well as 2 listening stations where visitors can select from a variety of recordings and conversations. 8 large banners hang from the ceiling, depicting tape boxes covered in notes. A well-researched monograph of the project, written by Sam Stephenson was published by Knopf in 2009 (here). (Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the exhibit; therefore, there are no installation shots for this show.)

Comments/Context: When I think of great neighborhoods for photography in New York, the Upper West Side is not one that I think of at all; there are virtually no venues, either public or private, that show photography on a regular basis. As such, any show on the Upper West Side offers little in the way of “clusterability“, that important quality which allows visitors to string together a bunch walkable visits to closely located sites. I think this is the reason why it has taken me so long to get to see this exhibit; it ultimately required a special trip. The surprisingly good news is that this show, tucked back in the out of the way New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (at Lincoln Center), is undeniably one of the best photography shows of 2010.

You’ve probably heard the back story to this project somewhere else already, but here’s the synopsis. Famous photojournalist, war correspondent and LIFE photographer, W. Eugene Smith left his family and his job and took up residence in an abandoned “cold-water” apartment building in the Flower District (28th Street and 6th Avenue). For the next eight years (1957-1965), this building became a casual mecca for jazz musicians, composers, and hangers on, and Smith took nearly 40,000 images and 4,000 hours of audio tape of nearly everything that occurred inside and outside the building, at all hours of the day and night, as jam sessions and impromptu meetings took place. The result is a truly amazing visual and auditory record of the people, the music, and the time period.

Jazz obsessives will of course revel in all of the musical detail in this exhibition, from the countless recordings of some of the biggest names in the community (both playing and talking, heard as background to the exhibit and via several headphone stations), to the marked up boxes of now-ancient recording tape (close-up images, hung as large banners throughout the display). But it is Smith’s black and white photographs that really bring the story to life.

While the pictures are hung mixed together on the walls, there are really only two bodies of work in the show: jazz musicians inside the building, and life on the streets outside. The shots of the musicians, either playing or just hanging out, have no trace of posing or staging; Smith seems to have been routinely ignored by his subjects, allowing him to capture moments of intense expression and calm quiet. There are dark, moody portraits of Thelonious Monk (wearing a porkpie hat) playing the piano and smoking, Roland Kirk playing two horns at once, and countless others (Bill Evans, Albert Ayler, Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus etc.) often photographed as fragments of a cymbal, or a hand, or lips blowing. Many were taken in the thick of the action of playing, where eyes are closed and cheeks are blown out; others document the pause between sessions, where the excitement ebbs and a player sits lost in thought, often in silhouette. Given that most of the sessions took place at night, many of the works are drenched in shadows, flanked by darkened windows. There is even an unexpected self-portrait of the artist, reflected in the flare of the bell of a horn.

Smith also used an ungainly 300mm telephoto lens (seen in a glass case) to take shots out the window of the building, documenting the comings and goings in the street below. These bird’s eye photographs have been grouped into short series and vignettes: people carrying flowers, fire escapes, garbage trucks, curves of cars, pedestrians, delivery trucks, umbrellas, rainy streets, firemen, white chairs in a truck, white lines on the street, snow falling, footsteps in the snow. These scenes have an elegant simplicity, where a single gesture or angle makes the whole composition exciting. It is the consistency of these pictures that is most surprising; in image after image, Smith turns the motion of the street into a balanced and sophisticated ballet – a woman’s leg bends out of a car door, a man carries a bunch of flowers in the snow, a cat balances on a window frame, cart tracks make straight lines in the slush. Several are even taken through a ragged hole in a tar-paper covered window, creating a jagged black tunnel, with the action taking place in the middle.

This exhibit really transformed my perception of Smith and his photography. Rather than the concerned documentary photographer of WWII or Minamata, or the staff photographer for LIFE of the Country Doctor (and countless other well known photo essays), here Smith is taking pictures on his own terms, still very much performing a kind of embedded photojournalism, but in a much more eccentric and personal way. Smith got much, much deeper into this story (it was his life after all), and as a result, the pictures have an intimacy and authenticity that is hard to match.

All in, this is a fantastic show, deep in its scholarship and compelling in its imagery, and well worth a detour from the well worn artistic ruts of the usual New York neighborhoods.

Collector’s POV: I couldn’t determine if there is any one gallery that officially represents Smith’s estate in the private markets; many vintage dealers carry representative samples of his work. His archive can be found at the CCP in Arizona. At auction, Smith’s prints are generally reasonably priced, ranging from $1000 to $50000, with his famous image The Walk To Paradise Garden drawing all of the prices at the top end. After seeing this show, I have come to the conclusion that many city scene collectors who have previously overlooked Smith might find quite a bit of interest in this body of work; there are intriguing echoes of NY Kertesz and Frank’s bus images in particular. Of course, collectors of jazz portraits will also find much here to enjoy.

Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • The Jazz Loft Project site (here)
  • Reviews: WSJ (here, scroll down), DART (here), NYT Photo Booth (here)
  • Book reviews: New York (here), Chicago Tribune (here)

The Jazz Loft Project
Through May 22nd

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023-7498

Auction Previews: Contemporary Art, May 12 and 13, 2010 @Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is up second in the Spring Contemporary Art season in New York next week, with Evening and Day auctions Wednesday and Thursday. There are a total of 52 lots of photography available across the two sales, with a total High estimate for photography of $4099000. It’s interesting to see well known Mapplethorpe flowers (in black and white) now being placed into the major Contemporary Art sales rather than into the Photographs sales. (Catalog covers at right, via Sotheby’s.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 1
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $10000
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 30
Total Mid Estimate: $849000
Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 21
Total High Estimate: $3240000
The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 49, Andreas Gursky, Rimini, 2003, at $500000-700000.
Here’s the list of photographers represented by more than one lot in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):
Vik Muniz (5)
Florian Maier–Aichen (4)
Cindy Sherman (4)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (4)
John Baldessari (3)
Thomas Ruff (3)
Elger Esser (2)
Douglas Gordon (2)
Andreas Gursky (2)
Robert Mapplethorpe (2)
Paul McCarthy (2)
Marilyn Minter (2)The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

May 12th
May 13th
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Auction Previews: Post-War and Contemporary Art, Including Works from the Collection of Michael Crichton, May 11 and 12, 2010 @Christie’s

Christie’s begins the main Spring Contemporary Art season in New York next week with two days of single collection and various owner sales. There is plenty of top tier art on offer, including works from the collection of author Michael Crichton. In terms of photography, it’s a mixed bag, with a handful of high priced works (Prince, Wall, Gursky), some usual suspects, and some more random inclusions. There are a total of 44 lots of photography available in these sales, with a total High estimate for photography of $6684000.

Here’s the simple statistical breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 1
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $3000
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 22
Total Mid Estimate: $621000
Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 21
Total High Estimate: $6060000
There are two lots that are tied for the top photography lot by High estimate. They are: lot 69, Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy), 1999, (image at right, top) and lot 73, Jeff Wall, Adrian Walker, artist, drawing from a specimen in the Dept. of Anatomy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1992, (image at right) both at $800000-1200000. We’ve only had two photo lots cross the million dollar threshold this year, so if both of these perform well (and/or the Gursky outperforms), that total will rise.
Here’s the complete list of photographers represented by two or more lots in the sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Hiroshi Sugimoto (6)
Vik Muniz (5)
Cindy Sherman (5)
Mike Kelley (3)

Richard Prince (3)
Jeff Wall (3)
Gregory Crewdson (2)
Tom Friedman (2)
Thomas Ruff (2)
The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening), here (Crichton), and here (Morning/Afternoon). The eCatalogues are here (Evening), here (Crichton), and here (Morning/Afternoon).
Post-War and Contemporary Art, Including Works from the Collection of Michael Crichton
May 11th and 12th
Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Ralston Crawford, Drawings & Photographs @Zabriskie

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 works, alternately framed in brown and black wood and matted, and hung in the main gallery and the back viewing room. The 10 photographs are all vintage gelatin silver prints, made between 1940 and 1965. The 1940s prints range in size from 4×5 to 7×9; the 1960s prints are somewhat larger, ranging from 11×11 to 14×17. The 14 drawings are mostly ink on paper, and were made between 1940 and 1964. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Ralston Crawford’s drawings and photographs of American architecture and industry are elegant exercises in the simplicity of carfeully constructed found abstraction. We’ve written about Crawford before (here, from 2008), so we’ll dispense with the usual broad historical background and photographic context in this review, and head straight to a closer look at the works on view in this particular show.

Crawford’s photographs are rooted in realism, with fragments of bridges, grain elevators, buildings, ships and trains providing the raw material for his explorations into geometric patterning. New York Door, 1961, depicts the thick black and white panels of a high contrast painted wooden door, bisected by a slashing black shadow. Box Car, 1949, juxtaposes undulating corrugated steel with the strict lines of bubbly seams and the rungs of a ladder, creating a composition with layers of interrelated textures. Grain Elevators, 1949, starts with a cluster of tubular white silos, and adds long diagonals, horizontal braces, and vertical vents striped like shutters. All of these works begin with something familiar, and transform it into a pared down visual experiment with spare, building block forms.

Crawford’s drawings and sketches seem to explore many of these same ideas in a slightly looser, more expressive way. Given his choice of medium, these works are very line heavy, with intersections and cross hatching used to create darkness and light. The remnants of a girder or a door frame are still evident if you look closely, but the lines have been boiled down to such an extent that very little representation is left behind. Reality has been reduced to flat, elemental shapes and planes, which have then become the starting point for further (and more radical) explorations in abstraction.

I suppose what I most would most like to see is a deep, scholarly retrospective of Crawford’s photographic work. But until that mythical show happens, exhibits like this one, which intermittently bring out a handful of unseen images from the storage boxes in the back room, will likely have to be the substitute.

Collector’s POV: The photographs in this show are priced between $7500 and $16000, with the 1960s images all priced below $10000. The drawings range in price between $6500 and $16500. Crawford’s photographs are scarce at auction, so it’s quite difficult to develop any reliable price pattern from so few lots. Overall, his photographic work remains on the short list of artists we would like to add to the city/industrial genre of our collection.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Reviews: NY Times, 1985 (here), NY Times, 1991 (here)

Ralston Crawford, Drawings & Photographs
Through May 15th

Zabriskie Gallery

41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Olivo Barbieri, site specific_NEW YORK CITY 07 @Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 7 large scale photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space. The archival pigment prints are sized 45×61 or reverse, and are available in editions of 6+2. All of the works were made in 2007. Signed monographs are available from the gallery for $75. (Installation shots at right.)
.
Comments/Context: Given the long history of iconic New York photographs, deciding to take on the challenge of seeing famous New York landmarks in an original way takes a certain kind of artistic confidence. What more can really be said about Times Square, the Flatiron Building, or Coney Island?
.
Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri has been making aerial photographs of famous world cities since 2004. Using a tilt-shift lens, his bird’s eye images of recognizable architecture have been transformed into real-life architectural scale models, or tabletop toy set-ups with ant-sized people. The lens provides a shallow depth of field, so much of the image is semi-blurred, leaving only a small area of sharper focus where the detail is crisp (“selective focus”); the effect is to render reality with more impressionistic flair.
.
Barbieri’s images of New York city make many of our hackneyed subjects seem fresh once again. I particularly enjoyed the vibrant swath of green of Sheep’s Meadow, where the crowd of sunbathers on towels has become a blur of blinding polka dots. The amusement park rides of Coney Island are another highlight, the playful colors and shapes restyled into a swirling mass of interconnected lines. The roof garden of the Met is likely the least known scene on display, with its pyramidal striped roof and irregular geometric hedge.
.
While the novelty factor is always high for me with tilt shift photography, I wonder a bit about what lies beneath the decorative fun. Perhaps the answer is that these images so radically alter our common perception of a place that we are forced to see it with new eyes, in the process discovering details and nuances that we had wholly overlooked.
.
Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced at either $19700 or $23700. Barbieri’s photographs have very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Another contemporary photographer who has embraced the use of a tilt-shift lens is Naoki Honjo (here).
.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Feature: Metropolis Magazine, 2006 (here)
  • Review: NY Times, 2006 (here)

Olivo Barbieri, site specific_NEW YORK CITY 07
Through May 28th

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

In Praise of Shadows: Dirk Braeckman and Bill Henson @Robert Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 large scale works, 12 by Braeckman and 11 by Henson, hung in the front room, hallways, two side galleries, and the main gallery space in the back. The works by Braeckman are gelatin silver prints mounted to aluminum, with no frames. All of the prints are 71×47 or reverse, except one smaller print, which is 47×31. The images are variously printed in editions of 3 or 5, and were made between 1994 and 2007. The works by Henson are Type C color prints, framed in dark wood but not matted. Most of the prints are 50×70 or reverse, with a couple of prints sized at 50×50 square. All of these works were made between 1990 and 2006 and come in editions of 5. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While there is no brand new work in this pairing of Belgian photographer Dirk Braeckman and Australian photographer Bill Henson, it does offer some worthwhile contrasts in the subtle use of darkness and ambiguity. And although both artists are heavy users of shadow (hence the title of the show), they each use its properties in unique aesthetic ways, creating easily recognizable and unmistakable photographic styles.

Musical theorists use the word timbre to distinguish the difference in sound between say a piano and a trumpet, even when they are playing the same exact notes; instruments and voices have a specific, recognizable sound that can be easily and obviously distinguished by listeners (and used for effect by composers). Even though both Braeckman and Henson are using shadows in their work, the aesthetic timbre of those shadows is remarkably dissimilar; their tonality and feeling is entirely opposite.

Braeckman’s pictures of anonymous rooms, abstract spaces, and faceless nudes have a tactile quality, the matte surface of the images soaking up the light, creating a silvery world of ephemeral moments. There is very little sharp contrast in use, no harsh blacks or stark whites; only a modulated spectrum of middle greys, optimized for blurred, elusive nuance. Nondescript beds, curtains, wallpaper, and bodies reflect splashes of soft reflected light – carefully composed interior details become mysterious, a rumpled bedspread is transformed into an elegant, impressionistic pattern.

Henson’s images of teenagers and in-between spaces are altogether more moody and emotional. His rich shadows are thick and enveloping, his figures emerging from the opaque darkness and then receding back into the background, surrounded by the city lights in the distance. Some have likened his use of light to the chiraoscuro of Caravaggio, and this comparison seems apt; the vulnerability of his listless semi-clad subjects is enhanced by the shadows that alternately isolate and drown them. His painterly faces move back and forth between awkward and confrontational.

When hung together, the contrasting shadow styles become even more apparent: Braeckman’s images seem diaphanous and delicate, while Henson’s seem earthy and intrusive. While there are hits and misses on both sides of this pairing, in the end, I found a few of Henson’s portraits to resonate with a challenging aura that seemed to overpower the intricacies of Braeckman’s largely empty interiors. Both are seductive in their own ways, but Henson’s works stuck with me longer.

Collector’s POV: The works by Braeckman in this show are priced at either $10500 or $17000, with 2 images POR. The works by Henson are priced at either $30000, $34500, or $37500. While Braeckman has little or no secondary market pricing history, Henson’s images have intermittently come up for sale in the past few years, pricing between $7000 and $26000. Dirk Braeckman is also represented by Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp (here); Bill Henson is also represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney (here).

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Review: Artforum (here)
  • Dirk Braeckman artist site (here)
  • Bill Henson, Lux et Nox, 2002 (here)
Robert Miller Gallery
524 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

In Sook Kim, Inside Out @Gana

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 large scale color photographs, framed in grey metal and not matted, and hung in the main gallery space on the ground floor, and in the smaller gallery upstairs. All of the works are c-prints on Diasec, made between 2004 and 2010. The works range in size from 43×63 to a whopping 181×118, and are variously available in editions of 5 or 10. A monograph on the work Saturday Night was published by Hatje Cantz in 2009 (here); it is available from the gallery for $50. There is also a thin exhibition catalog (Inside Out) that is for sale for $20. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Korean photographer In Sook Kim’s first solo show in New York is a polished and sophisticated combination of meticulous architectural documentation, thoughtful staging and manipulation, and layers of rich conceptual ideas, all delivered in large scale, object quality works. It is the kind of photography that will easily cross over into the world of contemporary art, and will likely generate some buzz along the way.
All of the works in this exhibit dissect the process of seeing and looking, pulling the viewer (who is also looking remember) directly into the frame, to peer through the brightly lit glass walls and windows of modern apartment buildings, hotels, museums, and storefronts at night. The geometries of the structures provide self contained boxes and boundaries for the interior action, like carefully controlled dioramas or theaters stacked together in grids, where cool antiseptic voyeurism meets the luridness and obsessiveness of the peep show. The boundaries of public and private are mixed and unraveled; people inhabit the buildings and fill the spaces, transforming them along the way.
.
Kim’s Saturday Night is the focal piece in this show, reaching floor to ceiling at roughly 10×15 feet. Each room in the hotel depicts a different nocturnal vignette, each drawn from actual newspaper stories and staged in candy-colored light. Boredom and loneliness compete with sexual perversion and violence; pleasure, pain, and emptiness are all on view, separated into isolated fragments. The viewer’s eye travels from story to story, frantically jumping from titillation to sadness and back again.

Other works in the show focus down on an individual scene, where the ideas of viewing, watching and display are examined more closely, from inside and out. In one image, a room full of dark suited men vie to bid on a naked woman on a pedestal; in another, a similar group of men “dine” on bloody women in bondage gear (viewed through a glass window). Her series Drug Store transforms this seeing in a more metaphorical manner: heroin and cocaine become staged scenes of a delusionally slimming/beautifying mirror and the fleeting pleasures of prostitutes on display in a streetside window.

Kim was a student of Thomas Ruff’s in Düsseldorf, and there is a pared down conceptual rigor that is refreshing here. Whether we see a glass box museum slowly filling with visitors or watch a sordid narrative unfold in pastel pink light, her ideas have clearly been reduced and refined to their maximum potency; the staging is tightly controlled and executed, with little in the way of superfluous distraction. The different bodies of work and projects on display explore her ideas in confident, interrelated ways, spanning the objectification of women, the meaning of our spaces, and nature of drug addiction. All in, this is one of the best debut shows I have seen in a while, combining 21st century photographic craftsmanship with strong and multi-faceted ideas.

Collector’s POV: Nearly all of the works in this show are priced between $18000 and $52000, roughly based on size. The exception is the massive print of Saturday Night in the entry, which is priced at $190000. In general, these prices seem quite high for a first solo show, but the work is accomplished, her pedigree is sound, and the large glossy prints will appeal to crossover contemporary art collectors. Kim’s work has not yet reached the secondary markets in any meaningful way, so it’s difficult to chart any real pricing pattern. A smaller print of Saturday Night did sell at Christie’s in London last year for roughly $50000. Kim is also represented by Richard Levy Gallery in New Mexico (here). While it doesn’t fit into our particular collection themes, I actually think Saturday Night is going to end up being considered an important/signature piece, rewarding those risk takers who get in early.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Reviews: Daily Beast (here), New York (here)
Through May 8th
568 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter

This field is required.