Auction Results: Photographs, April 13, 2010 @Sotheby’s

Edward Weston’s Nautilus was the star of the show at Sotheby’s various owner photographs sale yesterday, where a print originally priced by the artist at a reasonable $10 (the amount is inscribed on the back) sold for over $1 million, the second photograph to cross that threshold at auction in 2010. With a buy-in rate of less than 20% and total sale proceeds near the total High estimate, the overall results should be considered a solid and confident success.

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

Total Lots: 244
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3422000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5127000
Total Lots Sold: 196
Total Lots Bought In: 48
Buy In %: 19.67%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5081265

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

Low Total Lots: 128
Low Sold: 109
Low Bought In: 19
Buy In %: 14.84%
Total Low Estimate: $1053000
Total Low Sold: $979690

Mid Total Lots: 101
Mid Sold: 75
Mid Bought In: 26
Buy In %: 25.74%
Total Mid Estimate: $2154000
Total Mid Sold: $1794475

High Total Lots: 15
High Sold: 12
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total High Estimate: $1920000
Total High Sold: $2307100

The top lot by High estimate was lot 122, Edward Weston, Nautilus, 1927, at $300000-500000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $1082500. (Image at right, top, via Sotheby’s.)

88.78% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 12 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 4, Anonymous Australian Photographer, Dr. Godfrey Howitt’s garden, Melbourne, Australia, 1840s, at $18750
Lot 49, Laura Gilpin, Sunset, North Rim, Mesa Verde Series, mid 1920s, at $20000
Lot 83, Walker Evans, Alabama Farmer’s Kitchen, 1936/Later, at $27500
Lot 122, Edward Weston, Nautilus, 1927, at $1082500
Lot 126, Edward Weston, Civilian Defense, 1942, at $152500
Lot 128, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park, 1930s, at $6875
Lot 133, Edward Weston, Eggplant, 1929, at $72100
Lot 147, Harry Callahan, Eleanor, 1947, at $27500
Lot 160, Robert Frank, Butte, Montana, 1956, at $146500
Lot 163, Robert Frank, Freak Show Photos (Exile on Main Street), 1950s, at $30000 (image at right, via Sotheby’s)
Lot 182, Robert Mapplethorpe, Orchids, 1982, at $27500
Lot 242, Darren Almond, Full Moon @Merced Meadow, 2005, at $22500

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Sotheby’s
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Ryuji Miyamoto, Kobe @Amador

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 works (18 black and white images and 5 photograms), framed in black and white respectively and matted, and hung against cream and grey walls in the main gallery spaces. The gelatin silver prints are 24×20 or reverse, in editions of 15; all of the images were taken in 1995. The photograms are either 32×26 or 15×12, and each is unique; these prints were made in 2008 and 2009. A revised monograph of the Kobe images was published in 2006 by Bearlin (here); signed copies are available from the gallery for $75. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Ryuji Miyamoto’s photographs of the aftermath of the earthquake in Kobe in 1995 are so formally pure that they almost make you forget that about the death and destruction they document. Unlike other pictures of natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, tornadoes etc.) which often depict the awe-inspiring chaos left behind by the sheer force of nature, Miyamoto’s images of shaken and collapsed city buildings have a sense of orderly disorder, a composed sculptural quality that focuses our attention on abstract patterns in the tilted walls and rubble.

For the most part, these pictures are entirely absent of people, enveloping them in an uninhabited silence, a quiet unreality where the walls are falling in all around us. In some images, the damage seems to have been controlled, where buildings stand mostly intact, except for the strange dissonance of a collapsed floor or a string of broken windows and snapped girders. In others, the destruction is more widespread; entire structures lean perilously, or have been reduced to dense piles of broken concrete and tangled wires. Some even look like Postmodern architecture, albeit with an unsettling disaster undertone. In nearly every image, straight lines have become angles and diagonals: buildings are toppling into alleyways, telephone poles are bent, entire structures teeter on the verge of giving in. The geometries overlap in cacophonous layers, with architectural patterns and motifs repeated and reprised in unexpected ways. What is perhaps most shocking is how beautiful these pictures are, especially when the lines and forms tangle together in a big, chaotic mess.
Hung together with the earthquake images are a set of recent photograms, made almost 15 years later. In these works, Miyamoto went back to Kobe and collected a variety of insect and bird specimens (mosquitoes, cicadas, dragonflies etc.) and made simple photograms representing the relentless renewal of life after the catastrophe. In one, the artist’s hand reaches into the frame like the Michelangelo’s hand of God; together, they provide an eloquent coda to the rebuilding process.

Overall, this is an exquisitely crafted and mature photographic project, combining large format formality and up-close intimacy, telling the devastating story of the Kobe earthquake with remarkable grace.
Collector’s POV: The gelatin silver prints in this show are reasonably priced at $3000 or $4000, based on their place in the edition. The photograms are either $6000 or $3500, based on size. A few of Miyamoto’s works have recently come into the secondary markets, but not enough to have any real pricing pattern. Many of his photo books have also become quite collectable. Miyamoto is also represented by Taro Nasu Gallery in Tokyo/Osaka (here), Kicken Berlin (here), and Michael Hoppen Contemporary (here) in London.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Cardboard Houses (here)
  • UBS Art Collection (here)
Through May 8th
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Robert Longo, Men in the Cities

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2009 by Schirmer/Mosel (here). The book is subtitled Photographs 1976-1982. 128 pages, with 93 color and black and white images. Includes a short essay by Cindy Sherman and an artist interview with Richard Price. In both English and German. (Cover shot at right, via Amazon.)

Comments/Context: Until I recently came across this excellent book, I had no idea that Robert Longo had used photographs as the source material for his famous drawings of lunging 1980s men in skinny ties; I had always assumed that the pictures were appropriated from somewhere or just imagined in his own mind. In fact, Longo set up his camera on the rooftop of his apartment and threw a variety of objects at his friends, capturing their violent reactions in these amazing photographs, that he then turned into his now iconic monochrome drawings.

What is altogether surprising about these pictures is that they rival the best dance photographs that have ever been made – Martha Graham never looked so good. The jerks and spasms of Longo’s subjects have an elegance and grace that is entirely unexpected; protective reactions and exaggerated gestures have been turned into effortless and authentic choreography, a ballet of falls and stumbles, leaps and trips. While the business suits and skirts have a retro film noir look, the movements are fresh and vital, full of energy and life, even when they mockingly portray the agonizing arrival of a bullet to the chest or a fist to the jaw. Thirty years in the drawer have failed to dampen the impact of these “death dance” pictures – they document an essence of human motion, boiled down to pure expression.

Collector’s POV: Robert Longo is represented in New York by Metro Pictures (here). Digital prints of these photographs were produced in 2009, but they have yet to reach the secondary markets; as such, gallery retail is really the only option for interested collectors at this point.

Transit Hub:

  • Artist site (here)
  • Video interview (here)

James Welling, Glass House @Zwirner

JTF (just the facts): A total of 22 color works, framed in white and matted, and hung in two gallery spaces and the entrance hallway. 16 of the works are color inkjet prints, each roughly 33×50 (or reverse); they are printed in editions of 5, and were made between 2006 and 2009. The other 6 works are also color inkjet prints, but they have been individually overpainted with acrylic paint, making each unique. These prints vary in size from roughly 7×10 to 12×13, and were also made between 2006 and 2009. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: James Welling’s photographs of Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House in New Canaan, CT, are complex experiments in the properties of colored light. The house itself sits like a jewel box in lush landscaped grounds, and Welling has alternately used its transparency and reflectivity, in conjunction with a rainbow of colored filters, to create a kaleidoscope of flares, shadows, distortions, glares, and blurs. He has transformed the colorless glass building into a prism, where layers of colors seem to explode in all directions.

Welling’s images highlight the combination of space in the architectural design, where interior and exterior merge, and views from the outside look right through the building, unbroken by the structure. But the real originality in these pictures lies in their wild overlapping colors, the psychedelic orange, the deep magenta, the neon green, the cool royal blue, and the acidic yellow. Sunsets, grassy lawns and snowfields take on unreal tints and hues, often made more chaotic by a multiple reflection of a nearby tree branch or the use of a negative reversal. Angles and geometries are carefully controlled to separate the colors, creating unexpected pairings and abstract mixtures. In a group of smaller images hung in the entry, Welling has gone further, adding a layer of painted washes to the photographs, the drips and swirls adding texture and further fogging to the already eye-popping compositions.

Stripped of their color, these images would likely be characterized as unspectacular shots of a masterpiece of Modernist architecture. The infusion of vivid, radical color has however taken this cool, detached structure and given it moods: melancholy, anger, anxiety, and hazy afternoon mellowness. The color is no longer embedded in the identity of the underlying subject, but sits as a layer or filter on top. In a certain way, it is as if Welling has “appropriated” this iconic building, and made it his own via mash-ups with intense, stratified veils of color. Straight representation and color field abstraction have been merged together, creating images that are both pleasingly decorative and intellectually challenging.

Collector’s POV: The large color prints in this show are each priced at $25000; the smaller overpainted prints are available for $10000 each. Welling’s photographs have been available in the secondary markets from time to time in recent years, generally pricing between $2000 to $10000. Welling is also represented by Regen Projects in Los Angeles (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

  • Artforum 500 words (here)
  • Review: LA Times (here)
  • Interview: Artinfo (here)

James Welling, Glass House
Through April 24th

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

Kenneth Josephson @Gitterman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 45 black and white images, framed in black and matted, and hung throughout the gallery (including the main and front spaces on the ground floor, the hallways and staircase, and the main space on the second floor). Most of the prints on view are vintage gelatin silver prints from the period between 1959 and 1976, although there are a few recent prints mixed in as well. Only a handful have specific edition sizes (ranging from 12 to 50). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Kenneth Josephson seems to be one of those photographers that for whatever reason never quite made it into broad mainstream of photography, and as a result, has been given a more subtle supporting role in this history of the medium. While his name is well known to photography insiders and he had a full retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago as recently as a decade ago, even his most recognizable work remains surprisingly affordable, seemingly overlooked or caught in an eddy pool off to the side of the market. This exhibit gathers together many of his most iconic vintage images from the 1960s and 1970s (along with some lesser known pictures that provide further background and depth to his work of that period) and makes a case for his continued relevance to the medium’s contemporary incarnations.
Starting with a few early prints from his master’s thesis on multiple imagery at the ID in Chicago and continuing through a variety of projects and series (all with strong conceptual foundations), the show traces Josephson’s consistent intellectual interest in the nature of photographic perception. His experiments with the contrasts of light and shadow on Chicago city streets are often richly dark, with spots of bright light dappled across the composition or used as highlights to catch moments of motion. His images within images use layers of pictures to construct witty trompe l’oeil optical illusions and puns – an outstretched arm holds an image of a boat just above an expanse of sea, merging the straight and the staged. His images of marks and evidence look for meaning in what has been inadvertently left behind – skid marks on an open road, depressions in the grass, scratches left on a wall by the movements of a shrub, or the outline of snow on the protected side of a car. His history of photography pictures bring clever humor to acknowledged masterpieces – an arm holds a ruler up to the Tetons, with a puzzling conceptual nod to O’Sullivan. And his archaeology pictures introduce an unexpected black and white measuring stick into his compositions, adding a layer of implied authenticity. Regardless of his subject, Josephson’s works have a mind-stretching braininess, challenging the viewer to actively consider the process of seeing.
While the arguments over truth in photography seem particularly active in our current digitally altered world, this body of work is a strong reminder that these questions are not new, and that conceptually minded photographers were playing with the puzzling realities of camera-driven perception long before it became so obvious and commonplace. These images remain fresh and original even decades later, a testament to the creativity and ingenuity Josephson has applied to pushing the edges of our visual vocabulary.
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Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced between $3000 and $12000, with most of the works set either at $5000 or $6000. Josephson’s work has been only intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging from $1000 to $12000, with most between $3000 and $5000. The artist is also represented by Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago (here).

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

Transit Hub:
  • Review: New Yorker (here)
  • Essay by AD Coleman (here)
Through April 17th
170 East 75th Street
New York, NY 10021

Auction Preview: Photographs, April 16, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips’ various owner Photographs sale continues the trend of increased consignments this season, with an additional $1.5 million in estimated value over last year’s equivalent sale. Another installment of Mapplethorpe portraits of Lisa Lyon can be found in the first session, and a large group of Willy Ronis later prints and an additional selection of Japanese images from the Jacobsen/Hashimoto collection bookend the second. Penn’s Cuzco Children makes its its third appearance (all three houses have one this season). All in, there are a total of 349 lots on offer with a total High estimate of $4488100. (Catalog cover at right, via Phillips.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 242
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1447100

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 93
Total Mid Estimate: $1911000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 14
Total High Estimate: $1130000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 216, Edward Steichen, Wheelbarrow with Flower Pots, France, 1920, at $150000-200000.

The following is the list of photographers represented by more than three lots in this sale:

Willy Ronis (25)
Robert Mapplethorpe (14)
Nobuyoshi Araki (9)
Andre Kertesz (9)
Helmut Newton (9)
Vik Muniz (7)
Shikanosuke Yagaki (7)
Peter Beard (6)
Harry Callahan (6)
David LaChapelle (6)
Sebastiao Salgado (6)
Sally Mann (6)
Walker Evans (5)
Irving Penn (5)
Herb Ritts (5)
Diane Arbus (4)
William Eggleston (4)
Ernst Haas (4)
Horst P. Horst (4)
Yoshiyuke Iwase (4)
Helen Levitt (4)
Man Ray (4)
Albert Watson (4)
Edward Weston (4)
Joel-Peter Witkin (4)
Fred Zinnemann (4)

A few of the lots we liked for our own collection include:

  • Lot 41, Andy Warhol, Parking Lot Sign, c1976-1986 (image at right, via Phillips)
  • Lot 120, Vera Lutter, 156 Columbus Avenue, New York City, June 21, 1997
  • Lot 215, Andre Kertesz, Paris, 1934
  • Lot 229, Edward Weston, Elbow, 1935

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
April 16th

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

Catherine Opie, Girlfriends @Gladstone

JTF (just the facts): A total of 45 black and white and color works, hung throughout the gallery in four connecting spaces. The 17 color images are all chromogenic prints, framed in black with no mats, in editions of 5+2AP, and ranging in size from roughly 20×27 to 38×50 (or reverse). These works were taken between 1998 and 2009. The 28 black and white images are all inkjet prints, framed in black and matted, in editions of 8+2AP, and roughly square in format (9×10). These smaller works were taken between 1987 and 2009. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Catherine Opie’s mid-career retrospective at the Guggenheim was one of the best photography shows of 2008 (review here), so I was certainly looking forward to see her exhibit of new work, now on view at Gladstone. In many ways, this group of pictures has a “back to the future” feel, as Opie has returned to portraits/images of intimate friends and lovers in the lesbian community, after a stretch of time when she explored LA freeways, architecture, icehouses, surfers, and her local community.
The larger color works on display fall into two distinct categories: formal head shot or 3/4 torso portraits against her signature saturated color backgrounds (pink, brown, red, green, and blue in this case) or more casual (though clearly posed) environmental portraits, using both interiors and outdoor landscapes as settings. Opie’s gifts as a portraitist seem to come through best in the studio works, where the subjects are seen with more timeless depth and complexity – the personalities captured mix confidence with vulnerability, exposing well rounded humanity beneath the superficial cultural signifiers of elaborate tattoos or butch haircuts. I found the environmental portraits a bit more uneven; they are universally well crafted, but more one-dimensional and less memorable – I don’t think they take us anywhere particularly new, although the confrontational swagger of Jenny Shimizu will certainly catch your eye.

The back room contains a series of 1990s black and white images that Opie has recently started to print for the first time. While the content of these pictures is more challenging and harsher (piercings and needles, SM leather, boots, crotch grabs), they have a lyric softness that somehow tones the toughness down just a bit. There are certainly echoes of Mapplethorpe in these images, particularly in their ability to discover classical beauty in marginalized subjects and in their intimate and personal looks at the details of the people the artist cares about. Compared to the color works in the front rooms, these pictures have a more vibrant edge to them (even though a few bear the hallmarks of a dated time gone by) – life is a little bit closer to the surface and more urgent. They’d make a great small book, collected together on their own.

Overall, I’d say this show is a kind of retrenching for Opie, not so much a bold exploration of the new frontiers of photography, but more a careful rediscovery of the people who have been important along the way.
Collector’s POV: The color prints in this show range in price between $20000 and $35000, based on size; the smaller black and white prints are $10000. Despite Opie’s recent recognition, very little of her work has made it to the secondary markets; there really is no consistent pricing pattern to be used as a benchmark. As such, gallery retail is likely the only real option for interested collectors in the short term.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:
  • Review: NY Times T Magazine (here)
  • Artforum 500 words, 2008 (here)
  • Interview: Vice, 2009 (here)
Through April 24th
Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Joe Deal: West and West @Mann

JTF (just the facts): A total of 21 black and white images, framed in white and matted, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the prints are square format carbon pigment prints, sized 24×24, in editions of 5. The images were taken between 2005 and 2007. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2009 by The Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: With our cities made of towering skyscrapers and our natural world hemmed in by dense forests, it’s easy for Northeasterners like ourselves to forget just how big the sky really is; whenever we look up, our view is constrained by something taller or more massive. Joe Deal’s elegant pictures of the Midwestern prairies and grasslands are a jolting reminder of the immensity of the sky, the kind that can be seen for miles and miles in every direction, uninterrupted by the nuances of the flat landscape, the kind that reminds us of our paltry insignificance in relation to the endless emptiness that stretches to the horizon.

Like the grids of property lines laid down by surveyors more than a century ago (cutting up the empire using the rigidity of latitude and longitude rather than the natural breaks in the land itself), Deal has also imposed a geometry of his own on these broad views, a consistent square bisecting land and sky, like a Sugimoto seascape. With the eye of a geologist, he has documented sinkholes and glacial depressions, rolling hills and plateaus dotted by scrub and rock, and lonely buttes and cottonwood trees breaking up the perfect symmetry. Dust storms, smoke, stormy skies and wind across the grass are the only points of movement. The quiet compositions are spare and meditative, the light and shadow falling on the land in a thousand subtle variations from white to black.

Beyond the fact that these are perhaps the best black and white pigment prints I have seen lately, especially in terms of their richness of tonality and timbre (in other words their craft), what I like most about this body of work is that Deal has seemingly found a way out of the conceptual cul–de-sac of the New Topographics. Rather than repeat once again even more dire views of current suburban sprawl and environmental damage (only for them to fall on increasingly deaf ears), he has gone back to the land itself, and asked himself some more personal questions about his own memories of his Kansas roots and his evolving perceptions of the land he grew up on. While these pictures tie back to the 19th century images of the master wilderness photographers, in the end, I think they are about mature and sophisticated balance, about the relationship between earth and sky, and the relationship between man and earth.

Collector’s POV: All of the prints in this exhibit are priced at $8000 each. Deal’s work is rarely available in the secondary markets; only a very few prints have come up for sale in recent years. Prices for those prints ranged between $1000 and $4000.

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

Transit Hub:

  • Exhibit: RISD Museum of Art 2009 (here); Providence Journal review (here); Brian Sholis review (here)

Joe Deal: West and West: Reimagining the Great Plains
Through May 8th

Robert Mann Gallery

210 Eleventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Auction Preview: Photographs, April 13, 2010 @Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s kicks off the photography auction season in New York this Spring with its various owner sale on April 13. There are far more lower end lots in this sale, compared to the same sale last year, with some overall growth in the total value on offer. An unexpected group of daguerreotypes (from the collection of David Belcher) opens the sale. The top lots include a Weston shell, a Moholy-Nagy photogram, a Bourke-White Chrysler Building gargoyle, a Becher gas tank typology, several portfolios, and a couple of Frank images from The Americans. There are a total of 244 lots available, with a total High estimate of $5127000. (Catalog cover at right, via Sotheby’s.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 128
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1053000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 101
Total Mid Estimate: $2154000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 15
Total High Estimate: $1920000

The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 122, Edward Weston, Nautilus, 1927, at $300000-500000.

The following is the list of photographers represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Anonymous (31)
Edward Weston (14)
Robert Mapplethorpe (12)
Robert Frank (10)
Ansel Adams (9)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (7)
Sally Mann (6)
Harry Callahan (5)
Eugene Smith (5)
Peter Beard (4)
Edward Curtis (4)
Roy DeCarava (4)
Walker Evans (4)
Lee Friedlander (4)
Shirin Neshat (4)
Aaron Siskind (4)
Paul Strand (4)
Diane Arbus (3)
Horst P. Horst (3)
Andre Kertesz (3)
Josef Koudelka (3)
Martin Munkacsi (3)
Irving Penn (3)
Brett Weston (3)
Minor White (3)

A few lots that would fit well into our personal collection include:

Lot 46, Johan Hagemeyer, Talisman Rose, 1942
Lot 48, Alma Lavenson, Calaveras Cement Works, 1933
Lot 78, Margaret Bourke-White, Gargoyle, Chrysler Building, New York, 1929-1930
Lot 85, Walker Evans, Brooklyn Bridge (NY RR Tracks), 1929
Lot 182, Robert Mapplethorpe, Parrot Tulips, 1987

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found linked from here.

Photographs
April 13th

Sotheby’s
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Martin Parr, Luxury @Janet Borden

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 color works, most framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. The inkjet prints come in three sizes (or reverse): 20×24, 20×30, or 40×60. 15 of the images on view are either 20×24 or 20×30, both in editions of 10. There are also 3 prints in the larger size, displayed without frames, in editions of 5. The images were taken between 1995 and 2008. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2009 by Chris Boot (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the punishing depths of the economic crisis, it’s hardly a surprise that our contemporary artists and photojournalists have recently pointed their cameras at a variety of depressing subjects: foreclosed homes, empty shopping malls, melting icebergs, ruined cities, and people on the brink of emotional breakdown. These pictures attempt to tell the story of real world failures, of the downstream consequences for actions that may have seemed perfectly rational at the time, but turned out to be woefully misguided.
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Martin Parr’s Luxury series takes us back to the point just before the bubble burst, when conspicuous consumption was at its height. His images of art fairs, horse races, fashion shows and lavish VIP parties chronicle the outrageous behaviors of the international rich and famous with an anthropological eye for detail. Excess is everywhere: too much lipstick, too many furs, over-the-top fashions, overgroomed toy animals, tricked out baby strollers, and too many cherries in a single drink – the consistent “too-muchness” making the glamour seem ridiculous. There is a black comedy to all these rituals, people trying too hard to belong to the super elite, going through the motions of someone else’s definition of what wealthy people are supposed to be doing. Taken together, they are a clear sign that we had lost our way.
What I like best about these pictures is that each one is slightly off, the facade of perfection being pulled back just slightly. I particularly enjoyed the images of art patrons wearing clothes that echo the artworks they are viewing – they are visually witty, with a deeper current of commentary about how we create our own identities. Everyone in these pictures is putting on a show, acting out a pantomime, and Parr has captured small moments where what seems altogether normal to the participants is exposed as anything but. The satire is pitch perfect because the subjects are entirely serious, even if a cat is perched on a shoulder or a smile is overbright.
While many photojournalists were focused on soldiers, politicians, bankers, and the impoverished, Parr went in exactly the opposite direction, and nonetheless found many of the same symptoms of an unsustainable situation. Don’t let the saturated colors and the snapshot aesthetic fool you. These images tell the sordid tale of the boom and bust just as well as a foreclosure sign.
Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The 20×24 and 20×30 prints are priced at $6000 each, regardless of size. The larger 40×60 prints are $11000 each. Parr’s work has started to become more available in the secondary markets in recent years; prints have ranged in price between $1000 and $10000.
Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Feature: Times Online (here)
  • Interview: lens culture (here)
Martin Parr, Luxury
Through April 24th
560 Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Auction Preview: Photographs, April 15, 2010 @Christie’s

Following its two single owner sales, Christie’s finishes up its series of Spring auctions with a various owner Photographs sale on April 15th. There are a total of 180 lots on offer in this auction with a total High estimate of $4733500. There is nearly $1.4 million of additional value available in this sale over the same sale a year ago, perhaps a further indication of the “supply” side of the photography market starting to loosen up a bit once again. A small selection of lots at the end of the sale are being sold to benefit Friends in Deed (here). (Catalog cover at right, via Christie’s website.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 89
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $552500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 75
Total Mid Estimate: $1601000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 16
Total High Estimate: $2580000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 325, Irving Penn, Woman in Moroccan Palace (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), Marrakech, 1951/1983, at $300000-500000.

Below is the list of photographers with 3 or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Robert Mapplethorpe (9)
Robert Polidori (7)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (6)
Edward Curtis (6)
Horst P. Horst (6)
Brassai (5)
Irving Penn (5)
Richard Avedon (4)
William Eggleston (4)
Robert Frank (4)
Adam Fuss (4)
Daido Moriyama (4)
Helmut Newton (4)
Ansel Adams (3)
Herb Ritts (3)
Eugene Smith (3)

While there are quite a few iconic flowers in this sale (which would fit into our collection quite neatly), I found the vintage Sheeler barn to be the most striking print available. (Lot 380, Charles Sheeler, Bucks County Barn, 1918, at $100000-150000, at right, via Christie’s website.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is here.

Photographs
April 15th

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Auction Preview: Selections from the Baio Collection of Photography, April 15, 2010 @Christie’s

One of the fascinating things about using a subject matter genre to organize a collection of photography is that once the collection grows large enough, a startling number of subcategories and relationships become possible, many more than you would ever imagine. Take this group of images of children from the extensive Baio collection: look closely at the catalogue and unexpected patterns will start to emerge – children in nature, children on city streets, children in bed, children at the beach, children with their parents, children as silhouettes, children as babies, children in posed portraits – the list goes on and on. A seemingly simple organizing framework like “children” has enormous possibilities for exploring a broad spectrum of photographic approaches, styles, and pictorial languages, cutting across extended time periods and widely different artists with ease. There are a total of 120 lots on offer in this auction with a total High estimate of $1080500. (Catalog cover at right, via Christie’s website.)

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 98
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $536500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 21
Total Mid Estimate: $394000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 1
Total High Estimate: $150000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 171, Eugène Atget, Joueur d’Orgue, 1898-1899, at $100000-150000. (Cover lot, above.)

Below is the list of photographers with 3 or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Henri Cartier-Bresson (6)
Sally Mann (5)
Helen Levitt (4)
Harry Callahan (3)
Bruce Davidson (3)
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (3)
Lee Friedlander (3)
Lewis Hine (3)
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (3)
Ray Metzker (3)
Yoshitomo Nara (3)
Garry Winogrand (3)

While images of children don’t fit into any of our specific collecting genres, I like the surprise of the girl with the balloon in the lower right hand corner of this Metzker multiple. (Lot 212, Ray Metzker, 59AF-1 (Chicago), 1959/1992, at $7000-9000, at right, via Christie’s website.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is here.

Selections from the Baio Collection of Photography
April 15th

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

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