Photo Book Wednesdays

We just can’t seem to ever get enough photo books. In the past months, we felt like we haven’t devoted enough time to the amazing array of new, old, and out of print photo books that help inform our collecting passions. So we’ve decided to get more systematic about things in the new year and mark a regular day (Wednesdays) where we will review photo books of all kinds: monographs, exhibition catalogues, art/photo criticism, etc. Since books tend to hang around a long time, and are a little less time sensitive than auctions and gallery shows, we feel like it is acceptable to group them together once a week (knowing full well that we still may write about books on other days as well).

A couple of quick notes on this process:
  • You can expect that we have bought every book we review with real cash money, unless we highlight the fact that it was given to us by an artist, gallery or friend.
  • We are only going to review books that we think are worth having in your library, so there won’t be any rating system or quality gauge: if it’s here, it’s worth your time (and money) in our opinion.
  • Since we’re not a media outlet, we don’t feel obligated to only review recently published books from the current year. We buy books from all kinds of sources and discover photographers in serendipitous ways, so we will very likely (and often) review books published years or decades ago, if they are new to us.
  • As we have said before, we don’t care about signed copies, books owned previously by famous people, or even first editions. We want a clean, fine copy that we can use as reference. So you won’t find many of the super high end, limited edition, slipcase kinds of books being reviewed here.
  • We will not link to Amazon, Abebooks or elsewhere in the hopes you will click through and earn us some referral dollars. If you are inspired to follow up on a book we have reviewed, you certainly can find it without our help.
There are of course lots of places to read reviews and criticisms of photo books (in the blogosphere, 5B4 (here) is the best we have found). We hope to add a collector’s perspective to the sea of commentary and let you follow along as we educate ourselves.

Finally, below is a picture of our idea of the perfect art library. It is an image of Donald Judd’s library at his ranch in Marfa, Texas (Judd Foundation website here.) To us, it looks like a practical, comfortable, welcoming place to sit down and enjoy art books. Just imagine if all those shelves were filled with photo books…

Photo LA, January 9-11, 2009

When we lived on the West coast, Photo LA was just a quick and inexpensive plane trip down from the Bay area, and so we visited this photography show regularly every year, and more often than not, came home with something wrapped in cardboard and bubble wrap. Since we have found our way onto quite few lists, our mailbox has been full of brochures for this year’s fair, but sadly, we will not be joining the fun in Los Angeles this year.

In the past, the show was dominated by familiar California and Arizona based galleries and private dealers (Bellows, Cohen, Etherton, Fetterman, Hertzmann, Nichols, Singer, Smith etc.), but over the years, the base has expanded to included galleries, dealers and book publishers from all over, totalling just under 70 exhibitors for this week. The show had previously been held in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (when we attended), but is now in the Barker Hangar.

In conjunction with the action in the exhibit hall, there are lectures, “collecting seminars” (as if we didn’t know how to collect already), book signings, and other events scheduled at various times over the run of the show. The “conversations” between LACMA photography curator Charlotte Cotton and David Maisel (12-1PM on 1/10) and Susan Meiselas (5-6PM on 1/10) look interesting, and we certainly wouldn’t miss the lecture by Catherine Opie (1PM on 1/11), having recently seen her retrospective at the Guggenheim.

As always, if you’re a collector going to this show, feel free to post a few comments, so the rest of us can live vicariously.

January 9-11
Barker Hangar, Santa Monica

Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography @Met

JTF (just the facts): 34 images (including a handful of smaller works in a glass case), displayed in the Modern Photography gallery, a single large, high-ceilinged room. (Installation shot at right.) The following artists are represented in this group show:

James Wallace Black
Frank Breuer (2)
James Casebere
Gregory Crewdson
Edward Curtis
Thomas Demand
Julian Faulhaber
Robert Grober
Naoki Honjo
Craig Kalpakjian
Shai Kremer
M. Laroche
David Levinthal
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (2)
Vik Muniz
James Nasmyth
Ruth Orkin
Gabriel Orozco
Stephen Shore
Taryn Simon
Joel Sternfeld
Thomas Struth
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Bernard Volta
Mark Wyse
.
Comments/Context: The arguments about the concept of “truth” in photography are as old and well worn as the medium itself. For nearly every person who ardently believes in the sanctity and veracity of the photograph (especially as evidence of a documentary truth), there is another who has claimed since the beginning that all photographs are fabrications – it’s just a matter of degree (from seemingly innocent cropping and darkroom dodging/burning to outright staging and manipulation). While the arrival of digital capture and Photoshop in the past few decades have raised this question again in new and more obvious ways, this feud has been around a long time, and isn’t likely to go away any time soon.

The Met had waded into this fight with its third exhibit in its new space for contemporary photography. My first reaction when I heard about this show was that it was a pretty tired subject, well traveled already and hackneyed, with a predictable set of photographers and techniques that would be represented. And while some of the images on display here are expected (can a show about “reality” not include Gregory Crewdson?), the overall effect is much crisper and tighter than the previous two efforts in this gallery. Instead of providing an unwieldy set of wildly inventive and obviously false manipulations and distortions, the group of pictures in this show have been carefully selected to totter right on the edge of truth, with a significant number of the images being straight photographs of subjects that just look unreal, due to an unexpected change in scale, viewpoint or framing. (As an aside, I never seem to tire of tilt-shift photography, and there is an excellent example of this technique in this show by Naoki Honjo, Tokyo, Japan, 2004, above right.) There are staged pictures that look haltingly real and there are real pictures that look haltingly staged. Perhaps the takeaway here is that given more powerful tools, contemporary photographers are finding increasingly subtle ways to play with our perception of truth. These are sly and quiet games, rather than shouts and flourishes.

One interesting outgrowth of this exhibit for me was a desire to trace the influences of many of these contemporary photographers back through the history of film and the cinema, rather than through the traditional roads of still photography. A few of the images in this show seem to bear the strong influence of a cinematic eye, and it would be enlightening to understand the historical precedents in the world of film for what we are seeing in the galleries today.

Collector’s POV: While there are some terrific images in this exhibit, there were few works that would really match our particular collection. The pair of Frank Breuer images (Industrial House (Nike), 2000 and Industrial House (Philip Morris), 2000, at right) would likely be the best fit.

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

Through March 22nd

1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Of National Interest: Photographs from the Collection @Art Institute of Chicago

JTF (just the facts): 53 images, divided into 7 separate groups by photographer and “nation”, displayed in three small connecting rooms on the museum’s lower level. (Installation shot at right.) Images range from the mid 1850s through the 1990s and span albumen prints, photogravures, gelatin silver prints, and color prints. The seven thematic groups include:

  • Gustave Le Gray (5 images) France
  • Alexander Gardner et al (8 images) United States Civil War
  • Edward Curtis (7 images) The North American Indian
  • Robert Frank (12 images ) The Americans
  • August Sander (11 images) People of the 20th Century/Germany
  • Gilles Peress (5 images) Northern Ireland
  • Raghubir Singh (5 images) India

Comments/Context: If there was one overarching theme that dominated this year’s unprecedented election cycle in America, it was that our nation had somehow lost its way, had forgotten what it was that had made us great, and was in need of profound frame-breaking change (in countless large and small ways) to lead us back to ourselves. Perhaps it was the fact that we had drifted so far off course that the decisions determining our path forward elicited such energy and action by the people at large. It was time to reconsider and remake the idea of our nation.

Given this dialogue going on all around us, this timely exhibit at the Art Institute chronicles how different photographers over the life of the medium have taken on the task of depicting a nation. The question then becomes, what do these pictures tell us about the general topic of nations and national character? What lessons do they show us as we consider our own direction?

Some of the “nation” projects in this exhibit have become icons of photography: Robert Frank’s incisive portrait of 1950s America, August Sander’s meticulous categorization of the German people, Edward Curtis’ collective portrait of the vanishing American Indians. As such, they are so familiar that they have lost a little of their freshness in terms of bringing forth new ideas. (That said, this many great vintage images from these three series are exhibited so rarely that they are still wholeheartedly worth seeing.)

The two 19th century series (Le Gray and Gardner) fail to elicit much about their respective nations. They tell us about soldiers, and wars, and life around these one-dimensional activities, but they don’t lead to many conclusions about the national characters that underlie the marches and conflicts. The two most recent series in the exhibit (Peress and Singh) are the most though provoking, and left us wishing there had been more images in these two groups (it’s hard to draw an even rudimentary portrait from 5 images each). The Peress images of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland are big, dark pictures, brimming with action and emotion. The Singh images of India are saturated with color and cultural contrasts. Both seem to capture well the hidden and not-so hidden vignettes and identities that make a nation unique.

In all, while the exhibit itself is a bit uneven, the idea underlying it (whether we can know and capture the spirit of a nation) is one well worth exploring. Perhaps some other 19th century projects could have been explored (Beato’s Japan?), or left out entirely in favor of two additional 20th century bodies of work.

Collector’s POV: While none of the work in this exhibit fits our particular collection, we certainly enjoyed seeing the excellent Frank and Sander vintage prints. And books by Peress and Singh will certainly be added to our photo library in the near future, so we can educate ourselves about their work more fully.

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

Of National Interest: Photographs from the Collection
Through January 11th

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603

Disfarmer Puppet Show

Here’s one for the eclectic category, recommended by another photography collector: Disfarmer, a “table-top” puppet show by Dan Hurlin based on the life and work of portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer.

Disfarmer
January 27-February 8

St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

More Disfarmer at Fugitive Vision here and Looking Around (Time) here.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photography of Paris @Art Institute of Chicago

JTF (just the facts): A total of 42 photographs, 5 paintings, and 9 etchings/drawings, displayed in a single gallery on the lower level of the museum. In addition to the 14 images by Cartier-Bresson, photographs by Atget (1 image), Brassai (7 images), Kertesz (16 images), Bing (3 images), and Seuphor (1 image) are shown. The other artworks in the exhibit are by Lhote (Cartier-Bresson’s painting teacher), de Chirico, Mondrian, Dali, Picasso, and Matisse. All of the pieces in the exhibit are from the late 1920s and 1930s. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: During the holidays, we visited family in Chicago and were able to sneak off one morning for a quick visit to the Art Institute to see the two photo shows on view. So while Chicago is not our usual territory, we’ll cover both exhibits in today’s posts.

We’re all familiar with Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment”, where the contents in his frame would resolve themselves into an amazing composition for only a fleeting instant, which he would capture with his camera. Many people have commented that Cartier-Bresson’s genius was not so much capturing this decisive moment, but in fact being ready, with his camera pointed in the right direction and pre-focused, before the decisive moment happened. This exhibition (in honor of the centennial of his birth) takes that concept a step further, where we see a complex mix of artistic and cultural influences that were boiling around in Cartier-Bresson’s mind and that helped to shape his photographic vision.

The exhibit is organized thematically by subject matter, where carefully selected groups of related images are juxtaposed. On one wall, Kertesz nude distortions and Brassai etched nudes are paired with Picasso and Matisse nude etchings. On another, a classic Mondrian painting is flanked by two Bing geometric Eiffel Tower images and a handful of more abstract Kertesz images. There is a trio of sea scenes (Bing, Cartier-Bresson, and Lhote), as well as groups of bicycles, faces, portraits, and intertwined bodies. All are meticulously selected and hung to show their similarities.

The major takeaway for us was the idea that Cartier-Bresson, indeed all the artists of that place and time, seemed to be liberally exchanging compositional ideas. The echoes and parallels that are seen in these pairings are too exact to be random; they had to be seeing each other’s work, thinking and talking about it, and internalizing it to such a point that the ideas were then reformed and reused. It says that the worlds of painting and photography in Paris were intertwined communities, learning from and referencing each other. Disparate ideas from surrealism, abstraction, modernism, and humanism were all borrowed and merged into Cartier-Bresson’s approach. In many ways, this exhibit seems less about Carteir–Bresson in specific (there are actually more Kertesz images in this show than Cartier-Bressons), but more about the overall artistic melting pot of the period.

As an aside, since Cartier-Bresson gave up photography in his later life and returned to drawing and painting, it would be interesting in a future exhibit to see a few of these later works juxtaposed with the images from this period to see how his vision continued to evolve.

Collector’s POV: Cartier-Bresson’s work is ubiquitous at auction, with later prints available in nearly every sale. Vintage prints from 1920s and 1930s Paris (like those in this exhibit) are much harder to come by and range from perhaps $50000 to well into six figures for more iconic pictures, assuming you could find them. Ironically, the prints from this exhibit (and this period in general one might suppose) aren’t particularly strong in terms of craftsmanship. Overall, while we don’t have any Cartier-Bresson images in our collection at the moment, we certainly came away from this show with an increased appreciation for his early work.

There were also several splendid early Kertesz images of Paris in this exhibit that we had not seen before; additionally, there was a Bing image that we have in our collection up on the wall (here). In general, this Paris period is full of tremendous photography by a variety of artists.

As background, the Cartier-Bresson Foundation site can be found here.

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

Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photography of Paris
Through January 4th (unfortunately closed yesterday we realise)

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603

Happy Holidays!

In our image saturated world, the photographic holiday card is yet another ritualistic way that people exchange pictures. What’s interesting about these cards is that they often come from people that we don’t see at all during the regular year, and so this is their one chance to give us a glimpse of their lives from afar.

As we have somewhat young children in our house, our card bowl is overflowing with shots of other people’s kids: in perfectly posed and matching outfits, in costumes, in exotic locales, and in one particularly odd example this year, underwater. Adults are never seen in these images, unless it is a “family photo” (i.e. the one staged shot taken during the entire year when all of the family got into the frame, likely at some family gathering/reunion or taken by some random stranger passing by at just the right moment).

A decade ago, these pictures would have been actual film pictures, stuck onto the outside or tucked into the fold of the card. With the advent of digital technology, only the Luddites are still doing this. (I say this knowing that we did indeed send out actual printed pictures this year, as we went with a snappy letter press card.) Most folks have migrated to an online source (Shutterfly or the like), where their digital picture is merged into a template and printed together as one piece on card stock. To our eyes, while these cards might be “produced” better, they seem to have lost some of the craftiness and personality of the old kind. They all look the same, even when the photos are of people we know.

Artists and photographers have long sent holiday cards as well, usually not of their kids, but actual mini art objects. Our favorite is the one below:

Mapplethorpe got it just right. (Christmas Tree, 1987, above.) Simple, elegant, and somehow entirely festive at the same time.

This post will be our last of 2008, so there is no need to come back and check for something new in the remaining days of this year – there won’t be anything, we promise. We will back with passionate, daily posting on January 5th.

We have thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing this blog in the past months and thank you wholeheartedly for taking the time to listen. If you are feeling particularly generous this year, introduce our blog to a handful of other collectors or photo enthusiasts that you know. There’s nothing like a personal referral from a taste maker to get people interested in something new, and we will do our best to live up to your recommendation.

Overall, we look forward with great optimism and anticipation to new shows, new auctions, new books, and stunning photography of all kinds in 2009. Best wishes.

Top Photography Shows of 2008 (Abbreviated)

Since just about every other news source and art critic on the planet has already weighed in with his/her “Top 10” list, it seems only fitting that we should offer our own view of what was noteworthy in the world of photography in 2008. While there was of course a major rebalancing of prices in the photography market in line with the larger economy (and this is of meaningful interest to collectors), in the end, it’s the art itself that matters most, so that’s where we’ll focus our remarks.

Since we have only been writing this blog since mid-August of this year, our commentary is limited to the time period since then (thus “abbreviated” in the title). Our general pace would have us visiting approximately 100 photography shows in galleries and museums in any given year; the blog has a total of 43 reviews for the past four and a half months. Next year, assuming we keep the same pace up, we’ll be even more comprehensive.

There were a grand total of six shows that received our top rating of three stars during this year. They were, in alphabetical order by artist’s name:

William Eggleston @Whitney Museum
(original review here)

Susan Meiselas @ICP
(original review here)

Catherine Opie @Guggenheim Museum
(original review here)

Cindy Sherman @Metro Pictures
(original review here)

Hiroshi Sugimoto @Gagosian Gallery
(original review here)

Minor White @Howard Greenberg Gallery
(original review here)

In our minds, great shows inspire us, move us, force us to think in new ways, and most of all educate us, about the artists and their work, and hopefully about ourselves in some degree as a byproduct. Every single one of the listed shows significantly increased our understanding of these photographers, convinced us of their importance in the overall history of the medium, and produced staggering moments when we were struck dumb by the sheer grandeur of the art on view.

In a world where we are constantly bombarded by images and “stuff”, we are constantly on the lookout for the memorable, for the event or outing that will rise above the noise and somehow make a more lasting and meaningful impression. These shows meet that standard. I can in my mind’s eye easily recreate each and every one of them: the sublime Sugimoto black room, the brooding and empty Meiselas images of Kurdistan, the pitch perfect satire of Cindy Sherman, Opie’s intense and beautiful self portraits, the unexpected compositions and color of William Eggleston, and the quiet meditations of Minor White. Perhaps the common thread among these shows (and the key to their ultimate success and longevity) is that they were each overflowing not just with compelling pictures, but with compelling ideas.

Flor Garduño, Mujeres Fantasticas @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 black and white images, displayed in wide black frames, throughout the gallery. Most of the works are 20×16 inches, although there are a handful in a larger size (approximately 40×30 inches). Negatives range from the late 1980s to the present. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Looking at the work of Mexican photographer Flor Garduño, you would never, ever, mistake her work for that made by a man. Indeed, Garduño’s images are among the most overtly “female” pictures we have seen.
Nearly all of Garduño’s pictures have a sensual female form/nude staged together with symbols from the natural world (fruit, leaves, flowers, feathers etc.). Her compositions have an earthy mythology to them, an almost dream-like or magical quality that seems drawn from the long history of Latin America. In her early days, Garduño was an assistant to Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and she seems to have absorbed the same love of the uniquely Mexican culture, as well as the ability to structure images with poetic simplicity. She is also a master printer; all of her works are printed with an astounding and meticulous attention to dark and light. This show mixes a few new pieces with a variety of other works from the past decade or two, so there is some ability to see how her approach and aesthetic has been refined over time.
Collector’s POV: For us, while Garduño’s work is always made with an original point of view and with thoughtful care, the results are often hit or miss. When it works, the images are stunning; when it doesn’t, the works feel a bit contrived and odd. The works in this show are priced between $2500 and $9000, dependent mostly on size it seems. We actually already own an excellent nude by Garduño (Los Limones, 1998, found here and also on display in this exhibit), which we bought a few years ago from Andrew Smith (gallery site here) when we were living on the West coast. In addition to prints found in the retail market, Garduño’s work has become more available at reasonable prices in the secondary market in the past few years.

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

Flor Garduño, Mujeres Fantasticas
Through January 9th

145 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Swann (December) and Christie’s (Constantiner)

The final two photography sales of the year were at Swann, with its combo book and photo sale, and at Christie’s, with the fashion and glamour images of the Constantiner collection. The results are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Swann Galleries

Total Lots: 401
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $854000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1233650

Total Lots Sold: 243
Total Lots Bought In: 158
Buy In %: 39.40%
Total Sale Proceeds: $442741

This sale had two distinct sections that performed differently: the photo books accounted for approximately 73% of the lots, and delivered 57% of the proceeds with a buy-in rate of 35.40%, while the photography accounted for approximately 27% of the lots, and delivered 43% of the proceeds with a buy in rate of 50.00%. Thus, as a group, the lower priced books did “better” than the more expensive photography.

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

Low Total Lots: 384
Low Sold: 236
Low Bought In: 148
Buy In %: 38.54%
Total Low Estimate: $878650
Total Low Sold: $334741

Mid Total Lots: 15
Mid Sold: 6
Mid Bought In: 9
Buy In %: 60.00%
Total Mid Estimate: $280000
Total Mid Sold: $84000

High Total Lots: 2
High Sold: 1
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total High Estimate: $75000
Total High Sold: $24000

The lot by lot results can be found here.

Overall, another generally solid outing for Swann in these volatile economic times.

Christie’s – Constantiner

Total Lots: 320
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $7472500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $11020500

Total Lots Sold: 281
Total Lots Bought In: 39
Buy In %: 12.19%
Total Sale Proceeds: $7721875

This sale seems to have performed almost exactly to expectations: it did well across the board, but would likely have delivered a meaningfully bigger outcome under more optimistic economic conditions. That said, Christie’s brought in proceeds above the Total Low Estimate, which was a rarity this auction season.

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

Low Total Lots: 146
Low Sold: 135
Low Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 7.53%
Total Low Estimate: $784500
Total Low Sold: $738625

Mid Total Lots: 127
Mid Sold: 106
Mid Bought In: 21
Buy In %: 16.54%
Total Mid Estimate: $2816000
Total Mid Sold: $1881000

High Total Lots: 47
High Sold: 41
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 12.77%
Total High Estimate: $7420000
Total High Sold: $5102250

The lot by lot results can be found here.

The Low end was quite strong here, but the quality of the material led to a good performance across the board. The low buy in rate for the High lots was impressive, but the dollar figures lot by lot for these same High lots were a bit soft. Chalk this one up to poor timing for an otherwise strong collection.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1968-2008 @Whitney

JTF (just the facts): A total of 159 images (134 color and 25 black and white), along with 2 videos, and 4 cases of miscellaneous materials (books, catalogs, album covers etc.), hung in a series of 10 divided spaces, covering the entire third floor of the museum. (Memphis, 1971, at right.)

Comments/Context: So much has been written about William Eggleston’s original 1976 show at the MoMA (scandalous! boring! notorious! ground breaking!) and its subsequent impact on several generations of color photographers that it has taken on a legendary aura. So it is somewhat surprising that it has taken more than 30 years for any New York museum to give him another solo show. The comprehensive retrospective now on view at the Whitney covers the entire span of his career, from his early black and white images, through the famous William Eggleston’s Guide project/show, and on through a number of other strong bodies of work, up to the present.

Over the years, the never ending mantra on Eggleston has been his amazing use of color. Ah, the color! Lush color, subtle color, saturated color, color tuned by warm light, glorious color (and a staggering number of bad puns and word games using color: “local color”, “living color” etc.). In seeing all this work together for the first time, I came to see the color as part of a larger puzzle, where the real genius of Eggleston lies in composition, in the most mundane of questions about where to put the camera. I imagine his artist’s brain working something like this: out on a random walk, shooting pictures, his eye catches a glimpse of a breathtaking (insert color here – green, for example, as in the picture above right). The harder question then becomes, how to turn this mundane, ordinary subject (albeit with a graceful set of colors) into something interesting? Eggleston’s vision took him even a step further, where these commonplace scenes (primarily of the rural South) are somehow filled with an intensity of emotion, a Faulkner-esque dread in many cases. While not every image Eggleston has taken is a winner, there are far too many iconic compositions in this show for it to be luck. And while his work is often labeled as having a “snapshot aesthetic”, the consistency of his approach, across the years and in work that is lesser known, is the stunning takeaway for me from this exhibit.

All of Eggleston’s “greatest hits” are on view here: the tricycle, the red ceiling (Untitled, 1973 at right), the dog licking the puddle, the peaches sign, most of them displayed in the entry or in the cavernous central room (where images from the Guide, the 14 Pictures portfolio and the Troubled Waters portfolio are intermingled). The three galleries on the right side were of the most interest to me. In the first room, Eggleston’s early black and white images from the early 1960s are shown. In these pictures, you can see Eggleston experimenting with composition and exploring the everyday American subjects around him (diners, drive-ins, cars), as he refined his approach to the medium. The middle room on the right holds 20 pictures from the Los Alamos series, along with some other ephemera in cases. There were unexpectedly many more tremendous images in this group that I had remembered. In the far right room, Eggleston’s black and white video Stranded in Canton is shown on four stations, along with some less than remarkable large scale black and white portraits. The video is a wild, boozy, almost surreal vision of nightlife, fast food and other general weirdness. The scenes near the end of a rowdy group of men biting the heads off of chickens (the heads drop, the headless bodies jerk and twitch) are creepy and unsettling.

The rooms on the left side and back of the exhibit trace a variety of projects and commissions, picking representative samples and highlights from each. There are works from the Carter commission project, the Graceland commission, the Dust Bells portfolio, the Southern Suite, the Morals of Vision portfolio, the Democratic Vision portfolio, the True Stories project, a selection of new works (printed larger than anything else in the show) and a few portraits. There are winners buried here as well, although in lesser numbers and with lesser overall intensity somehow.

Beyond the work, a few comments on the staging of the exhibit are in order. In general, the structure and architecture of this show are weak, and make the work seem less inspiring than it is. While there is a general chronology at play, it is hidden and needed to be much more explicit. An opportunity to tell a much more linear narrative of the evolution of Eggleston’s art was missed. While there are some interesting juxtaposition of images, the scale of the rooms and the expanses of space in the middle tend to encourage scanning the images from 20 feet, rather than getting up close to engage them more intimately, so these interrelationships are lost. There is an aimless, wandering style to this exhibit, and a tendency to see your favorites from afar and “check them off”, thus all the works from various time periods wash together and lose definition. And why the Whitney didn’t do an audio guide, taking advantage of Eggleston’s marvelous gravelly Southern drawl is beyond me (there is a short video of Eggleston on the Whitney website however, linked below).

But putting these distractions and detractors aside, the work in this exhibit is forceful, novel, and memorable, and the retrospective format does a good job of covering all Eggleston’s periods of work. Simply put, it is a must-see show of a masterful career.

Collector’s POV: The recent auction of the Berman collection of Eggleston images at Christie’s is the best proxy for current market conditions for Eggleston’s work (preview post here, results post here). In general, demand and prices are both high and consistently strong. At retail, Eggleston is represented by Cheim & Read (site here), although there are 26 galleries listed on artnet that claim to have Eggleston inventory, so his work is spread around the market a bit. Beyond the original color dye transfers, some new digital prints are now available. The Eggleston Trust website can be found here.

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

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1968-2008
Through January 25th

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Richard Avedon: Performance @Pace/MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 55 images of various formats and sizes, all portraits, shown against dark grey walls, throughout the entire skylit gallery. Negatives from five decades, beginning in 1940s.

Comments/Context: Richard Avedon’s minimalist frontal portraits against white or grey backgrounds have a style and intimacy unlike most anything else in the history of photography; a high contrast Avedon portrait is hardly ever mistaken for that of another artist. In this show, a slice of his work has been pulled together under the common theme of “performers”, and includes portraits of famous and not-so-famous artists, actors, writers, musicians, dancers, and singers. (Marian Anderson, contralto, New York, June 30, 1955, at right.)
This exhibition has few surprises in terms of undiscovered or “new” images. Most will seem like familiar friends as you tour the gallery. There is however an interesting set of contact prints from a 1949 session with Truman Capote hung back behind the main wall that shows part of the editing process Avedon went through after the film was developed. Otherwise, it’s an excellent (if well-known) parade of Marilyn, the Beatles, Dylan, and Charlie Chaplin. Our particular favorite was the image of Nureyev’s foot from 1967.
Collector’s POV: The images in this show are a mixture of vintage and later prints, priced between $11000 on the low end and $850000 at the top. There is a large amount of Avedon’s work consistently available in the secondary market, as many of his most famous images were made in editions and portfolios of 50, 75, 100, and even 200 prints (Natassja Kinski and the Serpent as an example of the largest of edition size). A new book, Richard Avedon: Performance, is also available (image at right). The Richard Avedon Foundation website can be found here.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Through January 3rd
545 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

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