Blog of Blogs

The slow and agonizing death of metro area daily newspapers is a story that continues to fascinate, mostly because of the dearth of compelling ideas for what replaces these journalistic vehicles when they are eventually marginalized for good by the Internet. New business models are being vehemently debated (subscription, membership, micro payments, free etc.), but no one seems to have cracked the nut on how we end up with high quality arts journalism, which costs money, in a world where readers don’t seem willing to pay for content.

While many of these questions will I think remain unanswered for the foreseeable future, it is becoming more clear to me that small niches and communities (like fine art photography) won’t pay for themselves any time soon, even if the writers work for free (as we do now). While we might like to fantasize about our growing site bringing in enough money to support itself from loyal photography collector subscribers, or from gallery advertisers who want to reach an audience of targeted collectors and industry professionals like yourselves, the reality is that the total traffic flow just isn’t going to be large enough any time soon to make the math work. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know of a single dedicated fine art photography site (not including gear focused photo enthusiast sites) that today regularly tallies 5000 subscribers and/or repeat daily visitors, even though there are plenty of terrific and original voices out there. I’d guess it probably takes at least 10 times that many to start to have any kind of viable and durable opportunity, even in a non-profit format supported by grants/foundations.

Since “going it alone” doesn’t seem viable as a long term solution (unless you’re just doing it for fun, which is of course what most of us are doing), I believe what will evolve to solve this problem is a some kind of “niche aggregator”, an umbrella site/destination that gathers together 40 or 50 blogs that are all targeted at facets of a specific subculture (say fine art photography), creating a one stop shop for readers who are interested in this topic. In finance, we talk about a “fund of funds” that offers investors a slice of a group of different narrow funds to create diversification; here we’re talking about a “blog of blogs” to aggregate a reader base/community that is now much too fragmented. Imagine that we took several best of breed blogs from each of the following categories (pick your own favorites please, from a variety of countries):

Emerging photographer showcase
Photo books
Photography news/reporting
Photographer interviews
Gallery/museum show reviews
Photo theory/criticism
Photography auctions
Miscellaneous photography serendipity/fun

We then build a site that has a common look and feel and easy navigation/search, but allows each author to continue to follow their own stories and have editorial freedom (even allowing overlap and duplication). ArtsJournal (here) is already down the path with a variant of this kind of model. Readers come for voices they want to hear, and are enticed by adjacent voices who have something relevant to say on a related topic. I hate to use the word “portal”, but that’s what it starts to look like, only on a much more granular level.

If we assume RSS readers will become more and more mainstream, somehow an aggregate feed of the entire umbrella site needs to be developed that captures the high points (perhaps something akin to the C-MONSTER digest (here), only in a more targeted way). Single voices also need to be available as feeds, like Modern Art Notes (here).

The key here (and the durable advantage) is massive but targeted scale; a site like this needs to generate coverage that is much, much deeper that any general purpose site. If other sites are covering 5 or 10 gallery or museum shows in a month, this site needs to cover 40 or 50 or 100 or more, all over the world (the long tail). The same goes for photo books or emerging photographers or artist interviews. The work of gathering all this is distributed across all the various bloggers, who are doing it already anyway.

Given the way search drives traffic, more posts, more reviews, more commentary, and more names means more successful connections to people who Google search for information on any one of those specific items or photographers, and more chances to convert them into subscribers. The combined searchable archive of all the blogs is likely the valuable (and defensible) product that eventually can be monetized, with proceeds shared amongst the contributor bloggers. Given the vast data store, more sophisticated tools can be added to enhance the user experience (if you like Henri Cartier-Bresson, you might like…, or people who read about Alec Soth also read about… etc.) The total subscriber/repeat reader count is the only measure that matters, regardless of whether we eventually talk about subscribers paying a fee or advertisers buying banners.

I actually think that the next few years are the “traffic grab” phase, where readers of traditional media (like the NY Times) continue to splinter off and are captured by vehicles that match their specific interests more closely (like this uber-photo blog I’m describing). So while we’ll continue to plug along, day after day, covering topics of interest to photography collectors and hopefully growing our readership steadily, I think some kind of “blog of blogs” aggregation model is what the future looks like (the devil is in the details of course). Until then, we’ll be investing in the archive and growing the subscriber base, one reader at a time.

Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, May 14 and 15, 2009 @Phillips

The mixed bag of contemporary photography in the Phillips Contemporary Art sales delivered generally suitable results, led by the four lots in the evening sale, which all sold in or near the estimate range. Overall, the total proceeds from the photography in the two sales covered the total low estimate for those lots, and more than a third of the photo lots that sold brought in more than their high estimate (which says that the estimates were appropriately conservative).

The summary statistics are below:

Total Photography Lots: 53
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $1714000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $2396000

Total Lots Sold: 36
Total Lots Bought In: 17
Buy In %: 32.08%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1776000

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

Low Total Lots: 6
Low Sold: 4
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 33.33%
Total Low Estimate: $49000
Total Low Sold: $43125

Mid Total Lots: 36
Mid Sold: 23
Mid Bought In: 13
Buy In %: 36.11%
Total Mid Estimate: $917000
Total Mid Sold: $625625

High Total Lots: 11
High Sold: 9
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 18.18%
Total High Estimate: $1430000
Total High Sold: $1107250

83.33% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, with 36.11% above. There was only one surprise (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale: lot 132, Sharon Core, Bakery Counter, 2004 at $37500.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here and here.

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

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning and Afternoon Sales, May 13 and 14, 2009 @Christie’s

While there was much less photography on offer at Christie’s three Contemporary Art sales than at the other houses, the available lots performed well; if three out of the top four lots (measured by high estimate) had sold rather than passed, it would have been a resounding success. As it was, the proceeds for photography fell in the estimate range, the buy in rate was low, and a third of the lots that sold came in above their estimates.

The summary statistics are below:

Total Photography Lots: 25
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $765000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1103000

Total Lots Sold: 21
Total Lots Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 16.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $797350

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

Low Total Lots: 2
Low Sold: 2
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: $15000
Total Low Sold: $98350

Mid Total Lots: 15
Mid Sold: 14
Mid Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 6.67%
Total Mid Estimate: $428000
Total Mid Sold: $390500

High Total Lots: 8
High Sold: 5
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 37.50%
Total High Estimate: $660000
Total High Sold: $308500

90.48% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, with 33.33% above. There were only two surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale: lot 115, Ed Ruscha, A Group of Fourteen Artist’s Books at $96100 (more than 10x the high estimate) and lot 392, Thomas Struth, Dallas Parking Lot, Dallas, 2001 at $80500.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here, here and here.

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 12 and 13, 2009 @Sotheby’s

Perhaps the prevailing art market story of the past year has been the effect of the economic crisis on contemporary art buyers and sellers, with the collapse of prices, the retrenching of galleries and the shotgun deaccessioning of artworks by museums to raise cash all as subplots with their own twists and turns. And while it is too early to call a bottom, the photography buried in Sotheby’s pair of Contemporary Art sales performed just fine thank you, with over $4 million of proceeds (in the estimate range), an acceptable buy in rate, and a solid percentage of lots selling above their estimates. Given that the work in this sale did not reach the upper most levels of quality, this was certainly a positive outcome, and perhaps a sign that a new equilibrium is being found.

The summary statistics are below:

Total Photography Lots: 52
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3813000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5337000

Total Lots Sold: 38
Total Lots Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 26.92%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4228900

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

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: NA
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 29
Mid Sold: 21
Mid Bought In: 8
Buy In %: 27.59%
Total Mid Estimate: $877000
Total Mid Sold: $567500

High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 17
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 26.09%
Total High Estimate: $4460000
Total High Sold: $3661400

92.11% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, with 31.58% above. There were only two surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale: lot 305, JR, Favela Morro Da Providencia at $25000 and lot 450, Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Open Wide) at $146500.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here and here.

Sotheby’s
1334 York Avenue at 72nd St
New York, NY 10021

Developing Democracy: a New Focus on South African Photography @Kauffman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 22 works (21 photographs and 1 sculpture), framed in blond wood and variously matted, in the main gallery room, and bending around into another smaller space with a table. (Installation shots at right.) 7 artists are represented in this group show (the number of pieces in the exhibit in parentheses):

David Goldblatt (5)
Pieter Hugo (1)
Raymond Keeping (10)
Senzeni Marasela (1 sculpture)
Zwelethu Mthethwa (1)
Mikhael Subotzky (1)
Nontisikelelo ‘Lolo‘ Veleko (5)

Goldblatt’s works are digital prints, from 2002 and 2003, in various sizes (from 16×12 to 40×50), in editions of 6, 35, and 60. Hugo’s work is a pigment print on cloth, from 2003, 18×14, in an edition of 5. Keeping’s images are c-prints of 1957 negatives printed in 2007; they come in two sizes 34×34 or 60×40, in editions of 9 and 1 respectively. Mthethwa’s image is a 4×6 c-print from 1996. Subotzky’s work is a pigment ink print, 18×28, in an edition of 60 from 2004. Veleko’s prints are digital prints with pigment dyes on cotton paper, 14×10, from 2006, in editions of 10 or 60.

Comments/Context: This small group exhibit provides a useful sampler of post-apartheid South African photography, and goes hand in hand as background to Zwelethu Mthethwa’s show of new work discussed this morning (here).

The standout pictures in this show are the funky August Sander meets Malick Sidibé portraits by Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo‘ Veleko. While we have certainly seen plenty of full body deadpan portraits of unusual people floating around in contemporary photography, Veleko’s images of young, hip Johannesburg residents have a uniquely African vibe, full of energy, optimism and clashing colorful patterns. These come as a surprising contrast to the more anthropological roadside portraits of Zulu and Xhosa people in traditional dress by Raymond Keeping, and show how the generations are indeed changing.

David Goldblatt’s pictures tell a more subtle story of societal evolution, with images depicting the remnants of the past still visible today: an unfinished cinder block housing project without roofs, a massive but now abandoned asbestos mine, a parched sports field, and an AIDS afflicted cleaning lady with her family. While this is a small show, it does a remarkably good job to telling the story of a nation simultaneously looking for answers, both from the past and the future.

Collector’s POV: David Goldblatt’s images in this show range in price from $1200 to $2150. Lolo Veleko’s portraits are priced either at $1400 or $2600 depending on the edition size. Raymond Keeping’s images are either $1750 or $3900 based on size. The rest of the prices are as follows: Subotzky $2000, Hugo $4500, Mthethwa $3000, and Marasela $2800. The work closest to our collecting focus in this show would be Goldblatt’s image of the roofless housing development, which might resonate well with a Robert Adams or Lewis Baltz subdivision picture. If we were portrait collectors, we would certainly snap up a few of Veleko’s addictive images.

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

Transit Hub:

  • David Goldblatt: 1998 MoMA show (here)
  • David Goldblatt: 2006 Hasselblad Award winner (here)
  • Lolo Veleko: Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2008 (here)
  • Pieter Hugo: artist site (here)
  • Mikhael Subotzky: Magnum page (here)

Developing Democracy: a New Focus on South African Photography
Through May 30th

Kyle Kauffman Gallery
150 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Zwelethu Mthethwa, New Works @Shainman

JTF (just the facts): A total of large scale 18 chromogenic prints, framed in blond wood with no mat, hung in the entry, the main gallery, and two smaller side rooms. The prints come in two sizes, 59×76 (in an edition of 1) and 32×41 (in an edition of 3), and were made between 2006 and 2008. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa’s show of new work now on view at Jack Shainman continues an approach seen in his earlier images: powerful documentary portraits made out in the real world of his native country (and neighboring lands), rather than in the sterilized confines of the commercial studio.
There are three sets of work in this show, all with evocative and memorable settings: ragged children with found treasures atop seemingly endless trash heaps (Contemporary Gladiator), young men amidst huge stacks of lumpy white bags of coal at the market (Coal Miner), and workers digging in crumbled and dry red earth (Quartz Miner). All of the subjects stare directly (almost defiantly) into the camera, posing with a sense of pride, regardless of the wretched environments and harsh working conditions that surround them.

The Coal Miner portraits are the most successful of the three series, as the stacked bags create both unusual visual patterns and small rooms and spaces where the workers are posed. Beneath the baseball caps and grubby t-shirts are men who are trying to make a life out of tasks the world has generally forgotten; there are plenty of parallels with Sebastiao Salgado’s humanist pictures of workers, but with a particular African look and feel, full of thick, warm color.
Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced at $14000 and $22000 depending on the size. A handful of images by the artist have appeared at auction in the past few years, selling between $8000 and $11000. Since we are not portrait collectors, Mthethwa’s images aren’t a fit for our particular collection, but I certainly came away impressed with the expressive nature of these large well crafted works.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • Upcoming Aperture monograph (here)
  • Additional monographs from 1999, 2000 (here)
513 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011

Collector Michael Mattis on Edward Weston

Photography collector Michael Mattis and his wife almost certainly have the best and deepest collection of Edward Weston photographs in private hands. An exhibit containing a selection of works from their Weston collection was recently on view at the Akron Art Museum, entitled Edward Weston: Life Work (here, including shots of the installation).

Michael is an example of a professional collector who meticulously develops scholarly knowledge of his chosen subjects. He can be seen talking about Weston in a short video produced by Ohio public television (here); there is a short introduction, followed by 5 or 6 minutes of video.

Layered Expressions: Korean Contemporary Photography @Gana Art

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 works by four different photographers: Seung-Woo Back (3 images), Bien-U Bae (2), In Sook Kim (3) and Jungjin Lee (2). The images are hung in a large, one room gallery with dark walls, framed in grey or black with no mats. Back’s works are digital prints, ranging from 63×45 to 70×88, made between 2006 and 2008. Bae’s works are c-prints on Diasec, approximately 50×100, made in editions of 5 in 2002 and 2006. Kim’s images are also c-prints on Diasec, ranging in size between 16×31 and 72×48, made in editions of 20 or 50, between 2005 and 2007. Lee’s works are photo emulsion on rice paper, 57×21, made in editions of 5 in 2007.

Comments/Context: The truth of the matter is that we don’t really know much about Korean photography (vintage or contemporary). But we’ve started to notice more Korean photographers in the contemporary mix lately (at the Armory, in auctions etc.), so we’ve begun to feel the need to be more educated on what’s happening, thus our visit to this group show at Gana Art in Chelsea.

Bien-U Bae’s misty images of dark swirling pine trees are on the left wall as you enter the gallery (installation shot above, top). These works have a “magical forest” feel to them, with an undertone of creepiness, and would fit well into a collection of black and white tree images across the history of the medium.

In Sook Kim’s Saturday Night (one of three images by the artist on view) is voyeuristic look into the nocturnal activities of a variety of apartment dwellers in a single building, Rear Window style. (The work is on the far right of the installation shot at right, second from the top.) Each window is tinted a different color by the lighting, creating a mixed rainbow effect from afar. Close up, each small box tells a tale of sex, loneliness, criminality or boredom (there’s even a woman hanging herself).
Jungjin Lee’s delicate images on rice paper certainly have the handmade “Asian” feel of traditional scrolls or calligraphy, but up close, the abstract patterns turn out to be fragments of images of pagodas, overlapped and repeated to create the stylized inkblot forms. (Installation shot at right.) These are quiet, meditative works that open a dialogue between historical art and contemporary methods.

And finally, Seung-Woo Back’s pair of images on the back wall (ironically entitled Utopia) have a 1950s collage aesthetic, combining black and white post Korean War found photographs with acid yellow and orange backgrounds. (Installation shot at right, bottom.)
Overall, this diverse show seems to be a decent primer on current trends in Korean photography, especially for neophytes like ourselves who need a survey-type overview.
Collector’s POV: Here’s a quick run down on the prices: Bien-U Bae’s two works are $60000 each; In Sook Kim’s Saturday Night is $40000, the other two adjacent images are $3500 each; Jungjin Lee’s two images are $10000 each; and Seung-Woo Back’s Utopia series images are $20000 each, a third image from Real World is $25000. For our particular collection, I would gravitate towards the works of Jungjin Lee, as they might interact in intriguing ways with other architectural images we own.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Seung-Woo Back: Real World (here)
  • Bien-U Bae: artist site (here)
  • Bien-U Bae: Sacred Wood (here)
  • In Sook Kim: interview (here)
  • Jungjin Lee: artist site (here)
Through May 16th

Gana Art
568 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Beate Gütschow @Sonnabend

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 black and white light jet prints, framed in white with no mat, hung in the entry and three back galleries. The works are printed in various sizes, ranging from 36×31 up to 70×105, and are made in editions of 5 or 15. The images were created between 2004 and 2009. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While deadpan images of decaying cities and towns have become a commonplace subject for many contemporary photographers, Beate Gütschow has taken this idea to an entirely different level in the works now on view at Sonnabend. Gütschow starts by taking hundreds of analog images of architecture in locations all over the world, and then combines fragments from these pictures digitally into seamless and entirely original views that walk the line between apparent reality and obvious falsehood.
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On first glance, these abandoned buildings and empty plazas look hauntingly plausible, perhaps a documentary record of desolation from a far off failed state or a Julius Shulman-type record of some unknown architect’s massive constructions. And yet, something is just not quite right – the scale of the buildings is so immense, the wastelands that surround them are so expansive – where on earth could this be?
The word “post-apocalyptic” has become a science fiction cliché, but these images truly seem to depict a world after some kind of disaster, where nearly all the people are gone (leaving behind only a few disoriented survivors, seen wandering aimlessly between the overly huge buildings) and the open sky has become a cloudless monotone grey. The images portray a convincing alternate reality (the cobblestones and concrete are cracked and worn), one that is more than a bit unsettling and depressing.
.

What I think is compelling here is that Gütschow is using significant digital manipulation not in an obvious, attention grabbing fashion (look at me!), but with a degree of subtlety and understatement that draws the viewer into the trap. Once the viewer catches on (and gets over the staggering amazement of how these pictures were actually constructed), a second level of meaning in the works is discovered and their implicit commentary on our world is delivered with much more force. Even if you are not an architectural photography fan, this show merits a visit to see how digital tools can be used in sophisticated new ways.

Collector’s POV: The prints in this show are priced between 8000 and 20000 Euros. To date, there have been few if any images available in the secondary markets. I very much enjoyed the works in this show, and if they weren’t so large, I could absolutely imagine adding one to our collection. I have a strong sense that these images will age well, and would provide an interesting dialogue with traditional architectural works, in the same way that Joan Fontcuberta’s fabricated flowers offer unique contrasts to normal floral still lifes.
Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
  • MOCP show, 2006 (here)
  • LS/S Aperture monograph (here), Conscientious review of the book (here)
  • Frieze magazine article (here)
  • Danziger Projects Landscape show, 2005 (here)
Beate Gütschow
Through July
Sonnabend Gallery (artnet page here)
536 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Preview: Photographs, May 21, 2009 @Bloomsbury London

Bloomsbury’s upcoming Photographs sale in London has a heavy dose of portraiture: musicians and rock stars, actors and actresses, celebrities and artists, political figures and wealthy patrons. For collectors interested in pictures of famous (and not so famous) people, this sale has plenty to explore. Overall, the auction has a total of 269 lots on offer, with a total high estimate of £443200. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here’s the breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate £5000 and below): 254
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £293200
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 14
Total Mid Estimate: £100000
Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 1
Total High Estimate: £50000
Given the overall focus of this sale, there aren’t as many lots that fit our collection well. The elegant cover image, Lot 8 Erwin Blumenfeld, (Nude), 1943, would however match nicely with our other nudes.
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
May 21st
24 Maddox Street
Mayfair
London WS1 1PP

Naoki Honjo, Small Planet

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2006 by Little More (here). 144 pages, with 68 color images. Includes short texts by Masahiko Sato and Naoki Honjo. (Cover image at right.)

Comments/Context: We were first exposed to the work of Naoki Honjo in the Reality Check group show at the Met (review here) last winter, where a single image by the artist was on view. Seeing this picture made us want to know more, and so we recently purchased a copy of his book, Small Planet, which contains a broader sample of this body of work.

Honjo’s images are created by taking an aerial view with a very shallow depth of field, distorting and blurring nearly the entire image except a small area/narrow plane of crisp focus. The effect is to make the images look miniaturized, like a toy diorama. This technique (“tilt shift”) is used by Honjo in a variety of locations: dense cityscapes, seashores, warehouses and railyards, construction sites, swimming pools, roadways, sporting events and parks. The clever inversion is, of course, that these scenes which look entirely fake/constructed are indeed all too real.

A detractor might characterize this work a simple exercise in optical trickery, and certainly, there is an element of forcing the viewer to consider how his/her eyes actually work, how seeing and perception actually happen. But after looking at the dozens of images in this book, I remain intrigued by each successive image, the weird novelty of scenes that shift between real/unreal still somehow fresh. The compositions from higher up and farther away, where the figures and cars are the size of ants, seem to be the most successful in using the technique for dramatic effect. While the majority of these pictures were taken in Japan (and a more recent series was made in London), given the visual diversity of our world, I’m sure Honjo will have no shortage of subject matter to be reconsidered using this approach.

Collector’s POV: Honjo is represented in North America by TAI Gallery in Santa Fe (here). Images are available in either 20×24 (edition of 15) or 40×50 (edition of 5) sizes.

Transit Hub:

  • CNN Interview (here)
  • Exhibit of London series at Paul Smith (here)
  • Ihei Kimura Photography Award (here)
  • Tilt shift miniaturization (here)

Michael Schmidt, Irgendwo

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2005 by Snoeck. 140 pages, with 67 black and white images. Includes an interview with the artist by Dietmar Elger. (Cover image at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the dominance of the the Becher students (Gursky, Ruff, Struth, et al) in the art markets in recent years, it would be easy for collectors to come to the conclusion that everything interesting in German photography was and is emanating from Dusseldorf. The reality is far more complex than a monolithic movement would allow. This book by Michael Schmidt is an example of some of the excellent work coming from a group of photographers who have been working in and around Berlin/Essen for decades, with loose ties to Lewis Baltz and Paul Graham.

In contrast to a search for single individual image, Schmidt works in serial format, gathering together sequences of images that together provide a more nuanced view of a subject (just like the Robert Adams book we reviewed last week). It is not so much that these groups tell a deeper or more linear narrative or story, it is that the relationships between a group of fragments or moments can broaden our understanding of the overall realities and rhythms buried underneath the surface.

In this particular book (and Schmidt has made several), the photographer has spent time in small provincial towns, capturing a mix of intimate landscapes, views of both traditional and modern suburban buildings, portraits of the inhabitants (primarily young people), and miscellaneous fragments (windows, walls, shopping carts, and loading docks). The title of the book can be translated as “somewhere” or “anywhere”, and the pictures together portray a dismal monotony of vague places lacking identifiable details. In the interview, Schmidt alludes to the “loss of home as a place with identity”, and there is certainly a cheerless melancholy that pervades the whole series of pictures.

And yet, this chronicle of German non-places is somehow surprisingly powerful and evocative. The spectrum of greys in this book have a rich, tactile quality, with a less than perfect sharpness that makes them softer; these “colors” help create the overall mood of the book. It is however the sequencing that seems most important in the end. It is the juxtaposition of a blank concrete wall, next to a teenage woman’s face, next to a less than beautiful modern house, next to an image of a supermarket parking lot, next to an ornate architectural detail, next to a closed window that bring together all the pieces of this life into a subtle and complex whole.

Collector’s POV: Michael Schmidt’s works can be found at Galerie Nordenhake in Berlin (here) and Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York (here). Galerie Nordenhake has just opened a mini-retrospective of Schmidt’s work, on view through June 20th (here). Mitchell-Innes & Nash had a show in the spring of 2008 (here). Only a handful of works by Schmidt have appeared at auction in the past five years, most selling for under $2000.

This book has been a real eye opener for me and has continued to keep me thinking; I now feel compelled to dig deeper on Schmidt and his contemporaries, as this work seems to have been somewhat overlooked (at least by collectors we know here in America) and well worth further review/education on our part. There are clearly images in this series, especially the more deadpan architectural fragments, that would fit perfectly into our collection.

Transit Hub:

  • Other Berlin/Essen photographers to explore: Joachim Brohm, Gosbert Adler, Volker Heinze (please put others in the comments if you can add to the list)
  • U-NI-TY at MoMA, 1996 (here)
  • Waffenruhe (here)

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