Of The Refrain @Robert Mann

JTF (just the facts): Total of 53 images, all black and white, none larger than 20×24, spanning a period from the mid 1920s to the mid 1960s, with most clustered in the 1930s and 40s. Hung in one large gallery space with plenty of natural light.

Here’s a list of the photographers included, with the number of images in the show by that artist in parentheses:
Berenice Abbott (6)
Hazel Larsen Archer (6)
Ellen Auerbach (4)
Walter Auerbach (1)
Ilse Bing (6)
Carlotta Corpron (2)
Trude Fleischmann (1)
Horst P. Horst (1)
Lotte Jacobi (2)
Andre Kertesz (1)
Dora Maar (1)
Barbara Morgan (3)
Man Ray (3)
ringl + pit (11)
Josef Sudek (2)
Margaret Watkins (3)
Comments/Context: It’s ironic that the summer group show is the one time of the year when gallery curators really get to flex their muscles, freed from the relentless parade of one person shows (where the work “speaks for itself”), and yet, these shows hang in quiet empty galleries, as the entire art world has decamped to greener pastures to escape the heat. These shows allow curators to reclaim the lost arts of storytelling and narrative, of juxtaposition, of education; they encourage us to see familiar work in new ways and to see unexpected connections with less known artists.
A well-executed example of the group show is now on view at Robert Mann (it’s closing at the end of the week, so get over there soon). Of The Refrain is based (not surprisingly) on the simple premise of the musical refrain, where a common melody or theme is brought back again and again, to reinforce the dominant ideas of the piece, while also showing contrast and change over time. Transposed to the visual world of photography, we are shown a carefully sequenced series of images, where themes of dance/movement, portraiture, and commercial photography (eyeglasses, lace, hats, soap, bubbles and the like) are intermingled, repeated and harmonized. Camera angles and scale also keep changing to ensure the connections and variations aren’t too staged or obvious.
Care the in crafting of this show was also clearly taken in the installation of the images themselves (see above and particularly to the right). Notice how the images drift up and down (like a musical score or a wave). While it’s hard to see from these small digital images, the linear sequencing of the images introduces one subject matter theme for 2 or 3 pictures, moves to another idea, and then reintroduces the original theme 10 or 12 pictures down the line, again and again, around the room. The effect works and the whole exhibit “hangs together” well.
You’ll notice I have yet to really highlight any singular images found in this show. And while I’ll do that in a moment, the show isn’t really about stand out, earth shattering images (in my opinion). It’s more about the voice of the curator, and the journey taken walking through the gallery.

Collectors’ POV: The prints in this exhibition range in price from $4000 on the low end to $25000 at the top. These prices seem to me to be at least 20% too high, but keep in mind, this is a well established gallery, selling at retail, in Chelsea, so perhaps the prices aren’t that much out of line. I have always been a fan of the scientific photography Berenice Abbott did at MIT, and there are several nice prints of this work included in the show, in larger sizes (16×20) than I have seen them before ($6000 each). Another stand out was the work of Helen Larsen Archer (who was previously unknown to me). Her fragmented portraits of Merce Cunningham are fluid and simple, yet very evocative; they are sprinkled throughout the show and help to keep the pace up (prices range from $5000-7000).

All in all, well worth a trip down to deserted Chelsea in the dog days of summer.
Rating: ** (2 stars) VERY GOOD (rating system defined here)

Through August 22nd
210 Eleventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
PS. This will be the last post this week. Back on Monday.

Sunday Afternoon at the Strand

The Strand Bookstore near Union Square in New York is a truly spectacular place if you love books. The key to their sustained success is volume: there are simply more books available in one place (new, used and out of print) than nearly anywhere else I have ever been. I remember when their slogan was “8 miles of books”; it’s now “18 miles of books”. They are constantly buying libraries, collections, and review/remainder books, so there is always something new to find. The books are piled high, bursting from 10 foot high bookshelves that you need a ladder to reach (luckily, there are hardware store ladders everywhere). Spending an hour or two browsing at the Strand is like going on a treasure hunt; you just never know what you’re going to uncover.

The Strand is a particularly good place to buy art books, especially photography books. In addition to the extensive selection, the prices are the best you’re going to find, sometimes as much as half (or more) off that $75.00 monograph price that made you gulp in the museum book store, for a book still in the shrink wrap.

After a hour or two on Sunday, picking through the photography aisles and tables, here’s the crazy group of books I came home with for the library:

  • Vera Lutter, published by Gagosian Gallery for an exhibit of her work in the spring of 2007. This small catalogue shows her work from Venice, Rheinbraun, New York, London, and Philadelphia. We think Vera Lutter is one of the most exciting contemporary photographers working today. We have one piece of hers in our collection (see here), and would be interested in more if they weren’t so huge (most are wall/mural sized images) – they really belong someplace like the DIA Beacon where they can breathe a bit more. This is one book on her work that we didn’t own, so I was glad to find it.
  • Robert Adams, The New West, originally printed in 1974, reissued by Aperture in 2008. We had been looking for this book for a long time, searching places like Abebooks or the Photo-Eye book auctions, to see if we could find an original copy that was reasonably priced. We’re not mylar covered book fanatics: we’re not interested in whether a book is a first edition, or has a mint dust jacket, is signed, or was owned by someone famous. We use photography books for reference, and we fill them with post-it notes and strips of paper, marking images we like. So we weren’t ready to pay $300-400 for The New West, even though we knew it was a great book. So thanks go out to Aperture for reissuing this, so we can have a perfect copy for a lot less.
  • Nino Migliori, Crossroads – Via Emila, 2006. We like Migliori’s work from the 1950s of walls and signs. This book brings together recent city/highway images that Migliori took along the Via Emila, which traverses Italy.
  • Nicholas Nixon, no date (although clearly recent), published by Tf. Editores (Spain). Everyone knows Nixon’s iconic series, The Brown Sisters. We had been looking for a monograph on all of his work, as we have an interest in his city scenes of Boston and his nudes of couples. This is just what we had been looking for.
  • In Plain Sight, The Photographs of Beaumont Newhall, 1983. Newhall was of course a well respected photography historian and curator. We have seen a few of his images at auction from time to time, and felt like it was time to have a monograph on his work in the library so we can better understand his entire career as an artist.
  • Peter Henry Emerson and American Naturalistic Photography, 2008, published by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, in conjunction with a traveling exhibit. This a well produced volume and a good looking exhibition (which I doubt we’ll see in person unfortunately). Since we are collectors of floral/botanical images, we are interested in how this catalog helps to trace the origins of American nature photography. We are fans of the work of Edwin Hale Lincoln (we have a couple of his images in our collection, here), and his work is included in this exhibit.
  • Modernist Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada, published 2007. We are suckers for books on collections. The process of collection building is endlessly interesting to us, so seeing other collections is always intriguing. Why did they choose a particular image by a particular artist (is it one of the “greatest hits” or an image more unknown)? Why this artist we have never heard of, versus one who is so obviously (to us) omitted? Why the focus on a certain period or group of artists? Did they go for breadth or depth? Always fascinating.

And there were half a dozen more that lost the final triage and were put back on the shelves for another time. It’s nearly impossible to walk out of the Strand without buying something. If this place isn’t already on your list, get down there and check it out.

Strand Books
828 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video From Japan @ICP

JTF (just the facts): Large group show, spanning all of the upstairs galleries and most of the downstairs as well. 13 artists represented by photography and video displays, as well as a series of photo books. ICP has prepared an excellent exhibition website to accompany the show (here), with details on each of the photographers. There is also a printed catalogue available.

Here is a quick list of the artists in the show:

Makoto Aida
Naoya Hatakeyama
Naoki Kajitani
Hiroh Kikai
Midori Komatsubara
Yukio Nakagawa
Asako Narahashi
Tsuyoshi Ozawa
Tomoko Sawada
Risaku Suzuki
Miwa Yanagi
Kenji Yanobe
Masayuki Yoshinaga
Comments/Context: This is a consistently thought-provoking and engaging show, well worth your time. I have had the good fortune to spend quite a bit of time in Japan over the years on business, and this exhibit touches on many different facets of the uniquely Japanese culture and psyche. Taken together, the show covers a broad array of working styles and engages a variety of provocative issues. I have selected a handful below to give you a feel for what’s on view:

Asako Narahishi: These series is made up of large color photographs of city and landscape scenes from the vantage point of half submerged in the ocean. Standing in front of them, they make you feel like you are drowning. I kept thinking that they were somehow representative of the Japanese fixation on being an island nation. As I thought back on seeing the exhibition several days later, these stuck out as memorable. She is also having a show at Yossi Milo of this same work (site here). (Asako Narahishi, Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water (Makuhari), 2001 at right. Copyright held by the artist.)

Tomoko Sawada: There is a mural sized image from her series School Days on the wall as you enter the exhibit and another image downstairs. At first glance, they appear to be standard school portraits, until you realize that the artist is every single one of the people in the picture. The works are startling, and bring home the nature of conformity in Japan, and the small ways that people express individuality inside this societal norm. I also began to wonder about the relationship of her work to that of Nikki Lee. (Tomoko Sawada, from the series School Days, 2004 at right. Copyright held by artist.)
Hiroh Kikai: While we are not portrait collectors, I think Kikai’s pared down Asakusa portraits stand up well to the best of the recognized masters. They are extremely well crafted, personal, and insightful. I was amazed at how consistently good they were (there are about a dozen in the exhibition).

Masayuki Yoshinaga: There is a digital slide show of Yoshinaga’s images of Harajuku girls and their “wicked style” (as Gwen Stefani would put it). While these feel a little anthropological, they are certainly fun. (Masayuki Yoshinaga, Goth-Loli: Ageha 24 Aoko 23, 2006 at right. Copyright held by the artist).

For me, there were two missing photographers. Where was Rinko Kawauchi, the “it girl” of Japanese photography? I also wonder about the omission of Osamu Kanemura and his Spider’s Strategy city scenes (Cohen Amador had a good show of this work last year.)

Collector’s POV: For our particular collection, the ikebana flower images of Yukio Nakagawa would be the best fit, although they definitely push the edges of what would be considered beautiful in a traditional Western sense. I also think the work of Naoya Hatakeyama and Naoki Kajitani merit some further exploration, for their images of cities. In general, I came away reminded that there is a ton of great work being done in Japan and that we as collectors need to stay better informed.
Rating: ** (2 stars) VERY GOOD (rating system defined here)
Through September 7th
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

Otto Steinert, Parisian Forms and Toni Schneiders, Fotographie/Photography

JTF (just the facts): Otto Steinert, Parisian Forms, published in 2008, in conjunction with an exhbition at the Museum Folkwang, Essen. 104 pages. In English. Toni Schneiders, Fotographie/Photography, published in 2008, in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum Bad Arolsen. 208 pages. In English and German.

Comments/Context: We have been trying to get educated about 1950s German photography for the past year or two, trying to figure out where it fits in the history of photography in general, and where to add representative examples to the city/industrial genre of our collection more particularly. There really haven’t been too many good monographs available in English on these artists, so it was great to see these two get published recently. They are well worth adding to your library.
Here’s what we know about 1950s German photography, in short form. After the second World War, there seems to have been a general rejection of the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity, which had been the prevailing photographic mind set of the 1920s and 1930s. The photographers wanted to get back to a more humanized, individualistic approach, in contrast to the colder, more objective viewpoint that had dominated the previous decades. A group of photographers, calling themselves the Fotoform, started to take German photography in this new direction. The founding members of this group were Toni Schneiders, Otto Steinert, Peter Keetman, Ludwig Windstosser, Siegfried Lauterwasser, and Wolfgang Reisewitz (Heinz Hajek-Halke would also join later). This group was the genesis of a movement, called Subjektive Fotographie or Subjective Photography, which encapsulated the ideas of these artists, and tried to offer a more moderate form of moderninsm.
What we have found really interesting is to place these artists and their work in the context of what was going on in American photography, and in the art world more generally. What we have found startling is to put the German work next to the work of Callahan and Siskind, and then again with the pillars of Abstract Expressionism, all of which who were working in the late 40s/early 50s. Try this combo:
(Harry Callahan, Untitled Light Study, 1946; Willem De Kooning, Painting, 1949; Otto Steinert, Luminogram, 1952).
Or this group:

(Barnett Newman, Onement III, 1949; Toni Scheniders, Signale, 1951; Aaron Siskind, Kentucky 15, 1951.)

This interaction, and reusing of similar forms and ideas, is worth exploring some more we think. How much contact did all these folks have? Or did they evolve separately from differening roots? Someone out there should do an exhibition on this, or a doctoral dissertation…
These two monographs provide broad sets of the work of Steinert and Schneiders, and should be considered Essential Reference, mostly due to the lack of excellent books on these artists in English.
Collector’s POV: Vintage work by these artists, and the rest of the Fotoform group, is remarkably affordable in our opinion. Great pieces can still be had in the $3000-10000 range, with superlative examples going somewhat higher. While you can’t find this work at Sotheby’s and Christie’s much if at all, we have found the work to be consistely available from the leading German auction houses (Villa Grisebach, Van Ham, Lempertz). On the gallery front, Kicken Berlin is the dominant player in this area in our view, with significant expertise and inventory. I hope they’ll comment on this post if I’ve missed anything important about this group or grossly misstated the facts in any way.
In general, if you are a collector with interest in Callahan and Siskind, Steinert and Schneiders are artists you should take the time to explore more fully.

Ruud van Empel, Moon World Venus

JTF (just the facts): Ruud van Empel, Moon World Venus, published in 2006, in conjunction with an exhibit at the Museum Het Valkhom, Nijmegen. 151 pages. In English and Dutch. (World #11, 2005 at right.)

Comments/Context: When I saw this book in a museum bookshop recently, I knew we had to have it for our library. Even though we don’t collect portraits, we’ve been interested in the Dutch artist’s work since we were introduced to it a few years ago. His large format portraits really jump off the wall at you, full of saturated color and mystery. When looking back a few decades from now, I think we will think of the 2000s as a time when digital manipulation first came into widespread use and photographers really began to use the new tools to actually rethink the practice of picture making, rather than for quick and cheap visual trickery.

van Empel’s work seems to reference and echo the art historial past in interesting ways. It is hard for me to look at his work and not be reminded of both the paintings of Henri Rousseau (see The Dream, 1910, below left) and the photographs of Mike Disfarmer (see Little Blond Girl, below right)

The van Empel potraits are very painterly, with lush, high precision tableaux set behind the figure. And yet the figures themselves are very straightforward. The combination lends the pictures as sense of impossibility, or innocence, or contrast, or an aura of sinister trouble awaiting. They’re definitely not boring, and not anything that could have been done before the advent of the new technology.
The monograph has a complete set of all of van Empel’s work to date, so the evolution and refinement of his ideas can be seen more clearly.

Collector’s POV: I think these images are going to hold up well over time. (Moon #1, 2005 at right.) They can also be paired/contrasted with the work of the German photographer Loretta Lux (her site is here), who is perhaps slightly better known here in the US and riffing on a similar theme. The work of both artists has begun to appear on the secondary market. The value of Lux’ work has been strong, consistently running in the $10000-20000 range, with quite a bit of material coming up for sale. There has been less of van Empel’s work in the auction market, so I’m not sure where the prices are shaking out, but my impression is that his prices are somewhat higher and rising fast.

Ruud van Empel’s artist site is here. He is represented in the US by Stux Gallery.

Polaroids: Mapplethorpe @Whitney

JTF (just the facts): 90 small black and white images, all approximately 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 (or the reverse), displayed in two rows, two images high, in white frames, in one room. Found in the hard to get to Mezzanine gallery (up to the top floor, through the permanent collection, down the back stairs by the Calders). Mostly portraits and self-portraits, with a mixture of other subjects as well. (Untitled (Self Portrait) 1973 at right. Copyright held by artist.)

Comments/Context: All of the images in this exhibition are from the period between 1970 and 1975, when Mapplethorpe was experimenting and learning how to be a photographer. Not surprisingly, there are many “exercises” in form, camera angle, framing, and the usage of light. The subject matter is the stuff of his everyday life: his friends, their apartments, their things. The images are intimate, personal, and sometimes lovely. (Untitled (Catherine Tennant’s House, London) 1973 at right. Copyright held by artist.) You can also see how Mapplethorpe was beginning to think about paring down an image, to get at its essence, even if that image was therefore a bit more staged.
As I walked through the show, I kept coming back to the similarities between this early work and the work of Francesca Woodman. (There was an excellent show of her work at Marian Goodman last fall.) Her photographs also have an experimental feel, with a personal, and feminine, point of view. It would be fascinating to see these two shown together.
Collectors POV: As collectors of floral/botanical images, Mapplethorpe is clearly a core artist for us, and adding one of the florals from this early work would help show the evolution of his style of image making. Nearly all the images in the exhibition are held by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation (website here), although a few Polaroids can be found out in the marketplace as well. Given Mapplethorpe’s popularity, there are a large number of galleries and dealers who carry his work (42 on artnet); we have had success working with Sean Kelly and Alison Jacques. At auction in the past few years, the Polaroids have been a relative bargain (compared to the iconic work), running in the $3000-7000 range.
Sylvia Wolf and the Whitney put out a nice monograph of the Polaroids in conjunction with the exhibition. While Mapplethorpe and The Complete Flowers would be Essential Reference on Mapplethorpe, this book is clearly POTS (Part of the Story) and therefore worth adding to your library.

Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating system defined here)
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Polaroids: Mapplethorpe
Through September 7th

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

Frank Gohlke: Where We Live – Queens, New York 2003-2004 @Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): 20 images of Queens, New York, in the main gallery. (See image at right, copyright held by artist.) Images are 20×24 (or the reverse), in editions of 15, most taken in 2003 and printed in 2008. A group of vintage material from the 1970s and 80s, entitled Frank Gohlke: Houses, is found in the smaller gallery with bookshelves. There are 11 images in this gallery.

Comments/Context: Going into this show, I was really primed to like it. We have been fans of Gohlke’s work for many years now and have two images from the 1970’s grain elevator series in our collection (see here). I had actually stuck the opening announcement card up on a bulletin board in our house, so as not to forget to see the exhibit.

So it was surprise for me to find, after wandering around the gallery a time or two, that I was underwhelmed. The introductory wall text (written by Gohlke) referred to the idea of “urban tomography”, where an image of the city would be assembled “in slices” (like the medical instrument does). This seemed to me to be another example of obtuse, overly analytical artist-speak. So I looked carefully again and again, hoping one or more images would jump off the wall at me. But they just stayed there, showing me quiet moments, of semi-suburban houses and street corners (with very few people, if any) in mixed neighborhoods. These are very well made pictures, with precise framing and meticulous printing, but I couldn’t, in the moment of seeing them for the first time, get my head around why this point of view mattered, and whether it had already been done before.

It seems this project was a commission by Queens College, where Gohlke and his friend Joel Sternfeld made a proposal to work in conjunction (where and when Sternfeld’s views of these same streets will surface isn’t known by me). So later that night, I started to think more about where I might have seen this work “before” (especially since he was a member of the original New Topographics exhibit) and where it might fit into a more historical context. After a quick dash over the bookshelves at home, I came up with half a dozen potentials to compare with the recent Queens work:

  • Robert Adams, 1970s images of Colorado from The New West: Adams’ images are much harder, with much more comment built in on the harshness of suburbanization. Gohlke’s Queens pictures are softer and more assimilating. Not a great match.
  • Lewis Baltz, late 1960s/early 1970s images from Tract Houses: Baltz‘ work is also harder, with more geometry and fragmentation. Gohlke’s images are more inclusive and less about pattern (although a few have fencing/latticework that provides visual interest). Not a great match.
  • John Divola, contemporary images from Isolated Houses: Divola’s large color images speak very much to isolation (hence their title I’m sure). Gohlke’s work seems to be more community-oriented. Not a great match.
  • Joel Sternfeld, early 1980s images from American Prospects: Sternfeld’s work has much more narrative going on, with people carefully placed and a edge of wry humor. The narrative in Gohlke’s work is much more subtle. Not a great match.
  • Lee Friedlander, contemporary images from Sticks and Stones: While there are some somewhat comparable images in this group, no one would ever mistake Friedlander’s flattened picture planes and patterns for the Gohlke work. Not a great match.
  • Henry Wessel, 1990s images from Real Estate Photographs: Wessel’s images of homes in Richmond, CA, taken with a straight forward approach seem to be closer in terms of noting how a community evolves its own look and feel. But they lack the tenderness that Gohlke has brought to the Queens pictures. Closer, but still not a great match.
  • Stephen Shore, mid 1970s images from Uncommon Places: Shore’s work of houses in this series, although in color, was the closest I could find in terms of aesthetic approach and overall tone.

So I found myself, standing in the living room, having exhausted my avenues of exploration (who did I miss?), slowing coming to the conclusion that there may have been more to these Gohlke pictures of Queens than I originally gave them credit for. While they fit into a larger context of work about suburbanization, assimilation, and Americanization, they are quieter (less showy), with more emphasis on community, and more generally positive than any of the other work I have identified. Certainly, they make sense in the context of the rest of his career. And maybe this “urban tomography” idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all. These images, taken together, provide an interesting window into Queens (and into America more generally), even if they aren’t as earth shaking in my view when taken as individual images.

So go and see this show before it closes. And don’t to the hit-and-run flyby we are all apt to do once in a while. Take the time to be patient with the work and allow it to bring you in.

Collector’s POV: Gohlke is generally under appreciated by collectors I think. The new images in this exhibit are retailing for $4000, with the vintage material in the other room ranging from $4000-7500. At auction in the past few years, Gohlke’s pictures have found their way to a range of about $3000-6000, although there haven’t been too many sold, and not many were his best images, so perhaps it is hard to plot a line from so few data points. The travelling retrospective of his work Accommodating Nature currently at the CCP, having started at the Amon Carter Museum, will likely increase the interest in his work.

The catalog from this retrospective show should go on your Essential Reference list, as should Measure of Emptiness, which focuses on the grain elevators.

Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating system defined here)

Frank Gohlke: Where We Live
Through August 22nd

Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Bernd and Hilla Becher: Landscape/Typology @ MoMA

JTF (just the facts): 14 typologies, totalling 186 individual images, displayed in the temporary exhibit space (1 large room with a dividing wall) adjacent to the series of rooms showing selections from the permanent collection of photography. 10 3×3 typologies, 2 3×10 typologies, and 2 3×6 typologies, covering most of the Bechers’ major subject matter groups: water towers, winding towers, coal tipples, blast furnaces, coal bunkers, gas tanks (Gas Tanks, 1971-1997 at right, copyright held by artist), cooling towers, and industrial landscapes. Most of the individual images are 14×11, except the industrial landscapes, which are 20×24.

Comments/Context: This is a terrific exhibit. Since the Bechers’ work has crossed over into the world of Contemporary Art (capitalized), it seems to me that you tend to see a single typology example of their work, set among a variety of other contemporary art (not photography). Rarely is such a large group of typologies assembled, which makes it all the more visually arresting. Much of the commentary on the Bechers’ work is full of words like systematic, functionalist, conceptual, pattern, forms, details and the like. And while these words do tell the story of the work, I came away with a few other ideas from this show.
The first is that the typologies are a profound exercise in theme and variation, in an almost musical sense. Much like Bach’s Art of the Fugue or Goldberg Variations, I found myself looking at these works as beginning with a melody line, and then each succeeding image adding a variation on that melody or harmony. (Water Towers 1966-1989 at left, copyright held by artist.) I also began to wonder whether my eye was actually traversing these typologies in a manner different than any other art, moving from left to right and down and back again to compare and contrast different images and forms.
The second idea was brought home by the Industrial Landscapes in the middle of the room. Virtually all of the Bechers work has the same dead-pan look: flat light, same camera angle, same framing, no people etc. They are devoid of context, omitting any information about their relationship to their environment. The Industrial Landscapes pan back and take in the whole setting of the structures. In many ways, I think these images are less successful than the frontal views, as the theme and variation idea breaks down quickly due to a lack of comparability. I do think however that by showing this work, which is fully “in context”, side by side with the “out of context” work, it makes the contrast more thought provoking.
The third idea was that I became more interested to know more about how the Bechers have taught photography at the Dusseldorf Art Academy (in contrast to methods used anywhere else in the world). With such esteemed pupils as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Hofer, and many others, I found myself wondering about the details of how they ran their classes, and whether there are more obvious or literal remnants/influences of their teachings in the work of the students. Their school is one of the most important sources of photography innovation in the last few decades: where is the exhibition tying all these folks together coherently?

Collector’s POV: The market for the Bechers’ work seems to be divided into three ranges: a low end range, where offset prints, mostly of diptychs, in large editions are available in the $1000-2000 range (all prices at auction); a mid range, which includes larger format gelatin silver prints of individual structures, small gelatin silver print diptychs, and other small gelatin silver print typologies, in the range of $15000-50000; and a high end range, with larger scale, iconic typologies of multiple images, at $75000 and up into six figures. (Series of Winding Tower and Coal Tipple typologies at right, copyright held by artist.)
We have been looking for just the right image from the Bechers to add to our collection for a while now, realizing that an amazing large typology doesn’t work for us for many reasons (size, cost, etc.). Our ideal would be to find a small, early gelatin silver diptych (typology on one side, single image on the other) that was well priced (ha!). This has been next to impossible so far, given the strong interest in the Bechers’ work. We thought we had found a good substitute this spring in the auction at Villa Grisebach, where a small working page diptypch (contact prints with glue and notations all over) from the Framework House series was available at a low estimate. Unfortunately, the image went for 5 times the high estimate, before the buyer’s premium! And in Euros as well. Ouch.
The Bechers are represented by Sonnabend Gallery and Fraenkel Gallery among others.
There is a series of excellent monographs put out by the MIT Press on the various Becher subject matter groups. Essential reference for your photo library.
Rating: ** (2 stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
Through August 25th
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Notes on the Link Lists

A few background comments on the various links we’re recommending on the right:

Galleries/Dealers: While we have met with and purchased from a wide variety of galleries and dealers from around the world over the years, the ones on the right have consistently provided us with both great material and great service. The best of these have spent time getting to know our collection and our aesthetic taste and have proactively introduced us to work that fits our point of view. They have truly acted like partners in the process of collection building and have become friends. More broadly, these galleries and private dealers put on excellent exhibitions, publish high quality catalogues and are a tremendous source of expertise and learning.

Auction Houses: All of the houses at right have semiannual (or more often) sales dedicated to photography and we have purchased from each of them at one point or another. Auction previews have been a great opportunity for us to see (and touch) a wide variety of world class work and to learn first hand from the specialists.

The houses in Europe offer a different slice of material than the US based houses, and provide excellent packing and shipping services to make it easy for foreign collectors to buy and sell. Many other smaller houses around the world are getting tuned into photography, so the market is getting broader.

Museums: These museums consistently offer thought provoking and challenging photography exhibitions (even the ones that don’t have a full time photography mandate). For the ones in our home city, we are members of the museum or at least visit often; for those out of town, we make a detour when we can.

Magazines/Newsletters: We read and subscribe to all the publications listed on the right. They each provide interesting/valuable insight into the world of photography and are worth your time/money.

Blogs: There are a multitude of blogs out there that have something interesting to say from time to time, so many that one can get lost just trying to keep up with them all. We find these blogs to be on a short list of those consistently worth checking out.

Let us know what we’ve missed in each category!

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