The Checklist: 5/23/13

Current New York Photography Shows
New reviews added this week in red.
(Rating: Artist/Title: Venue: Closing Date: link to review)

Uptown

ONE STAR: Chuck Close: Eykyn Maclean: May 24: review
ONE STAR: After Photoshop: Met: May 27: review
ONE STAR: Travess Smalley: Higher Pictures: June 1: review
TWO STARS: William Eggleston: Met: July 28: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Karine Laval: Bonni Benrubi: May 24: review
ONE STAR: Toshio Shibata/Toeko Tatsuno: Laurence Miller: May 25: review
ONE STAR: Alma Lavenson: Gitterman: June 1: review
ONE STAR: Charles Fréger: Gallery at Hermès: June 8: review
TWO STARS: Henry Wessel: Pace/MacGill: June 15: review
THREE STARS: Bill Brandt: MoMA: August 12: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Hannah Starkey: Tanya Bonakdar: May 25: review
ONE STAR: Sara VanDerBeek: Metro Pictures: June 8: review
ONE STAR: Ori Gersht: CRG: June 15: review
ONE STAR: Rodney Graham: 303: June 15: review
TWO STARS: Wolfgang Tillmans: Andrea Rosen: June 22: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

No reviews at this time.

Forward Auction Calendar
New auctions added this week in red.
(Sale Date: Sale Title: Auction House: link to catalog)

May 24: Photographie: Kunsthaus Lempertz (Cologne): catalog
May 24: Photographs from the Teutloff Collection: Kunsthaus Lempertz (Cologne): catalog
May 24: 8th Photo Auction: WestLicht (Vienna): catalog
May 29: Photographies: Sotheby's (Paris): catalog
May 29: Photographs: Villa Grisebach (Berlin): catalog
June 5: Photography: Galerie Bassenge (Berlin): catalog
June 14: Photographs: Van Ham (Cologne): catalog

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, May 16 and 17, 2013 @Phillips New York

The photography buried in Phillips' two Contemporary Art sales last week provided ample proof that if the available works are well edited and the Buy-In rate can be kept low, the overall results are usually plenty successful. In this case, less than 9% of the photographs on offer failed to find buyers, driving the Total Sale Proceeds over the top of aggregate pre-sale high estimate.

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

Total Lots: 34
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2680000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $3980000
Total Lots Sold: 31
Total Lots Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 8.82%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4073250

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: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 19
Mid Sold: 18
Mid Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 5.26%
Total Mid Estimate: $480000
Total Mid Sold: $568750

High Total Lots: 15
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 13.33%
Total High Estimate: $3500000
Total High Sold: $3504500

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 7, Andreas Gursky, Rhein, 1996, estimated at $1000000-1500000; it was also the top outcome of the sales at 1925000

82.35% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 3 surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 194, Andreas Gursky, Untitled 1 (Carpet), 1993, estimated at $60000-80000, sold at $173000 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 210, Vik Muniz, Valentine, The Fastest from The Sugar Children, 1996, estimated at $20000-25000, sold at $81250 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)
Lot 252, Ruud van Empel, World #16, 2006, estimated at $12000-18000, sold at $43750 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Phillips
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning, and Afternoon Sales, May 15 and 16, 2013 @Christie's New York

While Christie's was busy setting auction records and selling nearly half a billion dollars worth of Contemporary Art in the evening sale alone last week, the photography buried in its three sales didn't offer any particular lightning strikes or frothy exuberance. Of the just under $600 million in sales across the three sessions, a little less than $6.5 million came from photography, or a fraction more than 1% of the total proceeds. From the vantage point of the photography on offer, the overall Buy-In rate was just under 30% and the Total Sale Proceeds fell in the middle of the range, a generally predictable result all things considered.

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

Total Lots: 57
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $5178000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $7340000
Total Lots Sold: 40
Total Lots Bought In: 17
Buy In %: 29.82%
Total Sale Proceeds: $6440750

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: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 28
Mid Sold: 20
Mid Bought In: 8
Buy In %: 28.57%
Total Mid Estimate: $900000
Total Mid Sold: $730000

High Total Lots: 29
High Sold: 20
High Bought In: 9
Buy In %: 31.03%
Total High Estimate: $6440000
Total High Sold: $5710750

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 3, Andreas Gursky, Klitschko, 1999, estimated at $800000-1000000; it was also the top outcome of the sales at $1323750.

90.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range and there were a total of only two surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 424, Rodney Graham, Can of Worms, 2000, estimated at $15000-20000, sold at $47500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 487, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #54, 1980, estimated at $250000-350000, sold at $723750 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Morning), and here (Afternoon).

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Wolfgang Tillmans, from Neue Welt @Rosen

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 large scale color photographs, variously framed and displayed, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space, the connecting hallway, the back gallery, and the office area. Most of the works are inkjet prints on paper, some mounted on aluminum and framed in white, others unframed and clipped directly to the wall. These prints range in size from roughly 31x25 to 95x63 (or reverse) and are available in editions of 3+1AP or 1+1AP depending on size. 3 of the works are c-prints mounted on dibond and framed in white; they are each sized 93x71 (or reverse) and are available in editions of 1+1AP. The exhibit also includes a grid of 128 offset prints. All of the works were made between 2009 and 2012. Monographs of Neue Welt and Fruit Logistica were recently published by Taschen (here) and Walther König (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In his most recent work, Wolfgang Tillmans has set himself an audacious goal - to capture the astonishingly diverse spirit of our sprawling, global, hyper-connected, 21st century world. Bouncing from continent to continent over the past few years, he has made pictures in countless locations, from Jeddah to Buenos Aires, Shanghai to Addis Ababa, and Los Angeles to Munuwata, selecting moments that have the first glance look of random snapshots, but soon coalesce into a deeper set of underlying patterns and rhythms. In his hands, our complex world resolves itself into set of contradictions, finding an uneasy balance between confusingly interwoven and juxtaposed realities.

Tillmans has always thought deeply about editing and image sequencing, and this exhibit is no exception. It moves back and forth with directed purpose, mixing emblems of old and new in a point-counterpoint dialogue, the visual conversation interrupted occasionally by an elegant abstraction to turn the viewer back inward for just a moment. The broadness of the starry night sky over Kilimanjaro is matched by computerized laser astronomy tools, improvised markets of crouching women and outstretched tarps are offset by the perfect displays at a futuristic food tradeshow, and the natural, earthy growth of mushroom spores on a tree trunk is set against the sleek, engineered headlights of high tech cars at an auto show. His eye pushes us to see the simultaneity of disparity and difference all around us. The hopelessly poor streets of Addis Ababa clash with the shiny escalators of a Jeddah shopping mall, the soot encrusted roof of a Masai hut fights with the mundane sterility of a hotel room, and the timeless games on the nighttime streets of Shanghai disregard the modern metal buildings of Los Angeles. We are at once pushing forward with energy and innovation and dragged back to the roots of our existence.

Given the complexity of Tillmans' overall argument, it might be reasonable to assume that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts here, but there are more standout single images in this show than I can ever remember seeing in a Tillmans show. The car headlights are aggressively streamlined and technical, the fly perched on a mass of crab legs is bold and compositionally dense, and the water flowing out of a plastic pipe into the gutter is gracefully dirty. In this particular edit, his eye for color and detail is very strong, especially when he moves in close.

Trying to document the global zeitgeist is a perilous challenge, but Tillmans has found a way to represent the complexity of our age with remarkable coherence and legibility. His works capture both our lofty aspirations and our crude realities, without a sense of omniscient pretense or judgment. In these diverse photographs, he shows us all our glorious incongruity and discord, singling out its extremities with perceptive interest.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The inkjet prints range from $28000 to $68000 based on size, while the large c-prints from the Silver series are $90000 each. Tillmans' work is generally available in the secondary markets, with a handful of images on offer in most auction seasons. Recent prices have generally ranged between $2000 and $90000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), New Yorker (here)

Wolfgang Tillmans, from Neue Welt
Through June 22nd

Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auctions: Photography and Contemporary Art, May 24, 2013 @Lempertz

Kunsthaus Lempertz has both a various owner Photography sale and a Contemporary Art sale this Friday in Cologne. The photo auction is headlined by a series of mushroom cloud images from the atomic bomb tests in the Bikini Islands in 1946, but together the two sales cover a wide range of styles and periods. Overall, there are a total of 227 lots of photography on offer, with a Total High Estimate of €556200.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including €7500): 214
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): €389200

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between €7500 and €35000): 13
Total Mid Estimate: €167000

Total High Lots (high estimate above €35000): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is tied between two lots: lot 22, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Portrait Ellen Frank, 1929, and lot 560, Thomas Ruff, Ohne Titel (B. Junger), 1985 (image at right, top, via Lempertz), both estimated at €20000-25000.

Here's the list of photographers who are represented by three or more lots in the sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Joint Army Task Force One (12)
Thomas Struth (5)
Max Baur (4)
Bernd and Hilla Becher (4)
Gisele Freund (4)
Jörg Sasse (4)
Jan Saudek (4)
Ilse Bing (3)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (3)
William Klein (3)
Heinrich Kühn (3)
David LaChapelle (3)
Joel Meyerowitz (3)
Thomas Ruff (3)
Toni Schneiders (3)
Wolfgang Tillmans (3)
Weegee (3)

Other works of interest include lot 110, Jaroslav Rössler, Reflexionswinkel, 1960, estimated at €1500-2000 (image at right, middle, via Lempertz) and lot 196, Jörg Sasse, S-89-07-01. Giessen, 1989, estimated at €1200 (image at right, bottom, via Lempertz).

The complete lot by lot online catalogs can be found here (Photography) and here (Contemporary Art).

Photography
May 24th

Contemporary Art
May 24th

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
D-50667 Köln

Auction: Photographs from the Teutloff Collection, May 24, 2013 @Lempertz

In addition to its usual various owner sale, Kunsthaus Lempertz has a single owner photography sale later this week in Cologne drawn from the collection of Dr. H.C. Lutz Teutloff. It's a challenging, risk taking collection, the works connected by the common theme of the human body. The catalog is loosely divided into sections including nudes, tattooed bodies, religion, and various other portraits and collections of bodies, many closer to experimental than classic. Overall, there are a total of 99 lots of photography on offer, with a Total High Estimate of €436500.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including €7500): 82
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): €232500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between €7500 and €35000): 17
Total Mid Estimate: €204000

Total High Lots (high estimate above €35000): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is lot 313, Hendrik Kerstens, Bag, 2007, estimated at €15000-20000 (image at right, top, via Lempertz).

Here's the list of photographers who are represented by two or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Robert Doisneau (3)
Jürgen Klauke (3)
Dieter Appelt (2)
Roger Ballen (2)
Christian Boltanski (2)
Lucien Clergue (2)
Nan Goldin (2)
Bill Henson (2)
Eikoh Hosoe (2)
Yousuf Karsh (2)
Robert Lebeck (2)
Stefan Moses (2)
Mario Cravo Neto (2)
Eva Schlegel (2)
Valie Export (2)

Other works of interest include lot 343, Jürgen Klauke, Toter Photograph, 1988, estimated at €14000-18000 (image at right, bottom, via Lempertz) and lot 366, Roger Ballen, Puppy Between Feet, 1999, estimated at €2000-3000 (image at right, middle, via Lempertz).

The complete lot by lot online catalog can be found here.

Photographs from the Teutloff Collection
May 24th

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
D-50667 Köln

Ori Gersht: Cells @CRG

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 large scale color photographs and 1 video installation, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the front, middle, and side galleries, with a curtained off viewing room in the back for the video. All of the photographs are c-prints mounted on dibond, made in 2013. Sizes range from 48x47 to 60x68 (or reverse) and all of the prints are available in editions of 8+2AP. The video is a three screen HD video projection with media players, made in 2012, also available in an edition of 8+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Following up on his recent series of energetic exploding flowers, this show of new work finds Ori Gersht moving in several different directions simultaneously. It mixes almost scientific abstraction with more traditional images of the geometric space of bull pens, paired with a three channel video installation that traces the methodical preparations and movements of a Spanish bullfighter. Thematically, they all fit together into one interconnected impression, but individually, they are quite visually and emotionally distinct.

The best works in the show are the red circular abstractions made by adding drops of red blood to pools of white milk. Up close, the splashes of red are fascinatingly veined and organic, slowly turning from almost black in the center to filigrees of disappearing pink at the edges; they wave and stretch and dissolve with thick pulsating richness. When placed in the context of Jewish traditions and the prohibition against mixing these two, the works take on an overtly transgressive, almost creepy, tone. They're stop motion Harold Edgerton meets taboo testing Andres Serrano, with compositional help from Ken Noland.

The second series of photographs on view documents the interior spaces of the empty holding pens at the bull ring. The rough wood doors are scarred and scraped and the white cells are muddied by hoof prints and dirty brushing flanks. The photographs are rigidly geometric, turning doorways into flat rectangles (almost like Sean Scully paintings) and cells into corner bisected triangles. They balance absent violence with aesthetic simplicity, the spaces steeped in their function even when quiet and empty. The video amplifies this meditative quality, following the matador as he slowly and deliberately dons his grandly embroidered costume, elegantly meets the bull in the dusty cloud of the ring, and then returns to undress with the same reverence and grace. Flanked by slow moving fragments of royal portrait paintings on the side screens, the video emphasizes the thoughtfulness of the ritual, and its measured, respectful application.

When seen in the company of these reverential views of bullfighting, the milk and blood abstractions seem even more profane and unexpected; they bring us back to the gore that is left out of Gersht's gestural dance in the ring. In many ways, the cell pictures and matador video are a well matched supporting cast to drive home the surprising vulgarity of the abstract blood drops. Without their context, we might just see bright red swirling vortex circles, and miss the underlying ceremony of blood letting.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at either $20000 (Love Me Love Me Not blood series) or $22000 (Cells series). Gersht's work has only been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years. Prices for the few lots that have sold at auction have ranged between $3000 and $20000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Exhibit: Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 2012 (here)

Ori Gersht: Cells

Through June 15th

CRG Gallery
548 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Evening and Day Sales, May 14 and 15, 2013 @Sotheby's New York

When Andreas Gursky's Rhein II sold for just over $4.3 million dollars in 2011, setting the record for the top price ever paid at auction for a photograph, the result created a flood of commentary in the popular press. Some writers took the approach of considering the sale of the Gursky as a signpost for the ever increasing value of contemporary photography in comparison to other types of contemporary art, while others opted for the snarkier "would you pay that kind of money for a boring river landscape?" kind of hatchet job. In both cases, there was plenty of hue and cry over a photograph garnering such astronomical sums and plenty of speculation about what it all might mean.

 

Last week, the Jeff Koons photograph shown above, The New Jeff Koons, from 1980, sold for $9405000 and hardly a peep was heard from either the photography press or the mainstream art media. For the record, the work is a Duratrans transparency displayed on a lightbox (the power cord is just visible in the lower left). Duratrans is a color transparency material developed by Kodak in the late 1970s that is generally used for backlit photographic signage, tradeshow booths, and TV studio displays. So apart from the technical hairsplitters who will want to consider the printing differences between this process and that used by Jeff Wall for his color transparencies, I think we are safe in calling this work a "photograph", especially given the way the work is presented and Koons' options in 1980 when he made the work. In an age when the definition of "photograph" has been extended in so many different ways, I don't think I'm out on a limb in any way in including this particular image under the larger umbrella of the medium. So shouldn't we be having an overheated debate about the merits of Koons' early image, where it fits in his artistic development, where it belongs in the history of photographic portraiture, and whether its recent price is in any way correlated its overall importance? Didn't we just more than double the top price ever paid for a photograph?

In the context of the photography buried in Sotheby's pair of Contemporary Art sales last week, there's nothing like a work estimated at $2.5-3.5M selling for $9.4M to pump up the results numbers. More generally, the overall Buy-In rate was up over 35% and there were hardly any positive surprises beyond the Koons, so while we might have predicted a less than stellar overall outcome, the astonishing success of the Koons drowns out any other statistical analysis we might normally make.

As usual, the summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Photography Lots: 53
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $7086000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $10018000
Total Lots Sold: 33
Total Lots Bought In: 20
Buy In %: 37.74%
Total Sale Proceeds: $13291625

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: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 22
Mid Sold: 15
Mid Bought In: 7
Buy In %: 31.82%
Total Mid Estimate: $618000
Total Mid Sold: $485000

High Total Lots: 31
High Sold: 18
High Bought In: 13
Buy In %: 41.94%
Total High Estimate: $9400000
Total High Sold: $12806625

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 9, Jeff Koons, The New Jeff Koons, 1980, estimated at $2500000-3500000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $9405000 (image at top, via Sotheby's).

93.94% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were only two surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 9, Jeff Koons, The New Jeff Koons, 1980, estimated at $2500000-3500000, sold at $9405000
(image at right, top, via Sotheby's)
Lot 604, Ashley Bickerton, The Expats, 2004, estimated at $30000-50000, sold at $100000 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Auction Results: Photographs, May 15, 2013 @Christie's London

The parade of Peter Beard prints in Christie's recent various owner Photographs sale in London held up well, pushing the Total Sale Proceeds for the auction solidly into the middle of the pre-sale estimate range. With an overall Buy-In rate under 30% and a number of positive surprises, the sale easily met expectations.

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

Total Lots: 108
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1159000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1678000
Total Lots Sold: 76
Total Lots Bought In: 32
Buy In %: 29.63%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1485375

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

Low Total Lots: 13
Low Sold: 11
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 15.38%
Total Low Estimate: £51000
Total Low Sold: £65125

Mid Total Lots: 75
Mid Sold: 52
Mid Bought In: 23
Buy In %: 30.67%
Total Mid Estimate: £827000
Total Mid Sold: £722900

High Total Lots: 20
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 7
Buy In %: 35.00%
Total High Estimate: £800000
Total High Sold: £697350

The top lot by High estimate was lot 19, Peter Beard, Giraffes in mirage on the Taru Desert, Kenya for the End of the Game, June 1960, 1960/1997, at £50000-70000; it sold for £85875. The top outcome of the sale was lot 25, Peter Beard, Tsavo National Park, founded April Fool's Day, 1948, 1968/1997, estimated at £40000-60000, sold at £103875.

97.37% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were a total of nine surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 1, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Nude on beach, California, 1948/1988, estimated at £5000-7000, sold at £16250
Lot 2, Javier Vallhonrat, Inner edge, the Possessed Space, 1991, estimated at £2000-3000, sold at £10000
Lot 8, Helmut Newton, Henrietta, beginning of the Big Nudes, Vogue Studio, Paris, 1981, estimated at £6000-8000, sold at £22500
Lot 15, Horst P. Horst, Narcissus, O.B., N.Y., 1992, estimated at £8000-12000, sold at £27500
Lot 30, Andy Warhol, Self-portrait, 1986, estimated at £10000-15000, sold at £30000 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 43, Josef Koudelka, Spain, 1979/later, estimated at £4000-6000, sold at £14375 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)
Lot 78, Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1977/2008, estimated at £3000-5000, sold at £13750
Lot 89, Nick Brandt, Elephant group on bare earth, Amboseli, 2008, estimated at £15000-20000, sold at £55875
Lot 93, Marcus Lyon, Exodus VI, West Lamma Channel, South China Sea, 2011, estimated at £5000-7000, sold at 5£2275 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's
8 King Street, St. James's
London SW1Y 6QT

Rodney Graham @303

JTF (just the facts): A total of 4 large scale color works, mounted in painted aluminum light boxes, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. Each of the works is one or more chromogenic transparencies (single image, diptych, or triptych), made in 2012 and 2013. Individual panel sizes range from 93x60 to 120x72, and the works are available in editions of 4+1AP or 5+1AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The characters in Rodney Graham's most recent self-portraits have a going-through-the-motions world weariness that softens the wry comedy of his carefully staged scenes. While Graham's works have always had an underlying edge of ridiculousness, these new single frame stories capture their subjects at moments when their years seem to be catching up with them, when tedium, ennui, and what-might-have-been are weighing more heavily.

Graham's interest in the reinterpretation of images from art history continues here, with two works that reference famous paintings. Echoing Eakins' The Champion Single Sculls, Graham replaces the wiry oarsman in the painting with his own bearded frame in a preciously fancy wooden canoe, the active boaters and arched viaduct in the painting replaced by a rusty trestle bridge and an industrial park in the distance. Graham's scene finds a much different mood, a futile, trying-too-hard effort to capture lost glory. His Cactus Fan is a similar recasting, taking Spitzweg's original The Cactus Enthusiast and placing it in a science lab context, replacing the bowing windowsill examination of specimens with an aging professor gloomily staring at a jolly gift basket arrangement of a cactus and some attached balloons. In Graham's scene, the cactus almost seems to be mocking the scientist, an almost incomprehensible third place prize for not-quite success.

The other two works on display follow this same pattern of past-their-prime protagonists. While hanging drywall might normally be a young man's task, Graham poses himself up on metal stilts, taking a smoke break while the tape and spackle dry behind him, the seen-it-all boredom palpable in his stance. And Graham's too old punk, his hair gelled into a mohawk and sporting a studded leather jacket, uses a graffiti-covered payphone, a left behind throwback in a world that has moved on.

Graham's humor is full of self-deprecating realism, a quiet acknowledgement of the small absurdities of these aging characters. These newest pictures are stronger than the last batch, their emotional context much more nuanced and less overtly ironic. Graham's teasing and spoofery is still there, but its arrows hit closer to home. In these works, his gibes mix with a deeper sense of plausibly authentic emotion, making the vignettes more rounded than just quick caricatures.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced between $250000 and $650000, based on size. Graham's photographs are only intermittently available in the secondary markets, with recent prices ranging from roughly $5000 to $185000; with so few lots to chart, these prices may not be entirely representative of the market for his work.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), GalleristNY (here)

Rodney Graham
Through June 15th

303 Gallery
507 West 24th Street (new location)
New York, NY 10011

Travess Smalley, Capture Physical Presence @Higher Pictures

JTF (just the facts): A total of 6 large scale photographic works, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique pigment prints, made in 2011. Physical sizes range from 42x32 to 47x34. This is the artist's first solo show in New York. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Travess Smalley is out exploring the undefined borderlands of what we used to traditionally call photography. Using neither camera nor darkroom, he has instead married a flatbed scanner with the digital manipulations of Photoshop, pushing aesthetic boundaries by capturing, editing, printing, and cutting in a never ending circle of iterative digital collage. What separates Smalley from the growing legion of slick Photoshop jockeys and their crisp digital mashups is his incorporation of the tactile and the physical, or more broadly, his innovate way of connecting the immediacy of authentic texture with the power of software in a kind of lo-tech/hi-tech hybrid.

The cut paper abstraction has always been a staple of art school photographic experimentation, but Smalley's version of this studio practice is dynamic and multi-layered rather than muted and static, less about the nuances of falling light and more about the action of repetitive stratified creation. Construction paper is Xacto knifed into arcs and angles, then arranged and scanned, the process leaving behind tiny ghosts and shadows like the edges of photocopied zines. Color and pattern run the gamut from fine gradients and tight repetitions to expressive gestural lines and swirling psychedelic blobs. Gritty grainy texture is always present, no matter how frenetic and complex the compositions get - there is always a sense of being grounded in some kind of physical reality, even when highly engineered modifications are taking place. Piled into layer upon layer of overlapping, obscuring forms and then flattened back to one plane by the scanner, the works have a vitality and energy that isn't often associated with cut paper photocollage.

In these works, Smalley is testing the limits of modern photographic image construction in smart ways. Instead of falling into the trap of being satisfied with the capabilities of the ubiquitous digital environment, he has found a way to reintroduce the rough and hand-crafted back into the conversation. His abstractions combine contrasting elements of perfection and imperfection, never letting one side dominate the other.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced at $13000 each. At this early point in his career, Smalley's work has no secondary market history, so gallery retail is really the only option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Feature: L Magazine (here)
• Interview: Future Shipwreck (here)

 

Travess Smalley, Capture Physical Presence

Through June 1st

Higher Pictures

980 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10075

The Checklist: 5/16/13

Current New York Photography Shows
New reviews added this week in red.
(Rating: Artist/Title: Venue: Closing Date: link to review)

Uptown

ONE STAR: Chuck Close: Eykyn Maclean: May 24: review
ONE STAR: After Photoshop: Met: May 27: review
TWO STARS: William Eggleston: Met: July 28: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Karine Laval: Bonni Benrubi: May 24: review
ONE STAR: Toshio Shibata/Toeko Tatsuno: Laurence Miller: May 25: review
ONE STAR: Alma Lavenson: Gitterman: June 1: review
ONE STAR: Charles Fréger: Gallery at Hermès: June 8: review
TWO STARS: Henry Wessel: Pace/MacGill: June 15: review
THREE STARS: Bill Brandt: MoMA: August 12: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Charles Fréger: Yossi Milo: May 18: review
ONE STAR: Bryan Graf: Yancey Richardson: May 18: review
ONE STAR: Peter Piller: Andrew Kreps: May 18: review
ONE STAR: Hannah Starkey: Tanya Bonakdar: May 25: review
ONE STAR: Sara VanDerBeek: Metro Pictures: June 8: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Michele Abeles: 47 Canal: May 19: review

Elsewhere Nearby

No reviews at this time.

Forward Auction Calendar
New auctions added this week in red.
(Sale Date: Sale Title: Auction House: link to catalog)

May 16: Post-War and Contemporary Art (Morning): Christie's (New York): catalog
May 16: Post-War and Contemporary Art (Afternoon): Christie's (New York): catalog
May 16: Contemporary Art (Evening): Phillips (New York): catalog
May 17: Contemporary Art (Day): Phillips (New York): catalog
May 17: Photographs and Photobooks: Bloomsbury (London): catalog
May 18: Post War/Contemporary/Collection of Joshua P. Smith: Rago (Lambertville): catalog
May 24: Photographie: Kunsthaus Lempertz (Cologne): catalog
May 24: Photographs from the Teutloff Collection: Kunsthaus Lempertz (Cologne): catalog
May 24: 8th Photo Auction: WestLicht (Vienna): catalog
May 29: Photographies: Sotheby's (Paris): catalog
May 29: Photographs: Villa Grisebach (Berlin): catalog

Sara VanDerBeek @Metro Pictures

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 color photographs and 8 sculptures, hung against white walls in the three adjoining gallery spaces on the first floor. All of the photographs are digital c-prints made in 2013, framed in white and unmatted, in some cases covered by tinted Plexiglas (pink/blue) or mirrored Mirona glass. Sizes range from 20x16 to 96x48, and all the prints are available in editions of 3 (two of the works are diptychs). The modular sculptures are made from concrete and latex paint, and were also made in 2013. (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Sara VanDerBeek's new show is an exercise in atmosphere, where contrasts of shape, texture, color and scale are mixed with muted subtlety. Classical curves are matched by rough Minimalism, creating a back and forth dialogue between forms. The result is a loosely wandering rhythm, the whole of the installation trumping the power of any one contributing work.

 

The first room of the exhibit is balanced by four oversized images of Classical female sculpture, cropped down to sinuous bending torsos. Elegant bodies in soft white and enveloping black are paired with colorized partners in hybrid pink and blue, creating a calm sense of elemental grace. Flanked by tall corner-shaped concrete columns in stark white, the visual conversation moves between simple refinement and pared down, blunt geometry. The last room in the show follows this same pattern, capturing rounded female heads in bronze and marble in similar dusky pink and blue tonalities, once again offset by the rigid, rectilinear lines of the nearby sculpture.

 

The works in the main gallery space take these contrasts in a more abstract and ephemeral direction, combining a colonnade of vertical blocks with a series of shifting color studies in pink and blue. Up close, the photographs are full of grainy splashes and misty gradients, drifting between foggy billows and textural oxidations. From afar, their surfaces are mirrored, so they bounce reflections around the room, echoing the spatial relationships between the visitors, the color fields, and the white concrete pillars. While I think I understood the intention here, to my eye, this mirroring became a distraction, making it nearly impossible to see the nuanced variations in the photographs with any clarity; the photographs lost their diaphanous mystery when covered up by recognizable reflections, especially when the gallery was crowded.

 

While this installation is successful in creating a dreamlike mood and making a visual point about contrasts, I think only a handful of the torso images can really function successfully as stand alone photographs; the rest really require the proximity of the columnar sculptures to resonate fully. Overall, I came away more intrigued by what VanDerBeek was discovering in the fleeting in-between spaces between these artworks than with the individual pieces themselves.

 

Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are priced between $6000 and $30000 based on size. VanDerBeek's work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail is still likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Feature/Review: New York Times (here)
• Interview: Aperture (here)

 

Sara VanDerBeek

Through June 8th

 

Metro Pictures

519 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Photographs, May 8, 2013 @Phillips London

Phillips' various owner Photographs sale in London last week delivered solid, workmanlike results. With a Buy-In rate just over 30% and Total Sale Proceeds that found the middle of the estimate range, it generally performed according to plan.

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

Total Lots: 123
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1184000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1676500
Total Lots Sold: 86
Total Lots Bought In: 37
Buy In %: 30.08%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1291750

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

Low Total Lots: 49
Low Sold: 36
Low Bought In: 13
Buy In %: 26.53%
Total Low Estimate: £182500
Total Low Sold: £159375


Mid Total Lots: 59
Mid Sold: 41
Mid Bought In: 18
Buy In %: 30.51%
Total Mid Estimate: £714000
Total Mid Sold: £574125

High Total Lots: 15
High Sold: 9
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 40.00%
Total High Estimate: £780000
Total High Sold: £558250

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 32, Nobuyoshi Araki, 77 works, n.d., estimated at £100000-120000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at £110500.

96.51% of the lots that sold had proceeds above or in the estimate range, and there were 5 positive surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 63, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ice Skating Waiter, St. Moritz, Switzerland, 1932/later, estimated at £6000-8000, sold at £16250 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 73, Elliott Erwitt, New York City, 1974/later, estimated at £1500-2500, sold at £5250
Lot 112, Albert Watson, Monkey With Gun, New York City, 1992, estimated at £2000-3000, sold at £6000 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 117, Loretta Lux, The Drummer, 2004, estimated at £4000-6000, sold at £13750 (image at right, middle via Phillips)
Lot 122, Helmut Newton, Sumo, estimated at £2500-3500, sold at £10000

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Toshio Shibata and Toeko Tatsuno: Given @Miller

JTF (just the facts): A two artist show containing a total of 13 black and white and color photographs by Toshio Shibata and 12 paintings by Toeko Tatsuno. Shibata's photographs are a mix of c-prints and gelatin silver prints, framed in white and matted/unmatted, and made between 1989 and 2008. His prints come in three sizes: 20x24 (in editions of 25), 32x40 (in editions of 10), and 40x50 (in editions of 10). There are 9 color works and 4 black and white works on view, split between the main gallery space, the entry area, and the smaller print room. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Toshio Shibata doesn't come from the cherry blossom in springtime school of Japanese landscape photography. His interest lies the intersection of the man-made and the natural, not so much the harsh contrasts of the American New Topographics photographers but something more tightly integrated and humanized. Paired with the geometric abstractions of Toeko Tatsuno in this back and forth show, his eye for linear pattern and sculptural form comes through even more clearly.

Stone retaining walls, concrete spillways, landslide nets, and reservoir dams are the main characters in Shibata's natural drama. Patchwork combinations of bricks, squares, and herringbone patterns dot the hillsides, intermixed with scrubby greenery and erosion mediating trees. His waterscapes turn man-made waterfalls into flat curtains of flowing white, adding an element of passing time to his images; concrete blocks and other debris bob in swirling eddy pools and at the bottom of still runoff areas. Whether using the girders of a bridge or the edge of a waterfall, Shibata manages his lines and angles with precision, seeing landscape as rigid structure, even when it is a line of trees or the rusty residue falling from a drainpipe.

Toeko Tatsuno's blocky stacks and ladder-like bookcase forms provide an insightful foil for Shibata's focus on man-made abstraction. In this context, his compositions resolve even further into systems of line, a rope of buoys becoming a graceful arc and a tethered net turning into an obtuse triangle. Shibata's landscapes depict this strict human-imposed order not as ugliness or interference, but as something graceful and well-integrated, finding harmony where others have found dissonance.

Collector's POV: The Shibata photographs in this show are priced between $3500 and $25000, based on size and place in the edition. His prints have not developed a consistent presence in the Western secondary markets; only a handful of lots have come up for recent public sale, fetching prices between $1500 and $7500, but these prices may not be entirely representative of the broader market for his work. As such, gallery retail may be the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Shibata exhibit: @Peabody Essex Museum, 2013 (here)
• Shibata interview: Eyecurious (here)

 

Toshio Shibata and Toeko Tatsuno: Given

Through May 25th

 

Laurence Miller Gallery

20 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10019

Photography in the 2013 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 5 of 5

Part 1 of this five-part Frieze report can be found here. Start there for introductory background and explanatory notes.

Galleri Nicolai Wallner (here): Joachim Koester, $8000. In a fair full of bright, shiny things, Koester's all white snowscapes stood out in quiet, nuanced, contrarian defiance.

ProjecteSD (here): Jochen Lempert, €7000. A simple, well executed exercise in dappled light, leafy shadow, and shimmering all over movement.

Altman Siegel (here): Sara VanDerBeek, $16000. While VanDerBeek's Metro Pictures show is already in my review queue, this elegant tilted sculptural interpretation isn't part of that exhibit. The skewed frame aligns with the angles of the arms and offsets the verticality of the subject.

Sprüth Magers (here): Thomas Demand, €75000. Indoor plants in fancy modern planters for a windowless office are already an odd creation, but when they are abstracted even further into cut-paper constructions by Demand, controlled nature becomes even more artificial.

Team Gallery (here): Ryan McGinley, $50000. This whole booth was filled with recent large scale McGinley nudes, with young men and women in various states of falling, lying, and running around. This nighttime mix of fire and water is certainly dramatic and full of exuberance, like some secret ritual.

Alexander Gray Associates (here): Lorraine O'Grady, $25000. Up-close hair becomes an undulating textural landscape.

Murray Guy (here): Zoe Leonard, $25000. This booth had a selection of mid-1990s animal images by Leonard, taken during a multi-year stay in Alaska. While the animals were hunted by the artist, the images have the feel of taxidermy or staged diorama, but with an edge of rawness.

White Cube (here): Jeff Wall, $450000. This was the only work by Wall I saw at Frieze, a small backyard study of poppies and scrubby greenery.

Sfeir-Semler Gallery (here): Walid Raad, $25000. Images of minimal paintings hung in white, formless, galleries, the corollary of Louise Lawler, where context tells us nothing.