From one photography collector to another: a venue for thoughtful discussion of vintage and contemporary photography via reviews of recent museum exhibitions, gallery shows, photography auctions, photo books, art fairs and other items of interest to photography collectors large and small.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Auction: Photography and Photography Books, December 2, 2009 @Bassenge
Here's the breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 443
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 403130€
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 5
Total Mid Estimate: 53000€
Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 0
Total High Estimate: NA
The top lot by High estimate is lot 4095, Carl Ferdinand Stelzner, Portrait of Harro Harring, 1848, at 15000€.
Here's a list of the photographers who are represented by five or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):
Floris Neususs (9)
August Sander (7)
Leopoldo Alinari (6)
Andreas Groll (6)
Leni Riefenstahl (5)
James Robertson (5)
Woodbury & Page (5)
Images of interest for our collection include:
Lot 4120 Max Baur, Flower images, 1930s
Lot 4173 Imogen Cunningham, Water Hyacinth II, 1910/1060s (the first date is incorrect)
Lot 4212 Miroslav Hak, Female nude, 1950s
Lot 4242 Peter Keetman, Volkswagen factory, 1953/1990s
Lot 4359 Peter Stackpole, Construction of the Bay Bridge, 1936/1980s
Lot 4377 Sasha Stone, Female nude, 1933
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
Photography and Photography Books
December 2nd
Galerie Bassenge
Erdener Straße 5a
14193 Berlin
Robert Bergman, A Kind of Rapture @Yossi Milo
Comments/Context: In the past month or so, the photography press has been full of the underdog makes good story of the photographer Robert Bergman. After toiling in self-imposed obscurity for decades and intermittently digesting more than his fill of rejection and discouragement, Bergman now has three shows on simultaneously: museum exhibits at the National Gallery and PS1, and this show at Yossi Milo. The works on view at all three locations were published in a monograph in 1998, so it's taken a more than a decade for these exhibitions to come to fruition.
Part of the reason I think Bergman's work was backburnered for so long is that it almost perfectly contrarian: it rejects virtually all of the major trends that have dominated contemporary photography in recent years - it is not cool or detached, it is not staged, it makes no appropriations, it isn't interested in process, it is not manipulated or altered, it has no biting commentary, conceptual framework or ironic viewpoint. That said, I don't think Bergman made his pictures to buck the trends or thumb his nose at the establishment; my guess is that he just wasn't very interested by all of what has been going on and instead closed himself off and looked back to the traditions of painting for his education.
When we apply the word painterly to photography, it is often used to describe color used in different ways (Impressionistic, Expressionistic etc.) or to explain surface texture reminiscent of hand applied paint (Pictorialism, Pointilism etc.). Bergman's lush, saturated portraits are unabashedly painterly, but in an entirely different manner. They are structurally painterly, formally composed in such a way as to draw on the lessons of the Old Masters, where attention is focused on the face of the sitter, and the rest of the elements of composition (hair, clothing, background, even color itself) are used as carefully controlled supporting features to enhance the overall feeling of the work.
All of the images in the show are head or torso shots, blown up to larger than life size. The best of the works are penetrating, evocative and viscerally human: the visage of the man in the tan fur-lined coat clutching a book with his long fingers (reproduced above) stares powerfully out from the frame. Bergman's portrait of this man could easily hold the wall with an Old Master portrait of a priest or nobleman; they draw on the same aesthetic conventions, albeit with different subject matter. To my eye, a handful of the works in this show rise to this searing level of success, the rest falling back into well-crafted if less than entirely moving street portraits of people from all walks of life. I also think that many of close-up heads are printed too big; they would work better and capture a more intimate mood if scaled to match normal human proportions.
Overall, I think it is no accident that Bergman's portraits have resurfaced during these uncertain economic times. Perhaps we are searching for a much needed dose of authenticity, of real people with less than perfect lives with whom we can empathize. We need somewhere to project our own anxieties and see reflected back some unexpected strength of spirit, and Bergman's portraits fill this niche in a way that few others have bothered to consider.
Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $12500 each. Bergman's work is not available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is the only option for interested collectors at this point.Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
- Exhibits: NGA (here), PS1 (here)
- Book: A Kind of Rapture, 1998, Pantheon (here)
- Features: WSJ (here), Washington Post (here), New York (here)
- Interview: Brooklyn Rail (here)
Through January 9th
Yossi Milo Gallery
525 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Touhami Ennadre, Under New York @Priska Juschka
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Comments/Context: Entering Touhami Ennadre's current show is like walking into the mouth of a cave; the dark space is indistinct and amorphous, until you stand for a moment and let your eyes adjust, and then the objects on the walls come into somewhat clearer view. Even then, each piece requires an intimate viewing, as it's often impossible to identify the shadowy subjects without a close, face near the frame inspection.
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There are two separate sets of work intermingled in this exhibit, both playing off the enshrouding effects of darkness. In Bodies of Night, Ennadre has captured the nocturnal activities of people in clubs: dancing, embracing, and even tied up in ropes. In these pictures, the inky darkness is a form a freedom, an enabler to get sweaty and close, to be who they really are, to let loose or to act out their fantasies, protected by the anonymity of the night. In Under New York, the blackness of the pictures plays a different role: here it envelops homeless people, huddled on the subway or on the streets, isolating their struggles and hiding them from view; the darkness has an erasing effect, turning these people into rumpled bundles of rags.
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Of the two, I think the Under New York series is slightly more successful. In these works, since there are no faces, the subjects have been transformed into sculptural layers of texture: hoods, coats, blankets, and newspaper intermingle, the flash creating shine and glare on slick surfaces. The viewer is forced to work hard to discover what these pictures are, to see that they are indeed human; they therefore force us to confront the reality of homelessness much more directly than an embarrassed diverted glance on the subway platform normally allows.
One surprisingly thing about all of the works in this show is, given their subject matter, they are remarkably non-voyeuristic. Ennadre has found a way to document extremely personal and vulnerable moments with a purity of purpose that has stripped away a layer of implied shame. Overall, this show has a heavy dose of both literal and figurative darkness, but also finds a way to see some light in the depths of black.
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Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced at $35000 each. Ennadre has no auction history to speak of, so interested collectors will need to follow up at retail. While these works don't fit into our collecting genres, I particularly enjoyed 53 St-5th Ave, with its cacophony of fabrics and surfaces.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
Touhami Ennadre, Under New York
Through January 2nd
Priska Juschka Fine Art
547 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: This will be the last post prior to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. We will be back to normal posting next Monday, November 30.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Auction Results: Photographs, November 14, 2009 @Phillips
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 294
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2424900
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $3461100
Total Lots Sold: 214
Total Lots Bought In: 80
Buy In %: 27.21%
Total Sale Proceeds: $2756314
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 203
Low Sold: 149
Low Bought In: 54
Buy In %: 26.60%
Total Low Estimate: $1121100
Total Low Sold: $904564
Mid Total Lots: 81
Mid Sold: 57
Mid Bought In: 24
Buy In %: 29.63%
Total Mid Estimate: $1655000
Total Mid Sold: $1277250
High Total Lots: 10
High Sold: 8
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total High Estimate: $685000
Total High Sold: $574500
An amazing 41.59% of the lots that sold had proceeds above their estimate. There were a total of fifteen surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 1 Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1981, at $31250
Lot 20 Peter Beard, Antelopes, 1984/Later, $16250
Lot 41 Patrick Demarchelier, Christy, New York, 1986, at $11250
Lot 45 Patrick Demarchelier, Christy Turlington, New York, 1990/1996, at $37500
Lot 60 Simen Johan, Untitled #133 (Moose), 2006, at $40000
Lot 96 Ahmet Ertug, The Library of Trinity College, "The Long Room", Dublin, 2008, at $40000
Lot 99 Gavin Bond, Redemption, 2008, at $31250
Lot 108 Edward Burtynsky, Shipbreaking #28, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2001, at $33750
Lot 136 Nan Goldin, French Chris at Drive-in, New Jersey, 1979, at $16250
Lot 141 Wolfgang Tillmans, Paul, Nude, Golfball, 1994, at $7500
Lot 145 Albert Watson, Kate Moss, Marrakech, Morocco, 1993/Later, at $32500
Lot 189 William Eggleston, Untitled, 1973/2004, at $11250
Lot 195 Flip Schulke, Muhammed Ali boxing underwater, 1961/Later, at $13750
Lot 258 Hans Bellmer, Les Jeux de la Poupee IV, 1939/1949, at $37500
Lot 287 Shikanosuke Yagaki, Bamboo curtain, 1930, at $11250
The top lot by High estimate was lot 105, Thomas Ruff, Nude ox03, 2006, at $60000-80000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 144, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Salvador Dali, 1999, at $92500.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here.
Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15 Street
New York, NY 10011
Auction Results: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, November 12 and 13, 2009 @Phillips
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 60
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $1685000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $2436000
Total Lots Sold: 39
Total Lots Bought In: 21
Buy In %: 35.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1459250
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 18
Low Sold: 15
Low Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Low Estimate: $129000
Total Low Sold: $103250
Mid Total Lots: 36
Mid Sold: 20
Mid Bought In: 16
Buy In %: 44.44%
Total Mid Estimate: $927000
Total Mid Sold: $488500
High Total Lots: 6
High Sold: 4
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 33.33%
Total High Estimate: $1380000
Total High Sold: $867500
87.18% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were only two surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 222 Kim-Joon, Duet-dog, 2006, at $16250
Lot 242 Frank Thiel, Stadt 10/06/A (Berlin), 2001, at $32500
The top lot by High estimate is lot 8, Richard Prince, Untitled (four women with their backs to the camera), 1980, at $400000-600000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 6, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1994, at $542500.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).
Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15 Street
New York, NY 10011
Bruce Davidson, Five Decades @Wolkowitz
Circus: gelatin silver prints, 1958/modern
2 images, each 16x20
3 images, each 30x40, in editions of 15
Brooklyn Gang: gelatin silver prints, 1959/modern
3 images, each 16x20
1 image, 20x24
3 images, each 30x40, in editions of 15
Time of Change: gelatin silver prints, 1961/modern
5 images, each 11x14
2 images, each 16x20
1 image, 20x24
1 image, 30x40, in an edition of 15
LA: gelatin silver prints, 1964/modern
2 images, each 16x20
6 images, each 30x40, in editions of 15
East 100th Street: gelatin silver prints, 1966-68/modern
3 images, each 11x14
2 images, each 16x20
1 image, 20x24
1 image, 30x40, in an edition of 15
Subway: 1980s dye transfers
8 images, hung in a grid, each 20x24, in editions of 10
Comments/Context: In addition to the East 100th Street MoMA show recreation at Greenberg and the massive, three-volume catalog from Steidl (both linked below), Bruce Davidson also has a mini-retrospective show on view at Bryce Wolkowitz. For those, like ourselves, who aren't as deeply familiar with all of Davidson's projects over the years, this exhibit is an effective way to see the whole span of his artistic career. It gathers a group of images from each of his major series, selecting both iconic images and lesser known works, providing a sampler of his overall output across the decades.
Prior to this show, I have to admit that my shorthand summary for Davidson has always been "East 100th Street and other documentary work". What I think this exhibit did for me was to connect the dots a bit better on his other projects. While I certainly recognized the circus dwarfs, Freedom Riders (especially the boy with VOTE painted on his forehead), Brooklyn gang members (particularly the stick ball game in the street), and the fragmented color shots from the subway, this show helped to put them into a larger and broader context, seeing connections between the disparate threads. In contrast, Davidson's images from 1960's Los Angeles were completely new to me, and in many ways, I found them the most striking and exciting; I liked their dry, ironic humor - posing at muscle beach, the view out an airplane window, a man at a drive-through, parked cars densely packed at the beach, the back of the Hollywood sign. Coming out of the show, I'd like to think that my understanding of Davidson's work is much more comprehensive, and East 100th Street stands out a bit less in my personal rating of his various projects.
As an aside, in my opinion, the large 30x40 prints of the older negatives aren't hugely successful and are a bit distracting as result. In many cases, the prints are extremely grainy (several of the Circus images in particular); they just can't support the enlargement being asked of them. In other cases, I think the intimacy and subtlety of the works are somewhat compromised when the pictures are so big. Only the Los Angeles images seemed to be effective at the larger size, as they depict more outsized craziness.
That said, this is an impressive show of Davidson's long career, with many standout images that deserve to be remembered.
Collector's POV: All of the modern gelatin silver prints are priced on the same scale: 11x14 at $4000, 16x20 at $5000, 20x24 at $8000, and 30x40 at $15000, regardless of which project the negative came from. The dye transfers range between $6500 and 9500. As I mentioned in our Greenberg review, Davidson's work has been thinly traded in the secondary markets in the past few years, with very few of his best vintage images coming up for sale; with that caveat, the recent price range of $2000 to $8000 at auction may or may not be particularly relevant when considering the appropriate prices for his work.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
- DLK COLLECTION review of Greenberg show (here)
- Journey of Consciousness, three volume set (here)
- Interview: Kojo Nnamdi Show, 2006 (here)
Through December 19th
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
505 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
Monday, November 23, 2009
Auction: Photographie, November 26, 2009 @Villa Grisebach
Here's the breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 172
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 456400€
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 16
Total Mid Estimate: 206000€
Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 0
Total High Estimate: NA
The top lot by High estimate is lot 1382, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sea of Galilee, Golan, 1992, at 24000-26000€.
In general, this is a well balanced sale, with many photographers represented by more than one lot. That said, here's the list of the photographers who are represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):
Wolfgang Tillmans (5)
Dieter Appelt (3)
Abe Frajndlich (3)
Edmund Kesting (3)
William Klein (3)
Joel Meyerowitz (3)
Arnold Newman (3)
Dorothy Norman (3)
Antanas Sutkus (3)
Herbert Tobias (3)
Images of interest for our collection include:
Lot 1208 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Forderturm bei Merthyr Tydfill, Sudwales, 1966
Lot 1304 Edward Steichen, The Maypole-Empire State Building, New York, 1932/Later (at right)
Lot 1324 Ludwig Windstosser, Pintsch Bamag, Gas Mitte, 1950s
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
Photographie
November 26th
Villa Grisebach Auktionen
Fasanenstraße 25
D-10719 Berlin
Richard Mosse, The Fall @Shainman
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Comments/Context: Richard Mosse's new body of work is aptly called The Fall, as it centers on the quiet aftermath of conflict and the abandoned remnants of battle, specifically in Iraq. In these pictures, memories and symbols mix in unusual ways to commemorate the war-torn past.
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The best of the images in this show depict anonymous bullet ridden and pock marked cars, stripped of their tires and anything else of value, the sheet metal shredded and twisted in sharp angles. Sitting alone in the thick smoky dust, they are slowly being eaten away by the sand, shadowy sculptural monuments to roadside bombs, gun battles, or innocents caught in the crossfire. The video on view in a side gallery continues this theme: large scraps of unidentifiable metal are circled by the camera, with the endless names of the cities and towns of Iraq recited in alphabetical order in a deadpan voice over; strewn in the desert, they become deformed shrines and markers for events now forgotten.
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A second group of pictures depicts grounded fighter planes and passenger jets, shot down, partially destroyed, or just left to rot, their tails and empty cockpits jutting up like obelisks, rusting amid weeds, forests, and blankets of snow.
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And while much has been made of the grandeur of Saddam Hussein's many palaces in Iraq, Mosse's images of Uday's palace show the ironic reality of these over-the-top royal mansions: the turquoise-tiled swimming pool is dry and full of rubble, the ornate columns are smashed and falling down, and soldiers in full battle dress are lounging on the terrace with their machine guns, the vast empty desertscape in the background.
Mosse's images are a reminder that the most poignant relics of war may not be the heroic statues or elegant tombstones; they may be the discarded fragments of the destruction, neglected and left behind, but evidence just the same.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size. Regardless of the printing process or the exact dimensions of the works, the "large" images are $18000 each and the "small" ones are $9500 each; the video is $6000. Mosse's work is not readily available in the secondary markets, so interested collectors will need to follow up at retail.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
Richard Mosse, The FallThrough December 23rd
Jack Shainman Gallery
513 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ruven Afanador, Mil Besos @Throckmorton
Comments/Context: The fiery, over-the-top passions of Spanish flamenco dancing are legendary: the stamping feet, the clapping, and the flowy dresses swirled and flared with flashes of emotion. Colombian fashion photographer Ruven Afanador has immersed himself in the depths of this stylized world and successfully captured the essence of its intertwined ecstasy and tragedy.
At first glance, it is impossible to miss the extreme contrasts of these images: dancers with long black hair, outfitted in dark black couture dresses, with black eye liner and lipstick, arrayed against blinding white backgrounds of stone and sand; this is a polarized, unreal world we are entering. Some of the most striking images in the show are the up-close images of faces: fleshy older women shout and laugh with fierce exaggerated expressions of agony, anger and joy, their flamboyant features made even more extravagant by their glossy black makeup. Others focus more on the gestures of the dance, with multiple dancers (of all shapes and sizes) moving together, or single dancers caught in an artful pose; in one image, two women strain against one another with their braided hair tied together. The rest of the works on view dig deeper into related themes: more elaborate dresses, unbelievably long hair, wrinkled and flabby nudes, gritty smoking, and plenty of crazed and contorted looks.
Overall, Afanador has done a memorable job of documenting the magical out sized personalities and bodies of flamenco, extending a "fashion" aesthetic beyond obvious shock value and finding outrageous moments of elegance and artistry.
Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced based on size. The smaller 20x16 prints are $3500 each. The larger 32x28 and 38x34 prints are both priced at $6000 each. Afanador's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is really the only option for interested collectors at this point. While these works don't fit into any of our collecting genres, I particularly enjoyed Ursula Lopez Lopez, 2009, a dancer with a staggeringly long black dress, and Estudio de Baile Alicia Marquez, Outside Sevilla, Spain, 2007, an intertwined cluster of expressive black hands and forearms.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Transit Hub:
Ruven Afanador, Mil Besos
Through December 12th
Throckmorton Fine Art
145 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Auction: Photographie Ancienne, Moderne et Contemporaine, November 21, 2009 @Yann Le Mouel
Here's the breakdown:
Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 282
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 450550€
Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 8
Total Mid Estimate: 100000€
Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 0
Total High Estimate: NA
The top lot by High estimate is lot 29, Eugene Cuvelier, Chêne et sous-bois, 1862, at 15000-18000€.
Here is a short list of the photographers who are represented by four or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):
Robert Doisneau (12)
Andre Kertesz (10)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (8)
Willy Ronis (6)
Nicolas Yantchevsky (6)
Gisele Freund (5)
Francois Kollar (5)
John Batho (4)
Edouard Boubat (4)
Bill Brandt (4)
Lucien Clergue (4)
Kusakabe Kimbei (4)
Karl Lagerfeld (4)
Rene-Jacques (4)
While there aren't too many great fits for our collection in this sale, we were interested by:
Lot 158 Aaron Siskind, New York, South Street, 1947
Lot 159 Aaron Siskind, Chicago, 1952
The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
Photographie Ancienne, Moderne et Contemporaine
November 21st
Yann Le Mouel
22, Rue Chauchat
75009 Paris
Bruce Davidson: East 100th Street: The MoMA Show as Curated by John Szarkowsi in 1970 @Greenberg
In addition to the prints in the main gallery, there are a variety of other ancillary mini-exhibits also on view. In the book alcove, there are 16 images from the expanded version of East 100th Street; these are works that did not appear in the MoMA exhibit. They are 11x14 modern prints, framed and matted in thicker white frames, and hung against cream colored walls. A glass case also holds a sample of vintage books.
The first viewing room holds a total of 11 platinum prints of Central Park, made by Davidson in the 1990s and printed in 2008. The works are either 5x12 or 6x10 and are framed and matted in black.
The second viewing room has a total of 6 vintage images from Davidson's series on Brooklyn gangs from the 1950s. Most of the images are approximately 13x9 (or reverse) and are framed and matted in black.
And finally, in the back room near Greenberg's office, there is a small selection of 6 vintage images by Man Ray: 2 rayographs, 2 nudes and 2 portraits (Picasso and Cocteau). The works are from the 1920s and 1930s and are variously framed and matted.
Comments/Context: Since its publication in 1970, Bruce Davidson's East 100th Street has been a controversial body of work. Many have hailed it as a classic of social documentary photography, while others have criticized it as particularly exploitative. This exhibit is a kind of time machine, taking us back to the show of these images at the MoMA, as curated by John Szarkowski; the sequencing and grouping, even the frames are for the most part exactly the same. Of course, it is impossible to also transport our minds back nearly 40 years and react to the images in the same polarized way visitors did back then. All we can do is see them through the lens of the present, a kind of revisionist history of the resonance of the pictures and how well they have aged.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Auction Results: Photographs, November 10, 2009 @Bloomsbury London
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 239
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £320600
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £470500
Total Lots Sold: 82
Total Lots Bought In: 157
Buy In %: 65.69%
Total Sale Proceeds: £126124
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 225
Low Sold: 80
Low Bought In: 145
Buy In %: 64.44%
Total Low Estimate: £324500
Total Low Sold: £105628
Mid Total Lots: 13
Mid Sold: 2
Mid Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 84.62%
Total Mid Estimate: £118000
Total Mid Sold: £20496
High Total Lots: 1
High Sold: 0
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 100.00%
Total High Estimate: £28000
Total High Sold: £0
Only 62.20% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were six surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 15 Kusakabe Kimbei, GR Lambert, World Album, 1860-1880, at £4392
Lot 40, Anonymous, Dundee, 1926, at £6344
Lot 42 Underwood & Underwood, Titanic - A group of 5 glass positive slides, 1911/1912, at £1830
Lot 58 Helmut Newton, Sumo, 1999, at £8540
Lot 65 Vladimir Fyman, Chrysanthemum, 1941, at £2074
Lot 126 Elliot Erwitt, New York City, Coney Island, 1974/Later, at £3660
The top lot by High estimate was lot 230, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Mediterranean Sea, Crete, 1990, at £22000-28000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 222, Irving Penn, Lily Melridge, 1971/2007, at £15860.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here.
Bloomsbury Auctions
24 Maddox Street
Mayfair
London WS1 1PP
Auction Results: Photographs, November 10, 2009 @Bonhams
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 151
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $677100
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $969300
Total Lots Sold: 105
Total Lots Bought In: 46
Buy In %: 30.46%
Total Sale Proceeds: $718641
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
Low Total Lots: 136
Low Sold: 92
Low Bought In: 44
Buy In %: 32.35%
Total Low Estimate: $660300
Total Low Sold: $431941
Mid Total Lots: 14
Mid Sold: 12
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 14.29%
Total Mid Estimate: $219000
Total Mid Sold: $176900
High Total Lots: 1
High Sold: 1
High Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 00.00%
Total High Estimate: $90000
Total High Sold: $109800
73.33% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were only two surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 37 Martin Munkacsi, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Mexico, 1934, at $23180
Lot 73 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jumna River, Agra, India, 1948/Later, at $7320
The top lot by High estimate was lot 112 (also the cover lot) Edward Weston, Nude (Charis, Santa Monica), 1936, at $70000-90000; it was the top outcome of the sale at $109800.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here.
Bonhams
580 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Book: Mitch Epstein, American Power
What I found impressive about these images is that nearly all of them have subtle details and hidden ironies to discover. Epstein isn't shouting or hectoring. He has put forth an understated narrative that encourages both balanced and conflicted thoughts: the enormous American flag draped across the side of a refinery, smiling "Boots" Hern and her handgun, the mind-numbing boredom of the nuclear regulatory office time sheets and phone logs, the pipeline defaced with "bend over baby", the post-Katrina mattress in the tree, the white "bathtub ring" left by the drought at the Hoover Dam, the nuclear missile in the lobby at the DOE, and the hurricane weather map on the Jumbotron at the Republican National Convention (held at the Xcel Enegry Center of all places). At first glance, it's easy to miss these tiny subtexts and wry jokes; when they are finally recognized, they transform the images into something altogether more complicated and disturbing.
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Transit Hub:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, November 11 and 12, 2009 @Sotheby's
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 55
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2986000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $4139000
Total Lots Sold: 43
Total Lots Bought In: 12
Buy In %: 21.82%
Total Sale Proceeds: $3737250
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: 32
Mid Sold: 26
Mid Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 18.75%
Total Mid Estimate: $859000
Total Mid Sold: $800500
High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 17
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 26.09%
Total High Estimate: $3280000
Total High Sold: $2936750
80.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were five surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 306 Vik Muniz, After Gerhard Richter (from Pictures of Color), 2001, at $80500
Lot 309 Vik Muniz, The Best of Life Portfolio, 1989/1995, at $182500
Lot 315 Candida Hofer, Milchhof Nurnberg, 1999, at $37500
Lot 425 Elger Esser, Gravina, 1999, at $62500
Lot 426 Thomas Struth, Landschaft No. 28, 1993, at $30000
The top lot by High estimate was lot 40, John Baldessari, Life's Balance, 1986, at $300000-400000; it sold for $542500. The top outcome of the sale was lot 303, John Baldessari, Two Compositions (Dynamic/Static; Red/Green), 1990, at $554500.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).
Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021
Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning and Afternoon Sales, November 10 and 11, 2009 @Christie's
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
Total Lots: 62
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3538000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5038000
Total Lots Sold: 51
Total Lots Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 17.74%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4240750
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: 31
Mid Sold: 25
Mid Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 19.35%
Total Mid Estimate: $888000
Total Mid Sold: $770000
High Total Lots: 31
High Sold: 26
High Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 16.13%
Total High Estimate: $4150000
Total High Sold: $3470750
91.94% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There was only one surprise in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 449 Vik Muniz, Bette Davis (Pictures of Diamond), 2004, at $62500.
The top lots by High estimate were lot 353, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #15, 1978, and lot 408, Andreas Gursky, Toys 'R' Us, 1999, both at $300000-400000. The Sherman sold for $338500 and the Gursky sold for $434500, and they were the top two outcomes of the sale.
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Morning) and here (Afternoon).
Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020
Roger Ballen: Boarding House @Gagosian
Comments/Context: I remember very clearly the first time I saw Roger Ballen's photographs: it was in 2004, at a show at the Berkeley Art Museum. Hung against the museum's rough concrete walls, the pared down, bizarre and unsettling pictures were unlike anything I had seen before. What stood out was their startling, almost confrontational originality; while we might have been able to connect them tangentially to Arbus or Witkin or any number of others, this was an artist who had found his own voice and clearly wasn't afraid to make work that didn't fit into neat categories.
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Transit Hub:
- Artist site (here)
- Interviews: Lens Culture (here), American Photo (here), Dossier (here)
- Book reviews: The Photobook (here), Conscientious (here)
Through December 23rd
980 Madison Avenue
Monday, November 16, 2009
Robert Frank @Pace/MacGill
Another 10 of the images are from a series Frank took in 1958 from the window of a New York city bus. They are all gelatin silver, and are either 14x10 or 11x7 in size. 2 other works are groups of images from enlarged black and white Polaroid negatives printed on 20x24 gelatin silver paper; one is from 1987, the other from 1999/2000. The last work is a group of 6 color Polaroids, each 20x24. Wall labels includes texts by the artist, Stuart Alexander, and Douglas Hyland. (There is no photography allowed in the gallery, so the installation shots at right are via the Pace/MacGill website.)
Comments/Context: The massive Robert Frank show at the Met (review linked below) has been the cornerstone of the Fall photography season here in New York, and a number of ancillary exhibits have sprung up to capitalize on all the attention. This show mixes some additional material from The Americans (beyond what is at the Met) with other images and works by Frank from across his career.
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Collector's POV: Hardly any of the works in this show are actually available for sale to collectors. Many items (either as individuals or groups of works) are marked "For Museum Consideration Only", while a few are from private collections and are not for sale at all. The only works with actual prices tags are the contact sheets from The Americans, which are being sold as a set of 12 for $1300000. For comparison, a single enlarged contact sheet of images from The Americans sold this past October at Christie's for $40000 (here).
- DLK COLLECTION review of Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans @Met (here)