reGeneration2: Tomorrow's Photographers Today @Aperture

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing a total of 110 photographs by 80 photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung throughout the gallery space (which is divided by several interior walls) and the book shop. All of the works were made between 2003 and 2010. The exhibit was curated by William Ewing and Nathalie Herschdorfer, and was originally shown at the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne. A catalogue of the exhibition has been published by Aperture (here). (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the show:
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Ueli Alder
Yann Amstutz
George Awde
Kristoffer Axén
Anna Beeke
Benjamin Beker
Joshua Bilton
Bogdan Andrei Bordeianu
Savaş Boyraz
Thibault Brunet
Maxime Brygo
Christine Callahan
Tehila Cohen
Jen Davis
David De Beyter
Nicolas Delaroche
Sylvia Doebelt
Dru Donovan
Eliza Jane Dyball
Lina el Yafi
Salvatore Michele Elefante
David Favrod
Daniela Friebel
Robin Friend
Matthieu Gafsou
Anne Golaz
Lena Gomon
Nick Graham
Audrey Guiraud
Claudia Hanimann
Florian Joye
Kalle Katalia
Daniel Kaufmann
Chang Kyum Kim
Ani Kingston
Markus Klingenhäger
Richard Kolker
Sylwia Kowalczyk
Ania Krupiakov
Ivar Kvaal
Elisa Larvego
Shane Lavalette
Sunghee Lee
Jacinthe Lessard-L.
Di Liu

Liu Xiaofang

Sophie Lvoff
Agata Madejska
David Molander
Agnes Eva Molnar
Richard Mosse
Milo Newman
Yusuke Nishimura
Ya'ara Oren
Anna Orlowska
Jennifer Osborne
Margo Ovcharenko
Nelli Palomäki
Regine Petersen
Augustin Rebetez
Andrea Star Reese
Nicole Robson
Camila Rodrigo Graña
Simone Rosenbauer
Sasha Rudensky
Catherine Ruttimann
Su Sheng
Ady Shimony
Geoffrey Short
Shimin Song
Megumu Takasaki
Jaime Tiller
Janneke van Leeuwen
Frederick Vidal
Tereza Vlčková
Saana Wang
Robert Watermeyer
Adrian Wood
Tamara Zibners
Barbora Zurkova & Radim Zurek

Comments/Context: For collectors like ourselves, the root of what we do on a day to day basis is a process of sorting and sifting. We expose ourselves to an endless stream of diverse imagery from a wide variety of sources, most of it drifting by to be quickly forgotten, some of it grabbing our attention just enough to make us think, a very small percentage from there rising to the point where we dig in much deeper to search for that single image that moves us enough to make the purchasing plunge. While this process has a facade of analytical rigor, the fact is that it is highly personal and subjective, often random and serendipitous, and nearly always difficult to explain.
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The curators of this massive group show took on an expansive task: review over 700 entries from 120 photography schools around the world, winnowing the pile down by roughly 90% to get to 80 photographers, and from there generally selecting a single image to represent the artist's work. In doing so, they imposed no rigid, over-arching theme or thesis, so what emerges is an edited sampler of current "emerging" photography, seen through the eyes of these two people. Not surprisingly, it's an eclectic and energetic show, spanning multiple genres, geographies, subjects, and working methods.
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The challenge with a patternless gathering of work with no organizing principle is that there isn't any way to make sense of it all. The viewer really only has one option: to pick favorites. So as I surveyed the show, for each image, I asked myself a simple but brutal question: based on this single photograph before me, do I want to see more from this artist? This is totally unfair and inherently flawed as a process; further exploration might find some favorites to be boring and some omissions to be fantastic. But in the end, this kind of show represents the increasing "shuffle-ization" of our world: put an edited group of images on random play and see which ones you like.
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Out of 80 photographers with work on view, I found 13 that caught my eye enough to wonder about what else they had done; my apologies to those I would have liked had I encountered an alternate image. The list is below (alphabetically) with a bare minimum of commentary surrounding the image on display (links to artist websites below as available; please add those I've missed to the comments):

• Jen Davis: I've run across Davis' strong self-portraits before; this smoke-ring blowing cowboy seems authentic and electrically alive.
• Dru Donovan: A black and white nude portrait of man lying on a mirror; it plays with shadows and skin in unusual and subtle ways.
• Audrey Guiraud: Architectural photographs from skewed angles, creating abstracted geometric compositions.
• Claudia Hanimann: In this image, I liked the play of textures between the blue patterned shirt and the plush cloth seats surrounding it.
• Kalle Katalia: A night beach scene with a solitary figure in the foreground; a modern take on 19th century landscape painting/composition.
• Liu Xiaofang: A small girl looks out on an expanse of sky with a single cloud; highly stylized but still evocative.
• Agnes Eva Molnar: Chaotic, multi-layered images of lively young women.
• Richard Mosse: I've seen/reviewed Mosse's work before; this fire engulfed jet engine pulsates.
• Yusuke Nishimura: A sky scene in delicate pastel gradation like a watercolor.
• Margo Ovcharenko: This was the most memorable image in the show for me. It's an off-center portrait of a young woman that seems vital and fresh, her green dress twisted and pulled taut.
• Simone Rosenbauer: I liked the crisp claustrophobia of this overpacked hallway shot.
• Catherine Ruttimann: While we've certainly seen backstage images of the press before, I enjoyed the crushing theatricality of the nearby sets in this image.
• Su Sheng: Well constructed images of the loneliness and boredom of solitary kids in single child Chinese families.

While other collectors will almost certainly be drawn to a different selection of specific works from this group, I think the optimistic take away for me was that, even with its flaws, this kind of broad curatorial selection process can help to uncover a few durable stars from the sea of those trying, and can expose collectors to the fresh thinking that kicks us out of our established ruts. As always, there are new, original voices waiting to be discovered and brought to the surface, and while the sifting is painstaking for everyone involved, it's one of the only ways to successfully separate the wheat from the chaff.

Collector's POV: The Aperture Gallery is not a selling venue, so there are no prices for this particular show. In general, there is little or no secondary market history for any of these photographers, so interested collectors will need to search out gallery representation or contact the artists directly via their personal websites.

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

• Jen Davis artist site (here)
• Dru Donovan artist site (here)
• Audrey Guiraud artist site (here)
• Kalle Katalia artist site (here)
• Agnes Eva Molnar artist site (here)
• Richard Mosse artist site (here)
• Yusuke Nishimura artist site (here)
• Simone Rosenbauer artist site (here)
• Catherine Ruttiman artist site (here)
• Review: Snapshots (here, scroll down)
• Prior Exhibition: Musée de l'Elysée (here)

reGeneration2: Tomorrow's Photographers Today
Through March 17th

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, The Architect's Brother @Shainman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 22 works, including 19 black and white photographs, 1 black and white photogravure, and 2 sculptures, generally unframed, and displayed in the entry gallery, the two side rooms, and the main divided space in the back. 17 of the photographs are black and white RC prints mounted to Russian ply panels, with Golden acrylics and Golden UV varnish. These works were made between 1998 and 2001, and come in editions of 4+2AP; physical dimensions range between 34x45 to 41x62. The other 2 photographs are fiber based prints on cotton rag and aluminum honeycomb with encaustic. These works were made in 1997 and come in editions of 4+1AP; physical dimensions for both are roughly 26x22. The single photogravure in the show was made in 2000, in an edition of 40+5AP, with dimensions of 20x18. The two sculptures were made in 2011. A monograph of this body of work is available from Twin Palms (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The images from Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison's series The Architect's Brother were made more than a decade ago, and I'm guessing that most collectors will recognize them at least tangentially, as they have been displayed in plenty of venues in the years since and because they have such a distinctive style. While I may have flipped through the monograph at a bookstore or seen an image or two reproduced somewhere before, this was the first time I had actually seen the photographs in person shown together as an entire body of work.

If you had asked me before my visit what I could tell you about this work, I likely would have loosely categorized it as surreal and theatrical, perhaps a bit heavy handed and gimmicky in its sepia toned retro staginess. But as I stood in the gallery, I found many of the images more compelling than I had previously given them credit for. There is an undeniable creativity and originality on display here, a kind of dystopian fairy tale aesthetic that alternates between the metaphorical and the fanciful. In every scene, a solitary man struggles against the destruction of the natural world, surrounded by dark smoky skies and scarred, featureless horizons. He tries to clean the clouds, listens to the wind, delusionally repairs tree stumps, and builds a contraption to make rain. There is something inordinately sad about the increasingly odd efforts of this lone man fighting a losing battle fix nature. His endeavors to make sense of it all, using backward hand built props, are both surprisingly poignant and cautionary.

What I think is most interesting about these pictures is that the ParkeHarrisons have taken on the timely issue of the human impact on our environment, but have avoided the more mainstream approach of making large color pictures of polluted rivers, immense mountain top removal mines, smog choked cities, and deforested wilderness. Instead, they have made more intimate performance pieces that focus on the connectedness of man and nature, fairy tales that imagine a science fiction world where we symbolically labor to recover what we have lost.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The RC prints are either $28000 or $32000, the fiber based prints are $18000, and the photogravure is $15000. The two sculptures are $35000 and $26000 respectively. Work by the ParkeHarrisons is intermittently available at auction, with prices ranging between $3000 and $20000 in recent years.

My favorite image in the exhibit was Tree Stories, 2000; it's the image on the right in the bottom installation shot. I liked the combination of absurd futility and hopefulness embodied by the man listening to the tangle of wires leading to endless piles of sawed off tree trunks.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, The Architect's Brother

Through March 12th

Jack Shainman Gallery
513 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011

The Checklist: 02/24/11

DLK COLLECTION Checklist

02/24/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

TWO STARS: Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand: Met: April 10: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Hai Bo: Pace/MacGill: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Ray K. Metzker: Laurence Miller: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Allen Ginsberg: Howard Greenberg: March 12: review
TWO STARS: Pictures By Women: MoMA: March 21: review
ONE STAR: Abstract Expressionism New York: MoMA: April 25: review
TWO STARS: The Mexican Suitcase: ICP: May 8: review
TWO STARS: Wang Qingsong: ICP: May 8: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Jeri Eisenberg: Kathryn Markel: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Marcia Resnick: Deborah Bell: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Andy Warhol: Danziger: February 26: review
ONE STAR: E.V. Day: Carolina Nitsch: March 5: review
THREE STARS: Philip-Lorca diCorcia: David Zwirner: March 5: review
ONE STAR: Michael Benson: Hasted Kraeutler: March 26: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Sam Lewitt: Miguel Abreu: February 27: review
ONE STAR: Paolo Woods: Anastasia Photo: March 5: review

Elsewhere Nearby

No current reviews

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, with the Valencia Collection, February 17 and 18, 2011 @Phillips London

While the photography on offer in Phillips' Contemporary Art sales in London last week wasn't hugely exciting, it did deliver favorable results. The Buy-In rate for photography (across the Evening, Day, and Valencia Collection auctions) was just over 20%, and the Total Sale Proceeds from the photo lots covered the high end of estimate range.

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

Total Lots: 29
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £326000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £458000
Total Lots Sold: 23
Total Lots Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 20.69%
Total Sale Proceeds: £478088

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):
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Low Total Lots: 3
Low Sold: 2
Low Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 33.33%
Total Low Estimate: £11000
Total Low Sold: £6188

Mid Total Lots: 21
Mid Sold: 17
Mid Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 19.05%
Total Mid Estimate: £287000
Total Mid Sold: £355650

High Total Lots: 5
High Sold: 4
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total High Estimate: £160000
Total High Sold: £116250

The top lot by High estimate was tied between two works: lot 298, Fischli and Weiss, Untitled (SAS and Concorde, NY), 1988/1989, and lot 306, Marilyn Minter, Runs, 2005, both at £25000-35000; the Fischli and Weiss sold for £31250 and the Minter did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was tied between 164, Fernando Bryce, Vision de la pintura occidental, 2002, and lot 343, Konstantin Khudyakov, The Last Supper, 2007, both at £46850.

91.30% of the lots that sold had proceeds above or in the estimate range, and there were a total of four surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 164, Fernando Bryce, Vision de la pintura occidental, 2002, at £46850
Lot 303, Tracey Emin, I've Got It All, 2000, at £32450 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 308, Thomas Ruff, Nudes lu 10, 1999, at £39650
Lot 343, Konstantin Khudyakov, The Last Supper, 2007, at £46850

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Day) and here (Valencia).
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Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, February 16 and 17, 2011 @Christie's King Street

Christie's had a generally positive response to the photography buried in its two Contemporary Art sales in London last week. While three of the top lots passed, the overall Buy-In rate was under 20%, and the Total Sale Proceeds covered the low end of the range. The high priced Gursky sold in its range, adding nearly £1 million to the overall results.

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

Total Lots: 41

Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £2677000

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £3920000

Total Lots Sold: 33

Total Lots Bought In: 8

Buy In %: 19.51%

Total Sale Proceeds: £2897800

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

Low Total Lots: 1

Low Sold: 1

Low Bought In: 0

Buy In %: 0.00%

Total Low Estimate: £4000

Total Low Sold: £10625

Mid Total Lots: 23

Mid Sold: 18

Mid Bought In: 5

Buy In %: 21.74%

Total Mid Estimate: £351000

Total Mid Sold: £330975

High Total Lots: 17

High Sold: 14

High Bought In: 3

Buy In %: 17.65%

Total High Estimate: £3565000

Total High Sold: £2556200

The top lot by High estimate was lot 17, Andreas Gursky, Untitled V, 1997, at £800000-1200000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at £937250.

100.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were a total of four surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 136, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Boden Sea, Uttwil, 1993, at £43250 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Lot 138, Roni Horn, Still Water (The River Thames for Example), 1999, at £34850 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Lot 297, Tunga, A Vanguarda Viperina, 1985, at £22500
Lot 306, Nobuyoshi Araki, Untitled, 2007, at £10625 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)

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

Christie's

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

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, February 15 and 16, 2011 @Sotheby's London

Sotheby's began the 2011 photography auction season with solid outcomes at its Contemporary Art sales in London last week. All 6 of the photographs in the Evening sale found buyers, helping boost the Total Sale Proceeds above the Total Pre-Sale High Estimate. With an overall Buy-In rate across the two sales under 18%, it was an auspicious start to the season. The only hiccup was the "Orgy of the Rich" protest which disrupted the sale (coverage here via Hyperallergic).

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
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Total Lots: 28
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £2094000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £2967000
Total Lots Sold: 23
Total Lots Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 17.86%
Total Sale Proceeds: £3037950

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: 12
Mid Sold: 10
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Mid Estimate: £182000
Total Mid Sold: £198100

High Total Lots: 16
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 18.75%
Total High Estimate: £2785000
Total High Sold: £2839850

The top lot by High estimate was lot 3, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #87, 1981, at £400000-600000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at £577250.

An efficient 100.00% 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 187, Candida Höfer, Biblioteca Seminario Patriarcale Venezia II, 2002, at £43250 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby's)
Lot 267, Andy Warhol, Beware of Dog, 1976-1986, at £91250 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).
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Sotheby's
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 large scale color photographs, unframed and pinned directly to green/grey walls in a series of rooms on the lower level of the museum. The works on view were made between 1997 and 2005; overall dimensions and edition sizes were not available. The exhibit also includes 3 video terminals showing various works and footage from the staging of certain images, as well as a glass case containing 7 books. The show was curated by Christopher Phillips. Since photography is not allowed in the ICP galleries, the installation shots for this show at right come via the Artnet article linked below.

Comments/Context: Over the past decade, Wang Qingsong has solidified his place among the top echelon of Chinese contemporary photographers. A representative sample of his recent work is now on display at the ICP, and should finally introduce him to a much broader slice of the New York art world.

Wang's earliest works satirize the cultural clash between traditional Chinese culture and the influx of Western consumerism by juxtaposing old and new with kitchy excess. A well-known poster from the Cultural Revolution celebrating the power of the ink brush has been updated with books on exam shortcuts. A multi-armed Buddha now holds a cellphone, cigarettes, and beer, perched on a Coca-Cola pedestal. And a 10th century scroll has been reimagined with bored peasant women in tarted-up eye makeup and Jack Daniels bottles strewn across the tables. This strange hybrid culture mixes past and present, where the ideals of the past have been polluted by the onslaught of brands and commerce. Once the jolt of Wang's humor wears off, the effect is surprisingly sad and empty.

His more recent pictures amplify these ideas into monumental scenes with elaborate sets and hundreds of actors, following in the footsteps of Crewdson and Wall, but with a more caustic and cynical point of view. Hundreds of old-style paper political posters now feature hand-drawn Western logos: McDonald's, Citibank, Evian, and Pampers. An English language class now caters to the needs of the nouveau-riche, with handy phrases appropriate for the Olympics or the Venice Biennale. Several of the works chronicle the plight of the migrant workers who have left the countryside and flooded the coastal cities: a massive dormitory made of blue scaffolding, where tenants sit nude often echoing art history favorites, squatter families living in a demolished building, and mobs of injured workers trying to get through a burning checkpoint made of barbed wire and soda cans. The critique is harsh and skeptical, each picture full of numerous smaller dramas and references that support the larger thematic construct.

Overall, Wang's vision of modern Chinese society is a parody of meaning and refinement, where crude and vulgar have replaced cultured and thoughtful, exposing both the crass and unseemly side of the new materialism and its unfortunate downstream effects. His exaggerations and cinematic narratives are powerful and ultimately quite deflating, describing a world (both West and East) that seems headed down the path toward the increasingly inane, unfulfilled, and expressionless.

Collector's POV: Wang's photographs have become consistently available in the secondary markets in recent years. Prices have generally ranged between $6000 and $100000, with a few extremely large tableaux selling for as much as $700000.

My favorite image in the show was Follow Me, 2003; it's the large image on the left in the top installation shot. I like the ridiculous scale of the huge chalkboard and the way English language phrases like "I'd like to make a deposit" or "I'm just hanging out with my friends doing a little bargain hunting" are combined into a dense all-over composition. It's a little like a treasure hunt, with tiny ironies and barbs hiding everywhere.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: NY Times (here), Economist (here)
• Features: Artnet (here), WNYC (here)

Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide
Through May 8th

International Center of Photography
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

Philip-Lorca diCorcia: ELEVEN @Zwirner

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 color works, framed in white with no mats, and hung in large divided gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made between 1997 and 2008. Physical dimensions range between 32x40 and 32x50, and each image is printed in an edition of 15+2AP. The photographs were made on assignment for W magazine, in Paris, New York, Cairo, Havana, Los Angeles, Bangkok, and Sao Paulo. A monograph of all 11 commissions has recently been published by Freedman Damiani (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Coming into this show, I will freely admit that I brought along a healthy dose of blunt skepticism. The fashion photographs on display were made by diCorcia over the past decade on commission for W magazine, and having not seen them before (I'm not a W subscriber), I assumed they would be the normal kind of sell-out we often see, where commerce trumps art and the results are less than inspiring. In a photographic year that has so far been generally unremarkable, I am happy to report that these pictures entirely undermined my expectations. I think this is the first photography show of the year that is truly worth a special trip to see, if only because it so consistently defies the standard fashion photography framework.

DiCorcia's careful staging of seemingly authentic scenes is by now entirely familiar to most collectors I would guess. What is different here is that he has broken down the walls of the fashion genre and mashed up his uncertain atmospheric narratives with traditional clothing-centric sales shots. In his pictures, the fashions have been placed in the context of a specific moment or life; they no longer stick out front-and-center to be pawed and gawked at - instead they have been muted, as though just one minor detail in the setting of a larger story (often in some exotic locale). As such, these photographs look like "diCorcias" rather than ads; sure, there are some stylish people here and there, but they are incidental to the larger theater taking place.

What I found most engrossing about these images is how uncertain they are. Nearly every work is a multiplicity of situations and perspectives in one frame, as though the complex action was paused for just a second. Gestures, stances, and glances give us clues to the relationships, but the layers are ultimately disconnected and unknowable, and we are left to fill in the gaps with our own conjectures. A naked man stands in a glass shower stall on display in the middle of a fancy New York apartment, a young woman poses ringside watching a kickboxing match in Bangkok, a headscarfed young woman in Cairo looks at a natural history exhibit of flamingos while a nearby man looks away, a bride stands on a ladder adjusting the elaborate light fixtures in an otherwise nondescript ballroom, a young woman sits in a chair while three chorus girls with chandelier headdresses stand nearby. What is going on in these pictures? Every single image in this show has this uneasy ambiguity, a light touch of sophistication and glamour mixed into silent cinematic stills. Again and again, we see women standing powerfully, while men, children, and other random people provide a carefully orchestrated backdrop open to interpretation. But diCorica has avoided the wild flights of fancy and crazy over-the-top scenes that have become a fashion photography cliche; his staged situations stand right on the edge of seeming truth and something slightly off kilter.

I guess what impressed and surprised me most about this body of work is how stubbornly diCorcia retained his own artistic voice in these commissions. The works on view consistently bear his hallmarks, and quite a few are strong, memorable compositions that will stand well with the best of his many other projects and series from his long career. All in, these pictures were FAR better and more nuanced than I expected they would be, and as such, they kicked me out of a deep rut of thinking that normally undervalues commissioned work.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced at $30000 each. DiCorcia's work is widely available at auction, with recent secondary market prices ranging between $5000 and $72000, with a sweet spot between $10000 and $25000.

While I can say that I liked quite a few images in this show, my favorite was W, September 1997, #5, 1997; while it's not easy to see, it's the image in the center of the top installation shot. I like the way the red brick wall bisects the picture plane, with one story (a guy washing his car with a power sprayer) on one side and another (a young woman dressed in black on the street near a pawn shop) on the other. The two stories are unrelated, but somehow ambiguously connected.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: Daily Beast (here), T Magazine blog (here), La Lettre de la Photographie (here)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia: ELEVEN
Through March 5th

David Zwirner
525 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011

The Checklist: 02/17/11

DLK COLLECTION Checklist

02/17/11

New reviews added this week in red
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Uptown

ONE STAR: Between Here and There: Met: February 21: review
TWO STARS: Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand: Met: April 10: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Hai Bo: Pace/MacGill: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Ray K. Metzker: Laurence Miller: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Allen Ginsberg: Howard Greenberg: March 12: review
TWO STARS: Pictures By Women: MoMA: March 21: review
ONE STAR: Abstract Expressionism New York: MoMA: April 25: review
TWO STARS: The Mexican Suitcase: ICP: May 8: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: David Allee: Morgan Lehman: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Stuart Hawkins: Zach Feuer: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Richard Misrach: Yancey Richardson: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Sam Samore: D'Amelio Terras: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Michael Huey: Newman Popiashvili: February 23: review
ONE STAR: Jeri Eisenberg: Kathryn Markel: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Marcia Resnick: Deborah Bell: February 26: review
ONE STAR: Andy Warhol: Danziger: February 26: review
ONE STAR: E.V. Day: Carolina Nitsch: March 5: review
ONE STAR: Michael Benson: Hasted Kraeutler: March 26: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Sam Lewitt: Miguel Abreu: February 27: review
ONE STAR: Paolo Woods: Anastasia Photo: March 5: review
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Elsewhere Nearby

No current reviews

Michael Benson, Beyond @Hasted Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 large scale photographic works, framed in black with no mats, and hung in the entry and the first two rooms of the gallery space. All of the works are digital chromogenic prints mounted on Dibond, made between 2003 and 2011. There are 11 single images, 1 triptych, and 1 video in the show. Square format dimensions range from 35x35 to 72x72, while more panorama style works range from 35x70 to 18x77; some of the images are available in multiple sizes. The works have generally been printed in editions of 8 regardless of size, with one exception in an edition of 3. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Since the invention of the medium, photography and science have been inextricably intertwined. From the very beginning, photographs were used to document and illustrate physical phenomena, from Atkins' cyanotypes of British algae to Muybridge's motion studies (see Brought to Light, the terrific SFMOMA exhibit of a couple of years ago for more on 19th century scienfic photography, here). Decades later Tasker would use X-rays to plumb the depths of natural floral geometries and Abbott would set up elaborate experiments to examine the fundamental properties of physics. Unquestionably, all of these photographs had aesthetic value and became part of our visual education. And yet even today, the line between science and art continues to be a blurry one, open to interpretation and agrument - are certain pictures categorized as art or science? Do they belong in National Geographic or in a white cube? And are these questions even relevant?

Michael Benson's photographs of interstellar space fall into this art/science trap in a 21st century manner. Starting with digital files buried in space agency databases all over the world, Benson sifts and sorts hundreds of images, stitching together larger mosaics from thousands of fragments taken over time as a probe or spacecraft whizzed by something of interest. There is a meticulousness required of this kind of craftsmanship: correcting distortions, filling in gaps, matching, tweaking, synthesizing. Unlike Thomas Ruff's recent Cassini images which used the same kind of space imagery as a starting point for further simplification and manipulation, Benson stays close to the science, interpreting the data yes, but ultimately aiming at some definition of the heretofore invisible "truth".

His results are printed in vibrant color at monumental scale, further enhancing their power to astound: the sun is a fiery red ball covered in angry flashes, a tiny moon is dwarfed by the enormity of Jupiter, Saturn's rings create layered arcs and shadows, a swirling dust storm rushes across the face of Mars. These are incredible sights most of us have never seen, and it's hard not to be drawn into the sheer, cool, "otherness" of what is on display. Even the most jaded and skeptical of gallery goers will have to admit that these are intellectually interesting; they may not agree that they are "art" in any traditional or conceptual sense (and may discount them as a result), but as pure visual theater, they're pretty astonishing.

Collector's POV: The images in this show are generally priced based on size, ranging from $5500 for the smallest works to $25000 for the largest, with a few intermediate prices in between ($7500, $12500); the triptych is $18000. Benson's work is not consistently available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

My favorite image in the show was Uranus with Rings, Voyager, January 24, 1986, 2010; it's the picture second from the right in the top installation shot. I liked the perfect, almost abstract geometry of the central white orb, surrounded by the cluster of tiny, delicate, nearly invisible rings.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features: Wall Street Journal (here), Photo Booth (here)
• Recent exhibit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (here)
• Book: Beyond: Visions of Interplanetary Probes (here)

Michael Benson, Beyond

Through March 26th

Hasted Kraeutler Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Marcia Resnick, Bad Boys: Punks, Poets, and Provocateurs @Deborah Bell

JTF (just the facts): A total of 29 black and white photographs, generally framed in black and matted, and hung against blue and white walls in the single room gallery space; one group of 6 images is unframed and pinned directly to the wall under glass. All of the works are vintage gelatin silver prints, taken between 1974 and 1982. The prints vary in size from roughly 6x10 to 16x20, with most roughly 9x13 or reverse. Individual image captions written by the artist are available in the checklist. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Marcia Resnick's New York portraits from the late 1970s and early 1980s are a gritty, raw time capsule, capturing the diverse personalities of famous "bad boys", running the entire spectrum from from Iggy Pop to Divine.

Moving between close-in faces and more theatrical stagings taken a bit further back, Resnick documented musicians, artists, authors, and actors, always with a sense of heightened drama: Johnny Thunders wearing a wide brimmed hat and elongated hair like a Hassidic Jew, John Belushi hiding behind the crook of his arm, Jean-Michel Basquiat surrounded by looming shadows, Quentin Crisp in dapper profile. The images have a down and dirty reality, mixed with the feeling that something special was going on; in one picture, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, and William Burroughs share a tense meal together, apparently eating in silence.

In addition to the various portraits, there is a terrific series of images of a chaotic dinner table, overstuffed with littered plates, cigarettes, crumpled napkins, half full beers, and discarded bones, photographed from slightly different vantage points and moments in time, creating a messy overlapping testament to excess. It's grungy, disorderly, confrontational, and full of kinetic energy, just like the many larger-than-life characters peering down from the walls nearby.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $2000 and $4500. Resnick's prints are not regularly available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

My favorite image in the show was Charles Ludlum, NYC, 1979; it's actually hanging in one of the small side alcoves and isn't pictured in the installation shots above. The up-close portrait is slightly off center, and the formal qualities of the various textures (shirt, tie, jacket, whiskers, fingers, and folds of skin) make for an intricately layered composition.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Review: Flavorwire (here)
• Interview: Papermag (here)

Marcia Resnick, Bad Boys: Punks, Poets, and Provocateurs

Through February 26th

Deborah Bell Photographs

511 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

Big Shots: Andy Warhol's Portraits of Celebrities @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 38 color photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique Polacolor Type 108 Polaroid prints, each roughly 4x3; the images were taken between 1971 and 1986. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: By now, it's common knowledge that Andy Warhol used photography as an intermediate process step in making many of his paintings, particularly his commissioned portraits. This small show gathers together a selection of his head shot Polaroids from the 1970s and 1980s, capturing the biggest celebrities of the times from the worlds of fashion, music, art, and politics, reflected in the glow of his own massive fame.

While these pictures were originally taken as source material for later manipulation and appropriation, they have a compelling and unmistakable style; Warhol clearly had a aubtle eye for the composition of photographic portraits and imposed that originality on his subjects, making them his own. Given that the images would later be pared down to lines and then screen printed, the compositions needed to have strong formal outlines. To heighten the contrast, many of the women were made up in bright red lipstick and white foundation, or have billowing explosions and swirls of hair; Diane von Furstenberg, Diana Ross and Jane Fonda all look particularly extreme. The men are often seen from the side or in profile, sometimes with a prop, like Arnold Schwarzenegger's bulging arm or Truman Capote's fedora.

As I have seen more and more of these portraits over the years, I have come to the conclusion that while his signature style has become overexposed and ubiquitous, we discount Warhol's talents at our own peril. Think about what he accomplished with these pictures: he took the most famous and most photographed people of the decade, sat them down, and in a matter of moments, transformed them into something completely new with a seemingly simple head shot. Perhaps we can call this a situation where his fame superseded that of his sitters (an amazing feat of its own), but I remain impressed by his ability to consistently place his carefully controlled artistic mark on rock stars, presidents and other icons who would normally resist such treatment. Try this test when you're in the gallery: block out who the famous person actually is and just look at the way each portrait is structured. Yes, this show is a parade of incandescent stars, but in the end, it's Warhol on display, not his subjects.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $10000 and $15000. Warhol's Polaroid portraits can be regularly found in the secondary markets, with prices ranging between $3000 and $21000 in recent years, mostly based on the relative fame of the person pictured.

My favorite image(s) in the show were the group of four images each entitled Self Portrait in Fright Wig, 1986; they're on the right in the bottom installation shot. The background for these pictures is black, so Warhol, his wild wig and big black sunglasses emerge from the darkness; when he later turned them into two color paintings, the portraits became even freakier.

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

Transit Hub:

• Review: Flavorwire (here)
• Exhibit: @Nasher, 2009 (here)

Big Shots: Andy Warhol's Polaroids of Celebrities
Through February 26th

Danziger Projects
534 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Michael Huey, China Cupboard @Newman Popiashvili

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 color images, generally framed in grey with no mat, and hung in the one room basement gallery (down the stairs from the street level). The works are c-prints mounted on aluminum, made between 2007 and 2011. Nearly all of the prints are 16x21, with 1 larger print at 45x59, and 1 smaller print at 18x16 (in a special red frame); all of the prints (regardless of size) come in editions of 5+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: The delicate china display still life has been a popular motif since the very beginnings of photography, starting most notably with William Henry Fox Talbot and continuing on through the 19th century with artists like Giorgio Sommer. Michael Huey has taken an updated look at this genre, making images of stacked dinnerware, shelves of everyday plates and cups, and display cases brimming with figurines and fancy collectibles.

The 21st century difference here is that Huey has reversed the palette, taking the negative values and then infusing some of them with pastel color. The effect is something like an x-ray or wearing night vision goggles, or perhaps an echo of Vera Lutter with a dash of painterly color. Light blue, aquamarine and soft orange diffuse through shelf backgrounds, while dishes and teapots turn pink and blue. The largest print on display is an enlargement of figurines, with finger sized people blown-up into imposing ghost statues with eerie coloration.

These kinds of images have always had a layer of simple formal beauty on the surface and deeper questions of who and why underneath. What does this collection of objects represent? Why were they chosen? What kind of person collects or uses these things? The complex visual effects that Huey has employed make the formal elements of these pictures more pronounced, familiar shapes and outlines becoming otherworldly, repetitions and patterns creating all-over compositions. But the questions of use and purpose remain obscure, seemingly obvious and yet surprisingly elusive.
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Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced as follows. The small prints, either 18x16 or 16x21 are $4000 each; the single larger print (45x59) is $10000. Huey's work has not yet appeared in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
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My favorite image in the show was China Cupboard (no. 12), 2010; it's the center image in the bottom row in the middle installation shot. I liked both the ethereal contrasts of black/white and pink/blue on the modern forms and the black grid lines created by the framing of the shelves.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: New Yorker (here), New York Observer (here)
• Feature: Art in America (here)

Michael Huey, China Cupboard
Through February 23rd
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Newman Popiashvili Gallery
504 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Allen Ginsberg @Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A total of 52 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung in groups against light brown and cream walls in the main gallery space and the book alcove. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, taken between 1945 and 1996, with most made in the 1950s and 1960s. The 15 photobooth and "drugstore" prints range in size from 2x2 to 4x5; the 37 regular prints range between 8x10 and 16x20, with many at 11x14. The show includes a mix of vintage and later prints, many with hand written captions; no edition information was available. One portrait of Ginsberg with Peter Orlovsky taken by Richard Avedon in 1963 is also included at the beginning of the exhibit. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Back in 2002, Howard Greenberg Gallery acquired over 1000 photographs from the estate of the famous poet and activist Allen Ginsberg. This show is a sampler of Ginsberg's photographic work from his entire career, including many vintage and later prints of himself and his fellow Beat writers.

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I think Ginsberg's pictures are of interest for two main reasons. First, they provide a time capsule view of the 1950's Beat writers and poets: Ginsberg himself, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso et al. The images are an insider's snapshot of this small group of men: caught at the typewriter, joking around in Ginsberg's apartment, walking on the street, traveling in Tangier, meeting other now-famous people. They reconstruct their days in New York and San Francisco, and provide insights into the real personalities of these influential writers.

Second, and I think more durably, Ginsberg explored the idea of combining text with his images, often via elaborate hand-written captions and inscriptions right on the white space of the prints themselves. Sometimes these words are merely descriptions of people and locations, but in many cases, Ginsberg provides personal scene setting and story telling details: what books an author was working on at the time, evidence of first or last meetings between people, who was strung out, or what someone was eating that day. While not every caption is particularly poetic, I think Ginsberg successfully broke down some of the barriers between text and imagery in ways that hadn't been crossed before, and these written words transform relatively straightforward pictures into something deeper and more unexpected. The front-and-center captions make the history come alive.

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As such, this show works on two levels: one for fans of Ginsberg and the other Beat writers who want to live vicariously through these stolen moments, and one for photographers interested in expanding the boundaries of portraiture thought the addition of text.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are generally priced in two groups: the vintage photobooth and "drugstore" prints range in price between $9000 and $22000, with several intermediate prices, and the larger prints range between $4000 and $25000, again with a variety of prices in the middle. A small number of Ginsberg's prints seem to come up at auction every year, with prices ranging between $1000 and $16000 in the past few seasons.

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My favorite photograph in the show was Eager Kerouac, East 7th Street, New York, 1963; it's the image on the bottom left in the cluster of four prints in the top installation shot. I like the way the bookshelf and the vertical shadows obscure the author's face, making the portrait a little less obvious.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Exhibit: Beat Memories @NGA, 2010 (here)
• Feature: Smithsonian magazine (here)

Allen Ginsberg

Through March 12th

Howard Greenberg Gallery

41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Introducing the Checklist

I was recently paging through the Art listings in the back of New York magazine and I was thinking to myself that they were pretty ineffective for me as a photography collector. In any given issue, there might be a handful of photography shows listed in various museums and galleries, perhaps even a few marked in red as Editor's Picks, maybe chosen by Jerry Saltz or maybe chosen by someone else (not entirely clear from the explanatory text). But these listings neither appear to be a list of the most "important" or most well-publicized shows, nor do they seem to reflect a particularly careful selection based on incisive opinions of quality. Instead, they seem to be an eclectic, edited mix of known and unknown, good and bad, some not yet even open. And as I said, not hugely helpful as far as a systematic review of current photography goes.

The blurb listings in the New York Times on Fridays in the Arts section are no better, mostly because they hardly ever stray from the major museum exhibits or a select few gallery shows of photography. The list is always tightly edited, with very few surprises, since the blurbs are drawn from longer articles (features and blurbs from Art in Review) that were previously published. But for someone trying to figure out what photography to go see this weekend, they're only really helpful if you've missed something extremely obvious.

And then I thought about the Art related blurbs in the Goings On About Town section of the New Yorker - essential reading, but once again imperfect I'm afraid. This isn't because Vince Aletti's photography reviews aren't the best thing going, but mostly because they vanish from week to week, and unless you are an extremely vigilant reader, it's hard to remember what Vince said about a show he reviewed three or four weeks ago (unless your favorite gallery has kindly emailed you a copy); this is especially true of long running museum shows which may have been blurbed months ago. So in any given week, while there are 4 or 5 fresh reviews, there is really no way to see the entire expanse of what he has reviewed or use his reviews to make prioritized decisions on what to go see.

Other listing options include the website The Two Percent (here), which uses a promising aggregation approach (a grid which tallies which shows have been reviewed by which major publications) and Photograph magazine (here), with its simple but comprehensive listings of photo shows and venues. The challenge with the former is that there is no way to tell whether the reviews being tallied were good, bad, or indifferent, and there are typically only a handful of photography shows in the mix, so it's hard to draw too many insightful conclusions from the data; the challenge with the latter is that even though it generally includes everything that is out there on view, photography-wise, there are no ratings, so it provides no help in separating the wheat from the chaff.

The more I thought about this, the more it seemed entirely crazy to me. This is New York, the hypothetical center of the art world. How can there be no weekly listings that actually deliver value via thoughtful, systematic opinion? That you would actually use to plan your Saturday gallery tour of photography?

Regular readers here will know that I consistently visit and review photography shows at local museums and galleries. So I've decided to try and step into this newly identified void with a concise checklist of every photography show I have reviewed that is currently still open, to be updated on a weekly basis (adding new reviews and removing those for ones that have closed). Of course, this approach also has it's flaws, the major one being that shows I haven't yet reviewed aren't included in the list; the list is inherently tied to my quirks of timing. Each entry is painfully simple: rating, followed by artist, followed by venue, followed by closing date, followed by a link to the review if you want more context/detail, all sorted by by neighborhood and closing date (closest first). I hope that it gives you a clear answer to the cocktail party questions I get constantly: so what photography shows should I go see? What's the best out there right now? Depending on where you are, or where you're going, my answer is below. Print it out, stick it in your pocket, and start checking them off.

Uptown

ONE STAR: Between Here and There: Met: February 13: review
TWO STARS: Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand: Met: April 10: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Hai Bo: Pace/MacGill: February 26: review

ONE STAR: Ray K. Metzker: Laurence Miller: February 26: review

TWO STARS: Pictures By Women: MoMA: March 21: review

ONE STAR: Abstract Expressionism New York: MoMA: April 25: review
TWO STARS: The Mexican Suitcase: ICP: May 8: review

Chelsea

TWO STARS: Todd Hido: Bruce Silverstein: February 12: review
TWO STARS: McDermott & McGough: Cheim & Read: February 12: review
ONE STAR: David Allee: Morgan Lehman: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Stuart Hawkins: Zach Feuer: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Richard Misrach: Yancey Richardson: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Sam Samore: D'Amelio Terras: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Jeri Eisenberg: Kathryn Markel: February 26: review
ONE STAR: E.V. Day: Carolina Nitsch: March 5: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Sam Lewitt: Miguel Abreu: February 27: review
ONE STAR: Paolo Woods: Anastasia Photo: March 5: review
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Elsewhere Nearby

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