Terry Richardson, Mom & Dad @Half

JTF (just the facts): A total of 51 color photographs, unframed and thumbtacked directly to the walls, and hung in the small, single room gallery space. The show checklist was very sparse on details, so there is no definitive information on printing process used or specific image dates. Physical dimensions range from 8x10 to 20x24, with most sized 11x14; all are available in editions of 5+2AP. A single video is also part of the installation, but no information was included on the checklist. The floor of the gallery is covered with loose prints, which have become crumpled and smashed by the foot traffic. A monograph of this body of work was recently published by Morel Books (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I'm not sure whether Terry Richardson is better known for his ubiquitous fashion and celebrity photographs or for his infamously inappropriate behavior in taking some of those pictures. Either way, his most recent show asks the viewer to step beyond these overly obvious characterizations and to examine his photographs of his parents in the context of art.
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The premise and organization of this exhibit is unpretentiously simple: take images of his two parents (who were separated early in his life), and intermix them on the walls, with images of his childhood (school portraits with bushy hair and the like) strewn across the floor. His flash-lit, snapshot aesthetic makes for pictures that seem casual and honest, with an immediacy that is sometimes too close for comfort. His mother is captured as an ecstatic free spirit, constantly laughing or mischievously smiling, smoking or giving the camera the finger in eccentric joy. His father tends toward more gloomy, downbeat moods, often staring directly into the camera, exposing his scarred wrists, or offering a posed but seemingly unadorned look into his soul. His all capitals marker scrawls all over the house and in notebooks range from the upsetting (HARD TO SWALLOW - FEEL LIKE I'M CHOKING) to the dreary (SHIT STILL IN TOILET) to the authentically poignant (I AM VERY PROUD TO BE YOUR DAD). All of the works combine wince-inducing harsh reality with a genuine, personal tenderness that ensures the pictures don't drift into mockery.
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I'm not sure that all of these pictures qualify as great or durable photographs or that many of them are particularly enjoyable to look at, but I give Richardson credit for exposing some raw truth in these images. There are a handful of shots in this bunch that sensitively document the complicated, emotional relationships between a parent and son, and do so with frankness, candor, and quiet affection. In the end, my guess is that these photographs will ultimately function best in book form, where deliberate sequencing will allow for a richer, intermingled family narrative whose power will stretch beyond any one individual image. These are tough, sometimes gritty pictures, that simultaneously drive you to look away, but pull you back in with their unsightly, unadorned closeness.
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Collector's POV: The works in the show are priced between $2500 and $5000, based on size. Richardson's photographs have been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging from $1000 to $16000. That said, given the small number of lots that have come up for sale at auction, gallery retail is still likely the best option for collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist blog (here)
• Opening night shots (here)

Terry Richardson, Mom & Dad
Through December 4th

Half Gallery
208 Forsyth Street
New York, NY 10002

Erwin Blumenfeld: Vintage Fashion @Houk

JTF (just the facts): A total of 30 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. All of the works are vintage gelatin silver enlargement prints, made between 1937 and 1962. Physical dimensions range between 12x8 and 20x16 (or reverse). A wall of Blumenfeld's Vogue covers is on display in the entry area. (Installation shots at right.)
 
Comments/Context: Erwin Blumenfeld's fashion photography takes many of the visual motifs from Surrealism and Dada and mixes them together with stylish glamour in a manner driven by risk-taking experimentation. While his covers and spreads are full of the usual array of striking models in elegant designer clothing, it is his use of unexpected and unorthodox methods and manipulations that makes his images durably exciting.

This show is a parade of staged devices and darkroom machinations: multiple exposures layered and composited, mirrors used to multiply sitters, transparent screens used to veil bisected models, sideways and overhead camera angles, shadows and light in linear forms, and prints made extra graphic and contrasty. His ravishing silhouettes alternate between black and white like dancers in a line, and pure faces peer at each other or echo like matched twins, swaddled in folds of silk and loose jewels. Moments of classicism are simultaneously enhanced and undercut by Blumenfeld's twists on the usual; even the cliched cross hatched bars of the Eiffel Tower become fresh when paired with the billowy plaid patterns of a long dress blowing in the wind.

All of these images have the sense of the unconventional, of taking the agreed upon fashion formula and changing it up, pushing the edges of what the audience will find acceptable. The works also provide evidence for the beginning of an advertising-driven attention deficit (even in the 1940s and 1950s), of images that are trying hard to grab the viewer with something visually new, reacting against the noise in the background. As such, Blumenfeld's many striking innovations provide a bridge between the graceful beginnings of fashion photography and the explosion of extreme aesthetics that we now take for granted.

Collector's POV: The works in the show are priced between $22000 and $40000, with one print marked POR. Blumenfeld's photographs are often available in the secondary markets, with recent prices at auction ranging from $2000 to $58000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features: Trendland (here), T Magazine (here)

Erwin Blumenfeld: Vintage Fashion
Through January 7th

Edwynn Houk Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10151

Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 47 photographic works from 35 different photographers, generally framed in black and matted, and hung spotlit against dark blue walls in a series of three small connecting rooms on the second floor of the museum. The prints were made between 1890 and 1912, using a variety of processes, including gum bichromate, carbon, platinum, and photogravure. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and their dates in parentheses:

James Craig Annan (2, 1890-1893)
Anne Brigman (2, 1905-1908)
Alvin Langdon Coburn (5, 1902-1908)
F. Holland Day (6 plus 1 group of 7, 1896-1899)
Baron Adolf De Meyer (3, 1906-1912)
Frank Eugene (2, 1898-1907)
Frederick Evans (1, 1909)
Gertrude Käsebier (4, 1899-1910)
Joseph Keiley (1, 1898)
Heinrich Kühn (2, 1908-1909)
George Seely (2, 1904-1906)
Edward Steichen (8, 1901-1906)
Pierre Troubetzkoy (1, 1904)
Clarence White (6, 1898-1906)
Clarence White/Alfred Stieglitz (2, 1907)

This exhibit is a companion show for the larger Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe exhibit, on view through January 2nd (here). The photographs included in this broader show are mostly portraits of Stieglitz or other artists with work on view. Details on the photographers and photographs included follow below (not including the large photographic images laminated to the walls):

Alvin Langdon Coburn (2, 1903-1907)
Frank Eugene (1, 1907)
Heinrich Kühn (1, 1904)
Edward Steichen (7, 1901-1915)
Alfred Stieglitz (13, 1893-1933)
Paul Strand (1, 1929)

Comments/Context: It's probably hard to underestimate the influence of Alfred Stieglitz on fine art photography of the early 1900s. As both an artist and gallery owner, he made choices and supported aesthetic ideas that set the standard for the medium, almost single handedly pushing tastes toward (and then away from) what is now known as Pictorialism. The show is strong reflection of what Stieglitz valued, showed, bought, saved, and ultimately donated; both before and after his death, he made important gifts of key photographic prints to the Met, forming the foundation of the museum's outstanding photography collection.

The works on display here were drawn entirely from Stieglitz' personal collection, and together they provide a one-stop master class in Pictorialism, covering the major technical processes/innovations and including gems from virtually all of the important figures of the period. There are portraits and nudes, allegories and religious subjects, classical maidens and dreamlike children, all executed with a meticulous, tactile craftsmanship and a reverence for expressive emotion. De Meyer's The Shadows on the Wall - Chrysanthemums from 1906 turns simple blossoms in a vase into a soft-focus silhouette, clearly influenced by the asymmetry of Japanese wood block prints and reminiscent of amorphous jellyfish in a shadowy sea. Clarence White's Morning - The Bathroom from 1906 shows a woman in a bathtub, wearing a flowy, transparent gown and bathed in the delicate, tranquil light streaming in through the window. And Edward Steichen's Cyclamen - Mrs. Philip Lydig from 1905 pairs an evocative society portrait (with a steely-eyed stare) with wispy strands of almost abstract flowers that jut out across the picture plane.

Given that this kind of work quickly went out of favor with the arrival of straight photography, the exhibit has a kind of time capsule feeling, where we marvel at unearthed items that now seem woefully dated. But while it might be easy to be dismissive of these photographs, there is a consistency of expert skill on view here that is hard to overlook. We may have moved on from the overly evocative, painterly impressionism that these turn of the century photographers found exciting, but even a century later, the mastery of their craft as evidenced by these images is no less impressive.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), NY Photo Review (here), Bullett Media (here)

Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz
Through February 26th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Edward Burtynsky @Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 large scale color photographs, framed in black and not matted, and hung in the entry area and the main gallery space. All of the works are chromogenic color prints, in one of four sizes: 24x28 (in editions of 15), 34x41 (in editions of 10), 39x52 (in editions of 9) or 48x60/48x64 (in editions of 6). The images were taken between 1985 and 2010. A second group of 8 works from Burtynsky's Pentimento portfolio are displayed in the book alcove, also framed in black and not matted. All of these works are chromogenic color prints, each 20x24, from a portfolio containing 10 prints, in an edition of 30. These images were taken in 2000. A concurrent show of Burtynsky's newest work is on view at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This is Edward Burtynsky's first show at Howard Greenberg Gallery since changing gallery representation, and while Burtynsky's most recent works adorn the large Chelsea walls of partner Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (review linked below), the Greenberg show is a mini-retrospective of sorts, offering a sampler from the Canadian photographer's entire career, displayed in smaller, more intimate print sizes. Perhaps another way to think about this show is that it provides a succinct introduction to Burtynsky for the vast Greenberg collector database, many of whom might be more accustomed to vintage work.

The selections on view and their sequencing provide a summary view of Burtynsky's fascination with the scale of industrial sites and their upstream and downstream impacts. There are immense Chinese factories, flanked by cargo containers and endless apartment complexes, quarries and mines near railway infrastructure cut directly through steep rocky mountainsides, and oil wells responding to staggering piles of discarded tires and concrete ribbons of intersecting freeway. New aerial images from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico track greasy brown and black oil slicks as they creep across pure expanses of blue and green. And the book alcove contains images from Burtynsky's series on tidal shipbreaking in Bangladesh; the prints are executed in contrasty black and white with rough edges and chance drips, connecting the steel carcasses and towering hull silhouettes to 19th century industrial photography.

Seeing these prints in the smaller sizes, I was reminded of just how powerful many of Burtynsky's works are when printed at more monumental scale; some of the staggering destructive scale of these places is somewhat lost when seen more up close. That said, I think this show does a respectable job of providing a taste of Burtynsky's visual ideas, thoughtfully packaged to fit the constraints of the available wall space and the expectations of the audience.
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Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows: the 24x28 prints are $6200, the 34x41 prints are $10000, 39x52 prints are $16500, the 48x64 prints are $24000. Burtynsky's photographs have slowly become more available in the secondary markets over the past few years, with prices at auction ranging between roughly $5000 and $48000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• DLK COLLECTION review of concurrent Wolkowitz show (here)

Edward Burtynsky
Through December 10th

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

The Checklist: 11/17/11

Checklist 11/17/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

TWO STARS: Julia Margaret Cameron: Hans Kraus: November 18: review
ONE STAR: After the Gold Rush: Met: January 2: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Lars Tunbjörk: Amador: November 19: review
ONE STAR: Simon Norfolk: Bonni Benrubi: December 3: review
TWO STARS: Hiroshi Sugimoto: Pace/MacGill: December 3: review
ONE STAR: Jessica Eaton: Higher Pictures: December 17: review
ONE STAR: New Photography 2011: MoMA: January 16: review
TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 2012: review

Chelsea

TWO STARS: Edward Burtynsky: Bryce Wolkowitz: December 10: review
TWO STARS: Daniel Gordon: Wallspace: December 17: review
ONE STAR: Uta Barth: Tanya Bonakdar: December 22: review
ONE STAR: Sharon Core: Yancey Richardson: December 23: review
THREE STARS: Nan Goldin: Matthew Marks: December 23: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Type A: Aldrich: December 31: review

Nan Goldin: Scopophilia @Marks

JTF (just the facts): A total of 47 photographs, framed in black without mats, and hung against white, grey and yellow walls in four interconnected gallery spaces, with 1 video projection, shown in a darkened viewing room. All of the works are chromogenic prints, made between 1993 and 2011, displayed as single images, diptychs, or grids of up to 16 component images. Physical dimensions range from 20x15 to 45x67; the grids and diptychs are available in editions of 3, while the single images are available in editions of 15. The 25-minute video projection, which mimics the behavior of a slide show, is available in an edition of 5, and contains images from 1977-2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: It takes a certain amount of confidence to pair a life's worth of intimate photographs with the treasures of one of the world's great art museums; if the work can't hold its own, the entire enterprise has the potential to look like a shockingly self-centered and arrogant stunt. Nan Goldin's mixing of art history, life and "the love of looking" (using examples from the Louvre) walks this dangerous, thin line, but actually finds a way to tell us something unexpectedly new, not about the paintings and sculptures found in the Paris museum, but about the timeless gestures captured via Goldin's snapshot aesthetic; she uses the images from the museum to successfully reinterpret her own personal and artistic history.

The video installation is the real centerpiece of this show, with the still photographs on display in the rest of the gallery acting like a supporting apparatus, repeating themes that run through the video in a more rigid and fixed medium. The slide show format (one image projected after another in serial fashion), complete with sparse commentary by Goldin and soaring choral voices, lends itself to rhythmic timing, leading the viewer back and forth between Goldin's photographs and fragments of the museum's collection with a natural pace that allows for stylistic comparison and thoughtful echoes. While I have long admired the rough, vulnerable realism and lush color in her photographs, the video forced me to get beyond those more obvious merits and see the underlying structure of Goldin's compositions more clearly, something I had heretofore completely overlooked. Pairings of like poses wash away the blunt harshness of Goldin's life stories, leaving behind the tenderness and grace of her portraits and human forms. Translucent skin is followed by luscious white marble, kisses rebound between iconic paintings and stolen moments, long hair cascades over and over, and nudes (both female and male) jump from casual to formal and back again. Her choices from the Louvre are steeped in the "mythology of romance", making her own photographs of private desire and elemental longing seem more universal and timeless, even though they clearly come from a very specific time and place. The gritty destructiveness that lays within many of Goldin's photographs is trumped here by the honest truth of sensual bodies and eternal relationships.

After watching the video, the still photographs seem a little less engaging, although the simpler diptychs of paired naps and embraces are more successful than the larger grids of odalisques, backs, and water drenched bodies; I think when the gestures get multiplied out into typologies, the "see they match" message gets more heavy handed, almost too obvious. The rounded room in the back pairs frontal portraits, capturing commonalities of expression across the ages; penetrating stares and authentic looks haven't changed much over the centuries, even if roles and classes certainly have.

The reason this show merits my highest rating is that it forced me to reappraise Goldin's photography, to see beyond the edgy bedroom scenes and the candidly intense situations and to discover the classic lines of her work. It was a way of approaching her pictures that I had never tried (it had never even occurred to me), and I was astounded by the controlled power and refinement in her compositions once I went looking for it. After seeing these juxtapositions, my impression of her many talents has been permanently altered. One might argue this is an "old wine in a new bottle" show, but there are moments of sublime finesse and subtle poetry to be found here (particularly in the video) and the chance to fundamentally transform your opinion of one of the masters of the medium doesn't come along very often.

Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows: the grids and diptychs are priced between $20000 and $60000, while the single images range between $6000 and $15000; I did not get a price for the video installation. Goldin's work is routinely available in the secondary markets, with dozens of images available at auction every year; recent prices have generally ranged between $2000 and $34000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: Hyperallergic (here), Huffington Post (here),  NY Times Lens (here)

Nan Goldin: Scopophilia
Through December 23rd

Matthew Marks Gallery
522 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Jessica Eaton, Cubes for Albers and LeWitt @Higher Pictures

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 color photographs, framed in black and unmatted, and hung in the small single room gallery space and the adjacent viewing alcove. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made in 2010 or 2011. The images have been printed in one of two sizes: 40x32 (in editions of 3) or 20x16 (in editions of 5); there are 5 in the large size and 6 in the small size on view. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Jessica Eaton's layered, experimental geometries and additive color studies delve into the deep artistic traditions of the elemental cube and square, using complex photographic techniques to echo and reinterpret visual motifs from the masters of minimalist/abstract painting and sculpture. Her works reconsider nested Albers squares and stacked LeWitt cubes using the tools of multiple exposure photography, generating compositions with new degrees of aesthetic freedom.

Using simple painted cubes of different sizes and an array of primary colored filters, Eaton is able to mix and match to create interlocking planes and transparent stratifications, pushing from obvious recreations and homages to more chaotic sets of angles and colors. The best of the images explore theoretical boundaries, where three dimensionality and flatness intersect in unexpected ways, sometimes producing a blurred optical buzzing that shimmers and shifts.

While Ion Zupcu has explored some of the same visual territory (albeit in a monochrome palette), I think Eaton's successes are found her ability to extend the abstractions beyond a simple series of cubes, to let the ghosted forms intermingle and unravel a bit, and where the color theory gets more complicated and contradictory. While there is certainly technical mastery evident in her photographic recreation of an Albers, I was most excited to see Eaton's original point of view come through more clearly in the highly splintered and deconstructed forms.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show have ratcheting prices, based on the place in the edition. The 40x32 prints range from $3500 to $5500, while the 20x16 prints range from $2500 to $3500. Eaton's work has not yet made it to the secondary markets in any meaningful manner, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist tumblr (here)

Jessica Eaton, Cubes for Albers and LeWitt
Through December 17th

Higher Pictures
764 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10065

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lake Superior @Pace/MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white photographs, framed in black wood and matted, and hung against grey and dark grey colored walls in the main rooms of the gallery. All of the photographs are gelatin silver prints mounted to board, made in either 1995 or 2003. Each mounted image is 20x24; no edition information was available. There is no photography allowed in the gallery, so the installation shots at right are via the Pace/MacGill website.

Comments/Context: Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographic seascapes have become so iconic that at this point, I'm ashamed to say that I think I take them a bit for granted. This isn't to say that I adore or admire them any less, it's just that my brain uses some kind of mental shorthand that assumes I've already absorbed most of what they have to offer, and thereby often skips over them in search of something else. In the past few years, Sugimoto's seascapes have been shown at monumental scale in New York gallery shows, and at that size, their largeness becomes enveloping and almost spiritual. In contrast, this show gathers together images taken of Lake Superior and displays them in the smaller size, forcing the viewer into an entirely different and much more intimate, one-on-one interaction.

The sequencing of this show is important to notice, as there is a careful progression along a spectrum of color and mood. The first image the visitor encounters when coming out of the elevators is an almost pure white on white picture (the best in the show, in my opinion), which is then followed around the wall by whites that become more foggy and unstable, and waves and undulations that become more noticeable. As the viewer passes into the adjoining room, the bisected images become more contrasty, the water darker, sometimes grey and soft, sometimes smooth, sometimes crisp and almost sharp against the featureless sky, ending with a single night seascape with its tonalities of light and dark reversed. Seen together at this size, the changing weather conditions generate forward motion through the gallery, and the subtle gradation enables a meditative flow of muted emotion.
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Sugimoto's seascapes are a tremendous reminder of the power of pared down, photographic simplicity. His views of the water offer endless variations, combining both a cerebral quality of conceptual thinking and a deeply human sense of timeless, elemental purity. Even if you're sure you've seen them before, they undeniably merit a second (or third, or fourth) look.
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Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are priced at $35000 each. Sugimoto's work is routinely available in the secondary markets, in various sizes and at various price points. Images of equivalent size (20x24) as those on display here (seascapes, as well as other subjects/projects) have generally been available at auction at prices ranging between $10000 and $90000.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lake Superior
Through December 3rd

Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Simon Norfolk: Burke + Norfolk @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 color photographs, hung in the tight entry hallway and the main gallery space. 7 of the works are archival pigment ink prints, framed in black and matted, each 20x24, in editions of 7+2AP. The other 7 works are also archival pigment ink prints, but framed in black and unmatted, each 40x53, also in editions of 7+2AP. All of the images were taken in Afghanistan in 2010. A monograph of this body of work entitled Burke + Norfolk, Photographs from the War in Afghanistan by John Burke and Simon Norfolk was published by Dewi Lewis in 2011 (here); it is available from the gallery for $80. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Simon Norfolk's recent photographs of contemporary Afghanistan remind us that while the daily news might give us momentary examples of both apparent progress and discouraging set backs, there is a repetitive timelessness to the struggle that stretches back centuries. Using John Burke's 19th century photographs of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) as a source of inspiration and dialogue, Norfolk has responded with two sets of images that document the situation on the ground in complementary ways.
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The first group of pictures reference the traditions and expectations of 19th century group portraiture, with rows of assembled peoples arranged and photographed with rigid stone-faced formality. While the subjects are locked in an ageless sepia-toned patina, there is evidence of change and modernization hiding within the dated visual vocabulary: a head-scarfed women's basketball team, young girls at an indoor skate park, the staff from a new Afghan airline, a group of high tech mine sweepers, and American marines paired with Afghan police trainees. Mixed in with shots of traditional musicians and Taliban sympathizers in dark robes, Norfolk highlights the contrasts of new and old, grounding his observed changes in the slow evolution of the society as a whole.

The second group of works are large scale color cityscapes, often taken in the light of the early morning or the twilit evening when the sky is misty and purple. These images explore the two sides of simultaneous modernization and war-torn destruction: a homeless family standing in the hazy, crumbled ruins of the old Presidential Palace, an optimistic pizza restaurant flanked by a massive pile of rusting bus carcasses, red bags of fresh apples piled amidst the frenetic motion of the traffic, and clumps of bamboo construction poles and ladders echoed by the surveillance towers on the dusty hills in the background. Norfolk's photographs capture the essence of the everyday struggle of the locals, where the details of the Western occupation coexist with the remnants of the endlessly beaten down city.

While there are no actual prints by Burke in this show for handy side by side comparison, the mix of ideas between the two seems to have been an effective way for Norfolk to catalyze new visual approaches to the subject matter. Both sets of new images feel very rooted in and mindful of the past, where if we look carefully, the events of today are an updated repetition of those from long ago.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the 20x24 prints are £2500 and the 40x53 prints are £6000 (note the prices are in British pounds). Norfolk's work has begun to slowly enter the secondary markets in recent years, with prices at auction ranging between roughly $6000 and $26000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist page (here)
• Reviews: New Yorker (here), LA Times (here)
• Features: Wayne Ford (here), Guardian (here)
• Exhibit: Tate Modern (here)

Simon Norfolk: Burke + Norfolk
Through December 3rd

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Sharon Core: 1606-1907 @Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space. All of the prints are archival pigment prints, available in editions of 7, made in 2011. Physical dimensions range from 18x15 to 30x23 (or reverse). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Sharon Core's brand of image appropriation is wholly different than a commonplace cut and paste or an easy lift and recontextualize. In previous works, her meticulous process has included baking cakes and pies, growing vegetables, and scouring flea markets in search of period ceramics and tableware, all in the name of painstakingly recreating paintings via photography, with an eye for exacting detail.

In her newest works, Core has immersed herself in the genre of the floral still life, exploring the subtleties of how explosions of riotous color and delicate bouquets have been captured across three centuries of artistic activity. In each case, from an Dutch master from the early 1600s or a Modernist arrangement from the early 1900s, she has faithfully documented the conventions and idiosyncrasies of how flowers were presented, cultivating her own blossoms in her greenhouse to ensure period authenticity. Her images display a kind of technical accuracy that is thoroughly impressive, where backdrops, tabletop accessories (like shells and insects), and even the angle and strength of the light are controlled with precise perfection. Tulips, peonies, roses, and dozens of other varieties have never looked so good.

While there is a certain awe inspiring wonder that comes from standing in front of these fastidious pictures, even though we are flower collectors, I was surprisingly less than moved by the conceptual inversion being explored. I can imagine one of these pictures hanging in a collector's home, and having that person trick visitors with the image, gleefully explaining that it's not a painting but a photograph, and everyone nodding their heads in respectful, smiling amazement, putting their faces right up close to inspect the details. Or it seems likely that a museum might hang one directly next to a period painting to show the similarities and differences (see the link below). Either way, this of course dives directly into the idea of what truth means in photography, and into the evolution of approaches to "natural" picture making across various time periods. But somehow, while I was obviously struck by the technical mastery of these photographs, they made less of an overall impression than I was expecting. When the "gee whiz" factor wears off, we're still looking at beautiful floral compositions we've seen before (albeit in a different medium); I realize that this is the point, but if I tell the truth, while these are pictures I should love, they somehow left me with a sense of being slightly underwhelmed.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced between $7000 and $9500, based on size. Core's work has slowly begun to enter the secondary markets in recent years, with prices at auction ranging between $8000 and $81000. The images from her series of Thiebaud cake recreations have been routinely at the top end of that range.

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

Transit Hub:

• Feature: Minneapolis Institute of Arts blog (here)

Sharon Core: 1606-1907
Through December 23rd

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

The Checklist: 11/10/11

Checklist 11/10/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

ONE STAR: Horst P. Horst: Stellan Holm: November 12: review
TWO STARS: Julia Margaret Cameron: Hans Kraus: November 18: review
ONE STAR: After the Gold Rush: Met: January 2: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Lars Tunbjörk: Amador: November 19: review
ONE STAR: New Photography 2011: MoMA: January 16: review
TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 2012: review

Chelsea

THREE STARS: Lisette Model: Bruce Silverstein: November 12: review
TWO STARS: Edward Burtynsky: Bryce Wolkowitz: December 10: review
TWO STARS: Daniel Gordon: Wallspace: December 17: review
ONE STAR: Uta Barth: Tanya Bonakdar: December 22: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Type A: Aldrich: December 31: review

Daniel Gordon: Still Lifes, Portraits & Parts @Wallspace

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 color photographs, framed in black and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space, the smaller back room, and the office area. The prints are chromogenic prints, ranging in size from 16x20 to 46x36 (or reverse), available in editions of 3, from 2010/2011. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: When I was first exposed to the work of Daniel Gordon at the 2009 version of MoMA's New Photography show (here), I remember thinking that the images were somewhat grotesque and off-putting, with a psychological roughness that made them hard to get close to. In the intervening years since that exhibit, I'm not sure whether Gordon's work has become slightly more refined or whether my interest in photography that is challenging and unexpected has increased (or both), but I certainly found his newest batch of pictures to be rich and exciting.

As a reminder, Gordon's process is both elaborate and resolutely physical. He starts with appropriated digital imagery (both sharp and pixelated/distorted), which is then printed out onto actual paper. These prints are then collaged together into three dimensional tabletop sculptures, with torn edges, fishing line, and dollops of glue left bare as evidence. The final constructed results are then photographed using a view camera, providing extra clarity and detail.

Gordon's portraits reuse elements of Cubism in a modern way: his faces are made of disassembled, mismatched scraps of features, which are then reconstructed and layered in non-obvious ways, mixing male and female, hard and soft, and often employing multiple conflicting angles. His newest portraits seem tighter than the ones I saw a few years ago, less jolting for the sake of shock value and more nuanced and interconnected. His still lifes of flowers and fruit take a well-worn genre and introduce combinations of texture and color that upend expectations: a vase is simultaneously crumpled and out of focus, peaches are both pink and blue, their roundness both flat and crinkled. And a third group of pictures moves more toward crafty sculptural abstraction, with Dada-like side silhouetted faces that cast shadows across intermediate spaces.

What I like about these photographs is that there are some risks being taken. The images are proof of a constant process of reuse and reformulation, less in the hackneyed digital sense, but more in the manner of fragmentation and reassembly, of seeing photographs as open-ended, malleable raw material to be employed in more complex and original visual descriptions.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $3500 and $6500, based on size. Gordon's work is not yet widely available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only real option for interested collectors at this point.
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By the way, this show was hung quite sparsely, with large expanses of empty white wall in between the prints. To my eye, the rooms could have held a few more images, which assuming they were available, would have made for a more powerful overall impression of Gordon's recent work.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Daniel Gordon: Still Lifes, Portraits & Parts

Through December 17th

Wallspace
619 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10011

Uta Barth @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): This show contains a pairing of recent projects, displayed in separate rooms. The main gallery contains works from the project ... and to draw a bright white line with light from 2011. There are 10 works on view, each made up of one to three 38x56 panels. The prints are inkjet prints face mounted against matte acrylic, framed in white and unmatted, in editions of 6+2AP. The back gallery contains works from the project Compositions of Light on White, also from 2011. There are 8 single panel works on view, ranging in size from 24x23 to 41x48. The prints are inkjet prints in white lacquered wooden frames, in editions of 6+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Uta Barth's newest works explore the idea of using focused light as a drawing mechanism. Her pictures turn luminous lines and areas of white brightness into a discrete medium, like ink or paint, that can be carefully controlled by the hand of the artist, not in the sense of a photogram or a darkroom manipulation, but in the context of straight photographic image making. In two separate projects, she has used curtains and window blinds to direct the incoming light, creating ethereal shapes and forms that are projected onto different underlying surfaces.

The walls of the main gallery space are covered by works that chart the passing of time across an afternoon. A thin white line of sunlight streams in through gauzy textured curtains, creating a wiggly, heartbeat-like form projected through the undulations of the transparent fabric, reminiscent of Minor White's Windowsill Daydreaming (here). This white line slowly expands into a wide ribbon as the time passes, in the end becoming a thick stripe of sinuous diffusing light, almost like waves on a seashore or Morris Louis' washes of watery paint. It's an extremely simple construct that provides a graceful and meditative view of the abstract movement of time.

I found the images in the back room to have more complexity and visual punch. In these works, Barth uses the blinds to generate squares and rectangles of radiant projected sunlight, which are then directed onto flat white closet doors and arrays of drawers. The black cracks along the edges of the storage areas create linear geometries, which are then covered in additional layers of brilliant white shapes, creating flattened planes of Mondrian-like abstraction. Barth subtly changes the camera angle from image to image, bringing in more or less of the perspective of the drawers, in a few allowing the view down the hallway to become a dark stripe along the edge of the frame. These are quiet, intellectual pictures, playing with reference points and internal geometries, examining shimmering light as a defining overlayer.

As always, there is a calmness to Barth's heady explorations. She continues to probe the edges of perception and visual recognition with a meticulous sense of restraint, in this case, proving that elemental light can be an inventive medium in and of itself.

Collector's POV: The prices of the prints from ... and to draw a bright white line with light are dependent on the number of panels in the work: 1 panel at $26000, 2 panels at $36000, or 3 panels at $46000. The prices of the prints from Compositions of Light on White are based on size, ranging from $18000 to $26000. Barth's photographs have become more available in the secondary markets in recent years, with auction prices ranging between $3000 and $38000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Prior Exhibit: Art Institute of Chicago, 2011 (here)
• Feature: Daily Beast (here)

Uta Barth
Through December 22nd

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

521 West 21st Street

New York, NY 10011

Edward Burtynsky: Dryland Farming @Wolkowitz

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 large scale color photographs, framed in black and not matted, and hung in the entry area and the main gallery space in the back. All of the works are chromogenic color prints, taken in 2010. The images are shown in three different sizes (with a fourth smaller size not on display): 39x52 (in editions of 9), 48x64 (in editions of 6), and 60x80 (in editions of 3). There are 2 images in the 39x52 size, 6 images in the 48x64 size, and 4 images in the 60x80 size on view. A concurrent show of Burtynsky's earlier work is on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Edward Burtynsky's photographs have routinely posed nuanced questions about how certain human actions have potentially far reaching and often unseen implications for the planet. At massive industrial sites criss-crossing the globe, he has documented both the rigid order and the decaying chaos of open pit mines, Chinese factories, ship salvage yards, and stone quarries, finding abstract beauty amid the expansive work environments. In his previous project on the end-to-end influence of oil, he took a broader look at the upstream causes and downstream effects of the entire industry, connecting the dots to consequences that weren't immediately obvious. His most recent pictures are part of a new project on water, presumably investigating how the increasing scarcity of yet another vital resource is changing the way we live.

All of the photographs in this show were taken in the dusty hills of northern Spain, where water has been in short supply for generations. Looking down from a helicopter, Burtynsky has captured the endless stripes and striations carved into the dirty foothills, flattening out the landscape into an abstract puzzle of fingered, terraced fields. The visual patterns are a shocking echo of the dense paintings of Jean Dubuffet (an example, here), where the land has become a patchwork of squiggly quilted parcels, cross hatched by irrigation, mowing and thin, intervening roads. The undulating topography has been condensed into subtle geometries and graphic forms, the hand of man writ large on the rocky terrain.

There is virtually no green in the palette of these images (save a few olive trees as dots); instead, the land is painted in beige and rust, grey and black, with a dusting of drifted white snow. These subdued colors highlight the desolation and desperation in farming this country, accenting the sense of scratching an existence out of land that is indifferent and uncooperative. The pictures ask tough questions about how our agricultural needs will evolve as water sources become more and more depleted, and to what lengths we will be required to remake the land to adapt to this new reality. While there is an uncanny, frenetic elegance to these muted landscapes, their message is surprisingly dark and ominous.

In general, I think these images have moved Burtynsky back towards a more painterly kind of photography, where landscapes are transformed into expressive gestures. At the same time, I think his vision of how photography can influence the direction of the collective conversation is getting broader; with each successive project, he is taking on larger and more complicated issues. The worldwide water situation will only become more tense and strategic in the coming years, so Burtynsky's artistic exploration of this subject may well be an important starting point for raising the awareness of what we're up against.
 
Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows: the 39x52 prints are $16500, the 48x64 prints are $24000, and the 60x80 prints are $42000 (I didn't get the price for the smallest size not on view). Burtynsky's photographs have slowly become more available in the secondary markets over the past few years, with prices at auction ranging between roughly $5000 and $48000. 
 

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Article: NY Times (here)
• Reviews: Time LightBox (here)

Edward Burtynsky: Dryland Farming

Through December 10th

Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
505 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Julia Margaret Cameron @Kraus

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 photographs, framed in brown wood and matted, and hung against grey walls in the entry, main gallery space and back viewing alcove. The prints are a mix of albumen prints from wet collodion negatives and carbon prints (with one photogram on a side wall), all made between 1858 and 1873. An in-depth scholarly catalogue of the show (Sun Pictures 20) is available from the gallery for $40. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This ample show of Julia Margaret Cameron's 19th century portraiture is almost certainly the best near term opportunity to see a large group of her photographs outside a major museum. Like a mini-retrospective, it covers her more standard portraits of sitters both known and unknown, as well as her more romanticized staged scenes, along with a couple of portraits of the artist herself and a surprising photogram of ferns. It's a well-edited sampler, providing a comprehensive picture of what made her such a standout in 19th century photography.

While Cameron's ethereal images of Shakespearean stories, Arthurian legends, and allegorical religious scenes are certainly representative of a particular kind of Victorian mind set, with surprising regularity, she was also able to make straight portraits that are jaw-droppingly, shockingly modern, even today some 150 years later. These are the kind of portraits that stare out from the walls with penetrating strength or shimmering grace, that jump out at you and grab your attention with a level of confrontation and confidence unusual for their times. They are tactile pictures to get lost in, where you stand astonished, making an eye to eye connection across time and space, life and death. Both Stella and A Beautiful Vision have this uncanny ability to throttle you from afar, to stop you in your tracks and emphatically require a deeper engagement.

So while there are plenty of bushy beards, formal suits, flowing hairstyles and lilting gauzy frocks on view here, watch out for the few portraits that go beyond the simply elegant, the soberly rich or the mythically uplifting to make a time warp jump to boldly look you in the eye and choke off your air supply.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show range in price from $8000 to $90000, with most above $20000. Cameron's work is often available in the secondary markets, with recent prices ranging between $1000 and $108000.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Reviews: iPhotoCentral (here), WSJ (here), Bullett Media (here)

Julia Margaret Cameron
Through November 18th

Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Fine Photographs
962 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10028

The Checklist: 11/3/11

Checklist 11/3/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

ONE STAR: Horst P. Horst: Stellan Holm: November 12: review
ONE STAR: After the Gold Rush: Met: January 2: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Lars Tunbjörk: Amador: November 19: review
ONE STAR: New Photography 2011: MoMA: January 16: review
TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 2012: review

Chelsea

TWO STARS: Elinor Carucci: Sasha Wolf: November 5: review
THREE STARS: Lisette Model: Bruce Silverstein: November 12: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Type A: Aldrich: December 31: review

Self Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model @Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 36 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung together with 10 works in other media, framed in blond wood and matted, together displayed in the entry area, front room, main gallery space and back room. All of the photographs are vintage or early gelatin silver prints, taken between 1933 and 1961. Physical dimensions range from roughly 13x10 to 34x27 or reverse, with most roughly 14x11 or reverse. (Installation shots at right.)

The following other artists have been included in the show, with number of works on view and image details in parentheses:

• Max Beckmann (1 drypoint, 1918)
• Otto Dix (2 lithographs, both 1923)
• Lyonel Feininger (1 woodcut, 1920)
• George Grosz (2 color offset prints on cream Velin paper, 1919 and 1921)
• Karl Hubbuch (1 brush and lithograph chalk on wove paper, 1930-1931)
• Ernst Kirchner (1 lithograph, 1912)
• Jeanne Mammen (1 pen and ink on paper, 1933)
• Bruno Voigt (1 watercolor, pencil and ink on paper, 1933)

Comments/Context: Bruce Silverstein is quietly making a name for himself as the go-to advocate for the estates of master photographers. After countless others have pawed through the storage boxes and picked out the saleable gems, he has repeatedly come in, brought fresh eyes to the remnants, and made compelling arguments for the importance of what was left behind, in the process doing a respectable job of buffing up the reputations of many who were arguably in danger of being forgotten amidst the ever more frantic search for the new.

Silverstein has recently taken on the estate of Lisette Model, and this show is nothing short of a complete reinterpretation of her place in art history. Many might characterize Model as a classic New York photographer, a friend and contemporary of Abbott, and the respected teacher of Arbus, Hujar, Solomon and others, all of which she certainly was. But this exhibit takes us back to her roots in Vienna, and makes a strong argument for placing her photography in the context of German and Austrian Expressionism. Through a series of side-by-side juxtapositions, the influences of the Expressionist style and mindset on Model's artistic approach come through as real and meaningful.

The images in the front rooms gather Model's layered shop window reflections, her shadow silhouettes, and her telescoping pictures of legs at sidewalk-level, which are then smartly paired with Feininger's chaotic black and white buildings, Grosz' mix of street caricatures, and Kirchner's leggy dancers. The main room contains mostly portraits by Model, some verging on the grotesque and the ugly, often with a knack for biting social critique.The visual echoes between these photographs and the works by Dix, Hubbuch, Voight, and Grosz are startling: bulging faces are twisted in similar ways, bodies are distorted and framed with matching poses, and bald heads take on a sinister quality. The back room contains Model's images of cafe life, punctuated by Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire playing in the background. The high pitched squeaks and throaty yells in the music are shrill and dissonant, matching Model's severe camera angles. The pairing of Model's famous Cafe Metropole with Mammen's The Fat Singer is an inspired one, making Model's exuberantly odd image seem not like an outlier in photographic history but more like a direct descendant from the artistic movements of her past.

Given this new context, Model's relationship to Expressionism seems so obvious that it is a wonder that this story hasn't been told more fully before. This is a well researched, carefully sequenced, and thoughtful show, brimming with new ideas and unexpected connections (i.e. should we now link Arbus to German Expressionism more explicitly?) Model's photography seems so much fresher and more innovative when seen through this lens, so don't miss this chance to reconsider your preconceived notions of what her art might mean.

Collector's POV: The prices for the Model prints in this show range from $9500 to $45000, with many intermediate prices. Model's work is generally available in the secondary markets, with roughly a dozen or so lots up for sale in any given year. Recent prices at auction have ranged between $2000 and $62000.

The other artworks in the show are priced as follows:

• Max Beckmann: $35000
• Otto Dix: $100000 and $25000
• Lyonel Feininger: $24000
• George Grosz: $3000 each
• Karl Hubbuch: NFS
• Ernst Kirchner: $50000
• Jeanne Mammen: $20000
• Bruno Voigt: $8000

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

• Reviews: NY Times (here), New Yorker (here), La Lettre de la Photographie (here), Speaking in Tongues (here)

Self Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model

Through November 12th
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Bruce Silverstein Gallery
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011