Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Jan Groover, Formalism is Everything @Borden

JTF (just the facts): A total of 37 photographic works (32 single images, 2 diptychs and 3 triptychs), variously framed and matted, and hung in the main gallery space with a dividing wall. The vintage prints use a mix of gelatin silver (2), chromogenic (15), platinum palladium (18) and inkjet (2) processes. Physical dimensions range from 2x3 to 30x40, and proposed edition sizes include 1 (unique), 3, 5, 10, or 15, depending on the work. The images were taken between 1973 and 2003. A short documentary film on Groover, entitled Tilting at Space (produced by Tina Barney), is on view in the back gallery. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Jan Groover passed away earlier this year, and while this show was already on the gallery's exhibition calendar, it now has the feeling of a memorial tribute or a summing up. Taking the form of a loose retrospective, it gathers together superlative work from four decades and examines Groover's evolving sense of photographic formalism. As I walked into the gallery, I had the immediate feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulders, as if the sea of endless artistic mediocrity that I had been trudging through had fallen away. Here, at last, were a group of photographs made by someone who knew what she was doing.

While the show isn't organized chronologically, the earliest pictures on view come from the mid 1970s, when Groover's work was rigidly conceptual. Using sign posts and light poles to bisect the picture plane, she captured truck trailers and cars at the exact moment when the passing vehicles met the vertical element, creating flat rectangles of space or witty dollops of red, yellow and blue. They poke and prod at elements of elapsed time, visual structure, and two-dimensional composition.

Groover's kitchen sink still lifes from the late 1970s are perhaps her best known works, and they haven't lost one iota of their ability to astound some thirty years later. Whether in silvery tactile platinum or seductive color, they explore the essence of form, where the tines of a fork, the edge of a bowl, the scallop of a cake tin, and the flatness of a knife are carefully arranged to intersect and react, creating both reflections and areas of negative space that bring harmony to the compositions. The addition of a chambered nautilus, glass bowls, and whorled, undulating green peppers gave her even more shapes and volumes to play with, leading to overlapping lines and voids of grace and sophistication. Part of me is completely flabbergasted that these bravura kitchen images are still floating around; they should all be in museums by now.

The images from the early 1980s go back outside, applying lessons of formal structure to industrial buildings (reminiscent of Renger-Patzsch), picnic table arrangements, and even intertwined legs and arms, all in luminescent platinum. Her seemingly simple images of folded knees and elbows are intricately layered and sublimely elegant. In the late 1980s, Groover moved into the studio once again, playing with the scale of her still life objects (smaller), their surfaces (glossy or matte), and their interrelationships and orientations. While the color is more boldly operatic here, the forms lead back to Morandi, albeit with more depth of space. A few more recent images made digitally swing back to severity, removing the backdrops altogether and opting for deep blackness, her painted bottles and jugs piled in more clustered groups. It seems that the potential for innovative formal exercises never ceased.

While this show isn't a comprehensive scholarly statement on Groover's long and productive career, it is undeniably a powerful sampler of control and craft. It deftly combines wow moments, unexpected treasures, and deservedly iconic images into an impressively heady mix. In the end, her work is an attention-grabbing reminder for me that words like meticulous, restrained, precise, ordered, and disciplined still have a central place in the vocabulary of photography.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show range in price from $9000 to $35000, based on age and scarcity. Groover's work is not routinely available in the secondary markets, and auction outcomes in recent years (between $1000 and $13000) may not be entirely representative of the market for her best images.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:
  • Obituaries: NY Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here)
  • Review: New Yorker (here)
Jan Groover, Formalism is Everything
Through March 17th

Janet Borden, Inc.
560 Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Melanie Willhide: to Adrian Rodriguez, with love @Von Lintel

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 color and black and white photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the single room gallery. All of the works are inkjet prints, each sized 30x28 and available in editions of 5. The images were made in 2011. There are 6 color photographs and 4 black and white photographs in the show. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The idea of allowing for chance in a photographer's artistic approach is certainly nothing new. In the nearly bygone era of physical film, this has usually meant one of two things: the chance (and mostly fortuitous) alignment of subjects and compositions in front of the camera, creating Cartier-Bresson's famous "decisive moment", and the chance alchemy of the darkroom, where chemical spills, random drips and photogram oddities have led to unexpected, sometimes painterly, modifications of underlying images. Both approaches have been thoroughly and expertly mined by dozens of photographers over recent decades. But the idea of digital chance is one that we are just beginning to investigate, and Melanie Willhide's new work digs into some of the unexpected possibilities provided by soured computer storage. Armed with a laptop full of reconstructed and corrupted image files, she embraced the visual artifacts left behind by the unintended destruction, uncovering a new kind of hard-edged digital abstraction.

Most of the works here start with recognizable imagery: male and female nudes (either new or appropriated), along with a series of pictures taken in a Palm Springs swimming pool. From there, the digital breakdown begins. In many of the images, there is a skittering, skipping effect, where slices of the image are repeated in endless loops, stacking up and taking over the available space. Rows and rows of identical lip and torso fragments spin out of control. In other pictures, digital gremlins and greebles crawl across the surface of the images in thin lines, obscuring the content underneath, creating tiny stripes and striations. In both groups, the colors have been kicked out of whack, sometimes creating all over tints or layered screens, in others, an eye-popping, day-glo psychedelia. The overall feel is mechanistic and computational rather than gestural or expressionistic.

While I can easily pick out a couple of winners here (the nude on the far right of middle installation shot being my favorite in the show), to me this show feels more like a hopeful beginning than an end. Willhide needs to run with this seam of originality, let it get much weirder and wilder, and push the concept further. Simple repetitions, inversions and kaleidoscope effects are a good start, but I think she should encourage the digital chaos to come through more strongly and allow the chance decay to reduce the legibility of the subject matter even more. The path of mixing human images and the unintelligible soul of the machine seems ripe for deeper aesthetic exploration and examination.
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Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are priced at $3800 each. Willhide's work has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for collectors interested in following up.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Features/Reviews: New Yorker PhotoBooth (here), LA Times Culture Monster (here)
Through March 24th

Von Lintel Gallery
520 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011

Monday, February 27, 2012

Police Work: Photographs by Leonard Freed, 1972-1979 @MCNY

JTF (just the facts): A total of 47 black and white photographs, framed in black wood and matted, and hung against dark blue walls in two adjoining rooms on the second floor of the museum. The prints are either gelatin silver (vintage) or archival pigment prints (later), taken between 1972 and 1979. No physical dimensions or edition information was available. The exhibit also includes 2 glass cases displaying 5 books by Freed, 2 magazine spreads, and a copy of his press pass. A monograph of this body of work was published by Touchstone in 1980. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Leonard Freed's documentary photographs of 1970s era New York policemen and women tell a surprisingly even handed, matter-of-fact story about life on the beat. His pictures are less about dramatic moments, dangerous situations, and action-packed heroism, and more about the day-in, day-out life of rough and tumble police work. It's an inside look at the gritty realities of the occupation, its tedium, and the everyday people tasked with the job of trying to control an unruly world.

During these years, Freed actually rode around in patrol cars, spent time in police precincts, and tagged along for arrests and demonstrations. As a result, his photographs have an inside-the-barriers immediacy, often capturing the viewpoint of the officers or catching an unguarded moment during a break in the action. As a group, the pictures are unexpectedly comprehensive: suspects are frisked and handcuffed, bulletproof vests are put on, notes are taken, drug sales are spotted with binoculars from rooftops, confiscated handguns are forensically tested, composite sketches are drawn, and paperwork is filed. When the tension is low, the officers ham it up with parade watchers, play with kids and let them climb in the patrol car, or simply take a much-needed smoke break. Off duty, they lounge in above ground pools and ride motorcycles like the rest of us, but the sea of uniforms at one too many formal funerals is a poignant reminder of the ever present danger associated with this career choice.

What I liked best about this body of work is that it covers so much emotional landscape, without being too posed or biased. In Freed's tight photographs, the job of policing looks alternately high pressure and slack, unexpected and routine, fast paced and ploddingly boring. Knife scars, burned out buildings, vacant debris strewn lots, and a sink full of cash and syringes provide the seamy details, but there are an equal number of moments waiting, standing around, or talking with bystanders and locals. His pictures are more about the process of policing than the end results, and regardless of the particular time period, their continued strength lies in being open about the daily complexity that the job both offers and requires.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Freeds's photographs are available from time to time in the secondary markets, with perhaps a handful of prints coming up for sale each year. Recent prices have ranged from roughly $1000 to $5000. The estate of Leonard Freed is represented in New York by Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here).

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

Transit Hub:
  • Magnum Photos page (here)
  • Features/Reviews: Time LightBox (here)
Police Work: Photographs by Leonard Freed, 1972-1979
Through May 6th

Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Avenue
New York, NY 10029

Friday, February 24, 2012

New York in Color @Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A group show of 42 color photographs from 30 different photographers, generally framed in black and matted, and hung against light brown walls in the main gallery space, a side viewing room, and the back room near Greenberg's office. The mostly later prints were made using a mix of chromogenic, pigment, and dye transfer processes, with physical dimensions ranging in size from 10x8 to 46x34. The images were taken between 1947 and 2008. A monograph of this body of work was published by Abrams in 2011 (here). The exhibit was curated by Bob Shamis. (Installation shots at right.)

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

Micha Bar'am (1, 1968/Later)
Nina Berman (1, 2000/Later)
Erwin Blumenfeld (2, 1955/Later)
Jerry Dantzic (1, 1950s/Later)
Bruce Davidson (1, 1980/Later)
Louis Faurer (2, 1947, 1950)
Burt Glinn (2, 1959/Later, 1964/Later)
Ernst Haas (1, 1952/1995)
Gail Albert Halaban (1, 2008)
Erich Hartmann (1, 1971/Later)
Eveyln Hofer (1, 1964/Later)
Don Hunstein (1, 1961/Later)
Len Jenshel (1, 2003)
William Klein (1, 1962/Later)
Saul Leiter (2, 1954/Later, 1957/Later)
Helen Levitt (1, 1972)
Danny Lyon (1, 1966/2005)
Jeff Mermelstein (2, 1993, 2000/2009)
Joel Meyerowitz (3, 1964/Later, 1974/Later, 1975/Later)
Abelardo Morell (1, 2009)
Margaret Morton (2, 2006, 2008)
Marvin Newman (3, 1952/Later, 1953/Later, 1956/Later)
Normal Parkinson (1, 1949/Later)
Frank Paulin (1, 1956/2011)
Lynn Saville (1, 2003/Later)
Harvey Stein (1, 1995/Later)
Todd Weinstein (1, 1980/Later)
Susan Wides (3, 1999, 2007, 2010)
Harry Wilks (1, 2005)
Amani Willett (1, 2005)

Comments/Context: When asked to remember the most iconic and emblematic photographs of New York, I think it's safe to say that many, if not all of us would come up with images in black and white. This broadly inclusive show (and the accompanying book) tries to rebalance the scales a bit by gathering pictures of the city that were made in vibrant, exuberant color. Bypassing the obvious, it is a show of lesser known discoveries and rediscoveries.

As I circled the galleries, I found myself gravitating toward those images that were really about color, rather than just in color. Saul Leiter's shiny red and yellow taxi, Danny Lyon's blue and yellow subway platform, Marvin Newman's yellow Coney Island photo shop, and Ernst Haas' geometric brown and white locksmith's sign all turn on bold contrasts and color textures. Other images have jolts and sparkles of color that enliven their stories: Joel Meyerowitz' red Easter dress, Louis Faurer's blue sidewalk, Burt Glinn's saturated yellow liquor cabinet, and Norman Parkinson's jaunty red hat. Of the many street photographs in this show, I liked Nina Berman's Times Square casting call best, not so much for its use of color, but because of its layers of personal narratives (and different sized heads) all caught in a single frame.

Given that this show spans nearly sixty years of New York history, it's not surprising that it feels eclectic and uneven; I imagine that's on purpose at some level, to illustrate the diversity of stylistic approaches used in documenting life in the city across time. As such, I think this show is less the ultimate scholarly canon of New York color photography, and more a roomy sampler of what has perhaps been unjustly overlooked.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show range in price from $1600 to $25000, with most available for under $5000.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Reviews/Features: NY Times Lens (here), Huffington Post (here)
New York in Color
Through March 17th

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

Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Checklist: 2/23/12

Checklist 2/23/12
Current New York Photography Shows


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

Uptown

ONE STAR: Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Met: February 26: review
THREE STARS: The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League: Jewish Museum: March 25: review
ONE STAR: Cecil Beaton: Museum of the City of New York: April 22: review
ONE STAR: Spies in the House of Art: Met: August 26: review

Midtown

TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 28: review
TWO STARS: Eugène Atget: MoMA: April 9: review
TWO STARS: Magnum Contact Sheets: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Perspectives 2012: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Grey Villet: ICP: May 6: review
THREE STARS: Weegee: ICP: September 2: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Anne Collier: High Line: February 29: review
ONE STAR: Daifu Motoyuki: Lombard Freid: March 3: review
ONE STAR: Willie Doherty: Alexander and Bonin: March 10: review
TWO STARS: August Sander/Seydou Keita: Walther Collection: March 10: review
TWO STARS: Alec Soth: Sean Kelly: March 11: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Kurt Tong: Jen Bekman: March 4: review
ONE STAR: Juergen Teller: Lehmann Maupin: March 17: review

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Claire Beckett: Wadsworth Atheneum: March 4: review

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Juergen Teller @Lehmann Maupin

JTF (just the facts): A total of 21 color works (19 single images, 1 triptych, and 1 four panel work), framed in white with no mat, and hung in the entry room, the main gallery space, and a small room on the second floor. All of the works are c-prints, in editions of 5, ranging in size from 10x8 (or reverse) to 24x20 (reverse), with intermediate sizes of 14x11, 16x12, and 20x16 (or reverse). The images were taken in 2010 and 2011. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Seeing the recent work of well-known fashion photographer Juergen Teller has got me mulling over what it means to be a contrarian in the context of contemporary photography. I think a pretty compelling case can be made that Teller's aesthetic style contradicts almost everything we associate with fashion/glamour/celebrity photography, which is why it stands out so joltingly in the countless pages of ads in a fashion monthly. His work is raw, rough, and consciously imperfect, blindlingly flash-lit and captured with a compositional style and snapshot look that is often exaggerated to its logical extreme. His images can be shocking and provocative, so much so that they border on being dismissed as off-hand stunts. And yet his best images are the ones that use this unconventional, sometimes harsh, approach to get at a fresh underlying layer of reality and truth, one that would have normally stayed hidden in the controlled perfection of twenty-first century glamour.

If, however, we take Teller out of his fashion sand box and ask his photographs to stand in comparison with the larger context of contemporary photography/art, which is already full of hell raisers and rule breakers by the way, I wonder about whether at least some of his pictures start to lose their juxtapositional punch. This show includes a number of  forgettable dirt road landscapes and quiet views of pastoral scenes. These images have no verve, no edge, no rebellion, and the mix of beauty and ugliness in the landscape has been done better by many others before; taken off the walls of this show, even a photography expert would have little chance of identifying them as made by Teller.

But what does work here are those pictures and portraits that startle and puzzle: a soaking wet dog flanked by a riot of pink roses, the delicate neck of Roni Horn's stuffed swan seen from behind, a creepy nude of Kristen McMenamy wearing black eye makeup and a pointy shark jawbone. The star of this show is the triptych of Vivienne Westwood tucked away in the upstairs gallery (it's in the middle of the bottom installation shot): it's striking, unsettling, and surprisingly beautiful all at once. The nude Westwood is draped across an ornate chaise decorated with bright orange pillows, her fiery orange hair and her milky white skin competing for attention. She's like a contemporary (and clearly older) version of Manet's Olympia (an allusion I don't throw around lightly): frank, seductive, unnervingly explicit, and thoroughly unexpected. In these images, Teller's brash approach has clearly unlocked something both controversial and enduring.

I suppose my conclusion is that if an artist is going to take the path of the contrarian, then his/her job is to consistently push us out of our comfort zone and challenge us to broaden our ability to see. We may not ultimately like this much, but I think we can respect it. To my eye, this show mixes too much conventional material in with the subtle and not-so-subtle shockers, and so the overall confrontational power of the show is somewhat diluted. That said, when Teller does open the throttle, the handful of strong images here testify to his ability to create elegant comparative dissonance.

Collector's POV: The single images in the show are priced between £3800 and £6000, based on size (all prices quoted in £). The triptych is £35000 and the 4 panel work is £16000. While Teller's name recognition is high, his work still has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only viable option for collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Features/Reviews: Vogue (here), Flavorwire (here), Huffington Post (here)
Juergen Teller
Through March 17th

Lehmann Maupin
201 Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10002

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Kurt Tong, In Case It Rains In Heaven @Bekman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 color photographs, mounted without frames, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the works are undated digital c-prints. The prints come in two sizes: 16x20 (in editions of 10) and 24x30 (in editions of 5). There are 4 of the large prints and 12 of the small prints in the show. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2011 by Kehrer (here) and is available from the gallery for $45. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While many photographers have tried to capture the complex nature of China's recent economic boom and its accompanying cultural transformations by pointing their cameras at towering skyscrapers, endless factories, and expansive construction projects, Kurt Tong has opted for a simpler, smaller scale example of how attitudes have been changing. His photographs document the Joss paper objects burnt as offerings for the dead, showing just how far Western consumerism and luxury lifestyles have permeated traditional Chinese society.

Tong's straightforward still life images, set against black backgrounds, have the look and feel of commerical or stock photography: bright, crisp, and colorful. But the objects themselves tell a more complicated, anthropological story. While mourners once burned paper decorated to look like silver and gold ingots to help provide for the afterlife existence of their loved ones, the variety of items now being burned has expanded to match modern Chinese life, covering both the drearily mundane and the wildly aspirational. For the luxury minded, a large house with a guard and maid is available, as is a Ferrari with a chauffeur, a pair of servants, and a Louis Vuitton handbag. More practical objects include umbrellas, an electric fan, dentures, and a wheelchair. And depending on your view of what comes after death, the machine gun, the swimming trunks and snorkel, or the iPod Nano might make an appropriate gift for the recently deceased. It is clear that the need for "stuff" now extends far beyond the grave.

These objects (and the resulting photographs) have a kitchy, cartoonish feel, but as still lifes they are successful in being both attention grabbing and representative of a larger and more nuanced idea. The story they tell mixes old and new, succinctly showing one facet of how Chinese culture is evolving to incorporate new trends, pressures and mindsets.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $800 and $1600, depending on size. Tong has no secondary market history, so gallery retail is the only option for interested collectors at this point. Prints can also be found on Bekman's 20x200 website (here) in various sizes and editions, all the way down to $24 for an 8x10 print.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Artist site (here)
  • Review: Hyperallergic (here)
Kurt Tong, In Case It Rains In Heaven
Through March 4th

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012

Friday, February 17, 2012

Eugène Atget: Documents Pour Artistes @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A total of 107 photographs and 1 negative (in a lightbox), framed in brown wood and matted, and hung against light blue walls in a two room divided gallery on the 3rd floor. All of the works are gelatin silver printing out paper, matte albumen silver, or albumen silver prints, taken between 1898 and 1925. The works come from the Abbott-Levy Collection at MoMA. The exhibit was curated by Sarah Meister. (Installation shots at right.)

The show is divided into 6 sections, with the number of photographs on view in each in parentheses:

People of Paris (24)
Courtyards (14)
Jardin de Luxembourg (13)
Parc de Sceaux (24)
Surrogates and the Surreal (13)
Fifth Arrondissement (19)

Comments/Context: The encyclopedic 4 volume set, the single volume monograph with matching Szarkowski texts, countless exhibits over the years, it's hard to imagine a stronger champion for the work of Eugène Atget (beyond Berenice Abbott of course) than the photography department at MoMA. It might also be hard to fathom exactly what more there might be to say about Atget that hasn't already been said more eloquently elsewhere, and yet this new show does an admirable job of cutting a new cross section through the museum's Atget holdings and showing us a crisp mix of the known and unknown in equally thoughtful measure.
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The title of the exhibition Documents Pour Artistes references Atget's own sign outside his humble place of business, and in a retro-chic kind of way announces him as being in on the appropriation joke far before almost everyone else. Indeed, his whole approach was predicated on the idea that artists would want to borrow from his photographs and use them as guides. For those visitors with a more contemporary postmodern bent, this positioning is a subtle reminder that Atget is still very relevant to the artistic issues of the day.
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Several sections of the show will seem happily familiar: courtyards, doors, and entryways, surrounded by layers of interior and exterior space, the Luxembourg gardens, with statues, urns, roses, and reflecting pools, and the facades of buildings, complete with sculptural stonework and elaborate iron. These cobblestone Paris streets, angled buildings, and formal gardens are the Atget we know and love, and the power of these photographs has not dimmed with age or repeated viewing.
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The other three sections take a slightly less traveled path through the Atget archive. One gathers together Atget's images of people, relative rarities in his prolific career. His portraits center on vendors (lampshades, wire baskets, figurines, bread), rag pickers, and prostitutes, subjects who could be easily found on the streets and in the alleys. The are mostly full length shots, often capturing idiosyncratic Parisian nuances and personalities. A second grouping follows the theme of Atget's unintentional popularity among the Surrealists. These photographs are quirky and odd, many of storefronts and dusty window displays: headless mannequins, a seance clock, taxidermy, a skeleton, hairdressers' wigs, corsets, and spooky merry go rounds. A third group collects many of his late images of the Parc de Sceaux. In comparison with the formality of the Luxembourg garden images, these pictures are moody and wild, with overgrown ivy, bare trees, broken statues, and crumbling stairways. His lakeside reflections and shadowy and atmospheric, darker and more romantic. The whole series is full of lovely decaying grandeur.

Even for those who think they already know Atget, this show will be both satisfying and perspective broadening. It's also a refreshing reminder that small, well curated shows of vintage photography can still be new and exciting.
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Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are of course no prices. Atget's works are consistently available in the secondary markets, with unknown images and later prints by Berenice Abbott selling at auction for as little as $2000, and iconic works finding buyers well into six figures; rare Atgets have recently pushed up towards $700000. In general, high quality vintage images of Paris street scenes are often priced in the low to mid five figure range.

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:
  • Features/Reviews: Time LightBox (here), TimeOut New York (here), Capital New York (here)
Eugène Atget: Documents Pour Artistes
Through April 9th

11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Checklist: 2/16/12

Checklist 2/16/12
Current New York Photography Shows


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

Uptown

ONE STAR: Cecil Beaton: Museum of the City of New York: February 20: review
ONE STAR: Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Met: February 26: review
THREE STARS: The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League: Jewish Museum: March 25: review
ONE STAR: Spies in the House of Art: Met: August 26: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Robert Bourdeau: Edwynn Houk: February 18: review
ONE STAR: Massimo Vitali: Bonni Benrubi: February 18: review
TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 28: review
TWO STARS: Magnum Contact Sheets: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Perspectives 2012: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Grey Villet: ICP: May 6: review
THREE STARS: Weegee: ICP: September 2: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Anne Collier: High Line: February 29: review
ONE STAR: Daifu Motoyuki: Lombard Freid: March 3: review
ONE STAR: Willie Doherty: Alexander and Bonin: March 10: review
TWO STARS: Alec Soth: Sean Kelly: March 11: review
TWO STARS: August Sander/Seydou Keita: Walther Collection: March 10: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Patti Smith: Wadsworth Atheneum: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Claire Beckett: Wadsworth Atheneum: March 4: review

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Alec Soth, Broken Manual @Kelly: A Review Conversation with Richard B. Woodward

Rather than following my normal format, today’s review of Alec Soth’s new show at Sean Kelly will once again take the form of a casual, but hopefully thoughtful, conversation. Regular readers might remember that I experimented with this collaborative approach in a recent review of the Jeff Wall show at Marian Goodman (here), where I went back and forth with longtime photo critic AD Coleman. As a reminder, this structure has no pre-sets – it’s an open ended discussion that leads wherever the ideas might take us.

I’m happy to say that Richard B. Woodward has decided to join me for today’s conversation. Woodward is an arts critic who contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal, where he often covers major museum shows of photography from around the US, normally in longer format reviews containing a mix of historical background and artistic explication. His writing is also easily found in any number of photo books and exhibit catalogues from the past decade or two, where his essays provide lucid context and critical interpretation. I’m overjoyed to have lured him away from the tactile pleasures of the printed page and into the freewheeling online realm, at least for the moment.

DLK: I have to admit up front that I didn’t come into this show completely cold. Like many other collectors I’m sure, I had seen several prints from this series in the Weinstein Gallery booth at last year’s AIPAD and had also encountered a number of reproductions in the exhibition catalog from Soth’s retrospective at the Walker Art Center in 2010, so at some level, I knew what I was in for before I arrived. But with that caveat, I will say that I most certainly got a fuller experience of the work in this gallery show than I had previously felt.

My first reaction was at some level less about the photographs themselves as individual works (we’ll get to that in a moment I’m sure) and more about the overall mood that they create in tandem. To me, Broken Manual is an obvious progression from and intensification of the atmosphere of The Last Days of W (Soth’s previous project). We’ve clearly moved on from exhaustion (in many forms), political cynicism, tempered anger, and angst to something altogether more desperate and personal. While there is of course something action oriented about the desire to flee and disappear, I felt the heavy weight of powerlessness in this show. It’s as if these people (all men that I could see) have banged their heads against the metaphorical wall for so long (without anyone listening) that they have finally given up and retreated to the margins and wastelands of America. Whether they’re hermits, survivalists, hippies, government haters, conspiracy theorists or just plain crazy (by some definition), they’re living in a roughly similar emotional landscape, and Soth seems to have found a sense of deep empathy for parts of what made these men want to be alone. So my point is that the pictures are really capturing an abstract state of mind, and any particular authentic reality in the photographs is just a symbol of that frustrated psychological atmosphere.

RBW: I appreciate your asking me to trade fours with you on the bandstand in your club. I’m new and somewhat averse to on-line media (I don’t even have a Facebook page) but your blog is among the few that I regularly read, both to catch myself up on shows I’ve missed (you see everything) and to compare my reactions to your intelligent takes.

Like you, I had seen this body of Soth’s work before. I saw his retrospective last year at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, his home town, and Broken Manual was installed as part of that. The selection was, if I remember, somewhat larger but also presented in a subdued, grayish atmosphere. There were probably 10 pictures from the series in the catalog, From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America, that aren’t here.

I like this version better. It is, as you say, a deepening and a concentration of the glib and cynical tone in The Last Days of W and it’s also a logical progression from Sleeping by the Mississippi. The mood here is more crushingly sad than at the Walker. (I’ll see if I can explain why later.) We can talk in another exchange about his techniques for treating people who are not as economically advantaged or emotionally stable as he is, how he has earned their trust and whether or not you think he has betrayed it, and whether or not that’s inevitable.

But his choice to focus on men who choose to live apart from American society was smart and full of photographic possibilities. As types, they populate both our 19th century history (the Western prospector, the crazy hermit, persecuted religious sects such as the Mormons, various utopian communards) and our tabloid culture of paranoid loners and political lunatics. There was Eric Rudolph who blew up abortion clinics and attacked the Atlanta Olympic Games and went on to survive in the North Carolina woods for years. And, of course, there was “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski who is alluded to a couple of times in the show.

Soth is one of the most thoughtful photographers around, a guy who is always wrestling with the question of where to stand in relation to his subjects and how to keep the documentary tradition vital so that he can poke his nose where it doesn’t belong and still have a clear conscience. I wonder if you felt, as I did, that one of the strengths of the show is that one feels Soth is tempted by the idea of abandoning his life as a dutiful Magnum member and breadwinner in order to go off and live in a cave. He’s trying to empathize with these men, even a skinhead neo-Nazi, and, like Arbus, he keeps asking himself, “hmm, what would happen to me if?” He sees the appeal of getting away from home, and working. In fact, that’s what he’s doing here. How different is a photographer on the road from a guy holed up in the desert? Being both inside and outside is always a hard act to pull off. How do you think he succeeds at that?

DLK: Watching parts of the documentary running in the darkened side room made me conclude that Soth got the balance generally right, not too far in (thereby losing a sense of wider perspective), and not too far apart (with the danger of a smug mocking eye). The trust he built with his subjects seems to have been easy going and genuine. That said, the installation of ephemera in the first room wouldn’t look as manic and serial killer crazy as it does unless Soth had become somewhat fascinated by the whole culture he was exploring; I don’t want to speculate on exactly how far he was drawn in, but I think he imbibed enough of the kool aid to at least intellectually understand some of the motivations. I thought some of the best moments in the film are when nothing happens, and Soth is wandering frustrated in search of something or someone he can’t seem to find; the project takes a more obsessive tone at that point, which seems somehow appropriate for the subject matter. I do agree that Soth’s overall commitment to and engagement with “disappearing” makes these pictures more successful than they would have been at arm’s length.

The only image in the whole show that I think comes to close to the exploitation line is the portrait of the tanned, naked man standing in the water lily pond (the titles of these images are universally unhelpful for identification purposes). I actually think this is a very powerful image (especially printed as large as it is), juxtaposing the swastika tattoo and Garden of Eden setting, but I do wonder a bit about the coaxing that occurred to get this shot. Of course, I don’t know the back story to the photograph, but it seems pretty unlikely to me that the man came up with standing naked in the pond all by himself. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t a willing participant; on the contrary, I think he probably was, and the starved for attention quality that many of the men have is an important and unexpected discovery that Soth makes in these pictures. While the other portraits in the show are of course somewhat posed (he’s using a large format camera after all), this is the only one that seemed a bit unnatural to me. But maybe that risk taking (by both sides) is what makes it more memorable.

RBW: I think the project is rife with exploitation, as is any project with a gross imbalance of power between photographer and subject. And most projects are! That’s the nature of photography. The opening for the show at Sean Kelly was packed with friends of Soth and other photographers who were a world apart from the subjects in the pictures. I wonder if any of the lost souls featured here has seen the work and, if they have, I’d be curious what they thought of it. I doubt any of them would be too upset. Even the fellow standing naked in the water, with shaved head and swastika tattoo, seems proud of himself and would be probably be OK with seeing himself on the walls of a Chelsea gallery.

One of the many things I like about Broken Manual is that Soth has recognized this problem of the portrayer and the portrayed, and his photographs reflect that. There is a blurry portrait that suggests it was taken with a long lens, as though these are men of whom we are slightly afraid and who are slightly afraid of us. There’s a surveillance quality to the picture. Or it could indicate an early phase of his getting to know these guys: he could only see them from afar, stalking them in the woods as though they were Bigfoot. Other pictures, including the one you cite, and another of a bearded man sleeping, show a much greater degree of trust.

He has approached these men as if he were an anthropologist. He reveals not only their portraits but their abodes, reading matter, tools (including a sex toy) and their attempt to dress up or glamorize their surroundings. The saddest picture in the show to me was the mirrored globe hanging off a branch in the middle of nowhere. Soth has photographed it in the grayest, flattest light so that it barely reflects anything. Not many disco parties in that neck of the woods, I’m guessing.

DLK: I very much agree that the grainy, out of focus photo of the bearded man in the woods captures something important about this whole project. I think you’re right on as far as the feel of voyeuristic surveillance it employs, as well as the stalking, fleeting glimpse it offers. It’s indistinct, and marginal, and just out of reach, and yet the American flag bandanna around the man’s neck somehow opens up other narrative possibilities: is this a veteran, or perhaps someone fiercely patriotic, troubled by an America that seems to have lost its way, whose only logical response was to reject it and head for the hills?

The still life images are a bit of a departure for Soth I think. Not only are they in black and white, but they are set against blank backgrounds, just like Taryn Simon’s Contraband series. And in a sense, they have an affinity with that project, in that the objects are outside societal norms in one way or another: conspiracy videos, a makeshift knife, a welded iron helmet almost medieval in its roughness, a slug dragging a trail of slime, a sex toy. I absolutely see the resonance of these objects as part of the larger story, but I wonder if they would all be as powerful if taken out of context and forced to stand alone.

I also agree that both the disco ball and the light bulb in the lonely woods are achingly sad. Here I think the return to black and white is very effective; draining away the color makes the blanket on the forest floor or the rocky camp site seem even more dismal and gloomy. Here’s where the glamour and romance of disappearing really meet the harsh reality of being alone; time seems to stand still in these pictures, in a bone tired, dispiriting way.

I’m not sure if it’s just a quirk of this particular hanging, but with fewer portraits as a percentage of the whole, I think the places (the white cave with hangers, the house built into the rock wall, the dome in the desert, the house boat covered in lights, the single light bulb interior with graffiti) and objects start to act like stand-ins for invisible people. The eccentricities pile up, but they are harder to hold on to. The photographs are indirect portraits of their owners, which when taken together as a group, takes me back to the project as an exercise in abstraction, of using symbols to document a continuum of specific behavior that all converges on an underlying set of interlocking emotions.

RBW: I like your idea that the objects are stand-ins for people. The things these guys have taken with them into the woods are not only tools, they’re also totems. A single light bulb would be a fairly grim source of illumination in a room. Hanging from a tree it’s both a surreal symbol of civilization and an indication of one man’s extreme isolation.

But I don’t understand what you mean by “exercise in abstraction.” Soth is trying to evoke a sense of loneliness and rejection and self-exile strictly through traditional documentary means: portraits, forensic or evidentiary pictures of habitat and possessions. One of those techniques would only take us so far in setting a mood about a way of life. Portraits alone couldn’t transport us to that emotional place without a lot of obtrusive text telling us what to think about the economic plight of these guys. And the light bulb, mirror globe, sex toy, boat, coat hangers, slimy slug would be too allusive--too Taryn Simon--if seen alone. You’re right that what power these objects have derives from the context and conjunction with the portraits.

The published survivalist material stacked against one wall is another documentary technique, even if it’s not photographic. The array of pamphlets and books is a sign, as you say, that Soth has burrowed deeply into this culture. He also may want to show us how many kinds of crazy there are. As I wrote before, hermits have existed throughout our history and developed their own eccentric culture. In the 1950s and ‘60s men built fall-out shelters as they prepared for nuclear war. The survivalists in Soth’s photos don’t seem to conform to any single political philosophy. They’re not all neo-Nazis or Tea Party extremists or disappointed Left-wing radicals or hippies gone to seed. But many are clearly paranoid. I was interested to hear in the documentary from the old guy who expected Obama to be assassinated as a pretext by a cabal for a government take-over.

The books help to show that these men aren’t just camping and they’re not homeless. They’re serious and determined to live apart, and they have allies in the fringes of the business world. Preaching the apocalypse can be profitable. On various radio stations and on the Internet you can find advertisements now for a Food Insurance outlet selling “gourmet” meals guaranteed to last for 25 years. The company is endorsed by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Economic or ecological collapse is not as unthinkable as it was 20 years ago, and some people have already begun to build their arks for the hard rain that’s gonna fall.

DLK: I like the way Soth has captured the broad diversity of these characters, but still retained their elusiveness. Most of the photographs are the opposite of traditional portraits: eyes closed, walking away into a thicket of brambles, camouflaged in a ghillie suit, dwarfed by towering trees or overgrown greenery. Soth has effectively matched his unconventional compositions to the marginal nature of his subjects.

By the way, I didn’t mean “abstraction” to represent anything more than the simple idea that all of the works here attempt to depict something which is underneath and invisible, and therefore a step away from the literalness of what they are and a leaning toward the metaphorical of what they might represent. The pictures themselves are of course not abstract in the visual sense, they are documentary (broadly defined) as you point out. All I was trying to get at was the representational aspect of trying to convey complex emotion, which to me ends up being somewhat “abstract”. I’m probably in the semantic weeds here, so let’s move on.

Overall, I came away from this show impressed with Soth’s dedication to an unruly project, and with his ability to consciously broaden his photographic toolkit to include more subject matter types and aesthetic approaches; I certainly got the impression he was pushing himself beyond his comfort zone. From my vantage point as a collector, I’m always trying to get my head around the difference between the durable and the forgettable, and I think there are at least half a dozen photographs on view here that will likely age very well indeed, that will retain their power to startle far into the future (even when taken out of context) and will be emblematic of the particular embittered times from which they came. Many of the others will likely fill the role of quirky supporters, especially in book form where they can be additive to the overall mood. I imagine a certain slice of collectors will find this work too far out there, a bit puzzling and hard to categorize. For the most part, I found Broken Manual compelling and original, and I was left wondering whether this body of work is the terminal end point to a line of thinking that began many years ago for Soth, or whether it is some kind of intermediate transitory stage, where he has been flexing his artistic muscles a bit with a tough problem, only to pivot and apply those new strategies and techniques to something altogether different in the future. As a show, I think it cements his reputation as a leader, and leaders don’t always take the obvious path.

RBW: Here are a few last thoughts.

I agree that Soth is working on the edge of where his core artistic beliefs and training have taken him. He and several other members of Magnum, including Susan Meiselas and Jim Goldberg, are rethinking what it means to document a culture. The danger is that in trying to encompass more by nibbling around the edges of a subject to get at “an overall mood,” you take a lot of lesser photographs instead of a few dazzling ones. I don’t see any great pictures in the show, although I see a number of good ones that mesh nicely and, as you say, “half a dozen photographs on view here will likely age very well.”

He’s also, as you say, “a leader.” From what I observe and hear, he’s very generous to other photographers. His drive to succeed to work hard has not blinkered him or turned him into an egomaniac. He has an expansive attitude about what documentary photography can be and he seems dissatisfied with the status quo. I expect lots more good work from him.

We haven’t talked much about the size of the prints and how unexpectedly large or small some of them are. My first reaction upon seeing the print of the ship was, ‘why so big?’ Then, on closer inspection, it won me over. If it were smaller, you wouldn’t see the detail of the jerry-rigged wiring on the masts and the quite unglamorous domesticity that life on the water affords. (Soth must be attracted to living on a boat or being near water, as the theme turns up repeatedly in his work.)

I wasn’t sure what he gained by mixing black-and-white and color. (The black-and-white prints here are actually, as I understand, just dialed down color negatives, not made from “true” black-and-white negatives.) Then, I decided this is another way for him to keep us on our toes and not let us think we could immerse ourselves in this alien world. If everything were color or everything were black-and-white it would be much easier to feel he was a reliable guide around these men. To revert for a moment to artspeak, he was revealing his camera and photography as a mediator, and not an inclusive or impartial one.

I was a little disappointed that he didn’t include here any of the videos he has made. Several were in the Walker retrospective and they revealed what a smart, goofball he can be. They might have disrupted the sobriety of this show and we can see those aspects of his personality in the film about him that’s playing in the first gallery. Still, I thought he could have mixed up his approach and complicated the mood even further with more irreverence.

The subject of men driven by a need to remove themselves from society has been taken up by writers (Jon Kracauer’s Into the Wild) and by movie makers (Jeff Nichols’s Take Shelter) but I don’t know that many photographers have attempted it. Joel Sternfeld’s Utopia project is much more sociable. Soth has to solve the problem of showing absence and emptiness and anomie and detachment and hostility, and that’s hard to do in a photograph. Too many others, when they decide to document, say, the homeless, will take portraits and maybe the makeshift shelters they construct, leave it at that.

Soth has tried to come up with a more nuanced solution and I applaud him for it. Like you, I see it as transitional in his development. I’ll be curious to see what his next project will be. The choice of subject often determines what you photograph and how, and it’s usually the hardest decision to make. I have a hunch we’re going to see more video.

Thanks again for inviting me for a chat in your digital man cave. Let’s do it again.


And now the usual supporting sections:

JTF (just the facts): A mixed group of 26 black and white and color photographs, framed in grey wood and unmatted, and hung against grey walls in the main gallery space, the entry, and a single side room. All of the works are archival pigment prints, mounted either to paper or 4 ply museum board, all in editions of 7+3AP. Sizes range from 10x8 to 70x56 (or reverse). There are 13 black and white and 13 color images in the show. The images were taken between 2006 and 2008. The exhibit also includes an installation of Broken Manual limited editions and other ephemera related to the project. In a darkened side room, a 57 minute documentary called Somewhere to Disappear (here) is on view. A trade edition of Broken Manual is apparently forthcoming from Steidl (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The smallest 10x8 images start at $5000, and generally increase in price according to size, reaching $28000 for the largest 70x56 prints. Intermediate prices include $6000, $9000, $15000, and $20000, with a couple of images NFS. Soth's work has begun to appear in the secondary markets more consistently in recent years (a handful of lots each year), with prices ranging from roughly $4000 to $22000.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Interview: Interview (here)
  • Artist site (here)
  • Magnum Photos page (here)
  • Soth’s book publishing arm, Little Brown Mushroom (here)
Through March 11th
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528 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film and Video @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 14 photographic works (loosely defined) and 3 films/videos from 17 different photographers/artists. The works are variously framed and matted, and hung in a single room gallery space with a main dividing wall, with 1 video on display in a darkened curtained off area of the space and another shown in a nearby paintings gallery. The exhibit was curated by Douglas Eklund. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Diane Arbus (1 gelatin silver print, 1956)
Lutz Bacher (1 single channel video, 2002)
Lothar Baumgarten (1 chromogenic print, 1969/1985)
Sophie Calle ( 1 work comprised of 1 gelatin silver print, 2 chromogenic prints and text, 1986)
Joseph Cornell (1 box, 1950)
Tim Davis (1 chromogenic print, 2003)
Andrea Fraser (1 video, 1989)
Candida Höfer (1 chromogenic print, 1988)
Laura Larson (1 gelatin silver print, 1998)
Louise Lawler (1 silver dye bleach print, 1997)
Peter Nagy (1 laminated photocopy, 1985)
Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer (1 color film, 2006)
John Pilson (1 archival pigment print, 2007)
Cindy Sherman (1 chromogenic print, 1989)
Lorna Simpson (1 screen print on felt, with text, 1998)
Thomas Struth (1 chromogenic print, 1988)
Francesca Woodman (1 diazo collage, 1980)

Comments/Context: The latest thematic installation in the Met's contemporary photography gallery is narrower and more self-reflective than nearly all of the shows that have come before it in this same space. This particular gathering revolves around the relationship between artists and museums, running the gamut from inspiration and investigation to critique and deconstruction. It's a relatively small idea, but there are enough well-selected pictures here to examine the concept from plenty of competing angles.

I don't think it's at all surprising that Struth, Höfer, Sherman, and Lawler are part of this show; they seem like relatively obvious foundation inclusions. The real jaw dropper for me was the incredibly huge Francesca Woodman mural made of photographs on blueprint paper (in the top installation shot). In it, Woodman includes five versions of herself as caryatids, holding up the roof of a collaged together temple; it has much the same intimacy as her diminutive photographs, but on a grand, billowy scale. Nashashibi and Skaer's film Flash in the Metropolitan (found in the darkened portion of the room) is also a standout. Taken in the halls of the museum at night, a strobe light bathes the cases and statues in momentary flashes of brightness, an ancient head or obscure object emerging from the darkness to be recognizable for just a moment before disappearing once again. It's a spooky inversion of the museum going experience, ghostly and fleeting rather than timeless and enduring. And John Pilson's photograph of a stylish 1920s period room interrupted by an anachronistic camera and microphone is a lesser known but smart choice, quietly witty in its upending of the controlled environment of the museum exhibit.
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This is a tighter, less sprawling selection of works than previous thematic incarnations, and I think it holds together as a complete thought much better as a result. There are artworks and patrons as reusable subject matter (in a Sophie Calle multi-part work, a Rodin sculpture is thought to have "a terrific ass"), juxtapositions and relationships created by the museum setting (Laura Larson's unexpected alignment of wallpaper, settee, and carpet), and riffs on looking and seeing (one of Tim Davis' faces in paintings obscured by glare images). All in, this is a neat little package, perhaps not groundbreaking, but certainly thoughtful and well-edited.

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:
  • Review: NY Times (here)
Through August 26th

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

Friday, February 10, 2012

Willie Doherty, One Place Twice, Photo/text/85/92 @Alexander and Bonin

JTF (just the facts): In the first floor entry and gallery spaces, a total of 8 black and white photographic works with text overlays (6 single images and 2 diptychs), mounted on aluminum and unframed. In the second floor gallery, a total of 4 single image color photographs with text overlays, mounted on Plexiglas, and framed in white and unmatted. The black and white prints are each 48x72, in editions of 3 (the diptychs are made up of two panels of the same size). The c-prints are each 43x54, also in editions of 3. The black and white images were taken between 1985 and 1992, while the color images were taken in 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Willie Doherty's late 1980s photographs from Northern Ireland have all the clever trappings of conceptual photography, but with an unexpectedly harsh political twist. Using bold text overlays reminiscent of those employed by Hamish Fulton, Doherty gives his deadpan images of Derry and its surroundings a sharp sense of tension and conflict.

Most of the pictures capture straight-on views of alleys, vacant lots, and dense side streets, hemmed in by concrete walls, iron fences, chain link barriers and barbed wire. Apartment blocks loom down with protective window grates and properties back up onto each other. The photographs have the abandoned silence of a police state, absent of people and simmering with claustrophobic paranoia. Overlaid texts like Remote Control, Shifting Ground, and God Has Not Failed Us give the images another layer of contextual meaning. This is a battle ground, blanketed with surveillance cameras, constantly under threat from multiple points. A diptych pairing Protecting and Invading highlights this push and pull: looking one direction toward what we want to safeguard and in the other to what we want to take from another. Last Bastion depicts a craggy castle wall amid the weed cracked pavement, both a dividing line and rallying cry.

Doherty's juxtaposition of text and imagery is altogether more serious and penetrating than the typical tricky irony of other conceptual photography. His photographs have an emotional tug that verges on propaganda, with the kind of succinct shock value that would work well on billboards. In a world of politically correct contemporary photography, these images have a raw, confrontational toughness that seems fresh and bracing.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows: the single image black and white photographs are 20000€ each, and the black and white diptychs are 30000€ each. The single image color photographs are 12000€ each. Doherty's work has little or no auction history in the secondary markets for photography (perhaps there is more history for his videos in the contemporary art markets, I can't say), so for his vintage and more recent photographs, gallery retail is still likely the only option for interested collectors.

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

Transit Hub:
  • Turner Prize finalist, 2003 (here)
Willie Doherty, One Place Twice, Photo/text/85/92
Through March 10th

Alexander and Bonin
132 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Checklist: 2/9/12

Checklist 2/9/12
Current New York Photography Shows


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

Uptown

ONE STAR: Cecil Beaton: Museum of the City of New York: February 20: review
ONE STAR: Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Met: February 26: review
THREE STARS: The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League: Jewish Museum: March 25: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Robert Bourdeau: Edwynn Houk: February 18: review
ONE STAR: Massimo Vitali: Bonni Benrubi: February 18: review
TWO STARS: Reinstalled Permanent Collection: MoMA: March 28: review
TWO STARS: Magnum Contact Sheets: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Perspectives 2012: ICP: May 6: review
ONE STAR: Grey Villet: ICP: May 6: review
THREE STARS: Weegee: ICP: September 2: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Gregory Halpern: Clamp Art: February 11: review
ONE STAR: Jitka Hanzlová: Yancey Richardson: February 11: review
TWO STARS: Shirin Neshat: Gladstone: February 11: review
ONE STAR: Bertien van Manen: Yancey Richardson: February 11: review
ONE STAR: Anne Collier: High Line: February 29: review
ONE STAR: Daifu Motoyuki: Lombard Freid: March 3: review
TWO STARS: August Sander/Seydou Keita: Walther Collection: March 10: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No reviews at this time.

Elsewhere Nearby

ONE STAR: Patti Smith: Wadsworth Atheneum: February 19: review
ONE STAR: Claire Beckett: Wadsworth Atheneum: March 4: review