Auction Results: Fine Photographs, February 26, 2013 @Swann

The results of Swann's various owner photographs sale earlier this week were quietly respectable, with the Total Sale Proceeds falling in the middle of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range. With an overall Buy-In rate under 25% and a handful of positive surprises, it was a solid outcome for an early season sale.

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

Total Lots: 138
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $926500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1360000
Total Lots Sold: 104
Total Lots Bought In: 34
Buy In %: 24.64%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1006365

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

Low Total Lots: 104
Low Sold: 81
Low Bought In: 23
Buy In %: 22.12%
Total Low Estimate: $650000
Total Low Sold: $575340

Mid Total Lots: 32
Mid Sold: 22
Mid Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 31.25%
Total Mid Estimate: $535000
Total Mid Sold: $353025

High Total Lots: 2
High Sold: 1
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total High Estimate: $175000
Total High Sold: $78000

The top lot by High estimate was lot 22, Edward Curtis, The North American Indian, Portfolio #1, 1907, at $70000-100000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $78000.

78.85% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 6 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 8, (China), Collection of carte-de-viste portraits, 1860s-1870s, estimated at $6000-9000, sold at $60000 (image at right, top, via Swann)
Lot 9, (China), Group of 14 prints, 1875-1876, estimated at $7000-10000, sold at $28800
Lot 11, (Korea), Album, 1899, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $20400 (image at right, middle, via Swann)
Lot 29, (Crime), Warden's Book, 1917, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $13200
Lot 77, Eugene Smith, Walk to Paradise Garden, 1946/1972, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $16800
Lot 124, Elliot Erwitt, Versailles, 1975/1990s, estimated at $2500-3500, sold at $7200

Complete lot by lot results can be found linked from here.

Swann Galleries
104 East 25th Street
New York, NY 10010

The Checklist: 2/28/13

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

Uptown

ONE STAR: After Photoshop: Met: May 27: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: New Wave Finland: Scandinavia House: April 6: review
TWO STARS: The Shaping of New Visions: MoMA: April 21: review

Chelsea

TWO STARS: Andy Freeberg: Andrea Meislin: March 2: review
ONE STAR: Michael Benson: Hasted Kraeutler: March 9: review
TWO STARS: Trevor Paglen: Metro Pictures: March 9: review
ONE STAR: Distance and Desire, Part II: Walther Collection: March 9: review
TWO STARS: Elger Esser: Sonnabend: March 16: review
ONE STAR: Shannon Ebner: Wallspace: March 23: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: David Nadel: Sasha Wolf: March 10: review

Elsewhere Nearby

No reviews at this time.

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

February 26-March 5: Andy Warhol: Christie's (Online): catalog
March 7: Contemporary Art: Sotheby's (New York): catalog
March 7: Contemporary Art and Design: Philips (New York): catalog
March 8: Under the Influence: Phillips (New York): catalog
March 8: First Open: Christie's (New York): catalog

Elger Esser @Sonnabend

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 large scale color photographs, framed in light brown wood and unmatted, and hung in the entry gallery and two of the smaller rooms in the back (center and left). All of the works are c-prints on Diasec, made in 2011 and 2012. The prints come in one of two sizes: 73x95 or 55x73, both in editions of 7+1AP; there are 8 of the largest prints and 2 of the more medium sized prints in the show. The photographs were taken in Egypt and France. (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Elger Esser's newest photographs take us back to familiar territory: standing at the water's edge, looking out to a broad landscape with a low horizon and a big featureless sky. They are variations on pictures we have seen before from Esser, but this does nothing to lessen their contemplative power. When he gets the proportions of land, sea, and sky just right and the soft hues diffuse across the frame like watercolors, they reach a meditative sublime that few contemporary photographers can match.

 

The images in the first two rooms of the show travel the length of the Nile River, like modern day Grand Tour pictures that hearken back to the masters of 19th century landscape photography. But there are no pyramids or Sphinxes here, only slow river scenes with traditional sailboats, sandy banks, and oasis-style greenery, all bathed in a dry, warm, washed out yellow light. Evidence of modernity is subtle and fleeting - geometric concrete building shells perched on the banks, the ghost of an electrical tower or telephone pole, new whitewashed buildings nestled into the hillside in front of a timeless, hazy mosque. Their elegance seems faded in the heat, the water quietly lapping at the hulls of wooden boats.

 

The works in the final back room come from France and explore nuances of pastel color more deeply. A concrete dock looks out on a light green sea, long exposure waves crashing over it like wispy white fog. A dark band of land bisects a composition in soft cornflower blue, with a slight tint of pink wandering through the sky. The red cupola of shoreline church punctuates a rocky shoreline in desolate yellow. And the layers of clouds above tiny Mont St. Michel in the distance settle into an ethereal blend of gorgeous light blue; in my view, this last image is a breathtaking showstopper, its enveloping presence far better in person than in my marginal installation shots.

 

While not every image in this show entirely hits the mark for me, the few that do find the center of the target are memorably magnificent. This show is like the refrain of the chorus at the end of a well known song, when the singer cranks it up a notch with a little extra flourish to keep it fresh and exciting. We've been down this road with Esser in the past, but he still has the power to astonish us with his timeless sense of grace.

 

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced based on size, with the 73x95 prints at 40000€ each and the 55x73 prints at 25000€ each. Esser's work is now routinely available in the secondary markets for both photography and contemporary art, with recent prices ranging from $5000 to $110000, with a sweet spot between $25000 and $75000.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Elger Esser
Through March 16th

Sonnabend Gallery
536 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Shannon Ebner: A Language of Exposures @Wallspace

JTF (just the facts): A total of 6 black and white photographic works (including 1 diptych and 1 set of 18 prints), framed in black and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space and the smaller back room. All of the prints are Epson prints, individually sized between 24x20 and 75x43. The show also includes 1 single channel video (29 seconds long) displayed on a screen. All of the works are available in editions of 5 and were made between 2009 and 2013. (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Shannon Ebner's new show continues her ongoing investigation of the intersection of photography and language. Her constructed images shuttle back and forth between legibilty and abstraction, parsing language into letters and symbols and arranging these objects into diagramatic systems that can be both "read" and enjoyed for their formal qualities. Cinder blocks, cardboard, and wood are at once sculpturally textural raw materials and linguistically representative signs.

 

The largest work on view (covering the better part of two walls) explodes the words of a poem (itself stitched together from phrases found in the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat) into an array of single capital letters, which are then arranged in spaced grids that can be read with some attentive effort. The organization of the letters frustrates easy understanding, pushing the work back toward repetition and black and white pattern, like a code to be deciphered. Ebner breaks this idea down further with a photograph of elemental shapes made of cinder blocks (squares, circles, triangles, and other angled forms) that seem like they should be readable in some way, but retreat into graphical linear symbols. The image in the back room captures a black and white peg board tool template, where silhouettes of chains, hooks, and dangling pulleys become their own kind of workshop hieroglyphics, while the video work interleaves male and female torsos into a jittering, spinning combination of fleetingly identifiable parts. In every work, symbols are constructed that take on multiple, layered roles and meanings, sometimes legible and sometimes obscure.

 

Ebner's high contrast photographs smartly test the limits of visual writing, unpacking and reconsidering how forms become systems and systems become representative language. They ask for and require from the viewer a puzzle maker's cerebral curiosity, continually breaking down and reconnecting while looking, searching for arrangements that fit together and texts that can be decoded.

 

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced based on size and number of prints in the work, starting at $8000 for the smallest single image and ending at $75000 for the 18 image piece. Intermediate prices include $12000 and $16000, and the video is priced at $10000.  Ebner's work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail is likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Exhibits: Hammer Museum, 2011 (here), Whitney Biennial, 2008 (here)
• Feature: Artforum, 2009 (here)

 

Shannon Ebner: A Language of Exposures

Through March 23rd

 

Wallspace

619 West 27th Street

New York, NY 10011

Trevor Paglen @Metro Pictures

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 single image photographs, 4 photographic diptychs, 2 videos and other various ephemera, framed in black/white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the three adjoining gallery spaces on the first floor. All of the single image photographs are c-prints, ranging in size from 42x34 to 70x91 or reverse, each available in an edition of 5. The diptychs are either gelatin silver prints (each panel 24x32) or c-prints (each panel 38x43), also available in editions of 5. The show also includes 1 framed postcard, an array of 182 images pinned to the wall, a small model of the EchoStar communications satellite, 2 scrapbooks, 1 reference volume of satellite launches, 2 etched artifacts, 1 video containing 100 still images, and 1 video of the moving satellite against a starry backdrop. No specific date information was provided on the checklist. A monograph of this body of work was recently published by Creative Time and the University of California Press (here) and is available from the gallery for $25. (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Trevor Paglen's newest project, The Last Pictures, is one of the most intellectually complex photographic endeavors I've run across in many years. On the surface, the plan seems remarkably straightforward - select a group of photographic images to be stored as a documentary artifact and bolt them on the side of a communcations satellite as a kind of message from humanity for future discovery by spacefaring aliens. This kind of thing has been done before by well-meaning scientists hoping to communicate something of our existence to those who might run across our deep space probes, but this is the first time an artist has driven the process, and it's clear that Paglen's rigorous and thoughtful approach quickly drove the effort into the conceptual weeds, where the problems of long time scale durability, engineering, and design quickly morphed into meticulous investigations of mathematics, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, and a whole host of less defined but equally thorny questions and concerns.

 

Given the scientific facts of geosynchronous orbits and their propensity to stay stable, the time scale of this project is truly staggering - it is altogether possible that if left unperturbed, Paglen's selections will remain in place until the sun explodes, an event scheduled for billions of years from the present; in all likelihood, humanity will be long gone. Questions of communication, and meaning, and interpretation, and intelligibility become almost imponderable across such a distance of time. But instead of leaving behind a bread crumb trail of smiling happy people and a politically correct selection of world music and cultural signifiers, Paglen has chosen to try to tell a story of how a civilization dies, of how its grand gestures, its hubris, and its collective narcissism become inherently suicidal.

 

Paglen mixes his own photographs with many more gleaned from various archives, so once again, we find a contemporary photographer less concerned with the functioning of his camera and more interested in using existing imagery to craft his chosen narrative. In this case, if you put yourself into the mindset of trying to discern meaning from his choices an eternity in the future, the project starts to feel a little like Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan's Evidence - something certainly happened in these pictures, but what it was and why it was important is altogether less clear. Given the benefit of our current context, Paglen's view of technology, our relationship with nature, the pace of change, and our disregard for consequences is full of a quiet sense of creeping pessimism; it we assume the human race has extinguished itself on the time scale of this artifact, then many of the causes, reasons, and contradictions of our doomed choices are to be found here. Images of people fleeing drone strikes, cave paintings documenting the Spanish massacre of the Navajo, overgrown riverside greenery, the immense construction complexity of the Hoover Dam, and Bruegel's painting of the Tower of Babel offer a subtle undercurrent of ominous foreboding.

 

As an intellectual exercise, this project is deeply and almost impossibly rich and challenging, but as stand alone art objects, Paglen's photographs are a bit underwhelming. I think the folks at Metro Pictures chickened out a bit with the installation, adding a room full of Paglen's earlier images of government black sites and spy satellites as background. These works are more mysteriously graphic and eye-catching, and likely more saleable, so I certainly understand the logic for their inclusion, but they take up valuable space that could have been used to show more of the 100 selections. I also think the corner of outtakes and images that didn't make the cut is a colorful distraction; while the in-versus-out decision making is an intriguing process (the cute kittens, the Goya firing squad, and the Japanese woodcut of a woman being erotically devoured by a squid didn't make it), I wish the show had committed to giving us Paglen's entire distilled vision rather than showing the cycle on a video screen. As it is, there are only roughly a dozen of his selections on view as prints, which is a pretty small sample of the whole. This makes his choices seem even more random and disconnected than I think they really are - check out the accompanying book for a better and more comprehensive understanding of the recurring themes and the interlinked motifs.

 

In a certain way, I am deeply conflicted by this show. Its brainy relentlessness, its willingness to travel down esoteric intellectual backroads, and its intense thoughtfulness about unanswerable human questions make its underlying conceptual framework undeniably brilliant. There are clearly hours and hours to be spent pondering the intricacies of this extremely smart project. And yet, I found most of the images on display somewhat forgettable, as if I needed the context of the larger project to find enhanced meaning in the individual images. Which of course pulls me down the rat hole of how an alien race would figure out anything from these same photographs and how one might communicate nuances of meaning across such unfathomable divisions of space and time. In the end, my head scratching conclusion is that this show is truly brimming with ideas (and wholeheartedly worth a visit), if only for its ability to ask questions that will rattle around in your head for weeks to come.

 

Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are generally priced between $10000 and $40000 based on size. Paglen's work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail is likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Creative Time project site (here)
• Features/Reviews: E-Flux (here), New Yorker (here), NY Times T magazine blog (here), Time LightBox (here)

Trevor Paglen

Through March 9th

 

Metro Pictures

519 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Auction: Fine Photographs, February 26, 2013 @Swann

The first focused Photography sale of the year takes place at Swann next week, with the auction house's customary eclectic mix of material up for bid. As always, the tilt is toward lower priced 20th century black and white work, both vintage and modern prints. An Edward Curtis portfolio is the headliner. Overall, there are 138 lots available, with a total High estimate of $1360000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 104
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $650000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 32
Total Mid Estimate: $535000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 2
Total High Estimate: $175000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 22, Edward Curtis, The North American Indian, Portfolio #1, 1907, at $70000-100000.

The following is the list of photographers with 3 or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Alfred Eisenstaedt (7)
Ansel Adams (6)
Berenice Abbott (5)
Edward Curtis (5)
Brassaï (4)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (3)
André Kertész (3)
Gordon Parks (3)
Aaron Siskind (3)
Edward Weston (3)
Minor White (3)

Other works of interest include lot 33, André Kertész, Distortion #128, 1931-1933, at $30000-45000 (image at right, top), lot 46, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Trafalgar Square on the day of the Coronation of King George VI, London, 1937/1950s, at $20000-30000 (image at right, middle), and lot 58, Minor White, Mendocino #3, 1948, at $4000-6000 (image at right, bottom). All images via Swann.

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The 3D version is located here.

Fine Photographs
February 26th

Swann Auction Galleries
104 East 25th Street
New York, NY 10010

The Checklist: 2/21/13

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

Uptown

ONE STAR: After Photoshop: Met: May 27: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Nicholas Nixon: Pace/MacGill: February 23: review
ONE STAR: New Wave Finland: Scandinavia House: April 6: review
TWO STARS: The Shaping of New Visions: MoMA: April 21: review

Chelsea

TWO STARS: Zwelethu Mthethwa: Jack Shainman: February 23: review
ONE STAR: Robin Rhode: Lehmann Maupin: February 23: review
TWO STARS: Andy Freeberg: Andrea Meislin: March 2: review
ONE STAR: Michael Benson: Hasted Kraeutler: March 9: review
ONE STAR: Distance and Desire, Part II: Walther Collection: March 9: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Chris Buck: Foley: February 24: review
ONE STAR: Owen Kydd: Nicelle Beauchene: February 24: review
ONE STAR: Max Warsh: Toomer Labzda: February 24: review
ONE STAR: David Nadel: Sasha Wolf: March 10: review

Elsewhere Nearby

No reviews at this time.

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

February 26: Fine Photographs: Swann (New York): catalog
February 26-March 5: Andy Warhol: Christie's (Online): catalog
March 7: Contemporary Art: Sotheby's (New York): catalog
March 7: Contemporary Art and Design: Philips (New York): catalog
March 8: Under the Influence: Phillips (New York): catalog
March 8: First Open: Christie's (New York): catalog

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, February 14 and 15, 2013 @Phillips London

It was an unimpressively weak outing for the photography included in Phillips' Contemporary Art sales in London last week. Seven out of the top ten photography lots failed to sell, driving the overall Buy-In rate for photography up near 50%, and the Total Sale Proceeds for photography missed the low end of the estimate range by a wide margin.

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

Total Lots: 29
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £927000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1305000
Total Lots Sold: 15
Total Lots Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 48.28%
Total Sale Proceeds: £759025

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

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: £0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 12
Mid Sold: 8
Mid Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 33.33%
Total Mid Estimate: £190000
Total Mid Sold: £119375

High Total Lots: 17
High Sold: 7
High Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 58.82%
Total High Estimate: £1115000
Total High Sold: £639650

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 8, Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Look and listen), 1996, at £200000-300000; it was also the top photography outcome across two sales at £253250.

100.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds above or in the estimate range, but that statistic is a little deceiving, since only 2 photography lots sold above the range and there were no positive surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate).

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

Phillips
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

New Wave Finland: Contemporary Photography from the Helsinki School @Scandinavia House

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing the work of nine artists/photographers, curated by Timothy Persons and Pari Stave. The works are displayed in a series of three connected galleries, with an entry space and an adjacent video viewing room, all located on the third floor of the building. (Installation shots at right.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the exhibit, with image details for each in parentheses:

• Pasi Autio (1 HD video, displayed on a small screen, 2012)
• Joakim Eskildsen (12 pigment prints, both large and small sizes, framed in white and unmatted, 2011)
• Tiina Itkonen (3 pigment prints, unframed, 2002-2012)
• Hannu Karjalainen (1 HD video, displayed directly on the wall, 2009)
• Kalle Kataila (5 large pigment prints, framed in white and unmatted, 2004-2009)
• Anni Leppälä (10 pigment prints of various sizes, framed in white and unmatted, 2004-2012)
• Niko Luoma (2 large c-prints, unframed, 2010)
• Riita Päiväläinen (3 large c-prints, unframed, 2005)
• Mikko Sinervo (1 set of 24 small c-prints and 1 large c-print, unframed, 2008-2009)

Comments/Context: While there are many universities and art schools around the world with strong programs in photography, the Helsinki School is certainly one that would be on many people's short list of the most innovative. Unfortunately for those of us in New York, we only get to see the work of the school's graduates intermittently, as most of the artists/photographers lack American gallery representation, making survey shows like this one are all the more important as they give us a quick sampler of what has been going on since we last checked in.

 

At least to my eye, this exhibit does a nice job of mixing work from familiar and unfamiliar names, juxtaposing photographs from some of the more established graduates with those of upcoming and emerging artists. In the past, two of the hallmarks of Helsinki School photography were dynamic conceptual underpinnings and an affinity for glossy, object quality presentation, and these two facets of the overall approach are still very much evident in the most recent output of its students. Mikko Sinervo probes the process of visual perception via fuzzy candy colored abstract orbs that mimic the afterimage effects of looking at light. Riita Päiväläinen places discarded clothing into natural scenes, creating ethereal installations that play with texture and motion; the patterns of black and white dresses snow get lost in the tangle of snow covered branches. And Niko Luoma's massive linear abstractions throb with electric energy.

 

Another group of artists stay one step closer to photographic tradition, keeping figures present and opting for standard white framing. Kalle Kataila's works echo 19th century Romantic paintings, with tiny lone figures perching in the foreground, looking out at the wonder of snowy waterfalls, frozen oceans, or vast green valleys. Anni Leppälä creates mysterious fairy tale narratives, where a red ribbon turns into smoke, a young girl peers behind a curtain, and two stockinged feet hang ominously from the rafters of a boat cabin. And Joakim Eskildsen stays closer to home, with quiet, intimate images of his young children wedged next to a fridge, walking down yellow leafed forest paths, and running underneath a rainbow in the greenery of an overgrown garden. Even the video work on view seems firmly rooted in photographic thinking, with Pasi Autio's treatise on walking illustrated by a single figure moving with nearly imperceptible slowness while the rest of the surrounding street scene moves at normal speed.

 

It's clear from this show that the Helsinki School is consistently churning out plenty of accomplished contemporary photographers. Smart exhibits like this one can certainly help increase their exposure in America, but I for one would like to see their collective work shown here more often, so we can consider their ideas and influence with less delay. New York gallery owners, it's time to get going and book that long overdue trip to Helsinki.

 

Collector's POV: Since this effectively a museum exhibit, there are no posted prices for the works on view. All of the artists are represented by the Gallery TAIK (here) in Finland, which is part of the Helsinki School. Niko Luoma is also represented in New York by Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here).

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Helsinki School/Gallery TAIK site (here)
• Pasi Autio school page (here)
• Joakim Eskildsen artist site (here)
• Tiina Itkonen artist site (here)
• Hannu Karjalainen artist site (here)
• Kalle Kataila artist site (here)
• Anni Leppälä artist site (here)
• Niko Luoma artist site (here)
• Riita Päiväläinen school page (here)
• Mikko Sinervo school page (here)

New Wave Finland: Contemporary Photography from the Helsinki School

Through April 6th

 

Scandinavia House

58 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, February 13 and 14, 2013 @Christie's London

The results for the photography included in Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day sales in London last week were meaningfully better than expected. With the Buy-In rate for photography under 7 percent and all five photography lots in the Evening sale finding buyers at prices above their estimates, it comes as no surprise that the Total Sale Proceeds for photography easily exceeded the high end of the range.

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

Total Lots: 43
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £2268500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £3182000
Total Lots Sold: 40
Total Lots Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 6.98%
Total Sale Proceeds: £3962071

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

Low Total Lots: 3
Low Sold: 3
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: £10000
Total Low Sold: £6688

Mid Total Lots: 19
Mid Sold: 19
Mid Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Mid Estimate: £267000
Total Mid Sold: £384575

High Total Lots: 21
High Sold: 18
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 14.29%
Total High Estimate: £2905000
Total High Sold: £3570808

The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 11, Gilbert & George, Dead Boards No. 11, 1976, at £350000-450000; it was also the top photography outcome of the two sales, at £601250.

95.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There was only one surprise in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 225, Sol LeWitt, Manhattan with Roosevelt Island Removed, 1978, estimated at £5000-7000, sold at £23750 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

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

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

Michael Benson, Planetfall @Hasted Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 large scale photographic works, framed in thick black wood and unmatted, and hung in the entry and the three rooms of the main gallery space. All of the works are digital chromogenic prints mounted on Dibond, made in 2012 from source material taken between 2000 and 2011. Square format dimensions range from 16x16 to 72x72, while the more panorama style works range in size from 17x51 to 50x107; some images are available in multiple sizes. The works have generally been printed in editions of 8 regardless of size, with a few exceptions in editions of 3. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2012 by Abrams Books (here) (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I have written before about the need for a more granular and comprehensive 21st century definition of "appropriation", and Michael Benson's newest show of space photography provides an opportunity to revisit these thorny questions once again. His awe inspiring images of celestial bodies knock your socks off with their grandeur, and then given their art gallery setting, they trigger a set of questions about his process and the application of his artistic intent. Is this what Saturn really "looks like"? How much did he tweak the colors or manipulate the content? Do we as an audience want him to show us the "truth" or express his personal vision? The fact is, while we can easily be impressed by the scientific facts on view, we don't really have a ready vocabulary to investigate and categorize the art side of Benson's works.

While it may not seem immediately obvious, I'd put Benson in a loosely held together "archive mining" bucket, along with growing group of artists as diverse as Zoe Crosher, Doug Rickard, Kate Steciw, and Penelope Umbrico. Starting with a body of source material (often digital, but sometimes analog like vernacular photos or postcards), they sift and sort, crop and rephotograph, edit and rework, order and reconsider, using the imagery as a jumping off point for their own artistic projects. Some stay "close" to the material, while others turn it into something nearly unrecognizable. This is a wholly different kind of appropriation than the old school Pictures Generation recontextualization we are used to; in many cases, the original context isn't hugely important to the conceptual basis of the new end result and there is often no inherent irony at work. The artists are mining archives for material they find exciting or simply useful, which can then be used to make downstream artworks. Photography purists tend to scoff at this camera-less process, pooh-poohing the effort as some kind of less than admirable short cut. I think this is a mistake; we are just seeing the birth of a new strain of photography that starts with the wealth of visual material already readily available (rather than newly clicking shutters) and we will naturally see the development of new and diverse technical approaches and measures of craftsmanship, some that will match our current definitional categories well and others that won't.

So back to Benson. His works start with raw imagery taken by NASA and European Space Agency probes and scientific missions, which he then meticulously stitches and tunes into large, vibrant art objects. Geysers on Enceladus, swirling flares on an eclipse of the Sun, flashes of comet impacts, many of his images show us something truly special or amazing, at least to the non-expert viewer. Others take the elegant rings of Saturn and turn them into abstractions of slicing cross section lines, perfect arcs, or sweeping electric blue stripes. Wavy Mars dunes in red sand turn into something akin to Edward Weston, while clouds on Earth flatten out like tabletops as they reach the upper atmosphere. In some cases, Benson is extremely crisp and literal, seemingly cleaning up a straightforward shot for better viewing/understanding; in others, his editing hand is much more visible, outer space becoming a forum for abstraction.

I think there is no denying the astonishing power of many of these images; the best have a soaring elegance and drama that most normal terrestrial subject matter will find hard to match. But until we clarify the conceptual boundaries of emerging archive mining strategies, I think we will struggle to find the right categorical place for works like Benson's. Photographic archive mining is here to stay, and we need to think carefully and rigorously about the spectrum of ways it can be successfully carried out. On the surface, Benson's approach stays very close to the science, but underneath, it isn't radically different from Internet scouring and repurposing; his chosen archive is different and certainly more specialized, but many of his foundational concerns and issues are exactly the same.

Collector's POV: The images in this show are generally priced based on size, ranging from $4200 for the smallest works to $25000 for the largest, with multiple intermediate prices in between. Benson's work has not yet become consistently available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for those collectors and space/science buffs interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Time LightBox (here), Space.com (here), NBC Cosmic Log (here), Slate Behold (here)

Michael Benson, Planetfall
Through March 9th

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

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, February 12 and 13, 2013 @Sotheby's London

The photography results from Sotheby's Contemporary Art auctions in London last week were generally lackluster, dragged down by a few too many passes on the higher priced photographs. With an overall Buy-In rate for photography across the two sales of nearly 30% and almost no meaningful positive surprises, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography came in under the low end of the range.

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

Total Photography Lots: 34
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1293000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1901000
Total Lots Sold: 24
Total Lots Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 29.41%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1224600

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

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: £0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 21
Mid Sold: 17
Mid Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 19.05%
Total Mid Estimate: £321000
Total Mid Sold: £283450

High Total Lots: 13
High Sold: 7
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 46.15%
Total High Estimate: £1580000
Total High Sold: £941150

The top lot by High estimate was lot 37, Andreas Gursky, Singapore Börse, 1997, at £350000-550000; it was also the top outcome of the two sales £421250.

95.83% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There was only one surprise in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate), coming on one of the lowest estimated lots:

Lot 361, David LaChapelle, Andy Warhol: Last Sitting, 1986 and Jeff Koons: Sandwich, 2001, together estimated at £5000-7000, selling for £15000 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

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

Sotheby's
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

David Nadel: Burns II @Wolf

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the elongated single room gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints. The images come in two sizes: 16x20, in editions of 8, and 40x50, in editions of 6. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: David Nadel's second installment of wildfire charred, snow covered Montana landscapes introduces a series of small refinements to his already successful visual formula. Like the works from his previous show (in 2011), his newest images begin with arduous hikes to remote areas of unpeopled wilderness and end with miles of forested space compressed into flattened planes of nearly abstract lines. What's different this time is a subtle sense of increased sharpness, where the soft haziness of the early works has been traded in for a slightly tighter and crisper aesthetic.

Nadel's trees run the gamut from thin and spindly to dense and furry, depending on his distance from them and their natural clustering. Long views turn the trees into hairy bands and layers of medium grey that settle into the mounded hollows and angled valleys of the mountainous terrain. Closer in compositions are made of striking, all-over verticals, the trees striped into high contrast minimalist lines or feathered like bottle brushes. Against the blank whiteness of the snow, the endless repetition of the textural trees becomes meditative, the enveloping monochrome environment broken only by the isolated splashes of color of a lone, defiant regrown evergreen or the thin red stems of dormant undergrowth.

The best of Nadel's new landscapes have an almost mathematical rigor and precision, where the trees are dead-on straight and the lines run up like zips, creating a humming screen of verticals. It's these back and forth battles between organic and abstract that are fresh and exciting here, giving the works an added layer of formal interest beyond their obvious natural grandeur.

Collector's POV: The works on view are priced as follows: the 16x20 prints are $1500 each and the 40x50 prints are $4000 each, a small increase from his last show. Nadel's work has not yet entered the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Review: New Yorker (here)

David Nadel: Burns II
Through March 10th

Sasha Wolf Gallery
70 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002

The Checklist: 2/14/13

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

Uptown

ONE STAR: After Photoshop: Met: May 27: review

Midtown

ONE STAR: Sissi Farassat: Edwynn Houk: February 16: review
ONE STAR: Philip Trager: NY Public Library: February 17: review
ONE STAR: Nicholas Nixon: Pace/MacGill: February 23: review
TWO STARS: The Shaping of New Visions: MoMA: April 21: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: David Hilliard: Yancey Richardson: February 16: review
TWO STARS: Hendrik Kerstens: Danziger: February 16: review
ONE STAR: Niko Luoma: Bryce Wolkowitz: February 16: review
TWO STARS: Zwelethu Mthethwa: Jack Shainman: February 23: review
ONE STAR: Robin Rhode: Lehmann Maupin: February 23: review
TWO STARS: Andy Freeberg: Andrea Meislin: March 2: review
ONE STAR: Distance and Desire, Part II: Walther Collection: March 9: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

ONE STAR: Chris Buck: Foley: February 24: review
ONE STAR: Owen Kydd: Nicelle Beauchene: February 24: review
ONE STAR: Max Warsh: Toomer Labzda: February 24: review

Elsewhere Nearby

No reviews at this time.

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

February 14: Post-War and Contemporary Art (Day): Christie's (London): catalog
February 14: Contemporary Art (Evening): Phillips (London): catalog
February 15: Contemporary Art (Day): Phillips (London): catalog
February 26: Fine Photographs: Swann (New York): catalog
February 26-March 5: Andy Warhol: Christie's (Online): catalog

Owen Kydd, Color Shift @Beauchene

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 video works, shown on black bordered display screens, and hung in the single room gallery space on the second floor. All of the works are perpetual loop videos made in 2012 or 2013. The screens are sized either 37x21 ("40 inch") or 21x12 ("24 inch"); 6 of the works are shown on 40 inch screens, 1 work is shown on a 24 inch screen, and there is 1 diptych (a single image spread across two screens) on two 40 inch screens. The videos range in duration from 3 to 5 minutes, and are available in editions of 3+2AP. This is Kydd's first solo show in New York. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The boundary lines between photography and video used to be so simple - photography was used for still images and video was used for motion and elapsed time, and the cross pollination of the two disciplines led to photographs that were "cinematic" in the way they were framed or in the way their narratives were staged. But now that every camera on the market includes the ability to easily shoot high resolution video, it isn't surprising that many photographers are more liberally stepping into the world of video to expand their artistic options, and that a new generation of artists is growing up unconcerned with the old definitional bright lines.

Owen Kydd's videos inhabit this semantic netherworld, falling somewhere between extended "durational" photographs and still videos. His works begin with a fixed, static camera angle, and are followed by subtle, almost imperceptible changes that come with the passing of a few minutes. A bright retail display of striped wall board and empty shelving seems perfectly frozen until the paper bell twists, the blue plastic shivers, and the tiny string wiggles in the invisible breeze. His works demand sustained, attentive observation, or the subtleties of a flicker of light across a mylar balloon or the shifting grip of woman clutching a phone will be missed entirely. The overall effect is a heightened sense of awareness of the image at hand, and an intense visual scouring of each work, in search of slow, minute changes.

While most of the videos stay fixed on one scene, one of the works cycles through a handful of separate moments, where quiet nighttime storefronts and interiors are punctuated by glances of reflected light that pass over their surfaces; the fleeting swooshes across a chartreuse green corner are like a muted ghost of a dance. The whipsaw folding and unfolding of a black trash bag is more obvious in its study of motion, with a slight echo of the plastic bag trapped in a sidewalk cyclone from American Beauty. And a planter of fake flowers points to a more complex extension of Kydd's craft, adding a perspective altering doubled effect to his arsenal, jarring the pavement into jutting abstract layers while the leaves sway in the wind.

What I find most intriguing about these works is their investigation of how motion can be included in photography, and not just in the sense of blurs and other effects used to imply motion, but in real movement over time. Kydd's works retain the strict conceptual formality of frozen photographic moment, but simultaneously open up doors to something more fluid. While Fiona Tan and Gillian Wearing have experimented with video portraiture that feels aware of its relationship to photography, Kydd's images seem to emerge from a different starting point, beginning with more rigid theories of photography which are then expanded and reconsidered in the context of unlimited time and movement. For me, his works are a kind of signpost, signaling that one strand of digital age photography is rapidly evolving away from the single, canonical decisive moment we have long taken as given.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The single screen works are $8500 each and the two screen diptych is $15000. Kydd's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here) 
• Interview: Lay Flat (here) 

Owen Kydd, Color Shift
Through February 24th

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
327 Broome Street (upstairs)
New York, NY 10002

Nicholas Nixon: Here and Now @Pace/MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against blue and almond colored walls in the entry and two main gallery rooms. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, made from negatives taken in 2011 and 2012. The prints are sized either 11x14 (contact prints) or 16x20 (enlargements) and are available in editions of 10. (No photography is allowed in the galleries, so the installation shots at right are via the Pace/MacGill website.)

Comments/Context: Nicholas Nixon's newest photographs are measured and deliberate, slowed down to the point where attentiveness can overcome everyday distraction. They express interest in the cycle of life, from babies to centenarians, and consider the wearying effects of aging with warmth, curiosity, and affection. They are evidence of a photographer confident in his craft and unhesitant to contemplate the changing stages of his life.

In his previous show, Nixon had already begun to turn the camera on himself, making fragmented self-portraits of his rugged, bearded face. New images take that idea one step further, bringing his wife Bebe into the frame. Up-close pairs of eyes and mouths, the photographer's bristly whiskers pushing against her skin, his face buried in her long hair, the pictures revel in personal detail. More importantly, they deftly capture a sense of shared intimacy, of genuine caring and closeness built over a lifetime. They function equally well as masterful exercises in photographic texture and as love letters.

Nixon's images of mothers and their babies, flanked by centenarians and their loved ones (wives, husbands, sons, and daughters), center on the contrast of young and old, the opposite ends of the human spectrum. These photographs are all about embrace, about touching, holding, hugging, and supporting with the kind of fondness and emotion that is impossible to fake. In a certain way, both sets of images feel a little like commissioned portraits, but they are executed with such grace and good will that is hard not to admire them. The other images in the show capture humble nature scenes from Massachusetts and France, snowscapes and apple trees, meadows of long grasses and hollyhocks in bloom. They are quietly observant, catching and capturing the often overlooked details of changing seasons.

 

As he ages, Nixon's work is moving farther and farther away from the conceptual fastidiousness and the art school irony that is now so prevalent in contemporary photography. It's as if that stuff couldn't matter less when compared to the nuanced questions of life, of the passing of time and the maturing of love. His pictures are nurturing, and thoughtful, and subdued in a way that is entirely out of step with the whims of fashion. Their gentle authenticity is refreshing and encouraging, like one of the reassuring caresses shared by his subjects.

 

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size and on the place in the edition, with the 11x14 images starting at $4500 (one was already at $6000) and the 16x20 images starting at $6500. Nixon's work is intermittently available in the secondary markets, with prices generally ranging from $1000 to $7000, with the top prices reserved for his images from The Brown Sisters series. Nixon is also represented by Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (here).

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

Transit Hub:

• Review: New Yorker (here)

Nicholas Nixon: Here and Now
Through February 23rd

Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Auctions: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, February 14 and 15, 2013 @Phillips London

Phillips finishes up the Spring Contemporary Art season in London later this week with a generally uneventful gathering of photography. The top lots include works by Kruger, Sherman, Kelley, Rondinone, and Demand. Overall, there are a total of 29 lots of photography available across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate for photography of £1305000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 0
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): NA

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 12
Total Mid Estimate: £190000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 17
Total High Estimate: £1115000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 8, Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Look and listen), 1996, at £200000-300000. (Image at right, top, via Phillips.)

Here is the short list of the photographers who are represented by more than one lot in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Richard Prince (3)
John Baldessari (2)
Mike Kelley (2)
David LaChapelle (2)
Vik Muniz (2)
Robin Rhode (2)
Cindy Sherman (2)

Other lots of interest include lot 27, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #469, 2008, at £180000-220000 (image at right, middle), and lot 131, Christopher Wool, Incident on 9th Street, 1997, at £30000-40000 (image at right, bottom, both via Phillips).

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Contemporary Art Evening Sale
February 14th

Contemporary Art Day Sale
February 15th

Phillips
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Book: Sam Falls, Problems with Decomposition

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2012 by Mörel Books (here). Paperback, 60 pages, with 31 color images. There are no essays or texts. (Spread shots below.)

Comments/Context: Sam Falls is one of a new crop of contemporary artists who has his roots in the soil of photography but is otherwise seemingly unconstrained by the traditional boundaries of medium or genre. The works in this thin volume traverse the borderlands between photography and painting, creating multi-layered hybrid images that investigate the less-than-obvious essence of still life objects and probe the conceptual connection between a photographic image of something and its physical imprint. He is clearly experimenting with the definitions of representation, pushing us to consider what information each artistic method is best at conveying.

The underlying premise of this series of works is elegantly simple and concise. Falls starts with studio set-ups of piles of tires and groups of fruits and vegetables, set against a rainbow of bright colored backgrounds. Photographs of these still lifes are then used as the foundation for painted overlayers, which are made block print style by covering the objects in question (or sliced halves of those items) with colored paint and laying down impressions right on top. Tires become interlocked circles like Olympic rings, blueberries become small dots, halved peppers become lumpy heart-shaped outlines, and bunches of bananas become radial arrays of stubby fingers, all executed in color-coordinated harmony. Together, the works show us both a crisp two dimensional image and a messy, tactile manifestation of the subject, mixed and interleaved in one combined portrait. The effect is playful and exuberant, while still retaining a brainy edge, and the smart wordplay between "composition" and "decomposition", between indestructible rubber and quickly rotting fruit, adds another flash of subtle cleverness. Overpainting photographs could easily come off as crafty or contrived, but Falls' works avoid this preciousness, adding a layer of relevant gestural movement to the static documentation provided by the underlying photograph.

This small book is neatly self-contained, offering a single body of work in enough depth to see the variations and permutations taken to their logical limits and sequenced with care to accent the natural rhythms of the changing subject matter and color palette. It's meaningful proof that a photobook need not be a door stop, and that an intimate, unadorned paperback presentation can be just the right formula for works that already have plenty of visual pop.

Collector’s POV: Sam Falls is represented by American Contemporary in New York (here) and by M+B Gallery in Los Angeles (here). He also had a solo show in New York at Higher Pictures in 2011 (here).

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: NY Times T magazine (here), Art in America (here), Les Rencontres d'Arles (here)

 

Auctions: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, February 13 and 14, 2013 @Christie's London

An early black and white Gilbert & George leads the photography offerings in Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day auctions in London next week. Other top lots include works by Wall, Gursky, and Sherman. Overall, there are 43 photography lots available across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate for photography of £3182000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 3
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £10000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 19
Total Mid Estimate: £267000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 21
Total High Estimate: £2905000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 11, Gilbert & George, Dead Boards No. 11, 1976, at £350000-450000. (Image at right, top, via Christie's.)

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

Andreas Gursky (4)
Cindy Sherman (4)
Gilbert & George (3)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (3)
Diane Arbus (2)
Gabriel Orozco (2)
Gerhard Richter (2)

Other lots of interest include lot 69, Jeff Wall, The Arrest, 1989, at £250000-350000 (image at right, middle) and lot 240, Rodney Graham, Oak, Kaggevinne, 1989, at £60000-80000 (image at right, bottom, both via Christie's.)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction
February 13th

Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction
February 14th

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