McDermott & McGough: Of Beauty and Being @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 19 color works, framed in brown wood and matted, and displayed in the larger main gallery space, divided by a single wall. All of the works were made using the tricolor carbon ("carbro") printing process and were made in 2010 (although they are "dated" 1955 in their individual titles). The prints generally range in size from 30x18 to 30x25 (or reverse), with one image at 26x26; all are available in editions of 7. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: McDermott & McGough have made a photographic career out of reviving antique processes and using them to make modern images in a variety of historically accurate styles. Over the years, they've successfully recreated salt, gum, palladium and cyanotype prints (among others), and firmly entrenched themselves in an anachronistic 19th century lifestyle. The pair's newest body of work fast forwards them into the 20th century (smack into the middle of the 1950s via the exuberant color of the carbro process), and provides the perfect jolt of energy for these slushy, cold winter days.
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In many ways, this is pitch perfect art about art. The works on view reference and reinterpret 1950s commercial advertising and fashion photography (via vibrant magazine covers and pin-up nudes) and deeply mine the aesthetic of Paul Outerbridge (particularly the staged still lifes). They also make passing references to a parade of photographic stars, from Steichen and Penn, to Man Ray and Blumenfeld, even appropriating and restaging Roy Lichtenstein. A walk through the gallery is one witty insider joke after another, all executed in ebullient saturated color; bright red nail polish and electric green palm leaves never looked so good. The work is outlandish and glamorous, garish and showy, nostalgic and strikingly fresh.

These images are a terrific reminder of the pure unadulterated joy to be found in the carbro process; the colors are so blindingly crisp and bright, it's hard not to be seduced by their incandescent charms. If this show doesn't put a smile on your face, you'd better check your pulse.

Collector's POV: Each of the works in this show is priced in an upward ratcheting edition, beginning at $6000, continuing upward through $8000, and ending at $12000. While McDermott & McGough have been making their images for years, very few of these works have entered the secondary markets. As such, gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

While there were plenty of terrific images in this show, if I was forced to choose just one, I would likely pick the nude, A Woman Alone, 1955, 2010, for its swirling, radiant mix of pink and blue (with a nod to Blumenfeld); it's second from the right in the top installation shot, and is reproduced on thick cardstock as a gallery announcement.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Review: New Yorker (here)
• Feature: Art in America, 2010 (here)
• Exhibit: An Experience of Amusing Chemistry @IMMA, 2008 (here)

McDermott & McGough: Of Beauty and Being

Through February 12th

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Cheim & Read

547 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

Adam Fuss, Home and the World @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 works, displayed in the small front room and the larger main gallery (divided by a single wall). The front gallery contains three full plate daguerreotypes framed in black and hung against grey walls. Two of the works are each 28x42 and are unique; the third is 28x24 and is available in an edition of 9. While the larger images are hung on opposing side walls, the smaller image is displayed on the floor in the middle of the room. All of the works in the main gallery space are unique gelatin silver print photograms mounted on canvas, framed in white (without mats) and hung against white walls. Five of the images are 103x60, two are 58x54, two are 62x104, and one is 76x63. All of the works in the show were made in 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In the past twenty years or so, Adam Fuss has taken the seemingly simple process of the photogram and created a radical, innovative and original body of contemporary art. He has alternately experimented with water droplets and smoke, rabbit guts and sunflowers, lacy baptism dresses and babies in puddles, creating large scale organic silhouettes and patterns in a spectrum of saturated colors, adding layers of symbolism and spiritual meaning to everyday objects.
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While Fuss has previously explored the imagery of snakes (swimming through water or skittering through powder), his new works dive deeper into this subject matter via a pared-down monochrome palette. Inky black forms tangle and swirl in intertwined and overlapping bunches, creating graceful gestural movements that echo the elegance of Chinese calligraphy or the kinetic energy of Jackson Pollock's abstractions. Blurs in the process make it clear that these are not static frozen forms, but active living beings, bringing an element of chance and a sense of motion into the compositions.

The resulting jumble of slithering black lines and curves is then superimposed on several different backgrounds: a grid of newspapers, a vertical shaft, or pure expansive white. The alternate contexts pile on symbolic connections to the game Snakes and Ladders, the myth of Tiresias and the caduceus, and the alternately positive and negative views of snakes throughout history. I found the simplest images with white backgrounds to be the most powerful and refined, the arrangement of lines uncluttered by competing ideas. When the knot of snakes coalesces into just the right graphic design, something magical happens.
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In the smaller front room, the uncertainty of motion found in the photograms is exchanged for the precision detail of the daguerreotype process. In matching large scale plates, an empty mattress sits alone, or is adorned with a coil of black snakes; in this case however, the process picks up every reptilian scale and highlight, making the snakes look all too real. Nearby, a close-up view of a vagina sits on the concrete, like a fleshy opening in the floor. For me, the symbolism here was a little too heavy-handed, and as such, I found the abstract arabesques in the other room much more compelling and beautiful.

Overall, Fuss' high contrast black and white photograms are both jolting and harmonious, finding a polished balance between the literal and figurative, the threatening and the lyrical. It's an impressive and mature display of the continuing evolution of his craft and ideas. Most importantly, the images themselves are wholly original and memorable, tied back to any number of traditions, but at the same time, exciting and expressively new.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced between $40000 and $65000. Fuss' images have become more consistently available in the secondary markets in the past five years or so, with prices ranging from $2000 to $90000, depending both on size and subject matter. The artist is also represented by Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (here) and Xavier Hufkens in Brussels (here).

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times, 1999 (here), NY Times, 2002 (here)
• Features: NY Times, 1999 (here)
• Exhibition: MFA Boston, 2002 (here)

Adam Fuss, Home and the World

Through October 23rd

Cheim & Read
547 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Jack Pierson, Go there now and take this with you @Bortolami

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 large scale color works, pinned directly to the wall (not framed), and hung intermittently on the walls of the front gallery space. Each of the images is a folded pigment print, in an edition of 3, in one of three sizes (or reverse): 83x62, 63x63 or 43x57. All of the works were made in 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Jack Pierson's new photographs have an eye-catching posterish quality to them. Printed extra huge and folded as if to fit in a mailing envelope, they explode with vibrant colors, almost in the manner of stock photography. There is a pink pyramid, a goldfish, some yellow netting, a cross of white poles against a deep blue sky, a tombstone, an empty dirt road in the woods, various sunsets, a marble torso, and some palm fronds on fire. None of these subjects is at all new or inventive, nor are they taken with any particular artistic point of view, and yet, the pictures have been executed with such saturation and energy that it is hard not to be drawn in.

What I found most interesting here is was the underlying idea of mixing high and low art, the portable, much handled form factor of a poster in contrast to the venerated artwork protected under glass. The images are bold, like symbols of themselves, the kind of thing used as a decorative reminder or as a souvenir to cover a wall, something to identify with or trigger a personal memory. (Moyra Davey explored this same idea of the folded/mailed imagery in her recent show of work (here), although her pictures were smaller, more personal and intimate.)
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Of course, these works are not actually posters, but expensive artworks in small editions. Some people will certainly frame them, even though that goes against the essence of their existence, further exposing the contrast between the everyman and the art collector. In the end, while the images themselves are relatively commonplace, I found this exploration of what defines the physical limits of photographic art quite a bit more compelling.
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Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced between $15000 and $20000 based on size. Pierson is formally represented by Cheim & Read in New York (here), Regen Projects in Los Angeles (here), and Galerie Thaddeus Ropac in Paris/Salzburg (here). Pierson's photographs have come up for auction from time to time in recent years, roughly ranging in price between $2000 and $12000. Those works were however much smaller than what is on view in this exhibit, so take the price history with a grain of salt.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features: The Year in Pictures (here, here, and here), Opening Ceremony (here)

Jack Pierson, Go there now and take this with you

Through August 31st

Bortolami Gallery

510 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

William Eggleston, 21st Century @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 color images, framed in white and matted, and hung in two skylit gallery spaces divided by a wall partition. All of the works are pigment prints, printed in editions of 7, and sized 28x22 or reverse. The images were taken between 1999 and 2007. A similar exhibition is running concurrently at Victoria Miro in London (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While the pairing of Diane Arbus and William Eggleston has some obvious rock star marketing appeal, I'd like to think that of all the works that could have been chosen to juxtapose with new pictures by Eggleston, the selection of Arbus' images without people (review here) is a thoughtful reminder of one of things that has been happening in Eggleston's work in recent years - the people have been disappearing.

I think there are several important trends to be discovered in Eggleston's work of the past decade, all on display in this fine exhibit:

• Across the board, there is less story and/or narrative to be discerned; with one exception (a frontal head shot), there are virtually no portraits or interactive human scenes in this show. There are no back stories or tall tales to be imagined or puzzled out, and the environment is no longer completely rooted in the American South.
• The compositions are becoming altogether more fragmented and painterly. While the images are still representational (with recognizable objects as subjects), the works oscillate back and forth between simple documentation of "things" and purer aesthetic relationships of form and color. These visual interconnections of space, texture and pigment occur in ways that are wholly unrelated to the content or context of the subject matter. I hesitate to take the easy way out and call the works "abstract", as I think that misses the intensity of the back and forth movement between simple recognition and more complex color theory.
• The prints are now digital, and are getting bigger. This is exposing some minor flaws in the technical aspects of Eggleston's focus and printing; the icebox image is particularly grainy and digitally pixelated.

Walking around the exhibit, my brain followed a familiar pattern in front of each picture: an initial period of recognition (what exactly is this?), followed quickly by a more protracted look at the two dimensional space of the photograph, and how Eggleston had used the colors and shapes to create pattern and composition:

• Soapy water on a car windshield becomes a cosmic brew of blue, green, and purple.
• A red dumpster sits in the alley behind an orange building with a red door; the content dissolves and the image becomes a study in angles and hues.
• A table with a chaotic jumble of kitchy dated lamps is further complicated by the arcs of orange and blue hula hoops stored underneath and a dark black shadow that carves its way across the upper left corner.

My two favorite pictures in the show were the image of a pink tiled bathroom in Cuba, with veiled light shining in through the pale orange and pink billows of a linen curtain, and the image of a silver spoon left on a rough hewn windowsill in Kentucky, flanked by yellow painted clapboard and shards of broken glass splattered on the deck below; the composition is a master class in slashing lines and diagonals.

While each image in this show can hold your interest intellectually, not every one is equally moving or memorable; there is a hit or miss quality to the work that left me repeatedly circling back to the those successful pictures that vibrated with more lyrical power. But even with a little unevenness, there are plenty of examples of Eggleston at his best on view here, taking seeming casual glances at the mundane and turning them into something spectacular.
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Collector's POV: The works in this exhibit are being sold in price escalating editions of 7; the prints begin at $7500, move to $10000, and end at $12000 - several of the images I inquired about (including the pink curtain) were already sold out. Eggleston prints are now routinely available in the secondary markets, where recent prices have ranged from approximately $5000 all the way up to $250000 for his most iconic vintage dye transfers. The 2008 auction of the Berman collection of Eggleston images at Christie's is a good source for current market conditions for his work (preview post here, results post here).
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Eggleston Trust (here)
• Review: Guardian (here)
• Democratic Camera @Whitney, 2008, DLK COLLECTION review (here)
• Paris, 2009, DLK COLLECTION review (here)

William Eggleston, 21st Century

Through February 13th

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Cheim & Read

547 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

Diane Arbus, In the Absence of Others @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white images, framed in white and matted, and hung against grey walls in a single room gallery space. Only 1 print in the show is a vintage gelatin silver print; the rest of the prints are posthumous gelatin silver prints made by Neil Selkirk. The negative dates range from 1961 to 1971. All of the images were printed 20x16 or reverse, most ending up square; the later prints were made in editions of 50, or more often 75. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: The legend of Diane Arbus has been told so many times and in such depth in recent years that it seems hard to believe that there might be anything more to uncover in her story. This small show doesn't try to compete with the major Arbus retrospectives that still linger in our memories, but takes a tightly edited, lesser known slice of her work (the kind of images one might blow by in a larger exhibit of her more famous works) and gives it some spotlight attention. While Arbus' intimate portrait work is easily her most recognizable, these images give quirky man-made spaces and offbeat interiors the same sensitive treatment that is her hallmark.
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While Arbus often pointed her camera at some of the more marginal and eccentric members of human society, it is clear that she also found the oddities of our constructed environments (unoccupied by people of any kind) equally worth close investigation. Painted murals in hotel lobbies, deserted amusement parks and movie theaters, and empty living rooms are found to be unsettling and surprisingly abnormal, the peculiar details becoming more weird and absurd under more intense scrutiny.

This small show is proof that Arbus applied the same talent for getting underneath the surface of her portrait subjects to the overlooked strangeness of our own places, discovering the unexpected that is often left hidden in our peripheral vision. While this show won't move the needle on Arbus scholarship or change the trajectory of the overall Arbus narrative, it is at least a welcome reprieve from the now-hackneyed display of her best known works.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $16000 and $65000. Given the popularity of Arbus for both photography and contemporary art collectors, her work swirls through he secondary markets with significant regularity. Prices range anywhere from perhaps $5000 on the low end to nearly $500000 on the high end. Both vintage and later prints are almost always available, with the posthumous prints gaining in popularity to such a degree that they too often reach into six figures. While none of these works is a particular fit for our collection, I enjoyed digging into the gloomy House of Horrors (an image I don't remember looking closely at before), silently empty of squealing visitors.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Revelations @SFMOMA, 2003 (here); @Met, 2005 (here)
• NY Times reviews, 2005 (here) and (here)

Diane Arbus, In the Absence of Others
Through February 13th

Cheim & Read
547 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Book: William Eggleston, Paris

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2009 by Steidl (here) and the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain (here). 184 pages, with 68 color photographs and 37 color drawings, divided into two intermixed sections. (Cover shot at right, via Photo Eye.)

Comments/Context: Given the amount of adulation William Eggleston has received in recent years, it hardly seems to matter whether he ever makes another photograph; his influential place in the history of photography is already well solidified. And yet, here he is with a new body of work, continuing to refine his unique way of seeing.

Eggleston's images of contemporary urban Paris (taken in the past three years) continue his evolution toward more fragmented and abstracted pictures. These works include less people and tell less complex narratives than his iconic images of the 1970s. There are more chaotic splinters and shards of frantic eye catching color; graffiti, commercial signage/posters, and neon lights all make repeated appearances. But each and every image still has at least one surprising element of color: a shiny red shoe, a pair of yellow shorts on a green park bench, a pink hat and a pink car together, or a reflected neon green glow captured in wet pavement.

Interleaved with the photographs are a number of densely patterned abstract drawings, reminiscent of mid career De Kooning (although less violent) or Kandinsky. At first glance, I found these splashes of manic expressive color distracting; there's just too much stimulation to ignore them. But if we credit Eggleston's genius as primarily that of a highly attuned eye for the relationships of color, then these drawings make more sense in the context of the photographs; they are simply a different manifestation of the same creative impulse, and the juxtapositions of the two show us themes and variations (in a musical sense) as they blast through his mind.

In general, the photographs in this body of work are uneven, and perhaps could have used a heavier hand in editing; overall, it's not as strong top to bottom as some of his earlier projects. But if we strip away the bottom half and look only at the best of what's found in this volume, it is clear that Eggleston still has an amazing eye for the overlooked, and can find unexpected hints of beauty almost anywhere.

Collector’s POV: William Eggleston is represented by Cheim and Read in New York (here). According to the gallery, the images in the show/book were artist’s proofs for exhibition only and there are no plans to edition them for sale. They are planning to have some of the drawings available when they open a show of new work by Eggleston in January 2010.

Transit Hub:

• Exhibition reviews: Telegraph (here), Guardian (here), Eyecurious (here)
• Current issue of Aperture, containing a selection of Eggleston's drawings (here)

The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 41 works in a variety of media, variously framed and matted and hung in the 4 main rooms of the gallery, with additional images in the entry and the back hallway. 18 of these works are photographs; the rest are paintings, sculpture, collage and other media. The images range from 1866 to 2009, with most being made in the last two decades. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers are included in the exhibit, with the number of images on display in parentheses:

Berenice Abbott (1)

Marina Abramovic (1)

Diane Arbus (1)

Julia Margaret Cameron (1)

Rineke Dijkstra (2)

Nan Goldin (1)

Katy Grannan (1)

Jenny Holzer (1 group of 14 images)

Roni Horn (1 group of 5 images)

Zoe Leonard (1 diptych)

Sally Mann (1)

Marilyn Minter (1)

Shirin Neshat (1)

Catherine Opie (1)
Cindy Sherman (1)

Hellen van Meene (1)

Francesca Woodman (1)

Additional artists in the show include (with the number of works on display in parentheses):

Ghada Amer (1 painting)

Vanessa Beecroft (1 sculpture)

Lynda Benglis (1 video)

Louise Bourgeois (1 sculpture)

Kathe Burkhart (1 painting)

Victoria Civera (1 painting)
Marlene Dumas (1 painting)

Anh Duong (1 painting)

Judith Eisler (1 painting)

Tracey Emin (1 sculpture)

Ellen Gallagher (1 collage)

Chantal Joffe (1 painting)

Deborah Kass (1 painting)

Maria Lassnig (1 painting)

Sarah Lucas (1 sculpture)

Joan Mitchell (1 painting)

Alice Neel (1 painting)

Collier Schorr (1 collage)

Joan Semmel (1 painting)
Mickalene Thomas (1 painting)

Hannah van Bart (1 painting)

Kara Walker (1 paper cutout)

Lisa Yuskavage (1 painting)
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Comments/Context: Given the way our collection is built (subject matter driven themes), we have often thought about whether there are inherent differences between the way male and female photographers have approached certain subjects. Can we say definitively that Abbott and Bourke-White approached abstract skyscrapers differently than Steichen and Stieglitz? Or that Atkins and Cunningham looked at flowers differently than Fox Talbot, Blossfeldt and Mapplethorpe? For these two subjects, while there is of course plenty of variation, we cannot detect a strong and defensible causal relationship with gender. For the female nude however, this is not the case. Nudes by Weston or Brandt are altogether different in feeling than those of Bernhard or Cunningham, and in our view, these dissimilarities are largely a result of the sex/viewpoint of the artist.

Which brings us to the fine group show now on at Cheim & Read. While the press release for this show seems to go out of its way to defend the concept of the female gaze (as though it were somehow up for debate), to our eyes, there are identifiable and meaningful differences between the work of male and female artists working in both portraiture and the nude (and likely other subjects as well). This exhibit gathers together a wide variety of art works made by female artists depicting female subjects, and makes a strong case for real contrasts with the male perspective that dominates our culture.

The photography included here (and it is in the minority overall) is in the "one from each" mode, selecting a single work from a broad range of female photographers across the ages. What comes through in seeing this spectrum is that (not surprisingly) the ability of the photographer to gain the comfort/trust of the subject drives the making of powerful images. While trust building is not a uniquely female trait, I can easily agree that for these particular subjects (female portrait sitters that is), the presence of a female photographer undeniably made the image making more productive, and allowed the subjects to look outward with more confidence and authenticity. Shirin Neshat's bored bride, Catherine Opie's surfer, Hellen van Meene's girl behind a thin curtain, and Sally Mann's daughter on a divan just don't happen in the same way if a man is behind the camera. The presence of a man's gaze (however benevolent) would also have obviously impeded the images made by Katy Grannan, Francesca Woodman, and Nan Goldin. Marina Abramovic and Jenny Holzer take the gazing yet another step, refracting and reflecting the male gaze with withering critiques from the female perspective.

Another aspect that I found of interest in this exhibit is how photography as a medium seems to self select its subjects. What I mean by this is that nearly all of the photographs in this show are straightforward portraits or documents of performances; by and large, they are character studies or conceptual pieces, and even the nudes are only mildly suggestive. In contrast, much of the painting and sculpture included in the show is much more graphic in its sensuality, albeit somewhat abstracted via the media being used. Does this contrast tell us something about how the women who made these artworks are using levels of "realism" to tell their stories, and how they make choices of medium to match their intended subjects?

In general, this group show delivers on providing thoughtful juxtapositions of unexpected works, all within the larger context of what the female gaze might signify. What I like most about this show is not just that it offered a well selected group of pictures to see, but that it reminded us of a conceptual framework that we could repurpose and reuse in the context of our own collecting activities.

Collector's POV: Cheim & Read has gone for the misdirection approach to pricing, with no transparent price list readily available at the reception desk. While I am normally not shy about asking prices, in this case, I didn't have the energy to endure the required conversation to get the data; the gallery was crowded, the receptionists were frosty, and it just seemed like far too much work. While the Zoe Leonard nudes would fit best into our collection, I found the Shirin Neshat bride the most memorable.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Artforum July 2009 Critics' Picks (here)
• TimeOut review (here)

The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women

Through September 19th

Cheim & Read
547 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001