A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing the work of 29 artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung/displayed throughout both floors of the museum. The exhibit was curated by Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers, and Joanna Lehan. A catalog of the exhibit was recently published by Prestel and the ICP (here and here). (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2013. Photographs by John Berens.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on view and image details as background:

• Roy Arden: 1 video, 2007
• Huma Bhabha: 2 chromogenic prints with applied ink and acrylic, 2010 and 2013
• Nayland Blake: 1 installation, 2013
• A.K. Burns: 1 five channel video, 2011
• Aleksandra Domanović: 3 stacks of inkjet printed paper, 2010
• Nir Evron: 1 35mm black and white film, 2011
• Sam Falls: 3 photograms, 2011, 1 enamel on archival pigment print, 2012, and 1 hand dyed linen and metal grommets, 2012
• Lucas Foglia: 7 chromogenic prints, 2006-2010, 1 zine, 2012
• Jim Goldberg: 1 wall installation of marked gelatin silver prints, chromogenic prints, inkjet prints and Polaroid prints, 2013
• Mishka Henner: 3 inkjet prints, 2011
• Thomas Hirschhorn: 1 video, 2012
• Elliott Hundley: 1 large scale collage, 2010
• Oliver Laric: 2 digital videos, 2010 and 2012
• Andrea Longacre-White: 3 archival inkjet prints, 2013,
• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: 1 installation (storefront windows), 2013
• Gideon Mendel: 6 chromogenic prints, 2007-2012 and 1 video, 2013
• Luis Molina-Pantin: 17 chromogenic prints, 2004-2005
• Rabih Mroué: 7 inkjet prints on high gloss paper, 2012, 1 video, 2012
• Wangechi Mutu: series of 10 collages, 2013
• Sohei Nishino: 2 lightjet prints, 2006 and 2013
• Lisa Oppenheim: 4 black and white photographs, 2012
• Trevor Paglen: 3 chromogenic prints, 2010-2013 and 1 video, 2010
• Walid Raad: 3 archival color inkjet prints, 2012
• Nica Ross: 1 performance, 2013
• Michael Schmelling: 38 chromogenic prints, 2005-2009
• Hito Steyerl: 2 videos, 2004 and 2012
• Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse: 3 large scale lightboxes, 2008-2010
• Shimpei Takeda- 5 autoradiographs, 2012

The exhibit also includes 5 shelves of self published photobooks, displayed in the stairway area. The complete list of the books on view can be found here.

Comments/Context: By its very nature, a biennial or triennial exhibition is an attempt at summing up, a snapshot in time meant to be representative of the larger trends of the moment. For the most part, these kinds of exhibits fail, mostly because the objective is so large and the answer so small (and often diffuse) that the viewer is left dissatisfied with the mismatch; these shows mostly turn into grab bags of disconnected work that are fun to walk through, but leave no lasting impression. But once in a very long while, the curators of a biennial or triennial get it just right, and find their way to a tightly edited selection of works that successfully tell the story of the current times. This ICP Triennial is one of those unexpected outlier exhibits, and certainly one of the best group shows of photography to be seen in New York this year.

The main success of this show lies in its deft articulation (albeit indirectly) of the key sea change that has happened in photography in the past decade or so. Now would be the time most writers would trot out the "digital revolution" and leave the cliché hanging out there for everyone to nod their heads in agreement, as if they understood. But the fact is, we've spent the last ten plus years trying to figure out what that phrase really means, generally without a succinct and coherent answer. What comes through in this exhibit is a permanent and important change in what I'll call the "workflow" of photography. In the previous age (which we might call "analog", but that might be misleading), there was generally only one workflow: start with a point of view or subject, take out your camera, and deliver your artwork as a final print. Right now, in this moment, there are a seemingly endless set of workflows available to photographers, artists, and anyone else who wants to mix together disparate media. Once again, we start with a point of view or subject, but then both the choices for methods and outputs quickly multiply. Images can be captured with a camera, drawn/appropriated from a physical or digital archive, generated with a computer, constructed in a darkroom, or recombined as a mutant hybrid. Artworks can take the final form of traditional prints, moving videos and films, self published books, physical objects of nearly any form, or digital files with only an Internet presence. The photographic reality of this moment is "freedom of workflow" and this exhibit offers countless examples of how this idea is manifesting itself as innovative artwork.

In many ways, this show is a brocade of ideas, methods, and outputs, recombined in different ways and interwoven to highlight connections. It's easy to tie threads through examples of concerned documentary ideas (Gideon Mendel and climate change/flooding, Shimpei Takeda and the Fukushima disaster, Rabih Mroué and the Arab Spring uprisings), examples of collage methods (Elliott Hundley's massive, stick pin conglomeration,  Sohei Nishino's multi-perspective city maps, Walid Raad's hybrid artifacts, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse's towering apartment building lightboxes), and examples of image aggregation (Roy Arden's digital archive, Jim Goldberg's full wall installation of prints, Thomas Hirschhorn's iPad of gory violence, Oliver Laric's videos of unexpectedly connected imagery). With the same set of artworks on view, we could just as easily draw commonality through the investigation of the changing nature of communities, the broadening use of "photographic" video, the exploration of physical materials and hand crafted additions, and many other themes and approaches. As the title of the exhibit says, we're not in an age of chaos, just "a different kind of order".

A few pieces deserve closer examination. Thomas Hirschhorn's video of a disembodied hand skipping through a series of images on an iPad is at once revolting and mesmerizing; it is the single most memorable artwork I have seen all year. Fingers dance across the surface of the tablet, flipping images forward and back, stopping to enlarge a bloody injury, an exploded head with brains spilled out, or a pile of rotting corpses from some unnamed riot or revolution. Every image is disturbing, and then after time, there is a sense of becoming numb to the astonishing violence. The work is at once both video and still imagery, with a sense of the curiosity of human touch and the endlessness of the Internet's access to images we'd rather not see.

Rabih Mroué's discussion of a hand held video made by a bystander during the Syrian uprisings is equally complicated and chilling. In the video, a citizen journalist points his cell phone camera at a shooter in the street, only to have the man turn and fire, the camera tumbling to the ground in a cackle of static, presumably signaling the death of the cameraman. The surrounding walls of the video room are covered in large scale prints of pixelated imagery of various gunmen, the whole installation a deconstruction of how videos like these are being made and what they are showing us.

And finally in the stairwell, an enormous metal scaffolding creates a stairway up to a series of five overstuffed bookshelves full of recently produced photobooks and zines, showing off a dizzying array of styles and options for delivering photographs in book form. The inclusion of such a display in this major exhibit is a testament to just how pervasive self publishing has become, and how important it is as a newfound creative outlet. It sounds the trumpet that the revolution has been legitimized and that we need to take these new photobooks seriously as valid art forms.

All in, the ICP curators have found a way to successfully capture the "nowness" of contemporary photography, while still keeping the diverse exhibit manageable. While I would have liked to have seen even more examples of cameraless digital experimentation, for the most part, they have chosen works that touch on the multiplicity of the current age, while still providing lots of connection points between divergent ideas, methods, and final outputs. When we step back and look at the exhibit from afar, it slowly takes the form of a network, a matrix of interconnected points that the viewer can trace and follow like router hops. It represents the new way we need to think about the medium, not as one monolithic entity, but as a series of loosely bound, ever reconfiguring, photographic ideas.

 

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Given the diversity of artists and mediums on view here, we'll dispense with the usual discussion of secondary market history.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New Yorker PhotoBooth (here), GalleristNY (here)

  

A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial

Through September 22nd

 

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933-1956 by Chim @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 127 black and white and 8 color photographs, generally framed in black and matted, and hung against light grey and dark grey walls in a winding series of connected spaces on the main floor of the museum. The exhibit also includes 10 cases containing magazines/spreads, books, and other ephemera. For the most part, the works on view are vintage prints.The exhibit was curated by Cynthia Young. A catalog of the exhibit was recently published by Prestel (here). (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2013. Photographs by John Berens.)

The show is divided into titled sections. For each section below, I have tallied the number of images on view and listed other supporting materials.

(Entry)
10 gelatin silver prints, 1934-1937

France and the Popular Front
10 gelatin silver prints, 1935-1936
1 case containing 3 magazines/spreads, 1935-1936

The Spanish Civil War
23 gelatin silver prints, 1936-1939
1 wall of 32 Regards covers, 1935-1939
1 case containing 4 books, 1 magazine/spread, 1936-1938

We Went Back
6 gelatin silver prints, 1947
2 inkjet prints, 1947
1 case containing 4 magazines/spreads, 1947
1 case containing 3 images of Chim, 1 press card, 3 books, 1 image of Chim and Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1 exhibitor card, 1 museum card, 1 Polish ID card, 1 Henri Cartier-Bresson photo of Chim and Robert Capa, 1 press card, and 1 brochure
1 case containing 2 books of WWII aerials

The Children of Europe: A UNESCO Photo Story
30 gelatin silver prints, 1948
2 inkjet prints, 1948
1 case containing 2 magazines/spreads, 1 book, and 1 newspaper, 1948-1949

Postwar European Politics
13 gelatin silver prints, 1947-1956
1 inkjet print, 1947-1948
1 case containing 4 magazines/spreads, 1947-1948

Germany's Year of Destiny
7 gelatin silver prints, 1949
1 case containing 5 magazines/spreads, 1947-1949

Portraits
6 gelatin silver prints, 1950-1956
1 inkjet print, 1952

Italy
12 gelatin silver prints, 1949-1955
2 inkjet prints, 1952
1 case containing 9 magazines/spreads, 2 books, 1950-1956

Israel: The Early Years
19 gelatin silver prints, 1951-1954
2 inkjet prints, 1952
1 case containing 4 magazines/spreads, 1953-1954

The Suez Crisis
4 gelatin silver prints, 1956
1 case containing 2 magazines/spreads, 1956

(Table)
4 books
1 screen

Comments/Context: The ICP has stayed close to its photojournalism roots with this solid retrospective of the work of David (Chim) Seymour. Using a chronological structure, it traces his career over the period of roughly two decades, mixing various documentary and reportage projects with celebrity portraits and his well known images of children. It marks him as a consistently keen observer of political and social life, wherever his camera may have taken him.

The story begins in the early 1930s with Chim making photographs of political demonstrations and rallies in France, full of bull horns, raised fists, and painted signs. His images of the Spanish Civil War from a few years later generally avoid the pitch of battle, instead focusing on smaller visual vignettes of ordinary people. A nursing mother at a land reform meeting, a refugee girl with dolls, a young boy with a toy gun, a destroyed typewriter, each is a poignant backstory to the fighting. By the end of the decade and with World War II beginning, Chim left for New York and ended up making military aerial photographs for the next few years.

After the war ended, Chim went back to Europe (thus the title of the exhibit) and made images of the rebuilding efforts and the plight of its orphans. Groups of children play under the looming rusty hulk of Omaha Beach debris and solitary boys are found in bombed out buildings and perched on rubble piles. Smiling faces mix with apprehension and fear, whether in bunk rooms, hospitals, or unattended out in the fields. The wild chalkboard scrawls of a young girl drawing "home" is a particularly grim symbol of the turmoil and anguish faced by these kids.

Toward the end of the 1940s, Chim returned to political rallies and marches, covering the German elections of 1949 (and the parrot that said "Heil Hitler"). His work in the 1950s covered even broader territory. He took celebrity portraits of Ingrid Bergman and her newborn twins, Peggy Guggenheim and her dogs, and Bernard Berenson in the Borghese gallery, and captured smaller moments of Italian life, from the laundry line of the Swiss Guards to the bustle of Rome street markets. His last projects took him to Israel, where he documented kibbutz dancing, olive grove planting and border sirens, and finally to Egypt, where he was killed covering the Suez crisis.

This retrospective does its job - it deftly cements Chim's place among the important figures of photojournalism. For me, this show was a reminder of how photographs of conflict need not have the clashing action as their subject to be powerful. Chim's real talent lay in his ability to tell the larger political story via smaller details and personal moments, uncovering the emotional landscape of the human impact far removed from the front lines.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Chim's work has only been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years. Prices have ranged from roughly $1000 to $4000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New York Photo Review (here), Magnum Photos website (here)

 

We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933-1956 by Chim

Through May 5th

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Roman Vishniac Rediscovered @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 216 black and white photographs, variously framed and matted, and hung against light blue and white walls in a series of connected rooms on the entire lower level of the museum. The exhibit also includes 13 cases containing books, letters, family photos, and other ephemera, 3 films/videos, and 90 color slides projected in a darkened side room. With the exception of 31 vintage gelatin silver prints in a back gallery, all of the prints are modern inkjet prints, made in 2012. The exhibit was curated by Maya Benton. (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2013. Photographs by John Berens.)

The exhibit is divided into titled sections. For each section below, I have tallied the number of images on view and listed other supporting materials.

Berlin Street Photography, 1920s-1930s
15 inkjet prints
2 cases containing 23 family photos, 1 contact sheet, 2 children's books, 1 property deed, and 1 image of Adolf Hitler

Nazi Rise to Power, Germany, 1933-1937
8 inkjet prints
1 poster

German-Jewish Relief & Community Organizations, Berlin, Mid to Late 1930s
10 inkjet prints
1 film

Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, c1935-1938
68 inkjet prints
3 cases containing 4 books, 7 contact sheets, 3 postcards, 2 pamphlets, 2 letters, 1 letter/report, 2 images of Vishniac, 2 color images (pigment prints), and 1 label
1 touchscreen containing book scans
1 video

Werkdorp Neuwesluis Agrarian Training Camp, Wieringermeer, Netherlands, 1939
13 inkjet prints

Travel, Refuge, and Internment in France, Paris, Nice, and Marseille, 1939

13 inkjet prints

1 film

 

Exhibits at Yivo Institute for Jewish Research

"Pictures of Jewish Life in Prewar Poland", January 1944

16 gelatin silver prints with inked titles

"Jewish Life in the Carpathians", January 1945

15 gelatin silver prints with inked titles

1 case containing 4 books, 1 letter, 1 announcement, 1 flyer, and 1 scrapbook page

 

Portrait Studio and Nightclubs, America, 1941-Early 1950s

13 inkjet prints

1 case containing 3 images of Vishniac, 1 program, 1 scrapbook page, and 1 contact sheet

 

Berlin in Ruins, 1947

9 inkjet prints

1 case containing 1 announcement card, 2 passports, 8 family photos

 

Immigrants and Refugees, New York, 1941-Early 1950s

6 inkjet prints

1 case containing 2 family photos, 1 registration card, 3 scrapbook pages

 

Refugees and Displaced Persons' Camp, Germany and France, 1947

14 inkjet prints

1 case containing 4 letters, 7 contact sheets, 1 book, 1 pin, 1 report

 

The Face of America at War, 1941-1944

9 inkjet prints

 

Scientific Work: Photomicroscopy, America, Early 1950s-Late 1970s

90 color projections

1 case containing 1 microscope, 3 business cards, 1 image of Vishniac

 

Jewish Community Life, New York, 1951-Early 1950s

7 inkjet prints

1 case containing 1 report, 8 family photos, 1 lesson book

 

Scrapbooks

6 cutouts

1 case containing 4 images of Vishniac, 5 books, and 1 contact sheet

 

Comments/Context: It's likely human nature, but time and again, we pigeon hole artists by their best known work, assuming that this thumbnail portrait of what we remember best is in fact representative of all that they had to offer. When we think of Roman Vishniac, most of us can come up with a glimpse of his powerful images of Jewish life in pre-World War II Eastern Europe. But as this thoughtfully composed and comprehensively researched exhibit proves, there was much more to the Vishniac story than just this one superlative body of work. Across roughly five decades, in addition to being a pioneering social documentary photographer, this show discovers that he was also a Modernist, a New York photographer, and a talented and innovative scientific photographer, among other labels we might affix to his talents. Taken as a whole, it's the kind of challenging retrospective that upends most of your pre-conceived notions and extends your understanding far beyond the simplest and most obvious of highlights.

 

The exhibit begins with Vishniac's images of 1920s Berlin, where his unexpected version of Modernism has been infused with subtle wit. Silhouettes inside a railway terminal and the interlocked shadows of a window washer's ladders play with the stark geometries we have come to recognize as hallmarks of the Modernist style, but these avant-garde visual tropes evolve into something more wry and cunning in Vishniac's hands. A woman pulls a reluctant dog with scraping tension and a standard "polar bears at the zoo" shot is inverted, putting the visitors behind the bars and the bears seemingly out in the open doing the watching. In these early years, we can see Vishniac trying on the predominant styles of the times and adapting them to his own artistic needs.

 

As the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s, Vishniac was keenly observant of its slowly encroaching influence. He took images of his daughter (so as not to attract attention) in front of election posters, and made many images of swastika flags outside shops, pubs, and as backdrops for ordinary kids playing in the street. He also began making pictures at Jewish community and relief organizations, capturing kids wrestling at soup kitchens and families waiting in the immigration office. It's clear from these images that Vishniac was already attuned to what was going on, and was therefore the right photographer in the right place when the commission from the Joint Distribution Committee came along.

 

Like the FSA photographers in America, Vishniac had a particular point of view he wanted to express in his now famous images of Eastern European Jewish cultural life. Seen in the context of his earlier work, it's clear that he slowly turned up the volume of conscious poignancy in this group of photographs, centering in on portraits of poverty stricken families, weary elders, and optimistic children. Taken together, the pictures provide an empathetic record of a life that was soon to be extinguished, full of basement dwellings, dark stairs, cramped beds, and outdoor kitchens. Street life was populated by corner vendors and small shops, men selling everything from old clothes to fish and fruit while the neighborhood kids tumbled on the cobblestones. It's an enduring and soulful multi-generational portrait, with grandmothers and grandfathers woven into the fabric of the community, teaching their grandchildren to read and trudging along through the damp snow. The larger vintage prints with inked titles taken from two exhibits in the 1940s (seen in a side room) are the best examples of the nuance and subtlety of these images.

 

But while Vishniac's place in the canon of photographic history was forever secured by this important body of work, his artistic story didn't end with A Vanished World. He went on to cover the healthy work of Zionist youth camps in the Netherlands (with a series of terrific crisscrossed Modernist beam silhouettes) and refugee beachgoers in France. In 1941, Vishniac emigrated to the United States, settling in New York and opening a portrait studio. Chagall and Einstein sat for him, and he made lively images of the burlesque dancers, singers, comedians and other entertainers to be found in various nightclubs. His images of life in the city from this period extend beyond Jewish and immigrant life to a wider perspective on wartime America, from food rationing and women repairing cars, to donating blood and saluting the flag. Vishniac also returned to Europe in the late 1940s, making haunting images of bombed out Berlin and Marseille in ruins.

 

Perhaps the most surprising set of images in this exhibit are Vishniac's later life scientific studies. Shown as projections in a side room, cross sections and core samples of muscle tissue, slime mold, dew drops and butterfly wings explode with intense color, amino acids and hormones becoming swirling microscopic abstractions. Like Berenice Abbott and her studies of light and physics for MIT, Vishniac made an entire second (or third) career out of his photomicroscopy efforts.

 

In what is surely a sign of a successful exhibit, I walked out of this show with an entirely new appreciation of Roman Vishniac and his photographic accomplishments. His chronicle of Jewish life remains supremely tragic and evocative, but I now have a much better understanding of the larger context of his career. I came away with the conclusion that Vishniac wasn't exactly who I thought he was, this new perspective entirely a function of visiting this smart reappraisal.

 

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Vishniac's prints have been consistently available in the secondary markets in recent years, but not necessarily in large numbers. Prices have ranged from $1000 to nearly $45000, with many of the outcomes at the top end of that range coming from a 12 print portfolio. At the gallery level, Vishinac's work can be found at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York (here).

 

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

  

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: ARTnews (here), Financial Times (here), AmericanSuburbX (here), Wall Street Journal (here), Time LightBox (here)

 

Roman Vishniac Rediscovered

Through May 5th

 

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A large group show containing more than 500 photographs/artworks by roughly 70 photographers/artists, variously framed and matted, and hung against white, grey, and dark grey walls throughout both floors of the museum. By my likely inaccurate count, there were 509 individual photographs/artworks, 53 books/magazines/other ephemera in glass cases, 19 videos/films/slideshows, and 5 touch screens for further study. For those familiar with the layout of the museum, many of the rooms have been broken up by interior wall dividers, effectively doubling the available display space. The show generally covers the period from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s, with a small amount of older material as introductory background. The exhibit was curated by Okwui Enwezor and Rory Bester. (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2012. Photographs by John Berens and Benjamin Jarosch.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit. The size and scope of this exhibit made tracking the size, date, process and other details of every print prohibitively time consuming. But the list itself is still noteworthy as reference:

Paul Alberts
Jane Alexander
Joe Alfers
Omar Badsha
Roger Ballen
Jodi Bieber
Robert Botha
Margaret Bourke-White
Geoff Bridgett
Andrew Browns
Kevin Carter
Ernest Cole
A.M. Duggan-Cronin
Jillian Edelstein
Christian Gbagbo
David Goldblatt
Bob Gosani
Paul Grendon
Hans Haacke
George Hallett
Gavin Jantjes
Tim Jarvis
Tim Jervis
Fanie Jason
Ranjith Kally
William Kentridge
Alf Khumalo
Tom Killoran
Lesley Lawson
Chris Ledochowski
Leon Levson
John Liebenberg
Rashid Lombard
Peter Magubane
Greg Marinovich
Peter McKenzie
Gideon Mendel
Sabelo Mlangeni
Santu Mofokeng
Billy Monk
Zwelethu Mthethwa
G.R. Naidoo
Gopal Naransamy
Themba Nkosi
Jerry Ntsipe
Cedric Nunn
Sam Nzima
Ken Oosterbrook
Adrian Piper
Douglas Pithey
Jeeva Rajgopaul
Jo Ratcliffe
Catherine Ross
Robyn Ross
Arishad Satter
Jurge Schadeberg
Wendy Schwegmann
Thabiso Sekgala
Joao Silva
Guy Tillim
Unidentified
Gille de Vlieg
Noel Watson
Eli Weinberg
Paul Weinberg
Dan Weiner
Graeme Williams

Sue Williamson

Gisele Wolfson

 

Comments/Context: So I was roughly two hours into my visit of the densely engrossing and thoroughly captivating Rise and Fall of Apartheid exhibit when it finally dawned on me: I was still winding my way through the main floor and the show continued down the stairs and throughout the lower level. Oh no. There was no possible way I could absorb that much more material in one go without turning into a glassy eyed zombie. Worn out already, I reluctantly gave in and went home gloriously and unceremoniously defeated. Committed to vanquishing this unruly beast of a show, I returned to the museum a few weeks later with fresher legs and more available hours to finish it off. I tell you this cautionary tale not to scare you away, but to set your expectations for what you're getting yourself into when you visit this tremendous exhibit. You are either superhuman or delusional if you think you can see it all in one swing through the galleries. My advice is don't even try; tear it off in smaller chunks and pace yourself so you can follow the complex threads and ideas that are so smartly woven together.

 

At the highest level, this is a chronologically organized history lesson in pictures, starting in 1948 with the election of the National Party and the installation of the apartheid regime and ending in the 1990s with the termination of those same policies, the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the election of a new democratically-formed government. It's a wide ranging story of politics and race, resistance and struggle, crowded trials and peaceful protests, angry riots and brutal violence, told almost entirely through photographic imagery. While the historical flashpoints might be familiar to many (the Treason trial, the Freedom Charter, the Sharpeville shootings, the Soweto uprising, the Biko funeral, the Mandela release, the 1994 elections), what is new here is an examination of the image making that surrounded these events and an investigation of how that imagery evolved over time. It's possible to simultaneously read the exhibit as straight history, and to go down a level and consider the different approaches, styles and artistic interests of the various individual photographers.

 

Most of what is on view here might fall under the heading of traditional photojournalism or documentary photography, albeit perhaps with a modifier like concerned, engaged, or social to precede and amplify it. Curators Okwui Enwezor and Rory Bester have taken the best of this genre (much of it made by talented South African photographers who were first hand witnesses to the events) and mixed it together with relevant commercial and magazine imagery, photo essays, and fine art photographs of the same decade-long periods, bringing it all together in a rich, multi-layered portrait of both the relevant clashes and the changing underlying social fabric.

 

Much of the imagery from the 1950s is centered on nonviolent protest: Nelson Mandela in traditional beads, Mandela sparring to burn off energy from sitting in court all day, wide shots of crowds and onlookers, the sober protests (carrying signs, holding candles) of the Black Sash women. By the 1960s, the apartheid policies had become more entrenched and the visual evidence of the separation of races had become more stark. Black culture found outlets in dance clubs, Drum magazine, pinup girls, and the songs of Miriam Makeba, but Ernest Cole's images of blacks being searched, fingerprinted, and handcuffed are a grim reminder of the perils of everyday life at that time; a grid of his images of segregated facilities at dry cleaners, bank tellers, rest rooms and delivery entrances shows just how pervasive the divide was. Alf Khumalo's image of white men riding around in a pickup truck with an ample supply of guns and growling German Shepherds is particularly nasty, while Peter Magubane's endless line of coffins at the Sharpeville funeral foreshadows the escalating human costs to more militant struggle. The juxtaposition of Billy Monk's leering white clubgoers at the Catacombs and Magubane's lineup of black men enduring a group medical exam is harshly vivid.

 

The section on the 1970s is dominated by images of the Soweto uprising. Police cars shoot at passersby, young men throw stones and use trash can lids as makeshift shields, rioters and police face off, and corpses start to pile up. Sam Nzima's photographs of a bloody child being carried and loaded into a car are both tragic and incendiary. Themba Nkosi captures bored police officers on a smoke break after another round of evictions, an overlooked dead body lying in the dust nearby. And Noel Watson documents police dogs angrily barking at a young man singled out of a crowd, his fingers held up in peace signs.

 

As the exhibit moves downstairs and the calendar moves to the 1980s, the story gets more complex, less linear, and more diffuse. Hans Haacke mixes Steve Biko's dead body into a series of mock opera posters sponsored by Alcan. Guy Tillim watches the burning black smoke of ruined settlements and the clashes of axe wielding crowds. Cedric Nunn follows mourning, from a bride and groom at graveside to a mother covered in a blanket. David Goldblatt tracks long distance commuters, waiting at stops in the darkness and sleeping on overcrowded buses. University students are organized, fists are raised at funerals, prayer meetings are held, bodies are grimly dumped into mass graves, white settlers reenact the Great Trek, and black nannies tend white children. And it all takes place to the endlessly repeated refrain of Ain't Gonna Play Sun City (that MTV staple from the mid 1980s) playing in the background. The tiny back room is the venue for the 1990s end of the story, where Mandela's triumphant return is flanked by political opponents knifing each other, red smears on the sidewalk, and a nurse lying in a bloody pool outside a chicken shack. Famed photojournalist James Nachtwey ducks for cover in a street battle, crowds gather with hatchets raised, and cars are riddled with bullets. Ruthless intensity seems to have been turned up a notch with the struggle for political control more fluid and wide open.

 

On the whole, I think the exhibit can be evaluated on at least two levels: how it does as history and how it does as art. On the history front, it is undeniably sweeping, evocative, enthralling, and decently comprehensive; personally, I could have used a bit more explanatory wall text to give further context to the key players and events and to connect the dots between the decades, but this may be somewhat due to the wide gaps in my own historical knowledge. My other minor criticism is that the nuanced social backstory gets a bit crowded out by the drama of the resistance footage; while I'm not sure I am advocating an even larger exhibit exactly, I do feel like this angle gets less of a thesis than it deserves. On the question of art quality, my headline takeaway is just how full of superlative imagery this exhibit is; there are literally dozens of compelling, challenging, and memorable images on display here taken by photographers who will be entirely unknown to most viewers. It's an inclusive, broad-based show, and that diversity is one of its strengths. But in the end, it's a parade of searing, unflinching, sometimes painful photographs that will leave you suffocated and overwhelmed. So take my advice, plan your visit thoughtfully and allow enough time for a second or third trip; that way you will be undeniably foot weary, visually overloaded and soul wrenched, but at least you won't have to give up midstream. 

 

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Given the wide range of artists on view, many of which are generally unknown outside South Africa, I'm going to dispense with the usual collector-driven secondary market analysis.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: John Edwin Mason (here), NY Times (here), New Yorker (here), Guardian (here), Daily Beast (here), ARTNews (here), Artforum (here)

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life

Through January 6th

 

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

A Short History of Photography @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 110 black and white and color photographs, variously framed and matted, and hung against greenish grey walls in a series of three rooms on the upper level of the museum (a few additional images can be found in the cafe on the lower level). A glass case in the second room contains a variety of photographic albums, contacts sheets, magazine covers and other ephemera. All of the works on view come from the museum's permanent collection and were made between 1865 and 2009. The show was curated by Brian Wallis. (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2012. Photographs by John Berens.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of prints on view, process details and image dates as background information:

First Room
Adam Schreiber: 1 inkjet print, 2009
Unidentified: 4 tintype prints, 1865, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1 albumen print, 1865, 1 gelatin silver print diptych, 1880
Eugene Atget: 2 albumen prints, 1913, 1922
Ilse Bing: 1 gelatin silver print, 1936
Walker Evans: 1 gelatin silver print, 1936
Andre Kertesz: 1 gelatin silver print, 1919
Baron Adolph de Meyer: 1 photogravure, 1909
Edward Steichen: 1 gelatin silver print, 1930
Roman Vishniac: 1 gelatin silver print, 1935-1938
Ralph Eugene Meatyard: 1 gelatin silver print, 1963
Edward Weston: 1 gelatin silver print, 1941
Yasumasa Morimura: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1998

Second Room
Miroslav Tichy: 1 gelatin silver print, n.d.
Andre Kertesz: 1 gelatin silver print, 1927
Francesca Woodman: 1 gelatin silver print, 1976
Alessandra Sanguinetti: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1998-2002
Henri Cartier-Bresson: 1 gelatin silver print, 1933
Carl Van Vechten: 1 gelatin silver print, 1954
Irving Penn: 1 gelatin silver print, 1948
Danny Lyon: 1 gelatin silver print, 1964/2006
Christer Strömholm: 1 gelatin silver print, 1959/1965-1966
Philippe Halsman: 1 gelatin silver print, 1966
Cindy Sherman: 1 gelatin silver print, 1999
Chim (David Seymour): 1 gelatin silver print, 1948
John Paul Filo: 1 gelatin silver print, 1970
Vik Muniz: 1 gelatin silver print, 1995
Charles Moore: 1 gelatin silver print, 1963
Ernest Withers: 1 gelatin silver print, 1968/2006
Susan Meiselas: 1 chromogenic print, 1978
Gilles Peress: 1 gelatin silver print, 1972
Cornell Capa: 1 gelatin silver print, 1955
Shirin Neshat: 1 silver dye bleach print, 2002
John Gutmann: 1 gelatin silver print, 1941
Unidentified: 1 gelatin silver print, 1936, 1 gelatin silver print/offset lithograph collage, 1950s
William Hartshorn: 1 gelatin silver print, 1972
Maurice Tabard: 1 gelatin silver print, 1932
Suzanne Opton: 1 chromogenic print, 2004
An-My Lê: 1 gelatin silver print, 2003-2004
Eugene Smith: 2 gelatin silver prints, 1944, 1948
Josef Koudelka: 1 gelatin silver print, 1964
Gordon Parks: 1 gelatin silver print, 1952
Harry Callahan: 1 gelatin silver print, 1948
Brett Weston: 1 gelatin silver print, 1937
Josef Sudek: 1 gelatin silver print, 1948-1964

Glass Case (in Second Room)
Unidentified: 1 album of gelatin silver prints, 1910, 3 gelatin silver prints, 1929, 1960, 1 magazine cover, 1929
Mary B. Huslig: 1 album of gelatin silver prints, 1927-1933
Elliott Erwitt: 1 album of gelatin silver prints, 1950-1955
Robert Capa: 1 gelatin silver contact sheets, 1938
Andy Warhol: 2 gelatin silver photobooth strips, 1964/1965
El Lissitizky: 1 book cover, 1933
John Heartfield: 1 photo montage magazine cover, 1934
James Abbe: 1 magazine cover, 1931

Third Room
Larry Burroughs: 1 gelatin silver print, 1965
Margaret Bourke-White: 1 gelatin silver print, 1945
Robert Capa: 2 gelatin silver prints, 1935, 1944
Unidentified: 1 inkjet print, 2003
Thomas James Howard: 1 gelatin silver print, 1928
Samuel Shere: 1 gelatin silver print, 1937
Mitch Epstein: 1 chromogenic print, 2004
William Christenberry: 1 pigment print, 1978/2009
Marco Breuer: 1 chromogenic print, 2009
Richard Prince: 1 chromogenic print, 1983
Stephen Shore: 1 chromogenic print, 1974/2000
William Eggleston: 1 inkjet print, 1999-2000
Helen Levitt: 1 chromogenic print, 1980
Louise Lawler: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1993
Robert Adams: 1 gelatin silver print, 1976
Robert Smithson: 1 gelatin silver print, 1970
Roman Vishniac: 1 gelatin silver print, 1935-1938
Samuel Fosso: 1 gelatin silver print, 1977
Carrie Mae Weems: 1 gelatin silver print, 1987
Martha Rosler: 24 gelatin silver prints, 1974-1975
David Seidner: 1 gelatin silver print, 1980
Larry Clark: 1 gelatin silver print, 1971
Gerda Taro: 1 gelatin silver print, 1937
Bruce Davidson: 1 gelatin silver print, 1959
Robert Frank: 1 gelatin silver print, 1955/1975

In Downstairs Cafe
Charles Stacy: 1 gelatin silver print, 1913
Aaron Siskind: 1 gelatin silver print, 1939
Fazal Sheikh: 1 gelatin silver print, 1997
Sheng Qi: 1 chromogenic print, 2000
Hank Willis Thomas: 1 chromogenic print, 2004
Simon Norfolk: 1 chromogenic print, 2003

Comments/Context: The ICP's tribute show for outgoing director William "Buzz" Hartshorn gathers together a diverse mix of its institutional roots in documentary photography and photojournalism, a highlight reel of its recent exhibitions, and a parade of permanent collection acquisitions, telling an indirect story of the museum's evolution during the past two decades. As a history of photography (even a "short" one), it falls short of being comprehensive or particularly robust, but as a history of how the ICP has seen photography, I think it's a pretty useful exercise in hindsight.

It goes without saying that any such exhibit at the ICP would contain a heavy dose of classic photojournalism, and of course, this show delivers on that score. Robert Capa, Cornell Capa, Chim, Taro, Cartier-Bresson, Bourke-White, Eugene Smith, Peress, Meiselas, they all make their expected appearances. But from this core point of view, there is a sense of looking outward and finding contemporary connections to this material: John Paul Filo's Kent State shooting flanked by a Vik Muniz conceptual reworking of the same scene, iconic Eugene Smith WWII images matched with recent soldering pictures by An-My Lê and Suzanne Opton, Bourke-White concentration camp victims and Robert Capa D-Day shots put together with prisoner images from Abu Ghraib. The museum is clearly interested in how photographic approaches are changing, and how these new viewpoints relate to its historic classics.

In the period falling before the museum's core holdings (and encompassing nearly the entire 19th century), the approach seems to have been primarily historical, with an emphasis on vernacular imagery, found photographs, and other examples of documentary evidence. In more recent times, the strategy seems more diffuse, with a little of this and a little of that: some large color, some conceptual work, some abstraction, some international breadth. The show tries to tie these together on the walls via a few visual and thematic echoes, but the overall effect for the contemporary work is less coherent. This isn't to discount the quality of the work in any way; I certainly enjoyed the Martha Rosler grid of 1970s Bowery storefronts littered with liquor bottles mixed together with an exhaustive taxonomy of synonyms for "drunk" as well as other gems from Eggleston, Levitt, Weems, Shore, Christenberry and Frank. Mostly, I think the contemporary "mixed bag" feel is evidence of a museum with a limited acquisitions budget trying its best to be everywhere at once.

In a summertime season full of group shows, I think this exhibit will be best enjoyed by those with appropriate expectations. This show doesn't deliver a scholarly reasoned argument or an elaborate historical lesson. Instead it is a thoughtfully selected, well edited, eclectic jumble, with enough classics and unexpected choices to keep things lively.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices, and given the wide range of artists and work on view, I'm going to forgo my usual collector-driven price analysis.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: Le Journal de la Photographie (here), ARTINFO (here), Prison Photography (here)

A Short History of Photography

Through September 2nd

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Christer Strömholm, Les Amies de Place Blanche @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against grey walls in a single room gallery space on the lower level of the museum. All of the works are lifetime gelatin silver prints lent by the estate, taken between 1955 and 1968. No dimension or edition information was provided for any of the works on view. A glass case in the center of the room contains 4 gelatin silver prints, 3 contact sheets, 4 books, 1 catalogue, and 1 address book. A catalog of the exhibition is available from the museum for $55 (here). (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2012. Photographs by John Berens.)

Comments/Context: Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm has long been well known in European photography circles, but his exposure here in the United States has generally been limited to the circulation of his sought after photobooks. The ICP has taken a first step toward ameliorating this situation by giving Strömholm his first US museum show, a one room summary of his best known body of work - the transgendered and cross dressing men of Place Blanche in Paris from the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's a classic example of a well executed photo essay or tightly self contained project.

The reason that these images have been so well received over the years is that they are built on the combination of trust and empathy that is the hallmark of nearly all superlative portraiture. Strömholm captures his subjects in bars and on nighttime street corners, lounging in hotel rooms or vamping for the camera, consistently finding moments that waver between aspiration and vulnerability. There are confident blonde bombshells, beehive wigs, sultry looks with an excess of mascara, and plenty of fur coats. For the most part, he sees his "women" as they want to be seen, and does so with a sense of respect for their complicated lives (physically and psychologically) rather than with a leering voyeurism. He moves through their environment with the acceptance of an insider, tenderly documenting supportive friendship, best efforts, and haunting insecurity. The desire for a different future, regardless of its costs, can be found in nearly every picture, but the path to this self-determination has clearly been anything but easy.

Admirers of Arbus and Goldin (who both came later) will find much to connect with in this group of photographs. There is a similar unvarnished consideration for the uniqueness to be found in those outside the mainstream and an authentic, up-close attentiveness to their struggles and overlooked triumphs. In the dark, gritty streets of the Paris red light district, Strömholm has reaffirmed the basic human freedom to define one's own identity, and his pictures remain a solid example of how a carefully constructed photo essay can capture the spirit of people quietly striving for a different way of life.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Strömholm's work has only been intermittently available at auction in the past decade, with prices ranging from $1000 and $5000. The artist/estate is represented in New York by Marvelli Gallery (here).

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

Transit Hub:

• Estate site (here)
• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New Yorker Photo Booth (here), Le Journal de la Photographie (here)

Christier Strömholm, Les Amies de Place Blanche

Through September 2nd

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

The Loving Story, Photographs by Grey Villet @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 20 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against light blue walls in a single room gallery space on the lower level of the museum. All of the works are vintage gelatin silver prints from 1965. No dimension or edition information was provided for any of the works on view. A glass case in the center of the room contains a copy of the LIFE magazine article The Crime of Being Married, which includes several of the photographs and ran in 1966. A single video screen runs a small tape loop giving news background on the story. The curator of this exhibit was Erin Barnett. Since photography is unfortunately not allowed in the ICP galleries, the images for this show come via the ICP website. (Photographs by Grey Villet, top to bottom, at right.)

Comments/Context: Grey Villet's photographs of Richard and Mildred Loving are a sensitive and surprisingly powerful example of the classic photo essay. Using a handful of interconnected photographs to tell the human back story of their unassuming but controversial interracial marriage, Villet documents the quietly personal aspects of the miscegenation laws of 1960s Virginia and of the Loving's history making Supreme Court battle. This isn't a story about shouting and marching, but about unlikely heroes going about their lives, defying the authorities and the prevailing attitudes of the day in the name of love and family.

Villet's photographs center on the intimacy and tenderness expressed between the couple, and while we have seen these kinds of softly romantic images before, these pictures have an undercurrent of intensity; the Loving's role in the civil rights struggle makes their ordinariness seem extraordinary. Hands touch, arms drape casually over shoulders, Richard lies in Mildred's lap on the couch, and knowing looks and kisses are exchanged. Their lives seem utterly normal and natural: Mildred wears curlers, sweeps the living room, and bandages a child's arm, the kids play with dandelions and joyfully climb trees in the backyard, the couple socializes with friends at the local diner or the drag racing track. The only clues to their larger struggle are their often tired faces (brave and dedicated in a supremely understated way), the disapproving glances of Richard's mother, and the smug portrait of the judge in his library.

This is a small exhibit, but I think it provides clear proof of the lasting value of the photo essay as a journalistic form. Photographs are used to illustrate a story ripped from the headlines, and in doing so, give it a much richer and more nuanced reading than could ever have been accomplished with text alone. No amount of saying so can replace the sight of this couple acting like all couples do. Given the context of the times, their behavior was inconceivable to many, and yet, when really observed, it was seen to be genuinely loving. It's a story that needed to be told with photographs, and Villet did an admirable job of avoiding a harsher and more obvious political angle and instead let the everyday actions of the people speak for themselves.
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Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are, of course, no posted prices. Villet's photographs have little or no consistent secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Many of Villet's prints are available from the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Estate site (here)
• The Loving Story film site (here)
• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Lens (here), La Lettre de la Photographie (here)

The Loving Story, Photographs by Grey Villet
Through May 6th

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Weegee: Murder Is My Business @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A total of 116 photographs by Weegee (along with 6 additional photographs by other photographers and a handful of wall sized enlargements), framed in black and matted, and hung against light brown walls in a series of 4 connecting rooms on the lower level of the museum. All of the Weegee works on view are gelatin silver prints, taken between 1935-1946. No dimension or edition information was provided for any of the prints. The exhibit was curated by Brian Wallis. Since photography is unfortunately not allowed in the ICP galleries, the images for this show come via the ICP website. (Photographs by Weegee, top to bottom at right.)
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The exhibit is divided into four sections. The details of each section are as follows:

Photo Detective: Weegee and the Art of Self Invention
15 photographs
1 glass case (camera/bulbs, press card, hat, 2 magazine spreads)
Bedroom recreation
1 interactive screen

Read All About It! Weegee and the Tabloid Press
43 photographs
1 glass case (5 images in newspapers, 3 in magazine spreads)
1 case (crime scene log book)
1 interactive screen

Documentary Truth: Weegee and the Photo League
21 photographs
6 photographs by other photographers (1936-1948, Aaron Siskind, Vivian Cherry, Sandra Weiner, Helen Levitt, Lee Sievan, Arnold Eagle)
1 glass case (exhibition comment book)
Photo League exhibit recreation
1 interactive screen

Naked City: Weegee and Urban Disorder
37 photographs
1 video (Weegee's New York: New York Fantasy, 1948)
1 glass case (13 spreads from PM, 1940-1944)
1 glass case (6 copies of Naked City open to spreads matching prints above)
1 video (Coney Island, 1948)
1 interactive screen

Comments/Context: As you come down the stairs toward the first gallery of the new Weegee show at the ICP, you are greeted by a massive papier-mache revolver (recreating one his famous self portraits looming down over a gun shop) and foot high letters shouting the show's lurid title Murder Is My Business. These details announce that this exhibit is going to be full of high drama production values mixed with a film noir sense of hard-boiled roughness, and it certainly does deliver on that score. But as I circled the rooms of this excellent exhibit, I started to read the title with a slightly different cadence and emphasis. Say those same words in a deadpan monotone, as a statement of fact (like I Am An Accountant), with a sense that Weegee took his subject matter (murder) seriously and practiced his craft with relentlessness and care, and suddenly some of the over-the-top huckster bravado falls away, leaving behind a photographer who was undeniably very, very good at his chosen vocation.

While the meticulous recreation of Weegee's bedroom (police scanner on the bedside table etc.) and his exhibits at the Photo League (complete with red nail polish applied to the photographs to enhance their bloodiness) are visually exciting and break up the normal monotony of a normal photography exhibit, the real core of this exhibit comes in the second room, where Weegee's early flash-lit images for the tabloid press are shown with scholarly clarity. Instead of a parade of individual greatest hits, a smaller number of rightly famous images are selected and then surrounded by Weegee's other photographs of that same scene, often creating a cluster of 3 or 4 pictures of the same accident or perp walk. These groups prove that Weegee wasn't a fly-by paparazzi, snapping haphazardly. While any particular incident might be anchored by a bloody corpse or sheet covered body, Weegee took the time to orient his compositions looking for contextual stories. His pictures are never just the gangster or the criminal; they are always broader, rounder compositions including bystanders, gawkers, police officers, anguished relatives, other photographers, and other random passersby and local architecture, sometimes in multiple overlapping layers of foreground and background. He had an eye for witty irony, and black humor, and gritty, unexpected truth, and his pictures are almost always the story of a reaction, a gesture, a juxtaposition, or a movement that accompanies the central action. A movie marquee, an overturned white hat, a thick rooftop edge, onlookers craning out of upstairs windows, the bold sign for a bar and grill, they all provide context for the dingy repeated drama of death and disfigurement. It is clear from this series of pictures that Weegee understood that it wasn't enough to simply document the facts, but that every picture needed a visual hook to get run, and his approach to any given event was to search for that hook.

The other rooms in the exhibit surround this central "murder" core, providing evidence of Weegee's tireless self-promotion and of his work to expand his photographic subject matter to include many more facets of New York life. The first room is all self-portraits (with a bomb, with a pile of loot, out of a paddy wagon) and we get a refrain of self-portraits later in the exhibit (with his typewriter in the back of a car), as if we hadn't had enough of Weegee's fascination with his own persona. After the seemingly endless parade of corpses (and there is a particularly good one of a sheet covered body still holding a shorn off steering wheel), we see Weegee turn his camera to ice covered firemen, a trampling incident, tenement living, top hats covering faces, cars submerged in the river, Bowery entertainers, and even Santa being inflated for the Macy's parade and the endless crowds of the Coney Island beaches in summertime. In just a few short years, he went from the murder beat to covering the entire city, and his back to back shows at the Photo League were further proof that he was beginning to be recognized by his peers in the fine art world as something much more than a cigar chomping, nocturnal parasite.

My walk-away conclusion from this show is that Weegee really does get better and better the more you look at his work. This show brims with electric violence and nervous anxiety, and does an exemplary job of making a museum show interactive and fun, but what really got my attention (and what will stay with me long into the future) was the consistent cleverness of Weegee's compositional vision.

Collector's POV: This is a museum show, so of course, there are no posted prices. Since Weegee was so prolific, dozens of his photographs are routinely available at auction in any given year. Recent secondary market prices have ranged between roughly $1000 and $48000, with the vast majority available for under $5000.
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Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Lens (here), Hyperallergic (here), ARTINFO (here), Artdaily (here), Photo Booth (here), Capital New York (here), NPR Picture Show (here)

Weegee: Murder Is My Business
Through September 2nd

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Perspectives 2012 @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of the work of 3 photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in a series of three connected rooms on the entire upper level of the museum. Starting at the entry to the exhibit, there are a total of 13 photographs by Chien-Chi Chang from his series China Town. 6 are gelatin silver prints and the other 7 are chromogenic prints. They are all framed in silver with no mat and hung edge to edge as diptychs and triptychs based on the relationships of the families depicted. The works were taken between 1998 and 2008. In the side room, there are a total of 11 photographs by Greg Girard from his series Half the Surface of the World. All of the prints are chromogenic prints, framed in silver with no mat. The works were taken between 2008 and 2009. And in the main space, there are a total of 12 images by Anna Shteynshleyger from her series City of Destiny. All of the prints are archival inkjet prints, framed in brown wood with no mat. The works were taken between 2002 and 2011. No dimension or edition information was provided for any of the works on view. Since photography is unfortunately not allowed in the ICP galleries, the images for this show come via the ICP website. (Photographs by Chien-Chi Chang, Greg Girard, and Anna Shteynshleyger, top to bottom, respectively.)

Comments/Context: This year's version of the ICP's annual Perspectives show gathers together three bodies of recent work that revolve around the idea of transplanted communities and the process of creating a feeling of home in a new environment. It's a loose theme that allows for divergent photographic approaches and cultural contexts.

Chien-Chi Chang's contrasting images of fathers working in New York and families back in China are the most successful. The men are photographed in black and white, sitting in cramped dormitories after a day of hard work, drinking beer, eating noodles, and calling home. The women and children are photographed in color, wives caring for babies, girls watching TV and lounging around. The contrast of these two worlds documents the dislocations that are occurring, where distance impedes communication and sacrifices are being made on both sides in the hopes of something better for the family. I liked the down time simplicity of these pictures, where the quiet loneliness of the subjects comes through.

Greg Girard's photographs follow in a long line of military base photography, but center not so much on the juxtaposition of opposing cultures but on the attempt to create a slice of the United States in far away lands. At bases in Kora and Japan, he finds big box stores, sculpted suburbs with manicured lawns, regulation US Postal Service mail boxes, ATMs and Pepsi trucks. Kids play on residential sidewalks, and American style news comes from military TV anchors and the Stars and Stripes newspaper. His images have the atmosphere of a surreal stage set, where small details of the underlying local world poke through at odd moments.

Anna Shteynshleyger's images of her life in an Orthodox Jewish community in Des Plaines, Illinois, are the most understated and subtle, to the point of being less durably memorable. The photographs are opaque and closed, the meanings less identifiable: a bare lightbulb in a room, carnations on a windowsill, a bird's nest on the hood of a car, an uncle standing in the greenery, a still life of backyard leftovers and pink Crocs. From these images, I was less able to connect with the narrative being told, or to resonate with the particular nuances of this cultural world and its challenges. I needed a few more clues to understand why these moments mattered.

All three of these projects likely function best in book form, where an aggregation of images can tell a broader and more robust story. That said, Chang's photographs will resonate most with me going forward, as I think he was most able to document the complexities of the underlying emotional state of an uprooted, transplanted life.

Collector's POV: This is a museum show, so of course, there are no posted prices. In general, these three photographers have little or no consistent secondary market history; as such, gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Chien-Chi Chang is part of Magnum; his vintage and modern prints are available directly from the Magnum Print Room (here) or via the Chi-Wen Gallery in Taipei (here). Greg Girard is represented by Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver and Toronto (here). Anna Shteynshleyger is represented by Dvir Gallery in Tel Aviv (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Chien-Chi Chang Magnum Photos page (here)
• Greg Girard artist site (here)
• Anna Shteynshleyger artist site (here)

Perspectives 2012
Through May 6th

International Center of Photography

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Magnum Contact Sheets @ICP

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of the work of 22 photographers, framed in black or enlarged and pinned directly to the wall, and hung against dark grey walls in a single room on the lower level of the museum. Many of the vintage contact sheets are shown in a large glass case in the center of the room, and copies of the recent book are arrayed on a bench along one wall. The show was curated by Kristen Lubben. A monograph of the larger collection was published in 2011 by Thames & Hudson (here); a special version with a limited edition print is also available (here). Since photography is unfortunately not allowed in the ICP galleries, the images for this show come via the ICP website. (Contact sheets from Rene Burri, Jonas Bendicksen and Philippe Halsman, top to bottom, respectively.)

The following photographers are included in the show, with the date of images in the contact sheet(s) in parentheses. Each photographer is represented by one sheet (some vintage, some modern) unless otherwise noted:

Eve Arnold (1959)
Jonas Bendicksen (2000)
Rene Burri (1963, plus 2 smaller contact sheets)
Cornell Capa (1961)
Robert Capa (1944, plus 1 individual print)
Chien-Chi Chang (2008)
Elliott Erwitt (1953)
Martine Franck (1976)
Leonard Freed (1978)
Bruce Gilden (1984)
Burt Glinn (1957)
Jim Goldberg (1989)
Philippe Halsman (1948)
Thomas Hoepker (1966)
Josef Koudelka (1968)
Susan Meiselas (1975, plus 1 smaller contact sheet)
Inge Morath (1957)
Trent Parke (2000)
Martin Parr (1985)
Marc Riboud (1953)
George Rodger (1940)
Alex Webb (1978)

Comments/Context: Right up front, I should confess that I am a lover of contact sheets. Seeing an entire roll of film displayed frame by frame is for me the ultimate expression of the photographic process, and I never seem to tire of poring over misfires and accidents on the way to the triumphant finish. The unaltered contact sheet represents (in a convenient short hand) the way the photographer's brain works, how he or she solves visual problems, and how chance and experimentation play a part in the picture making.
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At a detailed level, this show offers the ability to trail along behind the creation of some of photography's most iconic images: Robert Capa comes ashore at Normandy, Marc Riboud watches a painter high atop the Eiffel Tower, Rene Burri circles seemingly unnoticed around Che Guevara, and Josef Koudelka stands in the streets of revolutionary Prague. I was fascinated by the handful of images Martin Parr made of his famous New Brighton sunbather under the crusty treads of an excavator. He discovered the scene, moved around cautiously looking for the right compositional angle, and then was rewarded with the arrival of a small girl and the exact timing of a passerby in the background. It all happens in a handful of pictures, but it's a tight example of the calculating, iterative, construction of a terrific photograph.

For working photographers, this show should be on the required syllabus, since it proves that there is no one right way to work; below the specifics of the well-known images, the exhibit works on a more abstract level, exploring the nature of seeing, in-camera editing,and the passing of time. Some masters shoot only a frame or two when presented with a visual idea, and then move on rather quickly. Others snap frame after frame of variants on the same image, fine tuning angles and relationships until the magic happens. Still others set up a picture's underlying architecture and then wait for something unexpected to happen. I was just as interested in how these individual photographers worked, as in the eventual alchemy that produced a particular winner. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Susan Meiselas playing with adjacent/secondary cropped nude bodies in the contact sheet from her Carnival Strippers project, working to get just the right balance in the overall frame.

The accompanying catalogue is a wrist-breaking doorstop, but seems to offer hours of tracking and vicarious stalking of your most admired photographers. In our futuristic digital age, these contact sheets are now relics from a bygone era, but they still provide both an unmatched record of pathways of the artist's mind and a valuable teaching tool. In the end, it's just as interesting to see the ones that didn't work, on the way to finding the one that eventually did.
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Collector's POV: Contact sheets like these are rarely if ever found in the secondary markets, since they tend to be archived with the artist's negatives and papers rather than released as finished works. As such, there is no straightforward way to determine a current market value for these kinds of prints, either vintage or modern. Perhaps the safest answer here is "priceless"?

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

• Magnum Photos page (here)
• Book Reviews: NY Times (here), Guardian (here)

Magnum Contact Sheets
Through May 6th

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