Echoes of Silence: Philip Trager, Early Photographs, 1967-83 @NYPL

JTF (just the facts): A total of 84 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung against grey walls in two separate hallway galleries on the third floor of the library. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, made between 1967 and 1983. No physical dimensions or edition information was available on the wall labels. The exhibit also includes a wooden case containing four of Trager's photobooks. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Philip Trager's early photographs are remarkably straightforward and unpretentious. Executed with a pared down, unassuming formalism and combined with a touch of New England reserve, the images draw from Walker Evans' lyric documentary style and extend it in quiet, more personal directions. The pictures remind us of the value of consistent craftsmanship and win us over with their modest precision.

 

The photographs in this show span a wide range of subject matter, from Connecticut towns and New York city landmarks, to cactus abstractions, intimate nudes, and architectural details from Paris, Barcelona, and San Francisco. Mansions in Norwalk, row houses in New Haven, and downtown buildings in Hartford are all seen with a familiar frontal Modernism, tracking repeated geometries, flanking trees, and salt box simplicity. Trager's New York pictures capture icons like the Guggenheim, the Flatiron building, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with measured grace, and close in on overlooked city details, like a swirl of stone steps, a series of vaulted arches, and a group of zig zag of fire escapes under a Chock Full o' Nuts sign. His fascination with the nuances of architecture extends into the 1980s, where he tackled the stately campus of Wesleyan University and the linear strata of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses.

 

Seeing these pictures was a reminder for me that we have largely moved beyond this kind of old school rigor these days. The crispness of vision here is tempered by attentive gentleness, not overly exaggerated by conceptual frameworks or self-referential styling. Looking back, it's as if the sound has been deliberately turned down, so we are forced to look more closely.

 

Collector's POV: Since this is effectively a museum show, there are no posted prices for the works on display. Trager's work has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up. The artist is represented by Fahey-Klein in Los Angeles (here) and prints are also available directly from Trager at the website below.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here)

 

Echoes of Silence: Philip Trager, Early Photographs, 1967-83

Through February 17th

New York Public Library
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018

Book: Dancers, Photographs by Philip Trager

JTF (just the facts): Published in 1992 by Bullfinch Press. Includes 81 black and white images, with essays by Bill T. Jones, Joan Acocella, David Freedberg and Mark Morris. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: While New York is indeed a great place to see photography, it is also an amazing melting pot of modern dance. This past weekend, we took the whole family (including our elementary school aged kids) to see a performance by Pilobolus (site here), a dance company known for its jaw dropping athleticism. We enjoy a wide variety of modern dance, and try to take advantage of the broad array of styles that are regularly performed all over New York. My particular favorite is Mark Morris (site here); my wife's is Paul Taylor (site here), and we often catch any number of other companies at the Joyce Theater (site here), one of the great venues for modern dance in America.

The reason for this preamble is that I have been wanting to write about Philip Trager's spectacular book, Dancers, for several weeks now, but it somehow hadn't found its way to the top of the pile. Unlike the carefully lit, interior dance photography most collectors are familiar with (Barbara Morgan's iconic images of Martha Graham being perhaps the most easily recognizable), Trager made his pictures in natural light, out in the open air, on grassy hillsides and in wooded glades. The resulting images of over 35 different dance companies/choreographers take us beyond dance as a "production" and back to a more primal quality, of dance as an exuberant, living, emotional response to being human.

The book offers a glimpse of a wide spectrum of modern dance styles, from quiet and intimate solo dances, to the high energy, expressionistic movements of larger groups and ensembles, from classical beauty to unsettling avant garde. In these large pictures, Trager has captured the individuality of the various dancers, dramatically singling out particular gestures and movements that epitomize varying approaches to their collective craft. There are a great many truly beautiful photographs in this book; if you plan to own only one book of dance photography, this is the one you should have in your library. And by the way, you'll have to make room for it, as the book itself is nearly 16 inches high.

Collector's POV: Philip Trager's work is not particularly available in the secondary markets, and his longtime dealer, John Stevenson, recently closed up his retail presence, so I'm not at all certain who is representing Trager at this point or where to find prints if collectors are interested in following up. There are also several additional books by Trager which chronicle his well made photographs of the villas of Palladio and the architecture of Connecticut and New York.