2011 AIPAD Review, Part 2 of 2

The 2nd and final portion of our 2011 AIPAD Review is below. Part 1 of the summary (which includes an explanation of the format) can be found here.

Galerie Priska Pasquer (here): Lieko Shiga (3), August Sander (4), Shomei Tomatsu (4), Shin Yanagisawa (2), Daido Moriyama (1), Issei Suda (2), Rinko Kawauchi (5), Nobuyoshi Araki (2), Yutaka Takanashi (6). The Pasquer booth was one of the best edited displays at AIPAD, with a strong mix of vintage and contemporary Japanese photography (with a few vintage Sanders on an inside wall). Takanashi (one of the founders of Provoke) was a discovery for me; the modern prints below were priced at $4900 each. There were also some excellent early prints by Kawauchi and a superb Araki portrait.

M+B (here): Matthew Porter (4), Anthony Lepore (4), Hugh Holland (3), Mike Brodie (6), Alex Prager (1).

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs (here): Jan Yoors (3), Louis Faurer (1), Harold Roth (2), Lisette Model (1), Edward Steichen (1), Irving Penn (1), Erwin Blumenfeld (1), Umbo (2), Charlotte Rudolph (1), Zdenek Tmej (1), Raphael Dallaporta (6). I was intrigued by the scale and ornate detail of these Dallaporta pipe organ images. The large print was reminiscent of Candida Höfer for me, although the level of detail up close was even more meticulously precise; the smaller images were almost like post cards, yet with an astounding level of visual depth and granular accuracy. Prices were $15000 for the large print, $3500 for the smaller ones.

Stephen Daiter Gallery (here): Joseph Sterling (6), Aaron Siskind (5), Ken Josephson (2), Andre Kertesz (3), Berenice Abbott (1), Walter Peterhans (1), Herbert Bayer (1), Stanley Kubrick (1), Eliott Erwitt (3), Weegee (4), John Gossage (3), Lynne Cohen (4), Danny Lyon (2), Ruth Orkin (1), Dawoud Bey (1), Yasuhiro Ishimoto (1), Robert Frank (3), Alex Webb (2).

Michael Shapiro Photographs (here): Irving Penn (1), Helen Levitt (1), Robert Frank (3), Harry Callahan (1), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (8), Eugen Wiskovsky (1), Jaromir Funke (1), Josef Sudek (6), Pierre Dubreuil (1), Charles Sheeler (1), Man Ray (1), Robert Imandt (1), Fletcher Gould (1), Elmer Blew (1), R. Owen Shrader (1), Pirkle Jones (1), Lewis Baltz (6), Ansel Adams, (1), Brett Weston (1), Imogen Cunningham (1), Anonymous (8), Jefferson Hayman (group on outside wall). Shapiro's booth had two of my favorite vintage prints at the fair, hanging right next to each other. The Dubreuil study of spectacles and shadows was simply masterful, full stop. And I don't think I've seen more than a handful of River Rouge Sheelers out in the market since we started collecting, so it was terrific to look at this one up close. The amounts weren't labeled and the booth was crowded, so I didn't get prices for these two gems.

Yossi Milo Gallery (here): Pieter Hugo (2), Alison Rossiter (12), Sze Tsung Leong (2), Ezra Stoller (2), Simen Johan (1), Loretta Lux (2), Yuki Onodera (14).

Higher Pictures (here): Yvon (6), Sam Falls (1), Claire Pentecost (4), Jill Freedman (64), LaToya Ruby Frazier (1). Fall's image disregards all the distinctions that we normally make about the where the edges of the photographic process lie. He starts with photographic imagery, adds a layer of painterly Photoshop effects, and then overlays the resulting print with even more layers of acrylic and pastel. The mixed media result is an abstract hybrid, jolted by splashes of color; it's priced at $4500.

Eric Franck Fine Art (here): Robert Bergman (5), Richard Avedon (1), Antanas Sutkus (2), Rimaldis Vikstraitis (2), Marketa Luskacova (2), Martine Franck (2), Charlotte Bracegirdle (4), Josef Koudelka (1), Geraldo de Barros (4), Erwin Blumenfeld (2), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Graham Smith (4), Chris Killip (4), Layla Love (2), Karen Knorr (2), Katarzyna Mirczak (16), Norman Parkinson (6), Lottie Davies (2). Mirczak's grid of Polish prisoner tattoos on preserved skin fragments is an unsettling mix of the memorably grisy and the surprisingly symbolic. The set is priced at $15000.

Bonni Benrubi Gallery (here): Massimo Vitali (1), Georges Dambier (4), Abelardo Morell (7), Matthew Pillsbury (3), Andreas Feininger (12), Paolo Pellegrin (3).

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Shinichi Maruyama (2), Michael Wolf (3), Andre Kertesz (12), Man Ray (2), Irving Penn (1), Marie Cosindas (1), Trine Sondergaard (4), Frederick Sommer (4, collage, drawing, painting), Aaron Siskind (3), John Wood (1), Arthur Siegel (1), Henry Moore (1), Nathan Lyons (5 diptychs), Todd Hido (1), Edward Weston (2). I though this early Siegel light drawing was fantastic, with its abstract waves of rhythmic saturated color; this is the kind of image that should have been in the photography room of MoMA's AbEx show, but wasn't. It was priced at $25000.

Scheinbaum & Russek (here): Luis Gonzalez-Palma (2), Eliot Porter (4), Harry Callahan (2), Edward Weston (4), Ruth Bernhard (2), Andre Kertesz (1), Walter Chappell (1), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (3), Edward Curtis (2), Ansel Adams (4), Paul Caponigro (3), Aaron Siskind (1), Minor White (1), William Garnett (1), Lee Friedlander (2), Diane Arbus (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), plus two bins.

Laurence Miller Gallery (here): Simone Rosenbauer (2), Daido Moriyama (1), Toshio Shibata (1), Fan Ho (1), Fred Herzog (1), Ray Metzker (4), Denis Darzacq (2), Lee Friedlander (2), Stephane Couturier (1), Bruce Wrighton (15), Michael Spano (3), Jessica Backhaus (10). This is a 2010 image from Darzacq's Hyper series; this time his young subject is floating through what appears to be a carpet store; it was priced at $7500.

Robert Morat Galerie (here): Christian Patterson (5), Richard Renaldi (2), Richard Rothman (5).

William L. Schaeffer Photographs (no website): Edouard Loydreau (1), Carleton Watkins (1), Eugene Cuvelier (2), Minor White (1), Harry Callahan (1), Clarence White (1), Heinrich Kuhn (1), Walker Evans (1), Margaret Bourke-White (2), Robert Frank (1), NW Gibbons (2), plus three bins and one case of daguerrotypes. This is the kind of 19th century print that makes you rethink everything you think you know about 19th century photography; the massive Watkins tree is seen in crisp dark detail, almost with a modernist sensibility; it was priced at $75000, with a lifetime's worth of enjoyment thrown in for good measure.

Howard Greenberg Gallery (here): Ilse Bing (1), Martin Munkacsi (3), Edward Steichen (1), Charles Sheeler (1), Albert Renger-Patzsch (1), Arnold Newman (1), Minor White (2), Ansel Adams (1), Bruce Davidson (4), Saul Leiter (2), Peter Sekaer (5), David Goldblatt (5), William Klein (1).

James Hyman Photography (here): William Henry Fox Talbot (1), Horatio Ross (3), Roger Fenton (2), Hill & Adamson (3), Julia Margaret Cameron (1), Paul Reas (4), Ken Grant (2), Jem Southam (2), Anna Fox (4), Karen Knorr (4), Thomas Annan (2), Bert Hardy (1), Caroline Coon (2), Cecil Beaton (2), Roger Mayne (2), Lucien Clergue (1), JH Lartigue (1), Eugene Atget (1), Brassai (1), Andre Kertesz (1), Bill Brandt (1), Edward Weston (1), plus four bins. As flower collectors, this rich, dark Fox Talbot study is near the apex of the genre for us; no wonder it was $450000 (the shadow is from the velvet cover being pulled back).

Robert Mann Gallery (here): Kevin Kay (9), Jeff Brouws (33), Holly Andres (1), Julie Blackmon (2), John Mack (2), O. Winston Link (1), Fred Stein (2), Ansel Adams (1), David Vestal (2), Aaron Siskind (2), Joe Deal (2), Chip Hooper (2), Michael Kenna (4), Mario Giacomelli (3).

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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: For the rest of this week, we'll be on spring break. We'll be back next Monday with a backlog of gallery show reviews and auction previews for the upcoming New York photographs season.

Snapshots from Paris Photo, Part 1

While we weren't able to visit Paris Photo this year, that doesn't mean we weren't dying to know what went on. With the help of a couple of intrepid correspondents armed with their snapshot cameras, we've been able to cobble together a thoroughly random sampler of highlights. From a larger pile of images taken in booths and around the fair, I've edited the group down to the small selection below (caption information is below each image). In the visual overload of an art fair, what catches one person's eye may be overlooked by the next person, so calling this "representative" of what was on display may or may not be entirely accurate. So why these and not others? Who knows, I'm just happy to get a glimpse of the fun.


Jaroslav Rössler at Howard Greenberg

Pierre Dubreuil at Barry Friedman

Baron Adolph de Meyer at Robert Klein

Daido Moriyama at Priska Pasquer

Margaret Watkins at Robert Mann


V. Dijon at Robert Hershkowitz

Ruud van Empel at Flatland

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Tina Barney and Lee Friedlander at Janet Borden. For those gallery folks out there who have heard me drone on about the tyranny of the standard white wall, check out the exuberant pink walls in this booth!

A fan in a gorilla suit at the Martin Parr book signing.

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Walker Evans at Edwynn Houk

Hamiltons booth


László Moholy-Nagy at Stephen Daiter


Toni Schneiders at Bernheimer

Sze Tsung Leong at Yossi Milo

Phaidon booth

Later this afternoon, I'll be posting Parts 2 and 3 of this series, a similarly eclectic gathering of pictures from some of the photo exhibitions around Paris during the fair.

Book: Pierre Dubreuil, Photographs 1896-1935

JTF (just the facts): Published in 1987 by Dubroni Press in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou. 96 pages, with 53 black and white images. Includes essays by Alain Sayag and Tom Jacobsen, a checklist, and a chronology. (Cover shot at right, via Photo-Eye.)

Comments/Context: The photography of Pierre Dubreuil has always seemed to me to be the terrain of experts and connoisseurs. Until I ran across this thin exhibition catalog at the Strand recently, I had never seen anything written about him; this may be the only book on him that is readily available. My only real experience with his work has come at auction previews, where I have seen a few of his exquisite prints and marvelled at (and been somewhat perplexed by) their sky high prices.

Dubreuil was a lesser known French photographer who made a relatively small number of stunning pictures in the Pictorialist tradition around the turn of the century, and later became one of the pioneers of the movement toward Modernism. His compositions often incorporate an object in the foreground, disrupting our view and breaking up the image. He also experimented with close ups, cropped framing, and odd camera angles (bird's eye, worm's eye etc.), creating images that were wholly unlike the soft-focus painterly banality often associated with Pictorialism. Hints of Cubism and Surrealism also come through in certain pictures.

This book is extremely helpful in putting Dubreuil into a larger historical context. It also gathers together a wider assortment of work than I have seen anywhere else, thereby providing a deeper view into his artistic approach across his career. I think I now understand better why some collectors are paying big prices for his images: many are spectacular stand alone compositions and his work (like that of Strand and Stieglitz) provides an important bridge/transition between two distinct periods in the medium's history.

Collector’s POV: The only gallery I could find with inventory of Dubreuil's work was Galerie zur Stockeregg (here). His prints have come up at auction more frequently in recent years, but there are still very few available. Prices have ranged from $30000 to well over $200000.

Transit Hub: While we normally provide some additional links for further study in this section, I was unable to find any meaningful articles about Dubreuil on the web. There are a few auction listings and simple bios, but surprisingly not much of substance. If readers know of interesting sources on Dubreuil, add them in the comments.