Hannah Starkey, In the Company of Mothers @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the two gallery rooms on the second floor. All of the prints are c-prints, made in 2012 and 2013. Each work is sized 48x65 and is available in an edition of 5+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Hannah Starkey's photographs have always turned on the elusiveness of narrative, placing young women in a variety of modern settings and capturing the traces of subtle moods and introspective emotions running beneath their everyday lives. In her newest pictures, her women return to their urban locales, but with children added to the mix, they now take on the implied role of mother/protector. Starkey's use of slowed down, cinematic observation is the same, but the tiny gestures between mother and child bring a layer of tenderness and connection to the uncertain situations.

 

In Starkey's previous works, she often used elements of setting and props (windows, mirrors, sunglasses etc.) to signal different potential frames of mind, running the gamut from gloomy boredom to self-assured confidence. In these pictures, the paired interaction with the child provides the emotional catalyst. Women cradle young children, hold them in their arms, stand protectively nearby, drape an arm over a nearby shoulder, or merely keep an eye on a wandering kid while trudging along in the snow with too many shopping bags. This particular batch of images is also particularly strong in terms of formal composition - criss-cross girders and a crane with ladders tower over a mother and child, while a bright blue and orange wall provides a backdrop for both a clash of scarf and beads and a gentle touch. Muted visual trickery is often at work as well, with a mother reaching out to the sky of a painted brick mural and a mother/daughter team seen through the reflected distortions of aquarium glass.

 

Starkey's mothers don't seem to lead messy chaotic lives - they appear remarkably calm and in control given the pressures of the job. It's clear that these narratives are centered on the nuanced emotional states of the mothers (not the children), and with just a few carefully placed clues and details, we are able to spin up all kinds of potential storylines for these women. Starkey's subjects are facing the universal challenges of modern urban parenting, but their individual paths and choices are left deftly open-ended.

 

Collector's POV: Each of the prints in the show is priced at £12000. Starkey's work has only recently begun to appear in the secondary markets, primarily in the London sales; prices have ranged from roughly $2000 to $7000.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Interview: Telegraph, 2011 (here)

Hannah Starkey, In the Company of Mothers
Through May 25th

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011

Olafur Eliasson: Volcanoes and Shelters @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): A total of 3 large grids of color photographs and 5 single image color photographs, framed in black and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space and the smaller back room on the main floor. A room sized installation of obsidian rocks and a group of 3 strobe lit water fountains are displayed in the upstairs galleries. The 3 photographic grids are made up of individually framed c-prints, each sized between 10x16 and 16x24. The grids include 48, 56, and 63 prints respectively, and each work is available in an edition of 6+1AP. The 5 single image photographs are unique c-prints, each sized 38x57. All of the photographic works were made in 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Olafur Eliasson has been making photographs since the mid 1990s, but it's always his perception-altering installations that seem to get all the attention. Happily, in this show of new work, the photographs take the main stage and the installations play a supporting role. Together, they deliver a thoughtful meditation on the relativity of visual scale.

Three large grids of Icelandic landscapes fill the main gallery space, and at first glance, it might be tempting to think they are Becher-like typologies, given their repetitive motifs of volcanoes, hot springs, and huts. But Eliasson's arrangements are much less rigid and systematic; they impose a kind of conceptual order on nature, but the terrain resists such precision. The result are arrangements that are more like maps or inventories, sets of images that subtly play with the relationship between the viewer and the land. The hot springs come in a dizzying array of unspoiled natural colors: shockingly blue, salt encrusted, moss covered, rusty orange, sulfurous yellow, steaming black. But aside from their rough beauty, these holes and depressions are fascinatingly and puzzlingly unscaled: is this image of something two feet or two miles wide? Eliasson's volcanic craters are equally photographically unstable: aerials of mountains and cones in seemingly all sizes, wrapped in snow and grass, filled with pools of liquid, and surrounded by moonscapes of rock and scree, all scaled to the same relative size for the grid. The series of hiking huts introduces a human element to the land, where tiny A-frame buildings are dwarfed by the expanse of the rolling hills, at once hopelessly tenuous and quietly optimistic. In each case, Eliasson's method of presentation mixes the rugged, untamed formations of highlands with a complex, nuanced sense of spatial awareness.

The single image photographs in the back room are printed much larger, but still consider many of the same issues of perception. While a couple have a scale giveaway hidden amid the landscape (a rainbow, a cascading waterfall), nearly all of the photographs are at least superficially uncertain in size: a pool of water surrounded by eroded rock, decorated with a splash of unmelted snow (could be a lake or a puddle); sculpted hills and valleys painted in a palette of dull green and brown (could be an aerial or a tiny slice of ground). All of these landscapes test our ability to discern the "real" scale, forcing the viewer into a different level of heightened engagement with the images. The installations upstairs continue this conceptual discussion, with a room sized pile of broken obsidian that might be visually measured in feet or acres, and splashing fountains of pleasingly aural water that are intermittently stopped mid fall (like a fleeting photograph) by flashing strobe lights.

What I like best about Eliasson's grids and landscapes is their dynamic energy. Even in a natural world as hauntingly beautiful as Iceland, landscape photographs can easily be tired and boring. To combat this, Eliasson has inserted a layer of rigorous, cerebral attention, making the images not so much about the land itself, but about the experience of the land. Of course, these are pictures about walking, and stopping, and looking, and seeing, but they have a vital sense of off-kilter wonder that keeps them fresh and unpredictable.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows.The large photographic grids are 135000€ (huts), 145000€ (hot springs), and 175000€ (volcanoes). The single image photographs are 22500€ each. Eliasson's photographs have become increasingly available in the secondary markets for both the Photography and Contemporary Art in recent years. Prices at auction have ranged from as little as a few thousand dollars for one of the single images to upwards of $600000 for the most sought after grids.

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here)

Olafur Eliasson: Volcanoes and Shelters

Through December 22nd

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011

Uta Barth @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): This show contains a pairing of recent projects, displayed in separate rooms. The main gallery contains works from the project ... and to draw a bright white line with light from 2011. There are 10 works on view, each made up of one to three 38x56 panels. The prints are inkjet prints face mounted against matte acrylic, framed in white and unmatted, in editions of 6+2AP. The back gallery contains works from the project Compositions of Light on White, also from 2011. There are 8 single panel works on view, ranging in size from 24x23 to 41x48. The prints are inkjet prints in white lacquered wooden frames, in editions of 6+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Uta Barth's newest works explore the idea of using focused light as a drawing mechanism. Her pictures turn luminous lines and areas of white brightness into a discrete medium, like ink or paint, that can be carefully controlled by the hand of the artist, not in the sense of a photogram or a darkroom manipulation, but in the context of straight photographic image making. In two separate projects, she has used curtains and window blinds to direct the incoming light, creating ethereal shapes and forms that are projected onto different underlying surfaces.

The walls of the main gallery space are covered by works that chart the passing of time across an afternoon. A thin white line of sunlight streams in through gauzy textured curtains, creating a wiggly, heartbeat-like form projected through the undulations of the transparent fabric, reminiscent of Minor White's Windowsill Daydreaming (here). This white line slowly expands into a wide ribbon as the time passes, in the end becoming a thick stripe of sinuous diffusing light, almost like waves on a seashore or Morris Louis' washes of watery paint. It's an extremely simple construct that provides a graceful and meditative view of the abstract movement of time.

I found the images in the back room to have more complexity and visual punch. In these works, Barth uses the blinds to generate squares and rectangles of radiant projected sunlight, which are then directed onto flat white closet doors and arrays of drawers. The black cracks along the edges of the storage areas create linear geometries, which are then covered in additional layers of brilliant white shapes, creating flattened planes of Mondrian-like abstraction. Barth subtly changes the camera angle from image to image, bringing in more or less of the perspective of the drawers, in a few allowing the view down the hallway to become a dark stripe along the edge of the frame. These are quiet, intellectual pictures, playing with reference points and internal geometries, examining shimmering light as a defining overlayer.

As always, there is a calmness to Barth's heady explorations. She continues to probe the edges of perception and visual recognition with a meticulous sense of restraint, in this case, proving that elemental light can be an inventive medium in and of itself.

Collector's POV: The prices of the prints from ... and to draw a bright white line with light are dependent on the number of panels in the work: 1 panel at $26000, 2 panels at $36000, or 3 panels at $46000. The prices of the prints from Compositions of Light on White are based on size, ranging from $18000 to $26000. Barth's photographs have become more available in the secondary markets in recent years, with auction prices ranging between $3000 and $38000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Prior Exhibit: Art Institute of Chicago, 2011 (here)
• Feature: Daily Beast (here)

Uta Barth
Through December 22nd

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

521 West 21st Street

New York, NY 10011

Gillian Wearing: People @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 works in a variety of media, including photography, video, and sculpture, displayed in two gallery spaces on the first floor and two divided spaces on the second floor. Four of the works are bromide prints in painted wood frames, sized between 63x45 and 63x52. These works are available in editions of 6+2AP, and were made between 2008 and 2011. One work (Snapshot) is a group of 7 videos in framed plasma screens, hung together on a single wall with an audio voice over provided on headphones. It comes in an edition of 2+2AP, and was made in 2005. The video Bully comes in an edition of 3+2AP and was made in 2010; the video Secrets and Lies comes in an edition of 5+2AP and was made in 2009. The two sculptures are painted bronze on plywood plinths, in editions of 3+2AP, from 2010 and 2011. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Gillian Wearing's new show (her first in New York since 2003) contains a handful of photographs that play a supporting role to three richer and more psychologically searing videos. All of the works on display explore a related emotional landscape: the complex intersection of individual identity, private stories, and public personas/roles. The result is an often disturbing and unsettling experience, where Wearing confronts hidden narratives and agonizing misunderstanding with remarkable nuance.

Secrets and Lies and Bully are two of the most intense video pieces I have seen in quite a long time, so much so that they become difficult to watch as they progress. Secrets and Lies is staged in a small confession box-like room, where individuals in three quarter poses tell their private stories from behind creepy featureless rubber masks. Their disguises give them the freedom to tell their stories of murder, abuse, and other sad and painful traumas; standing in the claustrophobic chamber hearing these sordid tales was just too much and I literally had to move back a bit. Bully is equally powerful and arresting. It restages a tormenting bullying incident with a group of actors; I won't give away its twist, but when the tables turn, the outcome is both harsh and poignant.

Snapshot gathers together seven videos and runs them simultaneously along one wall, framed in brightly colored wood frames like photographic portraits. This piece examines the nature of static portraiture, in that the images of the women at various stages of life move a little, just enough to add contour and contrast. When seen together, each moving image is an echo of a specific type of photographic style, matched with a related women's role: the youngest girl plays a violin, the awkward teen stands stock still Sander-like, a young woman lies fetchingly on a chaise in a swimsuit, a young mother tends her baby, a middle aged woman poses for a studio portrait, an older, tired woman nervously eats chips in a car, and an elderly woman sits in an armchair in a dated flowered dress. The piece successfully tackles group memories, families, and women's identities, spanning the history of black and white and color imagery.

I found the photographs in the show to be less striking and original. Three of the works are portraits of Wearing echoing famous images of Warhol, Mapplethorpe and Arbus. While the masking and staging are entirely successful (apart from the large eyes peering out from inside the bodies), the reverent inversion and identity mixing wasn't as resonant for me; I understand the connection being made to artistic heroes and influences, but the visual idea seemed a bit too obvious. The single image of a bursting bouquet of artificial flowers is also well executed, but this "the flowers are fake" theme has been explored before (Vik Muniz in the 1990s as one example).

So while I didn't find the photography in this show to be its strongest element, the three jarring and sophisticated videos are certainly worth a detour, even if video art lies beyond your normal area of interest.
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Collector's POV: While it seems to happen more and more infrequently these days, once in a while, I still run into the buzz saw of conscious gallery misdirection when trying to gather prices for these reviews. In the past, I have had nothing but helpful, direct interactions with the staff at this gallery, but on this particular visit, I got a comical parody of a gallery run-around. Rather than exhaustively detail my five different inquiries to three different staff members and the subsequent exasperating sales pitches, let it suffice to say that the only actual price I ever received was $30000 for the 64x45 floral photograph; I was unable to get prices for any of the other works on view. I hope my fellow collectors who really want to follow up on Wearing's work will have better luck extracting useful, actionable information than I did.

Wearing's photographs have been only intermittently available in the auction markets in recent years, with only a handful of lots on offer; prices have ranged between roughly $10000 and $50000. As such, gallery retail is likely the best option for interested collectors at this point, assuming you can get someone to tell you the prices.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), T Magazine (here), ARTINFO (here)

Gillian Wearing: People

Through June 24th

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011

Uta Barth: ... to walk without destination and to see only to see. @Tanya Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): This show contains a combination of current work and reprints of work from decades ago. The main gallery contains 8 color works, all made in 2010, each a diptych or triptych. In these works, the left panel inkjet print is 41x32 and the right panel inkjet print(s) are 41x46. The works are printed in editions of 6+2 and framed in white with no mat. The rear gallery contains 7 works (ranging from 1 to 16 series prints each), made in 1979-1982 and printed in 2010. The black and white inkjet prints (framed in white with no mat) are all roughly 11x9, and are also made in editions of 6+2. A new monograph of the artist's work, The Long Now, was recently published by Gregory Miller and is available from the gallery. A companion exhibit of the same bodies of work is now on display at 1301PE Gallery in Los Angeles (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I've recently been reading a book called Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing, by Margaret Livingstone (here). As you might imagine from the title, it covers the technical underpinnings of how our human vision system works (rods and cones etc.), how the eye and brain connect and interact, how luminance and color are processed, and how central and peripheral vision work. It then goes on to show how various artists across the history of art have used color mixing, contrast and other optical techniques to achieve different effects. The reason I have been reading this book is that I have, of late, become more interested in the underpinnings of visual perception, as it relates to how we interact with and understand photography. Given this background study, you could say I was fully primed to enjoy Uta Barth's excellent new show, as her work has always thoughtfully explored the boundaries and ambiguities of seeing.

The large main gallery space is filled with diptychs and triptychs that have a common structure. In one panel, we look down at the sidewalk from the photographer's point of view, casting shadows across the field of vision that become two thick parallel lines. In the other panel or panels, we look up into the sky, where the blurs of hallucinatory trees hover overhead. In the downward looking shots, we often see the trace of a shoe or foot, the cracks and lines of the sidewalk, or stray leaves that dapple the greyness, giving us a hint to the perspective, but it is the strong vertical shadows that run edge to edge from top to bottom that seem strange and illusory, especially in the images that have been reversed as negatives. The upward shots have a calligraphic elegance in their shifting fogginess. Branches, leaves, berries and flowers have been abstracted into thin black lines and splashes of color - red, or yellow, or green, or blue, flashed against a blinding white sky. These upward glances seem to oscillate and vibrate, as if we were catching them out of the corner of our eye, out of focus, but still entirely identifiable. When the up and down views are juxtaposed together, there is movement, and wonder, and lyrical simplicity.

The smaller, black and white images in the back rewind thirty years, when Barth was just beginning her explorations of light, space, and time: light streams in through curtains and doorways, chairs are moved around a studio, and shadows divide a wall. Compositionally, the photographs are often consciously unbalanced, with large expanses of emptiness (floor, snow, wall) punctuated by the fragment of an object. It is easy to see where her conceptual ideas began, and then to walk back into the main gallery and see where those same motifs have evolved over her career.

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I must admit that as I stood in the middle of the main gallery and let the new works wash over me, I had that uncommon rush of positive feeling, the nodding head, that giddy "aha" that said these pictures were tuned just right. Maybe it was my recent biology diversion that made me acutely aware of Barth's controlled use of my vision, but regardless, I came away enchanted by the proof that simplicity can still be thrillingly new.

Collector's POV: The color diptychs and triptychs in the show are priced at $30000 each. The smaller black and white works range in price from $5500 to $30000, based on the number of prints in the work. Barth's photographs have recently become available in the secondary markets, with a handful of lots coming up for sale in any given year; prices have ranged between $3000 and $38000.

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

Transit Hub:

• UC Riverside faculty page (here)
• Review: Frieze, 2008 (here)
• Interview: Journal of Contemporary Art, 1996 (here)

Uta Barth: ... to walk without destination and to see only to see.
Through June 19th

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011

Hannah Starkey @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): A total of 21 c-prints, framed in white with no mat, displayed on the second floor, in the entry and two gallery rooms. The prints range in size from 19x25 to 48x64, and were taken between 2006 and 2009. All of the prints are made in editions of 5+1AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Irish photographer Hannah Starkey's two new bodies of work now on view at Tanya Bonakdar continue her exploration of women and their complex lives/roles in contemporary society.

The large scale cinematic works in the back gallery are all images of women behind glass, with blinds, curtains, and reflective shop windows all providing a barrier between the viewer and the viewed. The staged images are voyeuristic indirect portraits, where the subjects face in sidelong directions, looking away. While these scenes might be slices of everyday life, the overall mood is a mixture of boredom, cool isolation, longing and detachment.

The smaller works in the other gallery (entitled Street Pictures)have much more warmth and life. Using a more snapshot aesthetic, Starkey has photographed women on the street, the common theme being their fabulous sunglasses. Whether worn in the usual manner, or used as a hair accessory, the sunglasses seem to give the women of all ages a heightened sense of confidence, self-reliance and style. While I'm not sure these images will stand up particularly well as individual works, as a group, they're certainly more lively and energetic than the first set of pictures.

The conceptual punch line here is quite obvious: one barrier (the window) creates self-conscious vulnerability, while the other barrier (the sunglasses) creates self-assurance.

Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced at £8000 and £20000, based on size. Starkey's work has only recently appeared in the secondary markets. Prices at auction have ranged between $2000 and $4000 for smaller sized images, and between $4000 and $7000 for larger prints. These works don't fit into our collection, but if careful 21st century scene setting/portraiture is your thing, then these will be worth a look.

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

Transit Hub:

• Photographs, 1997-2007, published by Steidl (here)
• Sodium Dreams, at Bard, 2003 (here)

Hannah Starkey

Through June 20th

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011