Auction: Contemporary Art, March 7, 2013 @Sotheby's New York

Sotheby's is up first in this week's Armory friendly sales, with its Contemporary Art sale on Thursday. Photography-wise, the sale is light on headliner images, but there are a handful of solid images that could potentially siphon off some fair-directed cash. All in, there are a total of 32 lots of photography on offer, with a total High estimate for photography of $704000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 8
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $59000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 22
Total Mid Estimate: $505000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 2
Total High Estimate: $140000

The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 137, Mike Kelley and Bob Flanagan, More Love Than Can Ever Be Repaid, 1990, estimated at $60000-80000.

Here's the list of photographers represented by two or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Gregory Crewdson (4)
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia (2)
David LaChapelle (2)
Julian Opie (2)
Richard Prince (2)

Other photographs of interest include lot 101, Walead Beshty, Three Sided Picture, 2007, estimated at $25000-35000 (image at right, top), lot 207, Pieter Hugo, Jatto with Mainasara, Ogere-Remo, Nigeria, 2007, estimated at $25000-35000 (image at right, middle), and lot 219, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Hong Kong, 1996, estimated at $12000-18000 (image at right, bottom, all via Sotheby's.)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here.

Contemporary Art
March 7th

Sotheby's
1334 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 2 of 3

This is Part 2 of my review of the photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair. Part 1 can be found here, along with some background information on the fair and an explanation of the format I'm using for the the booth by booth details.


Yellow Section

Metro Pictures (here): Cindy Sherman (1 set of 35, 1 diptych), Louise Lawler (2), Olaf Breuning (1)

Regen Projects (here): James Welling (3), Wolfgang Tillmans (1), Gillian Wearing (1), Walead Beshty (1 diptych), Doug Aitken (1). It was hard to miss the eye-catching blast of saturated color in these photograms by Beshty. Priced at $48000 and already sold.

Renwick Gallery (here): Talia Chetrit (8). The Renwick booth was a solo show of Chetrit's recent work, with up-close fragments of textural skin, hair and body parts. This chain and nipple image was priced at $3500.

Marcelle Alix (here): Charlotte Moth (1 set of 8, 1 )

Hollybush Gardens (here): Benoit Maire (2)

Galleria Raffaella Cortese (here): William Jones (5), Marcello Maloberti (2), Roni Horn (6), Yael Baratana (2). The floor of this booth was covered in magazine cut outs of mountain ranges, echoing Maloberti's photograph of the process.

Karma International (here): Carissa Rodriguez (3)

The Third Line (here): Youssef Nabil (2)

Gallery Hyundai (here): Seung-Taek Lee (15)

Johann König (here): Annette Kelm (2)

47 Canal (here): Michele Abeles (6). The 47 Canal booth was a solo show of Abeles' work, with densely layered still lifes/photo collages. They were priced at $3600 each and all sold.

Carlier Gebauer (here): Paul Graham (1 diptych)

Galerie Diana Stigter (here): Nathaniel Mellors (1), Amalia Pica (slide show)

Laura Bartlett Gallery (here): Cyprien Gaillard (5), John Divola (3), Becky Beasley (1 set of 3). I liked the changing definition of space in this hybrid of sculpture and photography by Beasley. It was priced at £11500.

Andrea Rosen Gallery (here): Josephine Meckseper (5), Walker Evans (3), Wolfgang Tillmans (7), Aaron Bobrow (1 diptych, 1). I found Meckseper's assemblages of commercial items, complete with fog, fluorescent lighting, and shiny mannequins and backdrops unexpected and odd. They were priced at $7000 each. And while I have seen them before, I continue to enjoy the big Tillmans abstractions of misty color. This one was priced at $78000.

A Gentil Carioca (here): Thiago Rocha Pitta (3)


Orange Section

The Modern Institute (here): Luke Fowler (2)

Galerie Gisela Capitain (here): Alina Szapocznikow (1 set of 20), Christopher Williams (1 diptych), Zoe Leonard (5), Barbara Bloom (3)

Galerie Guido W. Baudach (here): Rashid Johnson (1), Jurgen Klauke (1)

Marc Foxx (here): Luisa Lambri (3), Anne Collier (1)

Mitchell-Innes & Nash (here): Amanda Ross-Ho (1). This Ross-Ho sculptural wall arrangement follows along from similar work show at MoMA in 2010. It was priced at $40000.

Alfonso Artiaco (here): Gilbert & George (1 set of 9), Vera Lutter (1 diptych), Darren Almond (2)

Galerie Francesca Pia (here): Elad Lassry (3, 1 set of 4)

Galerie Meyer Riegger (here): Helen Mirra (3)

Corvi-Mora (here): Anne Collier (1)

Galerie Krinzinger (here): Frank Thiel (1), Valie Export (1), Gunter Brus (2), Otto Muehl (1), Oleg Kulik (2), Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy (1), Thomas Zipp (1), Rudolf Schwartzkoger (1 set of 7), Marina Abramovic (1 set of 3), Vito Acconci (1). This large peeling paint image by Thiel is a recent addition to his Stadt series; it was priced at $34000.

Xavier Hufkens (here): Robert Mapplethorpe (4)

Galerie Praz-Delavallade (here): Amalia Saban (1)

Kerlin Gallery (here): Willie Doherty (2)

Richard Telles (here): Dan Finsel (1 diptych), Josephine Pryde (1)

Vermelho (here): Claudia Andujar (3), Rosangela Renno (1), Odires Mlaszho (2 collages)

Sean Kelly Gallery (here): Frank Thiel (1), Alec Soth (2), James Casebere (1), Robert Mapplethorpe (2), Iran do Espirito Santo (1), Yves Klein (1)
Galerie Chantal Crousel (here): Wolfgang Tillmans (2), Jean-Luc Moulene (3)

Salon 94 (here): Liz Cohen (1 set of 150, 1 diptych), David Benjamin Sherry (7), Carlo Mollino (39 Polaroids), Lorna Simpson (19 collages). While still life images of tools have been done before many times, I liked both the choice of smaller individual scale and the wall-filling volume of this typology; it was priced at $72000.

Sommer Contemporary Art (here): Yael Bartana (3), Gregor Hildebrandt (3)

Experimenter (here): Bani Abidi (1 installation). While the content and message of this piece were of less interest to me, I was intrigued by the agglomeration of photographic layers, of the pictures of pictures (in various sizes) then stacked and placed in spatial relationship to each other in a single collection.

Cheim & Read (here): William Eggleston (2), Jack Pierson (1)

Part 3 is here.

Auctions: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, June 27 and 28, 2011 @Phillips London

Phillips begins the June Contemporary Art season in London next week with a pair of Evening and Day sales. It's a generally straightforward selection, with few notable or unexpected standouts. Overall, there are a total of 53 lots of photography available across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate for photography of £1736000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 5
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £24000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 35
Total Mid Estimate: £437000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 13
Total High Estimate: £1275000
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The top lot by High estimate is lot 5, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #4, 1977, at £250000-350000.

Here is the short list of the photographers who are represented by more than one lot in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Ryan McGinley (3)
Doug Aitken (2)
Thomas Demand (2)
Nan Goldin (2)
Gordon Matta-Clark (2)
Marilyn Minter (2)
Zhang Huan (2)

(Lot 145, Walead Beshty, The Phenomenology of Shopping, 2001-2003, at £10000-15000, image at right, middle, lot 293, Elger Esser, Ameland Pier IX, 2000, at £20000-30000, image at right, bottom, and lot 296, Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974, at £12000-18000, image at right, top, all via Phillips.)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Contemporary Art Evening Sale
June 27th
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Contemporary Art Day Sale
June 28th

Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

New Photography 2009 @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A group show of the work of six contemporary photographers, variously framed, and hung in a two room divided gallery on the 3rd floor. The exhibit was curated by Eva Respini. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on view in parentheses:

• Walead Beshty (4), all from 2008
• Daniel Gordon (4), from 2008 and 2009
• Leslie Hewitt (6 as 3 works), from 2002-2008
• Carter Mull (5), from 2008 and 2009
• Sterling Ruby (4), from 2005-2007
• Sara VanDerBeek (4 as 1 work), all from 2006

Comments/Context: This year's New Photography exhibit at the MoMA takes us far out beyond the traditional boundaries of conventional straight documentation, and emphatically declares that the museum's 21st century definition of "photography" will be broad and inclusive.

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I actually believe that this definitional discussion is long overdue and much needed at this point in the medium's history. Since the beginning of photography, there have always been subcultures of artists who rejected the sharp reality of what a camera could capture, and spent their time and energy exploring how the various technologies could be used to create wholly unreal worlds. Out of this experimentation came multiple negatives, collaged and photomontaged works, images of staged performances, ephemeral sculptures and conceptual hoaxes, appropriated images and rephotography, camera-less darkroom creations and photograms, etc. etc. All of these were generally still gathered under the umbrella of "photography", perhaps because their endpoint output was a photographic print of some kind.

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As we cross into the digital age, new tools have expanded the number of degrees of freedom artists can now play with; there are now even more variables that can be tweaked and modified. Many of the works in this show might be best called mixed media contemporary art, as they bear little resemblance to the black and white masters of traditional photography. But while most of the works don't look familiar, nearly all of them are further extensions of practices and ideas with roots found decades ago, just supercharged and taken way out into the unknown, often bridged into this white space by the additional of computer-based manipulation. But it seems the definitional construct is still the same: if the product is a photographic print, no matter how it was created or how unorthodox it may seem, it's still "photography".

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I'd say it's impossible to walk into these galleries and not notice Walead Beshty's huge floor-to-ceiling photograms; they are so blindingly colorful, full of electric magenta and bold yellow, that they drown out everything else. Abstract lines and rectangles cluster into dense overlapping layers. Beshty's work is clearly a distant relative of Man Ray's and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's photograms, albeit with a much more expressionistic palette.

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Daniel Gordon's cut paper collages of disturbing figures have a Picasso-esque feeling to them, adapted to the culture of image appropriation. Hair, eyes, and other random body parts have been assembled into unsettling and Surreal hybrid characters, not exactly funny, just odd. These piece part people and their flattened surroundings finally emerge as photographs, documents of the elaborate tableaux that have been painstakingly constructed.

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Sterling Ruby's images seem the farthest from "photography" as we know it. These seem to be pure digital creations: a gathering of found images collaged together with seamless perfection and then covered with computer generated "effects" like drips of paint/blood and sprayed on scrawls, creating a violent mood. While the output is still a photographic print, these works seem to have no relationship to the old school operation of a camera; we're in the realm of digital wizardry here and the opportunities for artistic expansion seem limitless.

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The works of Carter Mull, Leslie Hewitt and Sara VanDerBeek travel some of these same experimental roads, but to lesser effect in my opinion. LA Times spreads are washed with distorted colors and patterns of martini glasses and roses become swirls of darkroom effects, staged tabletop still lifes adorned with old photographs are turned upside down, and elaborate temporary sculptures of found pictures and dripping white paint become a patchwork of symbols and inside references.

While overall this exhibit is a mixed bag of work, I enjoyed the fact that this annual show was once again being used to dig a little deeper into a topic of current importance to the medium, rather than simply a gathering of fresh but unrelated imagery. The discussion of what "photography" is or isn't is far from over, but this show is at least a stake in the ground for people to consider.
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Collector's POV: The photographers in the show are represented by the following galleries:

• Walead Beshty is represented by Wallspace in New York (here).
• Daniel Gordon is represented by Claudia Groeflin Galerie in Zurich (here).
• Leslie Hewitt is represented by D'Amelio Terras in New York (here).
• Carter Mull is represented by Marc Foxx in Los Angeles (here).
• Sterling Ruby is represented by Metro Pictures in New York (here). (UPDATE: I've been told this may not be the case anymore, and that the right pointer should be to Pace Wildenstein (here))
• Sara VanDerbeek is represented by D'Amelio Terras in New York (here).

None of these artists has any significant secondary market track record, so gallery retail will likely be the only option for acquiring their work in the short term. While none of this work is a fit for our particular collection, I enjoyed Beshty's eye-popping photograms the most.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Walead Beshty: Directions @Hirshhorn Museum 2009 (here)
• Daniel Gordon: artist site (here)
• Leslie Hewitt: artist site (here)
• Carter Mull: former Rivington Arms site (here)
• Sterling Ruby: The Masturbators @Foxy Production, 2009 (here)
• Sara VanDerBeek: NY Times review 2006 (here)

New Photography 2009

Through January 11th

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Museum of Modern Art

11 West 53rd Street

New York, NY 10019