The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography @Aperture

JTF (just the facts): A total of 71 photographs (it is often difficult to count "works" versus individual images, given multi-image installations), 1 sculpture, and 4 videos from a total of 20 different artists, on view in the main gallery area, which has been divided into four distinct spaces, plus the video room. All of the work comes from the 1990s and 2000s, and is variously framed/matted. (Installation shots at right.) The photographers included in the exhibit are:

Bill Armstrong

Carel Balth

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

Ellen Carey

Roland Fischer

Michael Flomen

Manuel Geerinck

Shirine Gill

Barbara Kasten

Seth Lambert

Charles Lindsay

Edward Mapplethorpe

Chris McCaw

Roger Newton

Jack Sal

Penelope Umbrico

Randy West

Silvio Wolf

Ilan Wolff

Comments/Context: The group survey show now on view at Aperture takes an inclusive look at the diversity of photographic abstraction (broadly defined) now being practiced by contemporary photographers. While this approach has produced an exhibit with lots of different work to see, the narrative connecting the pieces together seems to have been muddied along the way.

The unifying idea is that all of this work is contemporary abstraction. Fair enough. As such, the show is neither a smaller slice of the larger current whole (like the effective natural abstraction show now on view at Michael Mazzeo, reviewed here), nor is it a comprehensive historical view of abstraction across the history of the medium (which incidentally is what the accompanying book actually covers). Thus we are left with an uneven group of contemporary images that lack a context that brings them together.

Along one wall, many of the smaller single images have been hung in one long row and entitled "Propositions", at once offering an assortment of the exciting variety of work being produced using myriad processes and approaches, while at the same time leaving the viewer with the conclusion that it is all just a grab bag. Process is of course a key theme that runs throughout abstract photography and this idea is often front and center here as well, asking questions about the nature of surfaces and about unexpected ways of conceiving and making pictures.
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I found the works by Charles Lindsay to be the most intriguing in the show (installation shot at right, middle). These carbon based images have a scientific feel, as though taken by an electron microscope or appropriated out of a scholarly article in Science or Nature. What I like about them is that they explore a more three dimensional type of abstraction, in contrast to most work in the show which is predicated on the flat two dimensionality of typical photography. The images have depth, and roundness, and edges, in addition to eye catching patterns.
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Ellen Carey's "pulls" were also a memorable discovery. Using a 20x24 Polaroid camera, the artist makes abstract cones of color drawn from the photographic dyes. These works challenge the notion of what a photograph really is, and have affinities to a variety of color field and Minimalist painters.

Overall, there is some terrific work here, mixed in with a group of more forgettable images, leaving me feeling like a chance was missed to tell a larger, more distinct story. But perhaps the point was to expose the audience to the multiplicity of ways abstraction is being used by contemporary photographers, rather than to follow specific narrative vectors or draw definitive conclusions. If that was the goal, than perhaps this show should be thought of as a sampler, where each viewer will resonate with some, but not all, of what is offered.

Collector's POV: None of these images were for sale (at least I saw no price list), so interested collectors will need to track down galleries on their own to follow up on any particular artists. The abstraction that we have in our collection is less thoroughly unidentifiable (in terms of subject matter) than the work exhibited here; our collection includes city walls, window frames, and even nudes that have been abstracted into compositions of line and form, but are still somewhat recognizable as the original objects.

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

Transit Hub:

• The Edge of Vision book (here)
• Curator Lyle Rexler videos (here) and (here)
• Charles Lindsay artist site (here)
• Ellen Carey artist site (here)
• Aperture's Some Like It Hot Summer Party (here)

The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography

Through July 9th

Aperture Foundation

547 West 27th Street
New York, NY 10001

Transmutations, Abstraction in Nature @Mazzeo

JTF (just the facts): A group show of five different photographers: Caleb Charland (3 images), Christian Erroi (7), Yong Hee Kim (6), Sebastian Lemm (6), and Chris McCaw (6), hung in the entry and main gallery space. Charland's works come in two sizes (29x36 and 18x23), in editions of 5 and 10 respectively, and were made in 2008-2009. Erroi's works are Kodak Enduraclear on Plexiglas and digital c-prints, in three sizes (7x11, 17x17, and 20x30) in editions of 10, 5, and 7 respectively, all made in 2008. Kim's works are Kodak metallic c-prints, in two sizes (18x18 and 40x40) in editions of 10 and 7 respectively, made in 2004-2005. Lemm's works are pigment ink prints in three sizes (15x12, 30x24, and 60x48) in editions of 5, 5, and 3 respectively, all made in 2008, and McCaw's works are unique gelatin silver paper negatives in a variety of sizes (10x8, 14x11, 12x20, and 24x20), all from 2008. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The tight group show now on view at Michael Mazzeo is an exploration of a narrow slice of abstraction in contemporary photography, the complex use of natural forms and processes being the common theme to these particular works and artists.

While I found all of the works in the exhibit intellectually thought provoking (how could the use of bacteria in the emulsion, direct images of the sun, and swirling flora embedded in sculptural blocks of Lucite not be intriguing at some level?), the two standout sets of work to my eyes came from Sebastian Lemm and Chris McCaw.

In Lemm's series Strata (image top right), the artist builds up dense black and white images composed of thinly layered tree branches, taking Harry Callahan's multiple exposure tree pictures to their ultimate end point. The works have a delicate, all-over line drawing effect.

McCaw's solarized works are made via extended time exposures of the sun, creating burns, scrapes and scars on the paper (image at right, bottom). Spots and trails of light skim across otherwise darkened skies. What I like about these works is the feeling of the process almost out of control; instead of a run of the mill photogram, these images have crossed the line, gotten burned or charred, and therefore become something altogether more real.

Overall, I found this to be a well edited show of complementary artists, each working along the outer edges of photography, exploring how process and abstraction come together.

Collector's POV: Here's a quick rundown on all the prices: Charland's works are priced either at $1500 or $2500 based on size; Erroi's works are priced between $1700 and $4000; Kim's works are either $2200 or $4000, again based on size; Lemm's works range from $800 to $6000 based on size, and McCaw's works are priced between $2000 and $6000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Caleb Charland artist site (here)
• Christian Erroi artist site (here)
• Yong Hee Kim artist site (here)
• Sebastian Lemm artist site (here)
• Chris McCaw artist site (here)

Transmutations, Abstraction in Nature
Through June 20th

Michael Mazzeo Gallery
526 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

"Local" Photography

Only in America could an idea like “eating locally” become a hot trend. Starting with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse many years ago and followed up more recently by Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and documentary films like King Corn, Americans are beginning to slowly recognize some of the downsides to the prepackaged processed foods that have come to dominate our diet and relearn the benefits of locally grown meat, vegetables and fruit. The rest of the world has of course known about “local” and “slow” foods all along; this is why we find cuisines from other nations so enticing and exotic - quirky flavors, unusual vegetables, and cultural traditions combining to make something altogether different from our homogenized day to day foods.

The recent worldwide economic challenges have certainly woken many people up to the choices they make and how they spend their money. A tougher “back to basics” mindset has become more pervasive across the nation in the past few years, led by an undercurrent of exhaustion with the relentless marketing and consumerism of our particular American lifestyle. The search for something more “authentic” and “genuine”, rather than a clever marketing ploy to get us to buy something, has become more urgent.

This line of thought has led me to wonder about how these broad trends could affect the world of contemporary photography (particularly in America), and the larger art world in general. I am coming around to thinking that one way out of the current challenging times for artists and galleries will be a rediscovery or redefinition of the “local” in our photography, both in content and approach, as it may lead us to art that has more personal resonance.

In terms of content, perhaps it is just my jaded eye, but the recent photography of the hyper polished, international jet set seems decreasingly relevant now just a few years later; sleek, global, industrial-scale uniformity, packaged up for the super rich, is less and less enticing or thought-provoking. We may indeed look back on the works from this era as the last of an over-inflated dying breed.

What is perhaps more surprising is the rise of more “local” photography: artists who are turning back to subjects closer to home, to themselves and their families, and to the idiosyncrasies of local communities of which they are a part. Often these ideas are now being used in juxtaposition or contrast: the local knowledge of environment, history, and culture, clashing with the larger forces of globalization, industrialization and suburbanization.

Given the power of the Internet communications tools at our disposal and the disruptive changes brought about by the digital revolution in photography, it is easy to see how the world of photography will continue to speed up. And yet, I think the most important changes will occur in the realization that websites, blogs/Twitter, and self-published and self-distributed books are making it easier for us to form “local” subcultures and tribes of like minded individuals and “followers” regardless of our geographies; just like we are reconnecting face to face with the farmers that grow our food, we are now often personally connecting with the artists and photographers who make our art.

Given the diversity in the world around us, it is altogether unexpected that broad terms like “Chinese photography” or “German photography” or “Dutch photography” have any meaning at all; and yet, high level geographic grouping still offers plenty of clues about the context and likely viewpoints of works from these locales. I believe this is a result of “local” conditions and “flavors” consistently being incorporated into the art, even when the artist now lives in New York or London or elsewhere.

The one exception to this rule is the term “American photography” which given our melting pot culture seems less and less to signify anything. But perhaps what may emerge from this “local” trend is the development of more durable artistic cultures in pockets across the country. We already know that the photography in Los Angeles is meaningfully different than that of Chicago, or Seattle, or Philadelphia or New York; what we need to encourage is the deepening of those cultural “schools”, rather than a downward spiral of homogenization across the nation. We need to more explicitly tie artists from a common geography across time, even if their styles are dissimilar; the key is that they are drawing from a similar well of local culture and experience and we should work harder to understand the meaning of those local connections.

While the ideas expressed here aren’t particularly well formed, I believe there is a nugget of something important for photography buried in this “local” trend. If you can help me connect the dots more coherently, please add your comments below.

Book: Kinsey, Photographer

JTF (just the facts): Published in 1978 by Black Dog & Leventhal. 320 pages, with 206 duotone photographs. With essays by Darius Kinsey Jr. and Dorothea Kinsey Parcheski. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: While it is easy for collectors to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of the constant barrage of new contemporary photography, the fact is that there are plenty of lesser known photographers from days gone by that are worth re-examining from time to time. Darius Kinsey is just such an artist. I was reminded of his work when I saw a single excellent print that was included in the MoMA's Into the Sunset show (review here), and decided to purchase this book for our library so I could dig deeper.

Kinsey made an astonishing group of pictures between 1890 and 1939, chronicling the logging of the Pacific Northwest. Using large format cameras (8x10, 11x14, and 20x24) and glass plates, he documented nearly every stage of the process (from felling to sawmill), as well as the surrounding lifestyle that was created. There are images of men with axes and cross-cut saws, perched on top of mountainous firs and cedars and lying precariously in the deep cuts made in the giant trees. Pictures of wood plank logging camps and homesteads, rickety railroads and trucks, and rivers full of shingles help to tell the story of how the logs were processed and transported, and the images of the workers show hard but honorable men with sturdy boots, heavy work clothes, suspenders and hats. There are even landscape photos of the expeditions Kinsey took to nearby glaciers, mountains, and unspoiled streams.

The truly memorable part of this body of work is the breathtaking scale of the trees themselves, so massive as to make the honorable working men look like mice. And while most of these images function best as historical documents, there are many among this lifetime of picture making that rise to the level of art, where Kinsey's careful framing and use of light make otherwise standard shots resonate with power and humanity across the years.

Collector's POV: Few if any prints by Darius Kinsey have been sold at auction in at least the past five years, perhaps longer. A handful of his images can be found from time to time with various dealers, usually priced under $1000.

Transit Hub:

• University of Washington library collection (here)
• Whatcom Museum of History & Art collection (here)

Book: Ola Kolehmainen, Fraction Abstraction Recreation

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2007 by Hatje Cantz. 108 pages, with 61 color images. Includes texts and essays by Martina Fuchs, Mark Gisbourne, and Timothy Persons. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: In the past few years, Scandinavian photography, and particularly that of the students of the so-called "Helsinki School" in Finland, have been getting some much deserved attention. Ola Kolehmainen is one such graduate of the University of Art and Design in Helsinki (TaiK) and has brought an unexpected Minimalist aesthetic to contemporary architectural photography.

Using the structured facades of contemporary buildings as raw material, Kolehmainen makes fragmented images of these grids and lattices (cropping out the sky and other environmental clues), capturing not only the strict geometrical order of the designs, but also the unexpected reflections and distortions that result from the use of mirrored glass surfaces. Clouds, trees, and nearby buildings all interact with abstract patterns to create compositions that juxtapose natural forms and hard edges. Both light and color also interact with these surfaces; think of them as additional tools the artist has to amplify or mute the serial variations.

There are plenty of direct and indirect echoes of artists like James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and Donald Judd in this body of work, but Kolehmainen is of course working in the two dimensions of photography, which imposes altogether different constraints. I think the best of these works fully abstract the subject matter into forms that are unrecognizable as documents of buildings; luscious patterns and eye catching colors, carefully controlled, pared down to something essential.

Collector's POV: Ola Kolehmainen is represented in New York by Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here) and in London by Purdy Hicks Gallery (here). Kolehmainen's works have only become available in the secondary markets in the past year or two, so no pricing pattern is yet discernible. For our particular collection, we again run into the issue of works that are too large; otherwise, these images would fit well with our other city/industrial pictures.

Transit Hub:

• A Building is not a Building, 2009 @Kiasma (here)
• A Building is not a Building, 2009 @National Museum of Photography, Denmark (here)
• Helsinki School (here)

Auction: Photography, June 17, 2009 @Bassenge

Next week in Berlin, the German photography season will come to a close with a massive sale at Bassenge, the largest sale so far this year as measured by lots on offer. Most of the lots are in the lower priced range, the vast majority estimated under 1500€.

There are a total of 458 lots available, with a total High estimate of 537890€. (No catalog cover shot available.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low lots (high estimate 7500€ or lower): 448
Total Low estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 400890€

Total Mid lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 10
Total Mid estimate: 137000€

Total High lots (high estimate over 35000€): 0
Total High estimate: NA

For our collection, we liked the following:

Lot 4327, Constantin Brancusi, Orchid in Vase, 1930s
Lot 4343, William Christenberry, 5 cents - Demopolis, Alabama, 1980
Lot 4560, Sean Scully, Merida portfolio, 2001

The lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photography
June 17th

Galerie Bassenge
Erdener Straße 5a
14193 Berlin-Grunewald

Auction Results: Photographie, May 27 and 28, 2009 @Lempertz

The results of Lempertz' recent photography sale in Cologne joined the group of sales clustered at the bottom of the range this season, with a buy-in rate over 50% and total proceeds less than half the total High estimate (there is no total Low estimate in this case, given the way Lempertz provides estimates).

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 238
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: 648450€

Total Lots Sold: 99
Total Lots Bought In: 139
Buy In %: 58.40%
Total Sale Proceeds: 310704€

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 222
Low Sold: 91
Low Bought In: 131
Buy In %: 59.01%
Total Low Estimate: 460450€
Total Low Sold: 210864€

Mid Total Lots: 16
Mid Sold: 8
Mid Bought In: 8
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total Mid Estimate: 188000€
Total Mid Sold: 99840€

High Total Lots: 0
High Sold: NA
High Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total High Estimate: 0€
Total High Sold: NA

71.72% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of four surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

• lot 8, Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Darwin, 1868, at 6000€
• lot 30, August Sander, Jungbauern, 1926/Later, at 2400€
• lot 37, Alexander Stocker, Im Taumel Der Geschwindigkeit!, 1920s, at 840€
• lot 207, Frank Darius, 4711, 1998, at 5880€

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
50667 Koln

Stephen Shore @303

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 images on display in the main gallery and back room. In the front gallery, 15 modern prints from 1965-1967 negatives from The Velvet Years are on view. All are gelatin silver prints, 13x19 or reverse, in editions of 8, framed in black and matted. In the rear gallery, 2 panoramic black and white images of New York City streets are shown. These huge gelatin silver prints are 37x94, in editions of 4, and were made between 2000 and 2002. They are framed in black with no mat. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The Stephen Shore we are most familiar with as collectors is the one who took startling color pictures in 1970s America, who was one of the genuine pioneers in the use of color in photography. His books Uncommon Places and American Surfaces are now classics, well worn and dog-eared in our library.

The Stephen Shore on view at the current 303 Gallery show seems wholly unrelated to the Stephen Shore we know. Part of the show centers on work Shore did while hanging out at Andy Warhol's Factory during the mid-1960s, long before his forays into color. These are black and white snapshot-like images of Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, and others, in the wide open warehouse space/art studio, not unlike Warhol's own images of this same glamorous scene. While Warhol's ideas about found imagery and repetition may have influenced Shore's later interest in vernacular postcards and banal subjects, these isn't any evidence of these concepts in his documentary pictures of the Factory.

At the other end of the spectrum, but in many ways of a related approach, come some new works from Shore in the back room. These follow long after his color heyday, and have returned to action oriented black and white images of people on the streets (in contrast to his color work which was largely unpopulated). These works reminded me a little of Harry Callahan's Chicago city streets of the 1950s, but updated with 21st century styles and enlarged to mural size.

At some level, both of these subjects have become photographic cliches, so it's hard to find something new in either of them that stands out as a truly different vision of these topics. What I found most of interest in this exhibit was not so much the details of the work on display, but the reminder that as collectors, it is easy for us to pigeon-hole a photographer based on his/her most well known or recognizable work, when in fact, nearly all photographers have many bodies of work that they pursue (some artistic, others more commercial) over their long careers. Seeing the less well known work may not induce us to want to add it to our collection, but it certainly forces us to expand our view of the overall measure of the artist and his/her approach, hopefully teasing out connections and evolutions along the way that help provide a broader view of the entirety of the photographer's art, including those works we think we already understand.

Collector's POV: The recent prints from The Velvet Years series are priced at $10000 each; the large cityscapes in the back are priced at $30000 each. Shore's color work (vintage and later prints) is readily available at auction, generally ranging in price between $2000 and $20000. Nearly all of Shore's prints are smaller than 16x20 (there have been a few larger prints made more recently), with many as small as 8x10. Some of Shore's prints have suffered from color fading, and so those prints that have been locked away in cold storage since the 1970s tend to fare best at auction. For our particular collection, we continue to search for just the right image by Shore to fit into our city genre, to sit alongside 1960s/1970s Lee Friedlander et al.

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

Transit Hub:

• Interviews: Conscientious (here), Darius Himes (here), Seesaw magazine (here)
• Artist statement from Uncommon Places (here)
• NY Times review, 2007 (here)
• Video (here)
• iPhoto books in FOAM (here)

Stephen Shore
Through July 18th

303 Gallery
525 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Brian Ulrich, Thrift and Dark Stores @Saul

JTF (just the facts): A total of 20 color prints, hung in the entry and main gallery space. 9 of the images are chromogenic prints from the Thrift series, 30x40 or reverse, taken in 2005-2006 and printed in editions of 5, with white frames and no mats. The other 11 works are pigmented ink prints from the Dark Stores series, all taken in 2008; 10 of these have been printed 11x14 in editions of 15 and framed in dark wood frames with no mat, the other single image has been printed larger, 50x40 in an edition of 7. All of the images in this series come in both sizes. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In contrast to the plethora of safe, self contained and mildly conceptual projects we see throughout contemporary photography today, Brian Ulrich has taken on a monster of a challenge - making sense of the quintessential American reality of all-encompassing consumerism. This vast subject has already taken him in several different directions (the sales floor at big box stores, the back room at big box stores, the people of these environments) and this small show of new work is evidence that the topic has many more intriguing facets to be explored.
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The images from Thrift are primarily interiors, stuffed full with overstocked, passed down or liquidation items, the end of the line dumping ground for goods with no home. Ulrich has uncovered a subculture of sifting here, of workers and shoppers alike digging through piles and piles of "bargain" merchandise in down at the heels warehouses. These works depict the opposite of the shiny brand new atmosphere of most retail stores, and open up trickier questions about underlying social structures and classes.

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The works from Dark Stores are primarily nighttime exteriors, gloomy architectural shots of boarded up car dealerships and restaurants, and abandoned big box stores with for rent signs and painted over non-logos. The deserted malls and empty parking lots have an unsettling sameness, quiet surrender in town after town. Given our current economic environment, echoes of these images can be found in every decent sized commercial area in America.

Ulrich's approach seems to borrow in equal parts from Lewis Baltz, Paul Graham, and Martin Parr: some deadpan frontal architectural pictures with an undertone of questionable sustainability, some more social documentary type images that ask deeper questions about the entire system and its effects on the people involved, and some works that use a subtle dose of carefully applied humor and irony to get at many of these same concerns. Any one of these approaches as applied to the subject might end up being too reductive; mixing the three together has brought forth a more complicated and multi-dimensional picture of the reality.

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It doesn't take a genius to see that "buy more stuff" wasn't a particularly durable solution to all of America's woes, and emptiness that is now being left behind raises even more doubts about consumption as any kind of answer. And while there will clearly be excellent stand alone images that will come out of Ulrich's many intertwined projects, my guess is that these works will ultimately work best in book form, where careful sequencing of many more images will help to tell a much more nuanced and detailed story.

Collector's POV: The prints from the Thrift series are priced at $4000, while the Dark Stores works are priced at either $6500 or $1000 depending on size. Ulrich's work has not yet entered the secondary markets in any meaningful way, so collectors interested in following up will need to contact the retail galleries that represent his work. For our particular collection, the architectural exteriors from Dark Stores would be the best fit, as they would help continue a narrative line that runs through our entire genre of city/industrial images.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• 2009 Guggenheim fellowship (here)
• Interviews: Chicagoist (here), Conscientious (here)
• Video interview (here)

Brian Ulrich, Thrift and Dark Stores
Through July 3rd
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Julie Saul Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Search Functionality Added

We've recently added a Site Search box to the sidebar on the right hand side of the site. For those of you who read via an RSS reader, this will of course be of no use at all. But for those of you who actually click through to the site, you now have an additional way to cut through the archives. Our Index only takes into account top level mentions and categories in any one of our posts; to see all the secondary references (including those in the comments), the Site Search will be a better tool. A search for "Weston" brings up 18 posts, even though there are only 3 indexed Edward Weston posts and none for Brett Weston or the Weston Gallery. You get the picture.

The results of your search are displayed at the very top part of the page (in a box that can be closed), so you may need to scroll up to find them, depending on where you begin the search on the page. There are two tabs: This Blog (mentions only on DLK COLLECTION) and Linked From Here (mentions on sites linked from DLK COLLECTION). Both can provide a very targeted view of your desired topic. Clicking on More Results will open a traditional Google search window with all the items in one place (the numbered paging at the bottom seems to be less than perfectly functional unfortunately).

Most importantly, if you found our site via a Google search, but the link didn't seem to make any sense or it brought you to some page that wasn't immediately obvious as to why it was relevant, try the Site Search, as there may very well be just the post you were looking for buried in the archive, but the keyword importance somehow got garbled along the way (we're too small for any fancy search engine optimization). Happy searching!

Sarah Charlesworth: Work in Progress @Inglett

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 works on view: 8 Fuji Crystal archive prints/diptychs from the Work in Progress series, all from 2009, in editions of 8, in color co-ordinated lacquer frames with no mat, hung in the main gallery and reception, and 3 additional works from the Action Photos series, hung in a side alcove, 30x24 color Polaroids, made in 2006, in black frames with no mat. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Given her inclusion in the big Pictures Generation show now on view at the Met (our review here), Sarah Charlesworth is likely riding a resurgent wave of attention at the moment. This show of recent work at Susan Inglett is a good way to get up to speed on what she's doing these days.

From afar, the main works on display have a posterish, graphic design feel, dark black silhouettes of cameras, easels, rulers, t-squares and the like, arrayed against areas of saturated primary color. Up close, the viewer can see that these are not actually cut outs, but carefully constructed and pared down photographs of these still life objects. The effect is a Stuart Davis/Piet Mondrian style focus on the interplay of dark line and colored space, with an underlying dose of staged, straightforward commercial product photography. The images are eye catching to be sure, but don't have much depth for further investigation.

In the back room, there are three dark stop-motion photographs of drips and swirls of colored paint from another recent body of work, a Jackson Pollock meets Harold Edgerton kind of mashup.

Collector's POV: Most of the works in this show are being sold in upward ratcheting editions (prices increase as the edition sells out); nearly all of the works begin at $7500, with the others starting at $6000, $13500, or $20000 respectively. The color Polaroids in the back room are priced at $4000 each. The secondary market for Charlesworth's work has been quite thin, with very few sales in the past five years, and very little pattern emerging from those data points. That said, the positive publicity from the Pictures Generation will certainly raise her prices at least in the short term.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• BOMB magazine interview, 1990 (here)

Sarah Charlesworth: Work in Progress

Through June 13th

Susan Inglett Gallery

522 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Chuck Close, Maquettes and Multi-Part Work (1966-2009) @Pace/MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 works, many of which are diptychs or multi-part photographs, hung against white and yellow walls in the entry and two main gallery rooms. Most are framed in blond wood with no mat, with several pinned directly to the walls. The prints are a mixture of unique images and works made in editions of 7, 10, 15, and even 100, ranging from the mid-1960s to the present. (No photography is allowed at Pace/MacGill, so the installation shot at right is taken from their website.)

Comments/Context: I have had the good fortune to see Chuck Close make remarks at a few receptions and lectures in the past few years, and I am always surprised by both his crusty "seen-it-all" world weary demeanor and his repeated dismissals of photography as a medium; his comments have seemed a mixture of utter boredom with the discussion (and people) at hand and a desire to spark up a fire with some controversial zinger to keep the audience on its toes. In one room full of photography collectors and aficionados I was in, he started by saying the photography was easy to master, and ended by concluding that very few photographers ever found any original voice; perhaps both altogether true at some level, but certainly not what the crowd was expecting.

I suppose when you have been as successful as Close has for so many years, and with his fame surely generating incessant (and often annoying) demands on his time, it isn't altogether unexpected that caring much what other people think seems to have drifted down toward the bottom of his concerns. What is puzzling however is that given his rich knowledge of photography in myriad forms that he has decided not to engage in many meaningful public dialogues about the nuances of the process choices he has made over the years.

This show would be a fine setting for such a discussion: there are black and white and color Polaroids (taken with his massive Polaroid cameras), monochrome and color pigment prints, gelatin silver prints, Iris prints, daguerreotypes and lithographs all on view. To consistently use such a wide range of approaches can only be evidence of an artist who has become an expert in the technical and visual details of each and every one of them (and many others not on display which were likely reviewed and discarded), and who then thoughtfully chooses which process fits his vision of any particular work.

In fact, the whole premise of this exhibit is to untie the knots of Close's processes, to see the intermediate maquettes, working models, gridded proofs, and other photographic mock-ups he used, many of which became the basis for larger paintings. While a skeptic might call this group of works the recasting of in-process drafts as final artworks (complete with large swirling signatures for the status conscious), I saw it as a chance to see how Close had expanded the boundaries of his art by exploring all kinds of non-traditional photographic approaches that offered him different sets of tools to render his chosen subject matter.

While there are plenty of extra large, extreme closeups of various famous people (mostly artists) on view, I was most interested to see both a pair of nude torso daguerreotypes along with monochrome pigment prints made from daguerreotypes of Kate Moss (also nude); there were very real differences in scale, detail, tonality and overall viewer experience in these works, given their common heritage.

Overall, with some persistent looking, I found this exhibit to offer some subtleties that hadn't been covered elsewhere. Close clearly continues to have a unique vision, and even if photography is a side show in his own mind, it can still be exciting for the rest of us.

Collector's POV: The prices of the works in this show range all over the map, from $7500 for the lithograph to $175000 for the largest works; most range between $45000 and $85000. Close's photographs have become more available in the secondary markets in recent years, finding buyers under $10000 on the low end up (works in large editions) toward $200000 at the high end. In general, we continue to hold Close's work in high regard. Of late, we have spent some time considering a digital print of a Hydrangea daguerreotype Close made in recent years, as it would fit well with our collection of other florals and botanicals; we haven't gotten to purchasing one yet, but perhaps we will at some point in the future.

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

Transit Hub:

• Hilton Kramer, NY Times 1981 (here)
• Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005, SFMOMA (here)
• Lens Culture review of A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (here)
• Daguerreotypes (here)

Chuck Close, Maquettes and Multi-Part Work (1966-2009)
Through June 6th

Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Small Museum Profile: Berkeley Art Museum

Many years ago when I was just out of college, I worked in a start-up software company on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, CA. As a break from the action, I would often take a walk up the hill toward campus to see what was on view at the Berkeley Art Museum. The quiet of the museum was a welcome respite from the frenetic craziness of entrepreneurship.

Founded in 1963 as part of the University of California at Berkeley, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (website here) remains a vibrant location for art viewing in the Bay area. And like many museums, it is in the middle of its own transformations; a new building by Japanese architect Toyo Ito is scheduled to open in 2013 (background on the project here; take a virtual tour of the spectacular building here), the eerie poured concrete walls and ramps of the current galleries (installation shot at right, from the museum website) to become a distant memory.

Currently, the Berkeley Art Museum holds approximately 3600 photographs, with a solid mix of all periods of the medium (14% pre-1900, 70% 1900-1980, 16% post-1980). Much of the collection is up on the website and can be easily searched (here). Highlights include large bodies of work by Lewis Callaghan, W. Eugene Smith, Ant Farm, Bruce Connor (Mabuhay Gardens punk series) and Andy Warhol (part of the Photographic Legacy gift program). Jan Leonard and Jerrold Peil gave a major gift of photography to the museum in 2002 -a total of 848 vintage prints from across the medium's history. Overall, the design of the collection is centered on Bay area photography, Conceptual art documentation, and 19th century travel and portrait photography. The museum does not have a full time photography curator, so photography is bundled under the larger collections department.

While portions of the permanent collection of photography are not always on view at BAM, the exhibitions calendar has always had a solid share of photography. Recent photography exhibitions have included:

• Bruce Connor: Mabuhay Gardens (2008) (here)
• David Goldblatt: Intersections (2007) (here)
• Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker (2007) (here)
• Time's Shadow (2004) (here)
• Roger Ballen (2004) (here) (his first museum show in the US)

Approximately 100 photographs enter the collection each year, with more than 1600 coming in since 2001. This is quite an accomplishment given that there is no dedicated acquisitions budget for photography; all works are acquired via donation or through battling it out for the general acquisition funds.
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Unfortunately, collectors can't easily access the museum's collections at this point (perhaps this will change in the new facility). Researchers/students with an academic project can contact the BAM/PFA Academic Liaison to arrange a viewing session, but there isn't currently any viewing room or other space that can be reserved by appointment for the general public.

Overall, BAM remains a surprisingly good place to see photography given its broad mandate, and will likely become even more so with the construction of the elegant new space.

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft Way

Berkeley, CA 94720

Book: Edgar Martins, Topologies

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2008 by Aperture. 136 pages, with 75 color prints. Includes an essay by John Beardsley and an artist conversation with David Campany. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: As our collector's community grows, it seems more and more opportunities are arising to leverage the distributed knowledge of the crowd in the search for great photography. Based on a recommendation by one of our readers, we picked up this book by Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins, which must have sailed past unnoticed when it was released last year.

For an "emerging" photographer, Martins certainly has a large number of projects going on; this volume is a sampler of sorts, covering five different and wholly distinct series, all taken in a prolific three year time period. The common threads that appear to connect these disparate projects lie below the surface a bit: the use of a large format camera, a tendency to strip down the compositions to elemental forms, and an undercurrent of chance and drama that injects a sense of excitement.

The 2005 series Hidden focuses on the patterns made by roadside sound barriers. The rectangular blocks of color, repeated and mixed together, are displayed in a pared down, Minimalist landscape of unmarked road and and clear blue sky, recalling the sculptured boxes of Donald Judd and the color charts of Gerhard Richter.

The images from The Rehearsal of Space (2005 and 2006) chronicle the active devastation of Portuguese wild fires. While the scenes of leaping flames have an inherent theatricality, I actually prefer the landscapes which are engulfed in timeless smoke, the lingering haze adding mystery and uncertainty to what would otherwise be relatively straightforward forest studies.

The 2006 series Approaches finds Martins out on airport tarmacs and taxiways, taking pictures both during the day and in the depths of night. I especially liked the images which pick up the painted lines and patterns in bright white and yellow on the runways (reminiscent in some ways of Walker Evans' late Polaroids of arrows and other street markings). Truth be told, I'd like to see a whole book of these particular works, especially those that highlight the geometric and graphic qualities of the paint against the deep black background; a very cool project indeed, and one worth further exploration in this collector's opinion.

The series Landscapes Beyond, The Burden of Proof (2006 and 2007) captures the rugged terrain of Iceland. These landscapes have an "Olafur Eliasson meets Timothy O'Sullivan" feel, the harsh, rocky land and ice photographed with a very 19th century formalist approach to composition.

My favorite images from this volume come from the series The Accidental Theorist (2005-2007). In this project, Martins take long exposure night pictures of deserted beaches, each image a pairing of the deep rich black of the night sky with the soft tactile indentations of the sand, punctuated by seemingly random objects (a girl with balloons, an umbrella, trash bins, stacks of chaises, and an array of strange poles that reminded me of Walter De Maria's Lightning Field, among many others). The careful bisection of the picture frame and the overall Minimalist approach recall Hiroshi Sugimoto's night seascapes (with a side order of Harry Callahan's Cape Cod beach pictures), but these images have a sprinkle of serendipity that makes them less overtly meditative and more pleasantly puzzling.

Overall, this book is evidence that Martins is clearly an accomplished photographer early in his career, who is pursuing his craft with intellectual rigor and abundant activity.

Collector's POV: Edgar Martins is represented in New York by Betty Cunningham Gallery (here) and in Los Angeles by Kopeikin Gallery (here). The prints are made in two sizes (not sure of the exact dimensions), in editions of less than 10, with prices starting at $5000. There is no secondary market for Martins' work at this point, so interested collectors should follow up with one of the retail galleries directly.

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Saatchi Online (here)
• More reviews: Shoot! The Blog (here), Conscientious (here)
• Interview: ARTmostfierce (here)
  

Book: Axel Hütte, After Midnight

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2006 by Schirmer/Mosel and Waddington Galleries. 56 pages, with 21 color images. Includes an essay by Martin Filler. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Of the now famous group of Becher students, Axel Hütte has always been the least accessible for us, likely because he has focused much of his work on carefully composed people-less landscapes (jungles, caves, glaciers, fires etc. from exotic locales around the world), a subject matter genre that unfortunately doesn't match well with our particular collecting activities and interests. In recent years, Hütte has also begun to make wall sized nighttime images of sprawling cities and towering skyscrapers, and so this collection of nocturnal views of American cities seemed like a better entry point for us.

In this volume, Hütte has taken images in ten cities across America, often making long panoramic views of the carpet of lights from his upper floor hotel room. In other pictures, he uses an adjacent building as an anchor in the foreground of the shot or simply captures a cluster of nearby highrises. All of the images have an atmosphere of emptiness and distance, with exterior building lights and reflections often painting the town in garish color.

In general, these images left me cold, and upon further reflection, I think that's the point. Regardless of which city is depicted, there are virtually no unique identifiers; they all look generally the same (well lit tall boxes), empty of people and life. In our efforts to build cities that are "modern", we seem to have left out any indicators of our culture or personality. It is not so much that these works are overtly negative; they're not. But what I took away was that Hütte was holding up a mirror to how we are building our American urban environments and communities, and I didn't particularly like what I saw.

Collector's POV: Axel Hütte is represented in London by Waddington Galleries (here), but seems not to have any consistent New York representation. His works have become more available at auction in recent years, with mural sized prints in editions of 3, 4, or 5 selling in a range between $10000 and $35000, and smaller prints in larger editions (25, 30, 100) selling for under $1000.

Transit Hub:

• Fog and Fire at Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Berlin, 2008 (here)
• 2008 show at Patricia Low Contemporary, Gstaad (here)

Auction: Photographie, June 8, 2009 @Van Ham

Next week in Cologne, the German photography season continues with a wide ranging sale at Van Ham. Most of the lots are in the lower priced range, the vast majority estimated under 2000€, so there may indeed be some bargains to be had here. There are a total of 376 lots on offer, with a total High estimate of 526750€. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low lots (high estimate 7500€ or lower): 370

Total Low estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 456750€

Total Mid lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 6

Total Mid estimate: 70000€

Total High lots (high estimate over 35000€): 0

Total High estimate: NA

For our collection, we liked the following:

• Lot 538 Max Baur, Chrysanthemen, 1930s
• Lot 635 John Havinden, Steinzeugrohre, 1930s
• Lot 642 Heinz Held, Empire State Building, 1960s
• Lot 674 Peter Keetman, VW-Werk, 1953 (image at right)
• Lot 755 Albert Renger-Patzsch, Der zehnstockige ROGO-Turm, 1936
• Lot 774 Tata Ronkholz, Autoplatz Hurth Bonnstr. 379a, 1984
• Lot 854 Ludwig Windstosser, Pintsch Bamag, Gas, 1950s

The lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographie

June 8

Van Ham Kunstauctionen

Schönhauser Straße 10-16

50968 Köln

Auction Results: Photographs, May 21, 2009 @Bloomsbury London

The results of Bloomsbury's recent photography sale in London were at the bottom end of this season's general range: more than half bought-in and total proceeds less than half the total Low estimate.

This outcome makes me wonder about the layering of auction houses in the photography market, and whether a house that takes a lower price, higher volume strategy has different expectations about what the results should look like; perhaps all that matters if this strategy is employed is maximizing the total proceeds. The buy-in rate in this situation is interesting to specialists for tuning the mix of material and spotting changing trends/tastes, but not as much of a useful benchmark for collectors or other outsiders.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 269
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £293900
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £443200

Total Lots Sold: 112
Total Lots Bought In: 157
Buy In %: 58.36%
Total Sale Proceeds: £135810

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 254
Low Sold: 109
Low Bought In: 145
Buy In %: 57.09%
Total Low Estimate: £293200
Total Low Sold: £110610

Mid Total Lots: 14
Mid Sold: 3
Mid Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 78.57%
Total Mid Estimate: £100000
Total Mid Sold: £25200

High Total Lots: 1
High Sold: 0
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 100.00%
Total High Estimate: £50000
Total High Sold: £0

70.54% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of four surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate): lot 4, Alfred Stieglitz, Selected plates from Camera Work, at £7200, lot 124, Florence Henri, Portrait of Erica Brausen, 1931, at £3600, lot 151, Alberto Korda, Entrance of Fidel Castro & Camilo in Havana, 1959 at £5760, and lot 269, William Baker and John Burke, Black Mountain Campaign, 1891, at £4080.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Bloomsbury Auctions
24 Maddox Street
Mayfair
London WS1 1PP

Auction Results: Photographs, May 19, 2009 @Bonhams

Bonhams was able to marginally improve on the now standard results for a photography sale this season, with a slightly lower buy in rate and total proceeds closer to the total Low estimate; overall, a solid performance, especially given its out of phase scheduling.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 166
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $642800
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $938300

Total Lots Sold: 111
Total Lots Bought In: 55
Buy In %: 33.13%
Total Sale Proceeds: $608231

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 149
Low Sold: 99
Low Bought In: 50
Buy In %: 33.56%
Total Low Estimate: $619300
Total Low Sold: $348981

Mid Total Lots: 17
Mid Sold: 12
Mid Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 29.41%
Total Mid Estimate: $319000
Total Mid Sold: $259250

High Total Lots: 0
High Sold: NA
High Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total High Estimate: $0
Total High Sold: NA

Only 62.12% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, so more than a third of the lots sold below their range. Surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) included: lot 52, Yousuf Karsh, Sir Winston Churchill, 1941/1980s, at $6710, lot 102, Ray Metzker, Kayak, Frankfurt, 1995 at $9760, and lot 129, Larry Clark, Untitled from Tulsa, 1972/Later, at $7320.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Bonhams & Butterfields
580 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Michael Eastman, Interiors @Friedman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 34 color images, spread across four different photographic projects, hung in all of the galleries on the second floor, and the main space on the third floor. The projects represented are: Italy (11 digital c-prints of varying sizes from 48x56 to 71x84, in editions of 3 and 7, from 2008), Cuba (4 digital c-prints, all approximately 89x74, in editions of 3, from 1999-2002), Urban Luminosity (9 digital c-prints, all 60x48 or reverse, in editions of 7, all from 2008), and Vanishing America (10 digital c-prints, 34x45 or reverse, in editions of 10, from 2000-2009). Most are framed in white, with no mats, except the Urban Luminosity series, which are not framed but mounted to Diebond/Plexiglas. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: For devotees of photographs of architectural interiors, Michael Eastman's show of prints at Barry Friedman will seem satisfyingly familiar, so much so that I found myself wondering about echoes of other artists for almost the entire time I was in the galleries. This is a massive sprawling show that exposes viewers to a wide variety of Eastman's most recent projects.

In the first gallery, images from the Italy series are displayed, combining Baroque grandeur from Milan and Venice with less obvious hints of underlying decay. There are ornate chandeliers, shiny marble floors and walls, elaborate mirrors and elegant statues, some well maintained, others worn and crumbling. Certain of the straight on rooms bear a striking resemblance to the deadpan interiors of Candida Höfer, empty of people but still ostentatious.

Adjacent to these works are a handful of large images from Eastman's Cuba series, where the decomposition of the architecture is much more pronounced and romantic. Here we find peeling and stained walls, painted in bold colors, and neglected furniture in need of repair. These lush images have direct parallels to Robert Polidori's images of similar Havana subject matter.
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The back gallery houses the prints from the Urban Luminosity series, and these images clearly come from a more futuristic 21st century world. Eastman has captured a variety of sleek industrial spaces in this project; foyers, halls, and elevators covered in brushed stainless steel and shiny reflections from overhead lighting, establishing an altogether more crisp and soulless feel.

The exhibition continues on the upstairs floor, where images from the Vanishing America series are hung. These works chronicle the disappearance of small town America, full of straight on pictures of old cinemas and restaurants, hand lettered signs, bowling alleys and hat shops, all steeped in an aw shucks romantic patina. These vernacular images reminded me of Stephen Shore, Jeff Brouws, and to a lesser extent Walker Evans, but with less abstraction and a heavier handed dose of nostalgia.

Collector's POV: Figuring out the pricing here was a bit tricky, mostly because the images all come in three different sizes, regardless of what happens to be hanging on the wall in any specific gallery. As such, I tried to collect the prices that match what is on view. The Italy series had prices between $8500 and $20000, depending on size. The Cuba images on display were priced between $24000 and $29000. The Urban Luminosity prints were $8500 and the Vanishing America images were $6500. Michael Eastman's work has not appeared much at auction, so no particular secondary market pricing patterns can be discerned. Overall, these are well crafted works of conventional subjects, with plenty of connections to other artists who have traveled a similar road.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Saint Louis University Museum of Art retrospective, 2007 (here)
• LA Times review of DNJ Gallery show (here)

Michael Eastman, Interiors

Through June 30
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Barry Friedman Ltd.

515 West 26th Street

New York, NY 10001

Vera Lutter, Samar Hussein @Nitsch

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 color giclee prints of hibiscus flowers, framed in white with no mat, and hung in one darkened room. The prints are 20x30, each made between 2003 and 2009, and the images are sold together as a portfolio in an edition of 12. There is also a single large video screen, with 500 additional hibiscus images displayed in an endless loop (made in edition of 3). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Vera Lutter's newest work, on display now at Carolina Nitsch, is a eulogy for the civilian deaths (more than 100000 since 2003) that have occurred during the Iraq War. Using the life cycle of a hibiscus blossom as her metaphor, she has lightly superimposed the names of individual dead across the bottom of these lush color florals, printing them as normal photographs or including them in a video loop that blankets a large wall in the gallery. In either format, each up close image is dense with pink and yellow, the flower often twisted or puckered as it begins to wither.

We first saw this new project from Lutter at the Armory show, and as flower collectors, we were immediately drawn to it. Given the passing of time and the chance to revisit the images again in a gallery setting, I have come around to seeing the message she is sending with more clarity, and now think of these images less as botanicals, but more as a carefully constructed political statement. Each blossom is impossibly beautiful and fragile, and the element of elapsed time (more obvious in the video roll call) shows the flowers slowly drying up and dying. As the images relentlessly flash on the screen, they become symbols of the people who are no longer alive, each so delicate and easily broken.

I have to admit that while there has been an endless stream of documentary photography of the Iraq War coming from embedded photojournalists, I don't remember many other overtly political photography projects that have come out of the conflict (in fact, the only one I can name is Alec Soth's broader portrayal of the Bush years, and that is not particularly Iraq focused). There clearly must be many more that I have missed or forgotten, so please give me a pointer to other Iraq related projects in the comments, as appropriate.

Collector's POV: The Samar Hussein portfolio is priced at $10000; I didn't get the price for the video loop DVD. Vera Lutter is represented in New York by Gagosian Gallery (here). Her more recognizable camera obscura work has become generally available at auction, ranging between $7000 and $85000, mostly dependent on size. We actually already own one of these city pieces (here) and are always looking for others that are small and well composed.

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

Transit Hub:

• Bomb magazine interview, 2003 (here)
• Kunsthaus Graz exhibition, 2004 (here)
• MOCP collection (here)

Vera Lutter, Samar Hussein
Through June 20

Carolina Nitsch Project Room (artnet site here)
534 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011