Mark Woods, After Analysis @Newman Popiashvili

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 color images, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the one room basement gallery (down the stairs from the street level). The prints are either 37x30 or 24x20 in size, and all of the images were taken in 2009. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I'm generally a fan of fragmented city scenes, and so I decided to take a chance on a show by Mark Woods (a photographer previously unknown to me) now on view at Newman Popiashvili. It seems these pictures were taken in the hours after Woods visited with his therapist, but this background information didn't add any important context for my understanding of the work. Generally, these are formalist pictures of grates, stairs, steel covers, windows, and store fronts (without people) with well conceived color and texture contrasts. Line, form, and curve drive the crafting of the compositions.

As an aside, the press release text for this show is memorably obtuse. Catch phrases include "these pictures are allegories of their own viewing" and "this exhibition studies the tension between tensions".

Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced between $2000 and $4500. If deadpan city and architectural details are your thing, then this show is worth a quick flyby. I particularly enjoyed the image of the tape encrusted car hood.

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

Mark Woods, After Analysis

Through April 25th

Newman Popiashvili Gallery
504 West 22nd Street

New York, NY 10011

Small Museum Profile: Kresge Art Museum @Michigan State

If we play a word association game with “Michigan State”, you might first think of college basketball, given the Spartans' exciting success at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year. But equally exciting is all the activity going on at the Kresge Art Museum housed at Michigan State University (home page here). The museum was founded in the late 1950s and contains a large and diverse collection of 7000 items (including photography) appropriate to a teaching museum.

Anchored by a large gift from MSU alumnus and well known contemporary collector Eli Broad and his wife, the university will be breaking ground on a new Zaha Hadid designed building (The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum) in 2010 with 18,000 square feet of new gallery space, scheduled to open in 2012. On a going forward basis, post-1945 art will be the focus of collection growth and new acquisitions, so the visibility of the photography collection will certainly increase in the future. Images of the new museum and other related information can be found here.

Currently, the Kresge Museum holds approximately 1070 photographs, with 20th and 21st century imagery making up more than 90% of the holdings, so it’s a small but actively growing photography collection. The entire collection is up on the website and can be easily searched (here). Highlights include a group of Warhol photographs (similar to the ones recently exhibited at the Neuberger Museum, here), stock photographs by Ewing Galloway, many important portfolios, and significant direct donations by the artists/estates of Ruth Bernhard, Yousuf Karsh and Ralston Crawford. Collectors can access the collection in person by making an appointment in the print viewing space with the Registrar, Rachael Vargas.

Portions of the permanent collection of photography are always on view at the Kresge, and the exhibitions calendar has had a solid share of photography, given the museum’s broad mandate. Recent photography exhibitions have included:

• Yousuf Karsh, Photographs, 2007
• Ewing Galloway, Photographs, 1920-1950, 2007
• Marion Post Wolcott, Photographs, 2007
• Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer, 2005 (a monograph was also published on this show)

Photographs were also a significant part of the Kresge’s recent 50th anniversary exhibition (installation shots of the gallery spaces at right, provided by the museum). This show included works by Essaydi, Burtynsky, Meyerowitz, Winogrand, Weston, Weegee, Levinstein, Levitt, and others. Later this fall, Dawoud Bey’s Class Pictures will be on view.

The museum does not have a full time photography curator, but Dr. Howard Bossen, Professor of Journalism, is devoting part of his time to the photography department as an adjunct curator. Bossen is now in the process of putting together a major exhibition entitled World of Steel: 160 Years of Photographs, encompassing approximately 225 works. In addition to the exhibition, two books will be produced: an exhibition catalog with extended essays, and Voices of Steel, a compilation of oral histories, first person narratives and photographs. The project is in partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and is slated to open in 2012 at the Carnegie, followed by the Kresge and two additional venues.
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For a small program, the acquisitions activity at the Kresge has been fast paced in recent times, with approximately 200 pictures entering the collection in the past few years, via both a dedicated acquisitions budget for photography and by donations from patrons and artists. On a going forward basis, the short term collections focus is on broad-based hole filling: ensuring the collection has at least one representative work from historically significant photographers, with diminishing focus on the 19th century. Given the increased budget coming from the Broad gifts (for acquisitions and operating costs as well, not just the new building), this is a collection that will clearly continue to grow in the coming years, particularly in its contemporary holdings.

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This museum is an example of an art institution on the rise (even in tough times), with a new building and new acquisitions just over the horizon. It's one for photography collectors to keep an eye on.

Book: Liu Zheng, The Chinese

JTF (just the facts): Jointly published in 2004 by Steidl and ICP. 142 pages, with 130 black and white images. Includes an introduction by Christopher Phillips, essays by Gu Zheng and Liu Zheng, and an artist interview conducted by Meg Maggio.

Comments/Context: In the past few months, we have been doing some further background work on Chinese photography, in the hopes of developing a more nuanced and educated view of the contemporary photography being produced there. A few weeks ago, Ren Yue, a lecturer at Renmin University in Beijing who is spending a year here in New York, was nice enough to answer some of my simplistic questions. (In her spare time, she writes an influential photography blog (in Chinese, here), which is how we got connected.) We had a wide ranging discussion of artists and styles, and about the impact of the Western art market on Chinese photographers.

One topic we covered was the preponderance of Chinese clichés (Chairman Mao, rapid economic expansion etc.) in recent contemporary art from China. Given a smaller base of well established local photography collectors in China, it seems plausible that much of this newer photography is being conceived (to some degree) with Western audiences in mind, and thus the heavier use of forms and symbols that are easily recognizable by Western viewers. Clearly, such a sweeping generalization cannot encompass all of the new photography being made, but this concept resonated for me as a decent hypothesis to explain a proportion of the new work now finding its way to galleries and auctions here in New York.

Which brings us to Liu Zheng and his project, The Chinese, which is a potent example of the exception to this trend. We have owned this book for some time now, but I was reminded again of its importance during this recent discussion. Unlike the airbrushed and cleaned up perfection of the Olympic games, or of the larger body of more propaganda style imagery falling under the Socialist Realism umbrella, Liu set out on a seven year journey to make a more complicated and robust picture of the unofficial realities of the Chinese people and culture. What emerges is a darker alternate history of the past few decades, grittier and more subversive, with its fair share of outcasts and fringe elements, aging, disease, and death. With echoes of August Sander, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, the body of work has the highly personal and individual feel of a long and arduous journey, a far cry from art produced to meet the fickle demands of the commercial market.

All of the images in the book are square format black and white, nearly all of them straight forward portraits, many taken with a flash, further heightening the contrasts and emotional resonance. Liu’s subjects include rural coal miners, priests and monks, traditional opera performers and actors, beggars and drug dealers, hospital patients and waxworks dioramas (think Sugimoto), transvestites and corpses.

So while there are obvious references to the history of photography buried in these pictures, the images seem to me to be aimed mostly at Chinese viewers, rather than at Western audiences. Each image has a strong sense of narrative, of uncovering a hidden (and often far less than perfect) story worth hearing. While one might conclude that these images are overly judgmental or negative, perhaps they are better considered as a more even handed documentary cross section of the stories (many out on the margins) that have gone underreported for so many decades.

Collector’s POV: Liu Zheng is represented in New York by Yossi Milo (here), and a show of prints from The Chinese was held there in 2005. The entire set of 120 images from the book is currently on display at the Williams College Museum of Art (here) in Williamstown, MA. Meg Maggio’s gallery/consultancy, Pekin Fine Arts, in Beijing (here), has a broader array of Liu’s work on view on her website, including many more recent projects. A small number of Liu’s prints have begun to find their way into the secondary markets here in the US, but the numbers have been so small, it is hard to extrapolate any pricing pattern. While we aren’t portrait collectors, Liu’s excellent work would certainly provide a compelling contrast to works by Diane Arbus, August Sander, Malick Sidibé, Pieter Hugo (the Hyena Men) and Hiroh Kikai, not to mention broader parallels to photographers as diverse as Weegee, Lewis Hine and Nan Goldin.

Book: Saul Leiter, Early Color

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2006 by Steidl. Small format volume, unpaginated, with 79 color images. Includes an essay by Martin Harrison. (Cover image at right.)

Comments/Context: When the story of color photography is told, William Eggleston is often given credit for being the artist who broke the black and white mold and first used color on its own terms. And while this might indeed be the case, especially considering Eggleston's downstream influence on other photographers, I think this small book of Saul Leiter's early color images makes a compelling case for a rewriting of the agreed upon narrative.

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The images in this book were taken in New York in the period between 1948 and 1960 (a full decade or more before Eggleston), at a time when abstraction in general and Abstract Expressionism more specifically were ascendant modes of artistic expression in the United States. During these years, color photography was almost exclusively used in commercial endeavors (magazine advertising etc.), mostly due to its complexity and high cost. And yet Leiter somehow found ways to make a surprisingly deep body of non-commercial color work during these years.

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Leiter started out as an abstract painter, and his photographs follow along a similar line of thinking, while incorporating the two dimensional flatness of the camera's eye. Using the chaos of the city as his subject matter, his images are fragmented into layers, often using reflections from windows and mirrors to create additional visual density. Spaces are divided into elegant geometrical forms, many split by vertical stripes and bands of color reminiscent of Barnett Newman's zips.

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Ladders, umbrellas, lamp posts, staircases, and hats all become lyrical shapes. People (in profile, from behind or as shadows) become abstract forms. Snow (drifts and piles in the streets) and rain (fogged windows, streaming with rivulets of water, or shining, reflective streets) both play repeated roles as image enhancers. The use of color is careful and controlled, playing a quiet and effective supporting role, rather than dominating the viewer's attention. Leiter's compositions coalesce all of these competing forces into a nuanced and consistent way of seeing.

Collector's POV: Saul Leiter is represented in New York by Howard Greenberg Gallery (here). His work has not to date been widely available at auction. I think these pictures would fit extremely well with early (1940s/1950s) black and white work from Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, to be followed by later abstract city color by Luigi Ghirri, Stephen Shore, Helen Levitt and even recent Louis Stettner. Densely packed 1960s and 1970s Lee Friedlander would also make good companions for this work. And of course, it would also resonate well with the more geometric works of the Abstract Expressionist painters of the same time period. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and have come back to it again and again; we will certainly consider these works carefully for addition to our collection.

Thoughts on the Photo Book Market from 5B4

There is an extremely well reasoned analysis of the challenges facing the photo book world at 5B4 today. Among many topics, it describes very accurately the price herding that goes on at Abebooks and elsewhere, highlights the impact "check off" collectors (those that are trying to get every book from Roth or Parr/Badger) have had on the market, and exposes the book signing racket. The link is here. Well worth your time.

Auction: Post-War and Contemporary Art, April 30, 2009 @Christie's South Kensington

Later in the month, Christie's will offer a small group of generally lower end works in its Post-War and Contemporary Art sale at its South Kensington location. While the sale has 114 lots available, only 12 are photographs, with a total high estimate for those lots of just £84800. (Catalogue cover at right.)

Here's the price breakdown for the photography:

Total Low Lots (high estimate below £5000): 5
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £15800

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 7
Total Mid Estimate: £69000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The photographers represented are:

Willie Doherty
Candida Hofer
Pierre Huyghe
Shirin Neshat
Damian Ortega
Andres Serrano (2)
Hannah Starkey
Erwin Wurm
Zhang Huan (3)

While none of the images in this sale fits with our collecting themes, I did enjoy seeing the three images by Zhang Huan.

The complete lot by lot details can be found here.

Post-War and Contemporary Art
April 30th

Christie's
85 Old Brompton Road
London SW7 3LD

The No Photography Allowed Club

If you are a regular reader, you will no doubt realize that we go to a large number of gallery and museum shows in any given year (we have reviewed 43 photography shows year to date). When we go, we always try to take pictures of the installation, to give readers a feeling for the setting of the show, for the how the works are presented and staged. We almost never take pictures of single works, but do our best to give proper credit (artist, title, date etc.) when we do. And we always, without fail, ask before taking any pictures, and generally respect the law of land when photography is not allowed, even though we are often tempted to make a surreptitious snap when a guard isn't looking. If no flash is allowed, we abide by the rules.

Luckily, photography is both allowed and welcomed at more than 95% of places we go. We are therefore consistently annoyed in the few hold out places where photography is still prohibited. Here is our very short list of places where your camera is not welcome:

303 Gallery
Gagosian Gallery
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
International Center of Photography
Pace/MacGill Gallery
Whitney Museum of American Art
Yale University Art Gallery

The most egregious one on this list is the ICP. If there was anywhere on earth where photography should be welcomed and supported, it is at this venue. If the Met and the MoMA allow pictures, why not the ICP? (UPDATE: I have to qualify the MoMA's position here; of the shows on view now, the Printed Picture and Paul Graham's show allow photography; Into the Sunset does not, so MoMA does not deserve full credit for freedom.) (UPDATE2: The Met too has a dual identity at the moment: the Walker Evans show allows photography; the Pictures Generation does not.)

The logic for outlawing image making seems thin at best. One argument has to do with copyrights, and the potential infringement on artist's rights by visitors who take pictures. While I am not a lawyer, in the event a viewer did make an image and then publish it without proper crediting, it would seem to be a case between the artist and viewer, not the place in which the work was housed at the time. I suppose there is also the potential that the installation itself is copyrighted by the gallery or museum (unlikely), but again, this is only a problem if there is improper crediting/permission. (Copyright lawyers out there, please correct me if this is wrong.)

A second and more likely explanation for photography prohibition is somehow thinking that if pictures are circulated of an exhibit that less visitors will come (if they can see the pictures for free, why would they pay to visit in person). I think the age of the Internet, this thinking is short sighted, unless the exhibit is truly bad. Publicity of good exhibits should markedly increase visitors (even if the publicity is camera phone shots shared with friends), not decrease them. On the other hand, if the show is really weak, then having it exposed for what it is will clearly decrease turnout. I can't however believe that any gallery or museum thinks their shows are poor.

A final and more nuanced reason for no pictures has to do with control. I believe that some institutions don't want substandard (i.e. amateur) images of their spaces or shows floating around. So they make professional images of their installations (pefectly lit and composed) and put them on their websites (often these images are made uncopyable however, so we must resort to screen captures to make use of them). While I understand this impulse, I think that encouraging the audience to engage with the art is part of the job of these venues. Over controlling any and all interaction mutes this connection. I am consistently amazed when I am told I cannot take a picture in a gallery, when my reason for taking it is to show my wife so we can discuss it further as a potential part of our collection (the gallery would rather send me a perfect scan).

Of course, these "no photography" policies are a minor issue in the grand scheme of what's important in our world. But that said, I'd like to see more freedom for viewers to make pictures where ever and when ever they want, and perhaps this post will put some small amount of attention on the issue at the highlighted venues. And if there are other institutions that belong on this list, please put them in the comments and I'll update the post accordingly. And if your insitutiton changes its policy in favor of photography freedom, I'll happily take it off the list.

Auction: Saturday @Phillips, New York, April 25, 2009

Phillips has another of its entry level Saturday @Phillips sales in New York in two weeks, and once again, there is a wide variety of decent photography buried among the furniture, contemporary prints, and Japanese toys. Out of 420 lots on offer, 86 are photographs, with a total high estimate of $310300. (Catalogue cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low lots (high estimate $10000 or lower): 81

Total Low estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $235300

Total Mid lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 5
Total Mid estimate: $75000

Total High lots (high estimate over $50000): 0
Total High estimate: NA

It has become somewhat of a tradition in these posts to provide a complete list of photographers in the Saturday sales, as they seem to provide a snapshot of the current tastes of the contemporary market, with both established artists and newcomers mixed together. So here's the list:

Doug Aitken
Nobuyoshi Araki

Matthew Barney
Vanessa Beecroft
Hisham Akira Bharoocha

Nick Brandt
Keith Carter
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Sarah Charlesworth

Chuck Close
Andre De Dienes
Walter De Maria

Cheryl Dunn

William Eggleston
Elliot Erwitt
Fischli & Weiss

Lee Friedlander
Nan Goldin

Antony Gormley

Kim Hiorthoy
Matthias Hoch

Candida Hofer
Frank Horvat

Isaac Julien
Richard Kern
Kim-Joon

Elke Krystufek
Barney Kulok

Nikki S. Lee

Annie Leibovitz

Zoe Leonard

Vera Lutter
Gered Mankowitz

Malerie Marder
Steve McCurry
Marilyn Minter
Richard Misrach
Daido Moriyama
Vik Muniz
Helmut Newton

Catherine Opie

Man Ray
Herb Ritts
Thomas Ruff

Roy Schatt

Lawrence Schiller
David Seidner
Mark Seliger
Cindy Sherman
Stephen Shore
Julius Shulman
Alec Soth

Doug & Mike Starn
Bert Stern
Joel Sternfeld
Jock Sturges
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Larry Sultan
Wolfgang Tillmans
Rosemarie Trockel
Ruud Van Empel

Various
Massimo Vitali
Albert Watson
Edward Weston
Bob Willoughby
Garry Winogrand
Thomas Wrede
Erwin Wurm

The lot by lot catalogue can be found here.

While there isn't much in this sale that fits our specific collection, I did enjoy Lot 220 Daido Moriyama, Another City, New York, 2007 and Lot 280 Vera Lutter, Engine, Frankfurt Airport, April 19, 2001. (Lutter image at right.)

Saturday @Phillips
April 25, 2009

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street

New York, NY 10011

Sanne Sannes, Erotica @Laurence Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 black and white images, framed in black/white and matted, and hung in a small anteroom gallery. The prints are mostly 10x8, and all are vintage, from the period 1962-1965. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Dutch photographer Sanne Sannes' first US show, coming over 40 years after his death, has a youthful 1960s confidence. The images are the opposite of the cool, detatched nudes of Edward Weston - active, vibrant, dark and grainy, exploring the emotions of his subjects, rather than the forms of their bodies. Many are head shots, with blurs of flowing hair and broad smiles, full of life.

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The loose, shadowy style of these images is certainly reminiscent of the 1960s work of Gerard Petrus Fieret and Ed van der Elsken. All three captured freedom, exhilaration and sheer joy in ways that were (at the time) completely and radically new.

Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced between $6500 and $16000. The look and feel of these images is so different from the nudes we have in our collection that I'm not sure they would work sharing a wall together. That said, a couple of the images caught my eye just enough to make me wonder whether they might fit.

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

Sanne Sannes, Erotica

Through May 2nd

Laurence Miller Gallery

20 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Ray K. Metzker, Wanderings @Laurence Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 31 images, mostly framed in white and matted, and hung in the entry and one large room in the gallery. The pictures range from 1969 to 2008, though most were taken in the 1980s. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: If a musician has had a long enough career, along the way at some point, all the songs that didn't make it onto one of the albums are gathered up and released on their own as a group. By definition, none of these songs was so great that it merited singular attention in the past, but at this point, they are good enough to help fill in a broader and deeper view of the artist's entire output, and are especially of interest to committed fans.

The current Metzker show on view at Laurence Miller is the photographic equivalent of this out takes and b-sides album. It is a collection of odds and ends that fell outside Metzker's more famous projects, images that don't exactly fit into a neat and tidy narrative of his work. What is common to the pictures is Metzker's keen eye for abstraction and pattern. There are fences, reflections in car windshields, dark shadows, dense wood construction, and even nature (trees/bushes), all seen with a fragmented two dimensional flatness that concentrates the attention on the lines and forms rather than the subject matter. Another group of images use a blurred tree as an interrupting device, throwing the images out of kilter, echoing his Pictus Interruptus series of the late 1970s. While none of these qualify as Metzker's best, his unique approach to picture making is very much in evidence, and there are many excellent pictures to be found among these wanderings.

Collector's POV: For the most part, the images in the show are $5000, with one at $6000 and another at $10000. There is a small group of vintage 1960's images from Metzker's more famous work tucked away on one wall, priced between $7500 and $40000. We still don't have a Metzker in our collection at this point, although we continue to actively look for just the right one. In this show, I enjoyed the four fence images pictured above best.

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

Ray K. Metzker, Wanderings
Through May 2nd

Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10019

André Kertész: In the Depths of Winter @Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 vintage gelatin silver prints, framed in black and matted, and hung in the back gallery. The images were taken in the period between 1940 and 1977. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the repeated heavy snows this winter in the New York area, this exhibit is perfectly timely, even now that the daffodils and tulips starting to bloom. André Kertész made many wonderful images of his Washington Square neighborhood, from his apartment window and out on the streets, and this show gathers together a solid group of pictures with snowy days and bare trees as their subject. What makes these images particularly resonant are the tiny human moments that are often hidden among the strong lines and forms: a child swinging, people trudging through the snow, or a small black dog on a snow covered rooftop.

While most of these images are less well known than his greatest hits, this exhibit demonstrates that even in his later life, Kertész was still making well crafted works in his signature style.

Collector's POV: The images in this exhibit mostly range in price between $7500 and $12000, the exceptions being the iconic vintage Washington Square Day, 1954 at $55000, and a tighter cropped variant of this image, at $24000. We actually already own a Kertész winter scene (here, not in the show), but could easily imagine adding another, especially one filled with rooftops, water towers, and shadows.

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

André Kertész: In the Depths of Winter

Through April 25th

Silverstein Photography

535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

E.O. Hoppé, Early London Photographs, 1910-1939 @Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 31 vintage gelatin silver prints, framed in brown wood and matted, and hung in one large room. The prints are generally small, mostly 4x5, some as large as 9x7. The images were taken between 1910 and 1939. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Perhaps the best way to characterize the work of E.O. Hoppé is to call it proto-modernist. His images chronicle the early part of the 20th century, just at the cusp of time when modernism began to take hold. As a result, his images are a kind of bridge between straightforward vernacular city scenes and the new modernist aesthetic (Strand, Stieglitz et al.)

While Hoppé made portraits as well as images in America and other places, this show chronicles his work in London, his adopted hometown. There are city and street scenes, top hats, dockyards and gardens, as well as plenty of architectural images of bridges, churches, and other London landmarks. The small size of the prints encourages intimate viewing. Given Hoppé's transitional aesthetic, the show is a mixed bag of more routine historical shots, with a handful of stand out compositions here and there.

The estate website can be found here.

Collector's POV: Hoppé is still in the process of being rediscovered and absorbed into the broader narrative of the history of photography, so his relative place in the hierarchy of early modernist work is still a bit fluid. The images in this show are priced between $7500 and $20000. His work has slowly begun to find its way into the auction markets, but very few prints have come up for sale in the past few years, so it is hard to draw any pricing pattern. In general, Hoppé's images would fit into our city genre; I enjoyed Cannon Street Station, London, 1916, the most, with its dark black square sign.

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

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E.O. Hoppé, Early London Photographs, 1910-1939

Through April 25th

Silverstein Photography
535 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Cloud 9: Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston @Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 vintage gelatin silver prints (thus the clever show title): 2 by Imogen Cunningham, 4 by Alfred Stieglitz, and 3 by Edward Weston, all small prints, variously framed and hung on one blue wall in the front gallery. All of the images are from the 1920s and 1930s. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Virtually every human being has at some point in their lives looked up into the sky and seen meaning in the clouds, even if it was simply a cluster of wisps that looked momentarily (to us) like a rabbit or a dog. Master photographers are no different, and this small amuse-bouche of a show gathers together a handful of examples of what three of them found when they pointed their cameras skywards.

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The most recognizable images in the show are the four Stieglitz Equivalents, images of diaphanous clouds, designed to evoke emotional states. Stieglitz made many of these images over his career; most are printed in the same small size, requiring intimate attention. The Weston clouds have more form to them; in one, the thin clouds are transformed into energetic fingers of fire. The Cunningham clouds were a surprise to me, as we had never seen cloud images made by her before. Her choice of puffy, cotton ball clouds gave her more freedom to play with negative and positive space.

Collector's POV: The Stieglitz images are priced between $55000 and $65000 (though not all are for sale), the Weston prints are between $25000 and $75000, and the Cunninghams are $20000 each. While clouds are not a part of our particular collection, I like the idea of having a small appetizer show in the front of the gallery that can explore a smaller theme in thoughtful detail, as a warm up for larger exhibit(s) in the back.

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

Cloud 9

Through April 25th

Silverstein Photography

535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

A Collector’s Thoughts on Transparency in Pricing

This afternoon’s post is primarily aimed at gallery owners or private dealers specializing in secondary market photography, but has some applicability for primary market players as well. I’d like to make a reasoned appeal to you in favor of increased transparency in your pricing, as this is an issue that has been quietly bothering me for quite some time.

The argument I’d like to make is that your ultimate goal (it seems to me) is to develop long term, profitable relationships with collectors (and museums) who will come back as repeat customers, who will buy again and again over time. Building these kinds of relationships requires having the kind of material that a collector is interested in and treating that collector fairly, with respect and openness, during the sales process. Trust gets built over the period of multiple transactions. Positive feelings lead to more sales.

There is a wide spectrum of transparency in pricing to be found in New York. As background, let me describe the variety of pricing realities that I have encountered recently at established, mainstream galleries. (Since waiting lists and “access” are not really part of this particular market, as they are in the primary contemporary art markets, I have left these issues aside; in this market, it is generally the case that your money will buy the available work, whoever you are.) Here are the four major pricing approaches:

• Prices are visible on the wall next to the art, or readily available in a printed price list (multiple copies prominently placed on the desk or elsewhere).
• A price list exists, but it is hidden away behind the desk. It will only be produced if you ask for it.
• No price list is available, but if you ask, someone will rattle off the prices (or ranges of prices), so clearly they have been set in advance, just not published on paper anywhere.
• No price list is available, and if you ask, a Director or sales person will be called from the back room to talk with you.

Anecdotally, I’d say about 6 out of 10 galleries I visit use the first approach, with the rest doing one of the other three, so approximately 40% of the galleries out there are not being as direct as we would like in their pricing. AIPAD member dealers are in theory supposed to be transparent in their pricing (using the first method above), but I have not found this to be universally the case.

The misdirection of the second and third approaches is often defended by gallery owners on the grounds that the gallery doesn’t want to distract the viewer (i.e. buyer) from the artistic merits of the work by making the commercial aspects of the transaction more prominent. i.e. a viewer will focus on the fact that it is priced at $25K, not that it is an excellent piece. While I understand the idea of putting the art front and center, I still see this practice as a not-so-subtle form of salesmanship. The only logical reason to hide the prices is if there is evidence that buyers will pay more when presented with art in this manner. Is it really the case that my perception of the work will be so much more powerful in the authoritative “museum-like” setting (no prices) that I will be willing to pay a higher price when I am eventually presented with the facts (versus if the price had been on the wall from the beginning)? I don’t believe this is the case for serious collectors, and even if it is true in some cases, the marginal benefit to the dealer will be negated when the buyer figures out he/she overpaid. And for more spontaneous collectors and visitors, I think hiding the prices mostly drives potential buyers away, not the other way around.

The fourth approach I find most distasteful, as it gives me the impression that prices are entirely fluid, and the salesperson is merely coming out to size me up and decide the highest price I might be willing to pay (hopefully I am a naïve, price insensitive hedge fund manager). It reminds me of the elaborate social ritual of buying a carpet from a Moroccan rug merchant: equal parts flattery, education, and hard nosed negotiation, all wrapped in pleasantries and tea. The additional problem with this exchange is the real asymmetry of information: the dealer knows everything about the piece, including historical price comparisons and any issues, while the collector knows very little, unless significant background work has been done ahead of the visit. So the collector is often at a distinct disadvantage in this encounter.

Having seen this movie so many times before, when I see that the prices are not posted, I inevitably wave off the visit by the Director and just give up, even when I have some meaningful interest in the piece. Most times, I just don’t want to go through the hassle of the hard sell conversation to get at the price information; all I really wanted was the price to put into my own calculus of relative value before potentially entering into a deeper discussion. Perhaps this has been just the point - to weed out those who are not fully committed, but this seems to be the exactly the wrong reaction you would want from a prospective collector, especially if you are trying to build relationships. While some might argue that this sales process creates opportunities for conversations, I believe posting the prices would be a more effective way to catalyze real discussions, as collectors will naturally self select based on their own budgets.

As an aside, while we are always looking for prices that we feel are fair and choose/favor dealers based on our view of their pricing fairness, this appeal has nothing to do with the actual size of the prices a gallery or dealer decides to charge. I understand well the issues relating to the fixed overhead costs of running a prominent gallery (rent, staff, promotions etc.) and am not surprised when a retail gallery has a higher price for work than a private dealer who has less overhead. It seems to me that for the entire system to work, everyone in the food chain needs to profit, so we’re not put off by higher margins at retail galleries. We also know that galleries and dealers have widely divergent discounting policies; some stick to the list prices, others are willing to bring the prices down substantially. All of these pricing plans are fine, and we adapt our approach based on the way the galleries tend to work.

We also agree that this market is illiquid, and that some vintage pieces have significant scarcity value; we completely understand and agree with this – it should be incorporated into the setting of the prices. “Price on request” is just a euphemism for a secret evolving price (generally high) based on current conditions. If the price is $100K or 200K or whatever, that’s fine; just say so publicly. If the price changes/goes up based on new information, that’s fine too; just change the published amount. And while we generally have thick skin in terms of pricing, the only price I truly dislike is the one which insults my intelligence – unrealistically high in a simple effort to dupe me, assuming I am ignorant of the underlying value of the work being discussed. Unfortunately, this happens much more often than we would like; we tend to laugh it off, proceeding with more caution on a going forward basis (the trust-o-meter now broken).

So what I am passionately advocating is universal adoption of transparent pricing. Many of you will likely consider this idea a poor fit for the market realities as you perceive them, but I truly believe it is in your best interests to be more direct. Move to a new mode of operating where you always post the prices on the wall (and on the Internet), or make them readily available without asking. Collectors of all kinds can handle the truth (even if it means large numbers), and will value being treated in an up front manner. Dispense with the games and obfuscation and let the published prices speak for themselves. And if the prices can’t handle the scrutiny, then they’re the wrong prices.

Book: Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2004 by Thames & Hudson. 224 pages, with 222 illustrations. Cotton is now the head of the photography department at LACMA. (Cover image at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the rising popularity of contemporary photography, it is somewhat surprising how few good surveys of recent activity in the medium are available. While a biennial catalog or collection summary can perhaps provide an overview of current trends, these picture books often lack any sort of underlying framework, needed to make sense of the dizzying array of work being made.

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Charlotte Cotton wades into this chaotic mess and does an admirable job of creating some structure. The backbone of this small volume is a group of seven themes she has used to classify the many different styles and types of work, which then become the chapters of the book. These buckets are the following:

• If This Is Art: events or circumstances preconceived/created for the purpose of making an image (in contrast to the "decisive moment")
• Once Upon a Time: narrative photography, including the staged tableau/scene
• Deadpan: objective, cool aesthetic
• Something and Nothing: still life and interior/exterior architecture photography
• Intimate Life: storytelling in the context of domestic/personal relationships
• Moments in History: aftermath imagery, mixing social/documentary practices
• Revived and Remade: Postmodernist appropriation and reworking

Each section is made up of a string on one paragraph summaries of photographers working in that particular mode, complete with small representative images. While one might quibble with the definitions of the categories or the reductive nature of choosing a single image to represent an artist's approach, overall, the taxonomy works quite well. The book covers lot of ground and helpful lists of photographers working in related styles can be derived from the text.

Collector's POV: While there is a thin narrative thread that ties this book together, I'm certain that a reader could just as easily open to any page, encyclopedia style, and read the paragraph about a specific artist and find value. As such, it is an easily browsable reference book of relatively current photography (5 years old at this point).

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As a collector, the book's primary worth is in its grouping of like artists. If we enjoy the work of photographer A, this book is successful in referring to the work by photographers B, C, and D, who have a similar aesthetic but might not have been known to us previously. As such, we can develop a hit list of promising new artists to explore. Given the diversity of work being produced today, having a short, well curated list to tackle is well worth the price of the book.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Early Prints @Houk

JTF (just the facts): A total of 49 vintage/early gelatin silver prints, framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. The prints range in size from 7x9 and 8x10 to oversized exhibition prints at approximately 14x22. The images come from the period 1931 to 1961, and were taken in far flung locations all over the world. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson has been so thoroughly studied and documented, it seems unlikely that there are many new paths for exploration of his art open for adventurous souls. Cartier-Bresson is of course known as the master of the hand-held camera (a 35mm Leica) and perhaps the father of photojournalism. He was the founder of Magnum Photos and the coiner of the now hackneyed (but still relevant) phrase "the decisive moment". His influence on photographers downstream from him has been nothing short of immense.
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So the show of early prints at Edwynn Houk doesn't even try to add to the mountain of pre-existing Cartier-Bresson scholarship (there is no wall text, no chronological grouping, no narrative or curatorial viewpoint), and seems satisfied to have simply gathered such a remarkable group of greatest hits. Given the scarcity of vintage prints of any of his images, much less the most famous images from his entire career, this exhibit must have required many years of relentless legwork to put together.

The durability of Cartier-Bresson's images is the primary takeaway for me from this show. Many of these pictures have become so famous that they have become almost overexposed, like a song you've heard too many times. And yet, seeing many of these old favorites again in this show, many with the soft patina of age, they still seem fresh and alive, regardless of when they were taken. The second highlight (given the structure of this show) is of course his remarkable consistency. Across decades of time and vast differences in geography and subject matter, he repeatedly captured pictures of people that continue to resonate as being somehow both universal and unique at the same time. Wandering through this gallery is like coming upon a group of old friends, each one still a joy, and with news to tell.
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The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson website can be found here. His page at Magnum Photos is here.

Collector's POV: The images in this show are priced between $9500 and $90000, with two prints "price on request". Cartier-Bresson's prints are ubiquitous at auction (literally hundreds in any given year), but nearly all are later prints, and many are of more random documentary subjects, beyond his most famous pictures. While Cartier-Bresson's pictures don't fit into our particular collecting framework, it seems unlikely that so many superior quality prints will be brought together in one place again for a very long time, so put this show on your list to see before it closes.

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

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Early Prints

Through May 2nd
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Edwynn Houk Gallery

745 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10151

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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: There will be no posts tomorrow (Wednesday, 4/8). Back to normal on Thursday.

Auction Results: Photographs and Photographic Editions, New York, April 2, 2009 @Bloomsbury

There aren't many easy ways to sugar coat the results at Bloomsbury last week - it was a rough outing. Whether this was due to the material they collected, their place last in line after an exhausting run of AIPAD and the other auctions, the general economic malaise, or some combination of all three, the results were a dose of reality after a glimmer of optimism coming out of the big crowds at AIPAD. When half the lots fail to sell, it's a splash of very cold water.

The summary statistics are below:

Total Lots: 140
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $559900
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $832200
Total Lots Sold: 70
Total Lots Bought In: 70
Buy In %: 50.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $333304

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

Low Total Lots: 132
Low Sold: 67
Low Bought In: 65
Buy In %: 49.24%
Total Low Estimate: $695200
Total Low Sold: $291214

Mid Total Lots: 8
Mid Sold: 3
Mid Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 62.50%
Total Mid Estimate: $137000
Total Mid Sold: $42090

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

84.29% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. While there were both photographs and photo books in this sale, they generally performed at about the same rate in terms of sell through. There were no surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Bloomsbury Auctions
6 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036

Tanyth Berkeley, Grace @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 color images, framed to the edge in either black or white, with no mat, displayed in the single room gallery space. Sizes range from 24x20 to 63x28 (full body size), and are printed in editions of 5. (Marginal installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I was first exposed to the work of Tanyth Berkeley at the New Photography 2007 exhibit at the MoMA, where her portraits had an electricity that monopolized the available attention. Continuing a line of thinking drawn back through Diane Arbus and Lisette Model, Berkeley makes realist portraits of unusual people with a sense of intimate care and genuine curiosity. She has pointed her camera at transgendered people, people with albinism, and a whole range of folks who fall outside society's normal definitions of beauty, finding unique stories to tell in each and every one.
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In the show at the MoMA, while there were plenty of startling full body portraits, I remember being completely awestruck by a smaller image of a woman named Grace, seated by a window with an ethereal light coming from behind, as though she was glowing. It was like a Renaissance portrait of a saint or angel, at the very moment of some kind of spiritual ecstasy. (Grace in Window, 2006, at right.) It struck me then, as it does now, as one of the best contemporary portraits I've seen in a very long time, likely to age well and remain inspiring over many years. As an aside, a print of this image went into the MoMA's permanent collection.

This image is on display at Danziger Projects as part of larger body of Berkeley's recent work focused on this woman. Grace Longoria's albinism makes her skin and hair radiantly white, and she is often photographed with her eyes closed, due to her increased intolerance of bright light. The images in the show find her in different poses and clothes, but always with the same delicacy and fragility. Not all of the images rise to the same lofty heights as her portrait by the window, but clearly, the artist and muse have found a working relationship that allows them to take some risks.

Collector's POV: The images in the show are reasonably priced between $2800 and $6800. Berkeley's work doesn't even remotely fit into our particular collection; contemporary color portraits are about as far from our specific genres as one could imagine.

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But I can say with some conviction that I believe Grace in Window will end up being among the hallmark contemporary portraits of this decade. (Stop and digest that comment for a moment, as it's a real whopper.) Since there is only one left, priced at $6800, if we were contemporary photography collectors looking for signature images from these times, I'd pick up the phone right now and put in on hold before it vanishes.

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

Tanyth Berkeley, Grace

Through April 25th

Danziger Projects

534 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Izima Kaoru, New Work @Von Lintel

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 color works on display: 7 large scale c-prints, framed in blond wood without mats, and 1 group of 4 smaller prints, mounted to plexiglass but not framed. The larger c-prints are approximately 70x94 or 70x60 and come in editions of 5. The smaller images are 20x26. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru has been making images in his series Landscapes with a Corpse for a decade now. In each series, a famous Japanese actress or model imagines her perfect fantasy "death", complete with the designer clothes she would be wearing at the time. Kaoru then creates the elaborate settings and makes pictures from a variety of cinematic distances: the close-up (eyes open), medium range images, and far away wide angle shots. The effect is an extremely elegant crime scene, the opposite of the grittiness of Weegee's real life corpses in the gutter.

I first saw an image from this series several years ago, a huge print of a woman "dead" on the floor of a pachinko parlor, surrounded by neon pink chairs and fallen amidst a sea of silvery balls. I was taken aback by its over-the-top glamour and the lushness of its eye-popping colors. Nearly every review of Kaoru's work is riddled with words like shocking and disturbing, morbid and repulsive. And yet, my reaction was and still is just the opposite. These images are, in my view, nothing more than an adult version of the play acting and dress up games of childhood, complete with couture gowns and lavish locations. I'm not sure these new works, which lack any visible signs of injury, would even be classified as unsettling.

In this small show, I particularly enjoyed the series of images called Sakai Maki wears Jil Sander, 2008, where a woman in a sheer salmon colored dress and sky blue shoes lies in a room full of white flowers. These works are dreamlike and calm, with a quirky surreal and conceptual feel that reminded me of Magritte. The other works on display are more straightforward in their settings, but equally serene and peaceful.

For Western audiences who have no familiarity with these Japanese actresses and models (like me), the individual people become more like beautiful mannequins (they're supposed to be dead after all) in a carefully styled fashion shoot. I think if Julia Roberts or Kate Moss (or someone else equally recognizable here) were inserted instead of the Japanese women, I think the images might have a very different resonance.

Collector's POV: The large images in the show are priced at either $22500 or $27000; the group of smaller images is $14000. In the secondary markets, Kaoru's work has only just become available at auction in the last year, so there isn't enough data to form any meaningful pricing pattern. While not every image in Kaoru's large and growing project is a winner, a handful of stand out pictures can be found that would fit well in most contemporary collections.

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

Izima Kaoru, New Work
Through April 25th

Von Lintel Gallery
555 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction Results: Photographs, New York, April 1, 2009 @Phillips

Given the challenging times, the spring Photographs sale at Phillips De Pury & Company in New York performed surprisingly well. The total proceeds just missed the pre sale total Low estimate, coming much closer than either Sotheby's or Christie's had in the previous days. The larger number of lots of offer and the generally decent sell through rate vaulted Phillips into the second place spot for total proceeds this season.

The summary statistics are below:

Total Lots: 279
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $1995100
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $2908000

Total Lots Sold: 187
Total Lots Bought In: 92
Buy In %: 32.97%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1890876

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

Low Total Lots: 204
Low Sold: 134
Low Bought In: 70
Buy In %: 34.31%
Total Low Estimate: $1061000
Total Low Sold: $708001

Mid Total Lots: 70
Mid Sold: 49
Mid Bought In: 21
Buy In %: 30.00%
Total Mid Estimate: $1347000
Total Mid Sold: $825625

High Total Lots: 5
High Sold: 4
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 20.00%
Total High Estimate: $500000
Total High Sold: $357250

A stunning 95.72% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range (with 32.62% above). Phillips clearly figured out the formula for setting estimates that were both enticing and generally on target in this more conservative economic environment.

There were plenty of surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale: a total of 9 lots generated some bidding heat, although most were lower priced lots. Here's the list: lot 4, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Island of Siphnos, Greece, 1961/later at $18750, lot 75, Bruce Weber, Zor and Zor's Back, 1982, at $2500, lot 76, Bruce Weber, Matt, Marine from Mideast, 1983, at $2750, lot 82, Flip Schulke, Muhammad Ali boxing underwater, 1961/later at $12500, lot 116, David Drebin, Movie Star, 2004, at $16250, lot 178 Tina Modotti, Woman with Flag, Mexico City, 1928/posthumous 1992 at $9375, lot 183, Ernst Haas, Homecoming Prisoner, Vienna, 1946/later at $2750, lot 198, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Madonna), 1975/later at $6250, and lot 215, Michael Kenna, Wind Swept Beach, Calais, France, 1999, at $6875.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

Myoung Ho Lee, Tree @Yossi Milo

JTF (just the facts): 8 color images, in various sizes, framed in blond wood with no mat and hung in the single main gallery space. The negatives are from the period 2005 to 2008. The prints are archival inkjet prints, in editions of 3. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Traditional subject matter is a mine field for a young photographer; it is extremely difficult to make pictures that aren't derivative or boring, given how many great photographers have walked the same road in the past. It is therefore exciting (and generally unexpected) when an emerging artist finds a new way into an old genre (trees, in this case), turning agreed upon conventions on their head and making us look at the subject with fresh eyes. The history of photography is brimming with great images of trees, going all the way back to the birth of the medium, but South Korean photographer Myoung Ho Lee has given us something different in his first solo show in the US, on view now at Yossi Milo.

Lee's insight comes in the form of the simple white backdrop (think Richard Avedon) common to portraiture. Just as the blank canvas focuses our attention on the face of a portrait sitter, it has the same effect here when placed behind the graceful form of a tree - it sharpens our view of its shape, its texture, and its form. Lee has added a surprising conceptual twist to this idea by hanging the white sheeting in the context of the landscape that surrounds the tree, at once separating the tree from its normal environment, while at the same time giving the viewer some peripheral information about its usual context. Distracting wires and ropes are Photoshopped out later, leaving the sheet hanging strangely untethered in nature. The effect is a tunnel like vision of the isolated tree, highlighting its quirky individual personality, normally lost in the larger world around it.

The most striking image in the show is a large panorama of a single red Japanese maple (Tree #5, 2007, no longer available) against an expansive empty landscape, but nearly all of the works are visually intriguing, like stately still life portraits of weathered elders and younger up-and-comers.

Collector's POV: Images in the show are priced between $3500 and $14000. While Lee's conceptual twist made me think of Rodney Graham's upside down trees, I think this straightforward idea (the neutral backdrop in nature) has some legs in terms of opening up a wide avenue for the artist to explore more fully. These images are easy to like and should go down well with collectors.

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

Myoung Ho Lee, Tree

Through April 18th

Yossi Milo Gallery

525 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001