Peter Hujar: Photographs 1956-1958 @Matthew Marks

JTF (just the facts): A total of 21 black and white gelatin silver prints, framed in black and matted, and hung in a single room gallery. The works were taken in Southbury, CT, and various locations in Italy between 1956 and 1958. Most of the prints are 10x10; a few are slightly larger at 13x13. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Peter Hujar is probably best known for his sensitive portraits and street images chronicling the downtown scene in New York in the 1970s and 1980s and for his downstream influence on photographers like Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin. This small show takes us back to Hujar's beginnings and the unknown work he made in his early 20s, a kind of precursor to what would come later.

Nearly all of the images on view are of children, some from a home for the developmentally disabled in Connecticut, others from a convent in Florence and the streets of Rome. There are kids playing with a big ball, climbing on a jungle gym, scrambling in the water, and eating at a long dormitory table. These are simple empathetic pictures, gentle and uncritical, capturing small moments of emotion amidst the chaos of active play. They show the same genuine respect for the humanity and individuality of his subjects that would come to be the hallmark of his later work (and that of Diane Arbus).

While not every picture here is a standout, for those who want to get an expanded view of Hujar's work and his development as an artist over time, this small show is worth a quick visit.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show range in price between $12000 and $15000. Hujar's work is not consistently available at auction; the images that have sold in the past few years have ranged between $2000 and $23000; most prints are unique or in small editions, while a few have been printed in groups of 15 or even 50 (Candy Darling). Hujar is represented on the West coast by Fraenkel Gallery (here). While this work doesn't fit into our particular collecting parameters, my favorite image in the exhibit was Girl Sucking Her Thumb, Florence, 1958, where a child lies sideways on a white iron frame bed, peering out from the shadows.

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

Transit Hub:

• Times review of ICA show, 2007 (here)
• PS1 exhibit, 2005 (here)
• NYTimes review, 1990 (here)

Peter Hujar: Photographs 1956-1958
Through October 24th

Matthew Marks Gallery
526 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10001

Amy Stein: Domesticated @Clamp Art

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 color images, framed in white with no mat, hung in the main gallery space and the small side alcove. The works are digital c-prints, in two sizes: 24x30 (in editions of 10+2AP) and 30x40 (in editions of 3+2AP). The show includes 17 images in the small size and 1 in the large size; all of the works were made between 2005 and 2008. 12 of the images can be found in the book Domesticated, published by Photolucida (here), and available from the gallery for $24. There are 6 new images (not included in the book, but part of the same series) on view as well. (Marginal installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The scenes depicted in Amy Stein’s Domesticated series chronicle the borderlands of the human and animal worlds, the places where two previously separate habitats now overlap and rub together, forced into precarious proximity by the encroachment of civilization on untamed nature: wolves are in the garbage, bobcats lounge on a construction site, bears are near the swimming pool, and deer are in the greenhouse and underneath the window. The images are full of confrontations and tests, separations and boundaries, anxiety and curiosity, both sides keeping a wary distance, and watching carefully.

It has already been well publicized that Stein uses stuffed animals (taxidermy) to create her diorama-like stories; these are not documentary photographs of real life events, but re-enactments of incidents and memories culled from conversations with residents of a small town in Northern Pennsylvania. This is I think a critical piece of information for understanding these works; documentary images of these same events would look different; they’d be messier, or too fleeting to have been captured at all, or most likely, the real thing happened in an altogether less interesting manner.

So what we actually have in these photographs is the recreation of memory and the embellishment of tales and legends told again and again. This kind of thinking on the part of the artist seems highly rooted in the history and practice of painting; much less so in the realm of photography (particularly “straight” photography). And so while it is relatively straightforward to see narrative and stylistic parallels with the work of Jeff Wall or Gregory Crewdson or even certain film makers here, I think the more interesting connections are to be made to painting, both in the process steps of formulating an image from memory and transferring it into a more easily digestible and compact form, and in the borrowings and echoes of art history, of allegorical works, and of fables, myths and fairy tales. Stein’s works are a synthesized reality, carefully composed for maximum narrative effect. The whole project shouts 19th century painting to me, even though the images have been executed by a contemporary photographer.

While not every image in the show packs a punch, the overall theme of human/animal interaction is deftly explored from a variety of vantage points in these pictures, coming to a complex and nuanced set of conclusions; perhaps this why the book form has been so successful for this body of work (it has won awards from Critical Mass in 2007 and the New York Photo Festival in 2008). All in, this is a convincing first New York solo show. What I like best is that she seems to have found practical ways to connect photography to painting, and to leverage the strengths of both to generate some unexpected and satisfying outcomes.
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Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced based on size and location in the edition. The smaller prints range between $2500 and $5000; the larger prints start at $4500 (I’m not sure of the end of the edition price for the larger pictures). Stein’s work has no history to date in the secondary markets, so collectors will need to work within the gallery system to access her prints. For those on the West coast, Stein is also represented by Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco (here).

While Stein’s work does not fit into our specific collecting program, I particularly enjoyed seeing the image Backyard, 2007 (here), which eerily reminded me of Goya’s The Third of May, 1808 (here, in the Prado).

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here) and blog (here)
• Review of UPenn talk (here)
• Interview with The Rumpus (here)

Amy Stein: Domesticated
Through October 31st

Clamp Art
521-531 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Juergen Teller, Paradis @Lehmann Maupin

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 color images, framed in white with no mat, hung in the main gallery space. All of the images are c-prints, in editions of 5, ranging in size from 50x30 to 70x50. The works were originally commissioned by the French magazine Paradis and were shot in 2009; a limited edition book of the work is forthcoming. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Fashion photographer Juergen Teller clearly has his pick of choice assignments: who else gets access to shoot in the Musee du Louvre when it's empty in the evening? And who else can deliver Raquel Zimmermann (model) and Charlotte Rampling (actress) to participate in the project? And nude no less?

There is remarkable sense of audaciousness and rule breaking in these pictures: nudes lounging on the couches in the galleries, standing stock still like mannequins amidst classical sculpture, and casually posing with the Mona Lisa; the jarring juxtapositions clearly have tremendous shock value, and will therefore appeal to a certain group of contemporary/fashion collectors who thrive on controversy and recklessness.

As photographs, however, the images are pretty underwhelming. Over bright flash, dead pan looks, and offhand compositions detract from what could have been a spectacularly memorable set-up. (Or perhaps that is the point?) The images of art works themselves on their own are the weakest; these kinds of mischievous shots don't tell us much that is new. Overall, I had a profound sense of a missed opportunity as I walked through the gallery; all the pieces were in place for something unexpected and brilliant; how these pictures ended up being less than exciting is a mystery. So go to this show primarily for the hype, and ruminate on what might have been.

Collector's POV: The images in the show are priced between $10000 and $17000, based on size. Teller's work has very little auction history, so gallery retail is likely the only viable option for collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: ArtObserved (here), WSJ Speakeasy (here), The L Magazine (here)
• New York magazine article 2008 (here)

Juergen Teller, Paradis

Through October 17th

Lehmann Maupin

540 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Ryan McGinley @Alison Jacques

NOTE: This review has been contributed by a collector correspondent in London. While the format is the same as our usual New York reviews, the content and rating in this case were provided by a more local collector. Background on the collector correspondent program can be found here.

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 c-prints, framed in white, were hung in the entrance area, the two main exhibition rooms on the ground floor and also the viewing rooms upstairs in the gallery. The prints range in size from approximately 11x14 all the way up to 72x110, and were shot over 2008-2009. (Installation shots at right, via Alison Jacques Gallery.)

Comments/Context: Ryan McGinley opened his first exhibition in the UK last Thursday, 10th September, at Alison Jacques Gallery in London with a show of prints from his new body of work entitled Moonmilk. The images have been created after McGinley took a small group of young men and women into caves across America, and with the use of coloured lighting, created a series of psychedelic underground landscapes.

The exhibition itself was intelligently hung and a number of the images were particularly strong, with my favourite being Sean (Inside Heart), Grace & Tracy (Goliath) and Wes (Falling). The latter image was particularly powerful and was used for the cover of the limited edition book entitled Moonmilk, published by Morel (here) to coincide with the London opening. I think in overall terms this latest body of work is a positive evolution for McGinley, who of course was thrust into the limelight when he was chosen to exhibit his work in the First Exposure Series at the Whitney back in 2003 at the tender age of 24. Perhaps the most significant departure from earlier work such as The Kids are Alright and I Know Where the Summer Goes is that the models themselves are predominantly not the focus of the images, but rather are used to provide context for the ethereal landscapes that exist in underground caves. Indeed in some of the most powerful images, the human form is very tiny or one can only see a head or an upper torso in the rock formations.

The event was very well attended with an expected mix of people from both the art and fashion world and has been widely covered in the British press, which has helped draw significant attendance in the days following the opening.

Collector's POV: Price wise, framed prints are refreshingly good value, as they mostly range between £6000 to £10000, depending on size and are limited to editions of just 3 + 2 APs. Although McGinley's early work drew comparisons with Nan Goldin, Larry Clark and Wolfgang Tillmans and he has even been compared to Robert Mapplethorpe, I think he has earned his own space and his work sits well with my own collection.

Ryan McGinley is also represented in New York by Team Gallery (here) and his prints have entered the secondary markets recently, with a handful of lots coming up for sale since 2006. Prices have ranged from $2000 to $23000, largely based on size.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Guardian review (here)

Ryan McGinley
Through October 8th

Alison Jacques Gallery
16-18 Berners Street
London W1T 3LN

Seung-Woo Back, Revised Ideals @Gana Art

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 works, from two different series, displayed on separate floors of the dimly lit gallery. On the first floor, 7 images from the Utopia series are displayed, framed in grey with no mat; 5 of these works are diptychs hung edge to edge, while the other 2 are single images. All of the works are digital c-prints, printed in editions of 5, and made in 2008. Sizes range between 50x60 and 71x114. On the second floor, 10 works from the Blow Up series on shown; 9 of these are single images; the last is a grid of 40 images hung together as one unit. Again, the works are digital c-prints, in editions of 5 for the larger prints and 10 for the smaller ones, the larger prints ranging in size from 32x24 to 75x63; the grid is 105x200. The works upstairs were made between 2006 and 2008. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Contemporary Korean photography is clearly on the rise, according to our non-scientific hype-o-meter, and Seung-Woo Back is nearly always included when prominent names are thrown around amid the buzz. This show dives a bit deeper into two of his most recent projects, providing a larger sample of his works than is generally available in the current crop of broad survey shows.

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The Utopia series is drawn from 1970s era propaganda images from North Korea, complete with shiny science labs, chemical plants, bombers, and soul deadening cinder block architecture. These dated institutional scenes have been digitally manipulated to add in washes of pastel color in the sky and background, much like the "colorization" of old black and white movies. The addition of green, or pink, or orange to these otherwise carefully controlled black and white still images adds an unexpected touch of beauty, which of course makes them all the more unsettling and ironic.

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The Blow Up series was constructed via grainy snapshots Back took while in North Korea. Given the strict media censorship there, all of his images were checked before he left the country; this project was therefore built upon the small details of life that he could document with a tourist camera, many of which were otherwise unnoticed portions of mundane shots, later "blown up" to focus on something altogether different than what was in the foreground. The resulting collection offers a surreal glimpse of life in the North: serious police and traffic officers, empty streets with people rushing, school children posing, massive statues in vast open squares, orderly clean up crews, a patriotic pin attached to a shirt. Together, the images have the oppressive feeling of constantly being watched; the resulting mood is both creepy and depressing.

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While this show isn't exactly a sunny pick-me-up, it does offer plenty of complicated ideas to consider, particularly about the nature of controlled imagery and how it can be successfully undermined.

Collector's POV: The images from the Utopia series are priced between $13000 and $16000 for the single prints, $18000 to $23000 for the diptychs. The single larger prints from the Blow Up series range in price from $6000 to $18000, seemingly based on size; the grid of 40 images is $160000. For West coast collectors, Seung-Woo Back is also represented by Rose Gallery in Santa Monica (here).

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

• Photography Now @SFMOMA (here)
• Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography @MFA Houston (here)
• Portfolio 41 (here)

Seung-Woo Back, Revised Ideals
Through October 10th
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Gana Art Gallery
568 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Anthony Pearson @Marianne Boesky

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 works, most of which include multiple images and/or pieces of sculpture, displayed in the back two rooms of the gallery. 3 of the works are sets of small gelatin silver Solarizations, framed in white and matted, hung in rows. A fourth is comprised of 2 of these solarizations and a small bronze sculpture, placed between the two photographs. There are also 3 large individual c-prints, framed in white and not matted; 2 of these images are from the Opaques series, the other from the Flares series. The other three works include mixtures of tall images from the Flares series with more bronze sculptures and are called Arrangements. All of the works are from 2009 and are unique (not editioned). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the recent contemporary abstraction shows at Aperture (here) and Michael Mazzeo (here), and the Marco Breuer show at Von Lintel last spring (here), it's clear that using light sensitive materials in a process intensive way to explore the boundaries of photographic picture making is an active area of exploration for many artists. In his first solo show in New York, Anthony Pearson brings a refined elegance to his photo experiments, with a style that hearkens back to late 1940s/early 1950s Abstract Expressionism.

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Several different but related bodies of work are on display in this show, often mixed together to create process juxtapositions and echoes. Intimate solarized gelatin silver photographs of drawings on foil begin the show and are repeated later in alternate combinations; they are scratched and scraped, crosshatched and interlocked in a variety of black and white tonalities, each a small exercise in tight composition. Pearson has then taken these foil drawings and photographed their back sides, enlarging them to make dark, furrowed works that capture the inversion of the original process.

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Another process investigation captures light leaking into the artist's camera, printed as panoramic images turned on end; they are like drops of moonlight rippling outward on a tall, thin, dark pond. Groups of these "flares" (reversed up and down to have the white circle in different locations) are then paired with minimal bronze sculptures, molten vertical strips reminiscent of Barnett Newman's zips, only with negative space cut out of the middle. While I've always considered the specific pairing of photography and sculpture a bit overly mannered (and often just plain odd), most of these combinations actually work quite well; the three dimensionality of the minimal black/silver sculpture compliments the process abstractions in the photographs without trying too hard.

Overall, this is a solid first NY show, with a broad array of images that are both understated and effective.

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Collector's POV: Getting a straight answer on prices for this exhibition was frustratingly challenging; there was no price list available and the woman behind the counter was reluctant to tell me anything. In the end, she looked up a few specific prices in the gallery database, but there was much confusion over works that were made up of more than one image (did I want the entire group or one of the images in particular?), so interested collectors should recheck the following numbers, as there was plenty of vagueness in what I was told. The solarizations appear to be available as both individual prints and in sets: single prints are priced at $2200, with sets of 4 at $7500 and sets of 9 at $12000; it was altogether unclear whether this is a mix and match kind of thing, or whether there are predefined sets only. Works from the Flares series were between $12000 and $14000; whether this includes one or more prints was maddeningly unanswered; I think the prices refer to groups. The largest group of items (2 sculptures and 7 prints) is priced at $48000; I gave up trying to figure out the prices of the other smaller groups that included sculpture. In the future, I'd suggest that a readily available printed price list eliminates these communication breakdowns.

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My particular favorites in this show, even though they don't exactly fit into our collection, were the small solarizations. They reminded me of Callahan's early light drawings, Otto Steinert's swirly luminograms, and some of De Kooning's black and white paintings.

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

Transit Hub:

• 2007 exhibit @David Kordansky Gallery (here)
• Whitney Art Party (here)

Anthony Pearson

Through October 10th

Marianne Boesky Gallery

509 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Book: Hans van der Meer, Amsterdams Verkeer/Amsterdam Traffic

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2000 by De Verbeelding. 72 pages, with 33 black and white images. Each image is a 2 page panorama. Includes an essay by the artist. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: In a photography world full of overly precious, self-conscious conceptual projects, it's refreshing to come across a simple, self contained body of work that succinctly and successfully tells its story without an excess of baggage. A few years ago, Dutch photographer Hans van der Meer was set with a straight forward commission by some local arts organizations: photograph traffic situations in the city center of Amsterdam.

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The streets of Amsterdam, as most people know, are a chaotic brew of cars, motorcycles, delivery trucks, trams, bicycles, and people on foot, winding along canals and between old buildings, over narrow bridges and down cobbled lanes under construction. Van der Meer's panoramic shots of intersections capture the momentary clashes, conflicts, and almost accidents that happen everyday, as the competing parties jostle for space. Each image allows multiple stories to play out simultaneously, as people in their individual bubbles are suddenly joined with their neighbors by the convergence of activity. The more crowded the city becomes, the more frequently these collisions (real and metaphorical) occur.

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What I like about these pictures is that they capture the reality of life in the city with such economy; this small thin volume tells a remarkably full story of a complex and diverse city in just a few understated pages. And each time I come back to the images and look closely again, I seem to discover more layers of interaction amidst the chaos.
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Collector’s POV: Hans van der Meer is represented by Galerie Van Kranendonk in Den Haag (here). His work has yet to show up in the secondary markets in New York or London, so interested collectors will need to follow up directly in the Netherlands.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• European Fields: The Landscape of Lower League Football (here)
• 2009 retrospective @Nederlands Fotomuseum (here)

Auction: The Miller-Plummer Collection of Photographs, October 8, 2009 @Christie's

While certainly any collector's definition of a good auction is one that includes the specific material that interests him/her, I must admit that beyond our personal affinities, I thoroughly enjoy single owner sales. I think that this is because I am intensely interested in the process of collecting, of how collectors weigh options and make choices, how they search, and hunt, and look, and educate themselves, eventually culminating in laying down their hard earned money for those certain images that move them the most. Every single collection is a unique gathering, the objects often connected by less than obvious ideas and emotional responses. I also think there is a lot to be learned from collectors who have been at it for decades; this is why we are always searching out experienced collectors who will talk with us, and tell us their secrets, even if our tastes for work are entirely different. The parallels are not in the end points, but in the thinking in between.

This collection was put together over a period of about 20 years, starting in 1973, culminating in an exhibition called Particulars at the George Eastman House in 1983. As far as private collections go, I haven't seen too many as diverse and nondogmatic as this one; how many collections can you name that include unknown daguerreotypists, a heavy dose of known and unknown 19th century material, Moholy-Nagy photograms, and 1970s Robert Heinecken? I like this unconventional heterogeneity; it says that the two collectors were not unnecessarily bound by convention or fashion, but sought out the exceptional or extraordinary (in their eyes) in whatever form it might take.

The sale itself has more 19th century material than we normally see in the main flow of the New York auction season; more than 45% of the lots on offer are dated before 1900. Overall, there are a total of 118 lots up for sale, with a total High estimate of $1746200. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

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Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 74

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $444200

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 35

Total Mid Estimate: $672000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 9

Total High Estimate: $630000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 547, a complete set of Camera Work, Numbers 1-49/50, 1903-1917, at $90000-120000.

Given the eclectic nature of this sale, there are quite a few unexpected surprises buried amidst the lots, many of which would fit well with our own collection. Here are a few we found of interest:

Lot 506 Anna Atkins, Polypodium Dryopteris, 1850-1854

Lot 560 Baron Adolph De Meyer, Water Lilies, c1906
Lot 564 Circle of Anna Atkins, Paris Arguta, from The Hatton Fern Album, c1850 (cover lot)

Lot 581 Margaret Bourke-White, The Bridge, Russia, 1930

Lot 582 Karl Struss, Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, New York, 1909 (at right, middle)

Lot 583 Berenice Abbott, Downtown Manhattan from West Street below Rector, Manhattan, August 12, 1936

Lot 586 Daguerreotypist Unknown, Draped nude, c1860

Lot 597 A. Aubry Bodine, Steel and Shadows, Abstraction, c1951 and Baltimore Train Yard, c1946

Lot 614 Ray Metzker, Untitled, 1983-1984 (at right, bottom)
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The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is located here.

The Miller-Plummer Collection of Photographs

October 8th

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Book: Carla van de Puttelaar, The Beholder's Eye

JTF (just the facts): Published by the artist in 2008. Unpaginated, with 36 color images. Includes an essay by Bob Frommé and a detailed biography. (Cover shot at right, via Photo Eye.)

Comments/Context: Since part of our collection consists of female nudes, we are always interested to hear about contemporary photographers who are taking on this classic subject and making it their own. Carla van de Puttelaar's nudes are a direct repudiation of the airbrushed commercial perfection of the female form that pervades our culture; her models are ordinary young women, whose extraordinary beauty is found in minute details, small imperfections and subtle gestures.

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The subjects are set against a uniform black background and photographed in natural light, washing out the skin tones to a soft alabaster; the paleness of the skin then highlights the simple wonders of a birthmark, a bruise, or goose bumps. With closed eyes and careful poses, the women become intimately sculptural, but in a way that celebrates their unadorned naturalness rather than idealizing them to perfect forms. The compositions force the viewer to pay attention to the details, to see the special individual nature of the curve of an arm or the fragile line of a collarbone. To me, these models look neither asleep or dead (there is no Sleeping Beauty fable here). They all seem acutely alive; some are resting serenely, while others are painfully aware of their exposed vulnerability.

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Many of these images seem rooted in a Renaissance aesthetic, though pared down and stripped away to get at the true underlying beauty of the subjects; there is plenty of flowing hair and artful posing. In the context of photography's history, these works seem most akin at least in spirit to the nudes of Ruth Bernhard and Imogen Cunningham, as the "female gaze" is clearly at work here; van de Puttelaar's images bear no resemblance whatsoever to the work of the well known male photographers of the nude. What I think is unique about this work is that van de Puttelaar has found a way to both honor the individuality of the sitters and transform them into expressions of the universal; not the fashion magazine ideal, mind you, but gloriously imperfect human beings who represent the unique, uncommon, and rare beauty found in everyone.

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Overall, this volume contains well crafted images, with a novel point of view, well worth inclusion in your library, especially for those interested in the evolution of the photographic nude.

Collector’s POV: Carla van de Puttelaar is represented by Flatland Gallery in Utrecht (here), Galerie Esther Woerdehoff in Paris (here) and Box Galerie in Brussels (here). Her work is not yet available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is really the only option for interested collectors at this point; it's time for someone to bring her work to New York. For our collection, the full body nudes in this book are much too large (approximately 80x30); we'd likely be interested in one of the works that is slightly more abstract and less overtly personal, printed on a more intimate scale.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Amedelio video interview (here)
• Conversation with Conscientious (here)

Auction: Photographs, October 8, 2009 @Christie's

Christie's various owner photography sale takes to heart the learnings of real estate developers who build shopping malls: the key is getting the anchor tenants, and then the rest of the specialty shops will be enhanced by the presence of the big names. This auction is centered on a solid group of iconic images that will pique the interest of a broad spectrum of collectors: a full set of Curtis' The North American Indian, a vintage De Meyer Water Lilies, a vintage Kertész The Stairs of Montmartre, a vintage Alvarez Bravo El Ensueño (the cover lot), a Strand portrait of Rebecca, two solid Franks, and an Eggleston "red ceiling". These lots are spread across the sale, with the rest of the material (a mix of the usual suspects and a few surprises) in between. Overall there are a total of 139 lots on offer, with a total High estimate of $4740000. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 46
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $350000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 76
Total Mid Estimate: $1640000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 17
Total High Estimate: $2750000
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The top lot by High estimate is lot 719, Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, complete set of Portfolios 1-20 and Text Volumes 1-20, 1907-1930, at $700000-900000.

Here's a list of the photographers who are represented by more than five lots in the sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

Irving Penn (13)

Ansel Adams (10)

Lee Friedlander (8)

Robert Frank (7)

Malick Sidibé (7)

Hiroshi Sugimoto (5)

Diane Arbus (5)

There are certainly plenty of lots to interest us this sale, though many of them are clearly out of reach in terms of our budget. Below is a selection of images that caught our eye, regardless of price or exact fit with our collection:

Lot 708 Walker Evans, Saratoga, 1931
Lot 724 Lee Friedlander, Butte, Montana, 1970/1973
Lot 755 Lee Friedlander, New Orleans, 1969/Later
Lot 774 Malick Sidibé, Les Trois Amis, 1968
Lot 798 Thomas Struth, Washington Street, New York/Tribeca, 1978
Lot 811 Paul Strand, Rebecca Strand, New York, 1922/1950s
Lot 819 Baron Adolph De Meyer, Water Lilies, c1906 (at right, bottom)
Lot 831 Nan Goldin, Red Sky from My Window, NYC, 2000

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is located here.

Photographs
October 8th

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Hasted Hunt Changes

Lots of action over at Hasted Hunt (here) these days:

• New space: taking over the Charles Cowles Gallery space at 537 West 24th Street (ground floor)
• New artist: taking over representation of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky (from Cowles)
• New show: images from Burtynsky's Oil series, opening October 6 in the new space
• New partner: Joseph Kraeutler, formerly of Phillips De Pury & Company
• New name: Hasted Hunt Kraeutler

Wow!

(via Lindsay Pollock here)

Willy Ronis Dies

The celebrated French photographer Willy Ronis died over the weekend at the age of 99. Ronis made romantic, humanist images of postwar France, in a tradition and style similar to Doisneau, Brassai and Kertesz.

While Ronis made many memorable images of Paris city life, perhaps his most famous picture is Le Nu Provençal, Gordes from 1949 (at right, via Afterimage Gallery (here)). As collectors of female nudes, we have considered this image for years; given its tremendous overexposure, the work now verges on being a cliché. And yet, there's an obvious reason why so many people love it; the simple form, the delicate composition, and the beautiful light streaming in from the open window come together to make a quietly elegant scene.

While most images by Ronis are somewhat affordable at auction (under $3000), Le Nu Provençal, Gordes, will likely set you back double that, perhaps more at retail, depending on the size of the print. And while I'm not clear on who might officially represent him/his estate at this point, it appears that in addition to Afterimage, both Monroe Gallery (here) and Jackson Fine Art (here) carry a decent selection of Ronis inventory.

Obituaries: AP/NY Times (here), Reuters (here)

Auction: The American Landscape: Color Photographs from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman, October 7, 2009 @Christie's

Christie's begins its busy Fall photography season with a selection of color photographs from the collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman. Many collectors will remember that the public dismantling of this collection began last Fall, with a very successful sale devoted entirely to William Eggleston (preview here, results here). The group of images up for sale now also has a heavy dose of Eggleston's work, mixed with a variety of other well known photographers who have documented vernacular American architecture/life (mostly small town/rural) in its various forms; many of these images were on view at the Getty in 2006 (here).

Given the strong influence of Eggleston, Shore, Sternfeld, Christenberry, and others on the current crop of contemporary photographers working in color, this sale is a great chance for collectors to tie together the "vintage" and "contemporary" realms we discussed a bit last week; nearly 85% of the lots here are in the lower price range, making it more realistic/reasonable to pick up an image or two from these earlier masters to help tell the back story of a contemporary color collection. Overall there are a total of 189 lots of photography on offer, with a total High estimate of $1679000. (Catalog cover at right.)

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Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 160

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $955000
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Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 27

Total Mid Estimate: $414000
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Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 2

Total High Estimate: $310000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 151, Bruce Davidson, Subway portfolio, 1980, at $150000-250000.

Here's a list of the photographers who are represented by more than five lots in the sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

William Eggleston (58)

William Christenberry (21)

Joel Sternfeld (13)

Stephen Shore (10)

Mitch Epstein (8)

Harry Callahan (6)

Robert Polidori (6)

Alec Soth (5)

Zoe Leonard (5)

Even though we have virtually no color in our collection at the moment, there is plenty to tempt us in this sale. Here are some of the highlights from our perspective.

• Lot 4, Alec Soth, No.48, Cadillac Motel, 2005 (cover lot, top)
• Lot 21 William Eggleston, Untitled, 1971/1999
• Lots 27 and 28, Walker Evans, Untitled, 1973-1974 (SX-70 Polaroids)
• Lot 115 William Eggleston, Untitled from Los Alamos portfolio Cousins, 1966-1974/2002 (image at right, middle)
• Lot 121 William Eggleston, Untitled, Berlin from Kiss Me Kracow, 1983
• Lot 149 William Eggleston, Untitled, Mississippi, late 1970s (image at right, bottom)
• Lot 177 William Christenberry, Otis and Willi Mae Hicks Store, Outside Greensboro, Alabama, 1987, and T.B. Hicks Store (detail), Newbern, Alabama, 199

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is located here.

The American Landscape: Color Photographs from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman

October 7th
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Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

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UPDATE: The folks at Christie's have reminded me that the first sale in the Berman series was actually not the Eggleston sale that I mentioned above, but the sale of Diane Arbus images the previous spring (April 2008). Of course, they're right; my mistake.

Auction: Latin America, October 3, 2009 @Phillips

The second of Phillips' themed sales comes in early October and covers Latin America, broadly defined. It includes artists and photographers from Central America, South America, Spain, Mexico, and Cuba, along with others who made images in those regions. There are a total of 78 lots of photography on offer, with a total High estimate of $836700. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 59
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $315700

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 17
Total Mid Estimate: $351000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 2
Total High Estimate: $170000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 192, Vik Muniz, Maria Callas (from Diamond Divas), 2004 at $70000-90000.

Here's a list of all the photographers who are represented by more than one lot in the sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

Manuel Alvarez Bravo (9)
Luis Gonzalez Palma (6)
Tina Modotti (5)
Mauricio Alejo (3)
Vik Muniz (3)
Miguel Rio Branco (2)
Lola Alvarez Bravo (2)
Marta Maria Perez Bravo (2)
Martin Chambi (2)
Graciela Iturbide (2)
Alberto Korda (2)
Leo Matiz (2)
Enrique Metindes (2)
Mario Cravo Neto (2)
Edward Weston (2)
Marina Yampolsky (2)

While there weren't too many great fits for our collection, we did like lot 54 Tina Modotti, Untitled (corn), 1920s.

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Latin America
October 3rd

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

A Spectrum of Openings

In honor of the opening of the new Fall season of photography, I thought I would do something last night that I don’t do particularly often: take a spin through a series of gallery openings. The primary reason we tend to pass on most openings is that they are the single worst time to see an art exhibition: the crowds severely reduce the likelihood of seeing or understanding the images on view. But as another collector recently reminded me, the main reason to show up is not to see the art, but to show support for the artists and galleries and to reinforce for them that at least some collectors are paying attention.

So I chose a group of five openings to visit last night, spanning a show of vintage prints from an early 20th century master (long dead and who didn’t attend) to a first gallery show in New York for an emerging contemporary photographer (clearly alive and who did), with a few in between. In many ways, my goal was primarily to take the pulse of the market and get a feel for the overall mind set of the collecting public. We’ll go back to each of the shows we visited last night for a more formal review, so our comments here are aimed more at the quality/quantity of the visitors than the quality of the art.

The Jacques Henri Lartigue opening at Howard Greenberg (here) and the Nicholas Nixon opening at Pace/MacGill (here) had a generally common feel: civilized and refined art viewing for a select group, with well known collectors comfortably conversing with each other and the gallery staff in hushed tones. Both shows attracted a generally older but sophisticated looking crowd; I was certainly on the younger half of the age distribution. While all openings work hard to be welcoming and casual, these two were both a bit more formal, likely a result of the density of deep pocketed collectors taking it rather seriously.

Down in Chelsea, the atmosphere was entirely different: the crowds were thick and full of life. My itinerary included the Dutch landscape show at Aperture (here), the Todd Hido/Nicolai Howalt show at Bruce Silverstein (here), and the Amy Stein show at Clamp Art (here). My first stop was Aperture, where the crowd waiting for the elevator filled the lobby and spilled out into the street; I opted for the stairs, which were just as packed. Up in the galleries, the crowd was clustered near the bar, with the viewing areas somewhat less crowded. This was not the case at Silverstein or Clamp; in these galleries, the viewers were jammed in like sardines, overflowing into every nook and cranny of available space.

In all three Chelsea venues, art viewing was a sweaty, bustling, bumping, free booze infused communal activity. The crowd was quite a bit younger overall; this time, I was likely on the older half of the age spectrum. While there were seemingly less collectors milling around, there was a fantastic energy to the entire neighborhood party, more a lively celebration of the return of art than anything else. The artists and gallery owners looked harried and exhausted, but happy with the huge turnout and running on adrenaline.

As a collector, what I took away from this whirlwind tour was a renewed set of questions about the split in the market between the “vintage” and “contemporary” worlds of photography. In many ways, each side could use a little more of what the other side has in abundance: the vintage photography market would benefit from an injection of the youthful energy of the contemporary market, while the contemporary photography market needs more attention from true collectors who will turn into real buyers, rather than those just out for free drinks and a good party. (By the way, we see this same exact split in our efforts on this site: posts about vintage/dead artists are usually well received by the collectors in the audience, but otherwise arrive with a thud for other readers; posts about contemporary work get shared and passed around on Facebook or Twitter, creating a flood of visitors who come by once and generally never return.) How we go about mixing the two worlds to their mutual benefit seems quite a bit more open for debate.

Overall, it was great to get out and see a bunch of fresh work and fresh faces. If these openings can be used as a barometer of confidence in the photography market, there’s a surprising amount of optimism in the air as we head into Autumn.

Enokura, Nomura, Takamatsu: Photographs 1968-1979 @McCaffrey

JTF (just the facts): A group show of three Japanese Conceptual artists: Koji Enokura, Hitoshi Nomura and Jiro Takamatsu, displayed in two adjoining gallery spaces. For Enokura, there are 11 black and white prints, ranging in size from 8x8 to 10x14, made between 1972 and 1974. For Nomura, there are 8 black and white images, all 20x24, made between 1968 and 1969, a black and white video of still frames made in 1973, and 4 larger color images (36x36, in editions of 5), made in 1979. For Takamatsu, there are 6 black and white images, ranging in size between 13x16 and 16x20, all made in 1973.

Comments/Context: While we don't have a single photograph in our collection that could be grouped under the title of Conceptual Photography, I must admit that I am a secret admirer of this genre, as I enjoy being taken down the rabbit hole and shown events and places that go beyond the usual constraints of straight/documentary photography. But like anything, we can start at the top level with the umbrella of Photography, move down a rung to Conceptual Photography, and divide from there into decades, or geographies, and we can discover subcultures inside subcultures like nested dolls, with dozens of photographers who have had successful careers that are completely unknown to us. The three artists in this show are perfect reminders of how little we as collectors often know about many of the back roads and hidden neighborhoods of photography.

Koji Enokura's images combine fragments of performances with the elegantly mundane. His works explore boundaries and contact points: between a hand and the floor, a body and a wave, a lead cube falling down a slope, or a puddle of water and the floor. Other images are simple glimpses of ordinary things: a truck tire or a rope around a tree. All of the works are quietly meditative. (Installation shot, at right top.)

The three Hitoshi Nomura's projects on display are all connected by an underlying interest in the relationship between science and art. In one project, he constructed at 27-foot tall cardboard sculpture, and documented its eventual collapse under the weight of gravity and the effects of the weather. (Installation shot, at right.) In another, he used a film camera set at a very slow shutter speed, creating a set of flipping stills of his everyday life called The Ten Year Photobook or The Brownian Motion of Eyesight. In the last project, his camera was attached to a gyroscope to compensate for the rotation of the earth, creating blurred fields of color.

Jiro Takamatsu's prints echo the works of Ken Josephson, but with a different twist: in this case, the pictures of pictures are not used to make witty visual puns, but to consider the nature of memory. In each work, the artist's family photo is obscured (by glare, or water, or shadow), leaving the stories incomplete, or subject to interpretation. I think there is an indirect connection or commonality of approach to the contemporary work of Bertien van Manen here as well. (Installation shot, at right.)

None of these artists is or was a photographer in the traditional sense; they all use photography to expand their art making, but are known more broadly for their work in other media. As such, the works in this show are a little harder to characterize or relate to the larger span of photographic history; they fall in the cracks between the arts and force us to think in different channels. So while the discoveries to be found in this show are relatively understated, given the conceptual bent of this group, there are plenty of compelling ideas percolating around.

Collector's POV: Individual images by Enokura are priced between $6500 and $8500. The group of 8 black and white images by Nomura is being sold as a set for $25000; the color images range in price between $30000 and $50000. The Takamatsu works are priced between $6000 and $9000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Enokura: Mono-ha on Tokyo Art Beat (here)
• Nomura: Japan Times article 2009 (here)
• Nomura: Sculpture magazine 2001 (here)
• Takamatsu: Mikaye Fine Art exhibit 2006 (here)

Enokura, Nomura, Takamatsu: Photographs 1968-1979
Through September 26th

McCaffrey Fine Art
23 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10065

Hiroshi Sugimoto and William Henry Fox Talbot

JTF (just the facts): Two toned gelatin silver prints by Hiroshi Sugimoto, from negatives by William Henry Fox Talbot. The prints are approximately 37x30 unframed, made in editions of 10. The works can be seen as an addition to the exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lightning Fields, opening today and running through October 31 at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (here).

Comments/Context: A few weeks ago, our friends at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco sent us a pair of image scans to take a look at. As any active collector knows, the sending of scans has become the de facto process for galleries around the world to communicate with their clients: the gallery staff considers which works might fit for a certain collector and then JPEGs of those works are emailed out. For some reason, the press has latched on to this practice as evidence of the irrational excesses of idiot collectors who are buying works "sight unseen". The reality is that scans have made the art market much more liquid than it once was; it is now possible for dealers from all over the world to quickly and easily make their inventory available on a targeted basis, and with "no questions asked" and no cost to the collector return policies, buying from far flung locales is now relatively straightforward. But I digress.

The scans in my email inbox were of two new floral images by Hiroshi Sugimoto, and since we are floral collectors as well as fans of Sugimoto's work, these were potentially a good match for us. I've attached them below: (Asplenium Halleri, Grande Chartreuse, 1821-Cardamine Pratensis, April 1839 and A Stem of Delicate Leaves of an Umbrellifer, circa 1843-1846, © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

Apparently, Sugimoto has been buying up some of Talbot's earliest negatives out on the open market or from museums and has devised a way to make his own prints from them. As a reminder, original Talbot prints from the 1830s and 1840s are quite small, hardly ever larger than a single sheet of normal sized paper and nearly all of the florals are photograms. They are intimate and delicate in person, requiring the viewer to get up very close to see the intricate details of the flowers and leaves. They also come in a wide variety of colors, due to Talbot's experiments with different chemicals, some of which are faded/dark and generally hard to see.

In the history of photography, the reprinting of an earlier photographer's negatives by another artist has some strong precedents: Berenice Abbott printed Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo printed Tina Modotti, and Lee Friedlander printed EJ Bellocq (readers who can think of others, leave them in the comments). In each of these cases, the later photographer was attempting to the best of their ability to make prints that recreated the style/intention of the original photographer.

With these prints however, Sugimoto seems to be doing something altogether different. Rather than make faithful copy prints from the Talbot negatives, Sugimoto seems to be using them more like a musical score: the melody is the same, but the overall feel is open for interpretation and nuanced modification - he's "playing" the negatives in his own style. As such, the new prints are much larger (37x30 will hold an entire wall), and in the top image, he has apparently combined two negatives into a single work. It may also be the case that the toning is different than the original prints, although we don't have a "before and after" comparison that can be easily made.

Sugimoto is clearly interested in the workings of time, and has explored fossils and ancient art as precursors to photography via his own active collecting (his History of History exhibit at the Japan Society that brought together his photographs and selections from his personal collection of artifacts was one of the most memorable shows we've seen in the past decade). As such, this exploration of Talbot's negatives doesn't seem to me to be an exercise in grandstanding or hubris (which in the wrong hands it certainly could be), but more an archaeological questioning of how the history of the medium and its technical processes can inform the present. To use the musical analogy again, it's like Glen Gould playing Bach; one master reconsidering another.

One thing is certain: from the scans, these are spectacular images. If there is a San Francisco based collector who plans to go to the Fraenkel show and wants to comment further on how the prints look in person, we're all ears.

Collector’s POV: These Sugimoto prints are a direct hit in the center of our collecting target. The problem is that Sugimoto has become too well regarded/famous as an artist and his prices have been driven up too far; these recent prints are priced at $60000 each. So as I told the folks at the gallery, at this point, we'll have to woefully admire/covet them from afar.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Artinfo.com article (here)
• Globe and Mail article (here)