Unique @Von Lintel

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing 14 photographic works by 9 different artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique. (Installation shots at right.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on display and print details as background:

• Matthew Brandt: 1 chromogenic print soaked in Silver Lake water, 30x40, 2010
• John Chiara: 1 Ilfachrome print, 34x28, 2012
• Pierre Cordier & Gundi Falk: 2 chemigrams on paper, 20x20, 2011
• Agnes Eperjesi: 3 color photograms, 10x20, 2011
• Curtis Mann: 1 bleached chromogenic print, 30x40, 2011
• Klea McKenna: 2 photograms on gelatin silver fiber paper, 24x20, 2013
• Amanda Means: 2 developer on Ilford matte gelatin silver fiber paper prints, 24x20, 2005
• Floris Neusüss: 2 gelatin silver prints, 88x42 and 25x21, 1987, 1991

Comments/Context: The oxymoron of photographic uniqueness has always offered a set of specific challenges for photographers, forcing them to examine the very nature of the image making process itself. While inherent reproducibility may be the hallmark of most forms of the medium, artists have continually wanted to introduce hand crafted gestures, elements of chance, and original marks to photographs, undermining the usual multiplication and creating one of a kind artworks. This group show provides a recent sampler of this impulse, matching contemporary lines of thinking with a few representatives from the prior generation.

 

John Chiara, Curtis Mann, and Matthew Brandt all start with photographs that are recognizably representational (blue skies, trees, lakes, and other landscape elements are readily identifiable), but each quickly moves off from standard documentation into areas of improvisation. Chiara uses a custom made camera obscura, multiple exposures, and uneven cut paper to pile image atop image. Mann adds tiny dots of bleach in a large round circle, creating a transparent scrim like a light flare. And Brandt dips his image in the lake water it depicts, allowing the color chemistry to break down into unexpected abstract swirls.

 

Other artists forego the use of a camera, either heading into the darkroom to make photograms or playing with light sensitive paper in more uncontrolled environments. Floris Neusüss provides the baseline for traditional photogram work, mixing positive and negative silhouettes of bodies and greenery (often with added solarization) into complicated, overlapped abstractions. Agnes Eperjesi offers a contemporary foil to these works, with her photograms of newspapers, hands, flowers, and other random objects, all bathed in washes of drifting color. Klea McKenna's photograms of raindrops are a process mystery; how she captured the literally thousands of individual drops with such amazing clarity (some like circles, others like bursts of flame) is a fascinating puzzle.

 

The remaining artists in the show take these ideas to their ultimate photographic limit, effectively drawing with developer on light sensitive paper. The chemigrams of Pierre Cordier and Gundi Falk are astonishingly intricate, with grids of squares and rectangles covered in concentric light brown polygons; there is a connection here to Chuck Close's approach to painting his individual grid elements, but Cordier and Falk's process is even more strict and controlled, except when the lines melt into tiny blobs and pools. Amanda Means takes a more fluid approach, allowing the developer to wash across her cut grid, creating fingers of color like the gullies of a dry river bed.

 

All in, this is a well-edited gathering of unique works, mixing both known and unknown names. It successfully defines the essential challenge of uniqueness and points to the diversity of innovative approaches being used to upend the idea of the repeatable photograph.

 

Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows:

• Matthew Brandt: $5000
• John Chiara: $6400
• Pierre Cordier & Gundi Falk: $21000 each
• Agnes Eperjesi: $3150 each
• Curtis Mann: $6700
• Klea McKenna: $2400 each
• Amanda Means: $4900 each
• Floris Neusüss: $23000 and $42000

Aside from Neusüss and Cordier, most of the photographers in this show have little or no secondary market history, although Brandt and Mann are recent regulars on the art fair circuit. As such, gallery retail is still the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Feature/Review: New Yorker (here)
• Matthew Brandt artist site (here)
• John Chiara artist site (here)
• Pierre Cordier artist site (here)
• Agnes Eperjesi artist site (here)
• Gundi Falk artist site (here)
• Curtis Mann artist site (here)
• Klea McKenna artist site (here)
• Amanda Means artist site (here)

Unique

Through July 12th

 

Von Lintel Gallery

520 West 23rd Street

New York, NY 10011

Photography in the 2013 Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, Part 1 of 2

After stepping out of the drenching late morning rain with squelching shoes, I hit the ground running at Pulse yesterday and was surprised to find plenty of noteworthy photography on view. The mix was decidedly new and emerging, with very little vintage work and few marquee names on display. I've broken the report into two parts, given the large group of photographs worth talking about.

My approach to fair reporting continues to evolve, and following up on the positive feedback from my recent more image-centric AIPAD summary (here), I have once again opted for less tallying and counting of every last picture, spending more time on image highlights. What you'll find below is an edited sample of what I found unusual or unexpected, with gallery names/links followed by the artist/photographer name, the price of the work, and some notes as appropriate.

z20 Galleria/Sara Zanin (here): Beatrice Pediconi, €8500. What looks like a misty Donald Sultan smoke ring is actually a diffusing paint in water motion study.

Steven Kasher Gallery (here): Daido Moriyama, $12000. Gritty checkerboard tile turned into a subtly shifting texture exercise.

Nohra Haime Gallery (here): Natalia Arias, $10000. A hybrid concoction of female imagery and transforming butterfly motifs.

Pablo's Birthday (here): Thorsten Brinkmann, $16200. Elegant portraiture cleverly upended by found object sculptural assemblage.

Adamson Gallery (here): Chuck Close, $25000. The mottled, shifting color background of this daguerreotype silhouette of Kara Walker gives it a mysterious mood.

Galerie Stefan Röpke (here): Aitor Ortiz, $7250. Futuristic wire mesh abstraction, full of waves and overlaps. A bit reminiscent of Moriyama's legs in mesh tights.

Von Lintel Gallery (here): Amanda Means, $4900. I liked the chance splash technique in this gridded off darkroom abstraction, almost an echo of Chuck Close's painting approach but reconsidered in a photographic process context. From afar, the work looks like it is fluttering in the wind.

Galeria Habana (here): Liset Castillo, $8500. Sand sculptures that show off smart texture contrast, from smooth molded forms to rough remainder.

Tyler Rollins Fine Art (here): Tracey Moffatt, $10000. Seemingly mundane black and white scenes overlaid with colored stencils implying hidden histories. Deborah Luster has been here already, but the letters add a bold graphic element.

Waltman Ortega Fine Art (here): Rune Guneriussen, $6900 and Aleix Plademunt, $3600. Both of these artists are playing with performative interventions in landscape. Guineriussen's winding path of man-made lights through the nighttime snow is jarringly magical, while Plademunt's array of chairs flanking the nuclear power plant seems more confrontationally conceptual.

Continue to Part 2 of this report here.