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

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


Yellow Section

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

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

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

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

Hollybush Gardens (here): Benoit Maire (2)

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

Karma International (here): Carissa Rodriguez (3)

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

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

Johann König (here): Annette Kelm (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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


Orange Section

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xavier Hufkens (here): Robert Mapplethorpe (4)

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

Kerlin Gallery (here): Willie Doherty (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part 3 is here.

New Photography 2010 @MoMA

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

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

• Roe Ethridge (8 chromogenic prints, framed in white, from 2008-2010)
• Elad Lassry (15 chromogenic prints in matched color frames from 2008-2010, 1 16mm video from 2009)
• Alex Prager (6 chromogenic prints, framed in white, from 2007-2010, 1 HD video from 2010)
• Amanda Ross-Ho (2 chromogenic prints from 2010, 1 inkjet print on canvas (unframed and pinned to wall) from 2010, 1 chromogenic print on wood shelf from 2007, 1 sheet rock wall with holes, photographs and other objects from 2010)

Comments/Context: This year's New Photography exhibit at the MoMA might better be called "Offspring of the Pictures Generation". The show gathers together the work of four contemporary photographers who have continued down the path of image appropriation and recontextualization, evolving their aesthetic approaches in the crucible of the recent explosion of media. They borrow from movies, magazines, fashion, and commercial/stock photography with equal ease, often infusing the seemingly random with unexpected significance.

So how have these descendants changed the culture of appropriation, 25 years later? To my eye, they have stripped away the biting humor that made the images from the Pictures Generation so striking; gone is the subtle wry wit with an undercurrent of emotional outrage that lurked beneath those compositions. These new works seem more neutered, much cooler and more distant, rich in intellectualism and conceptual theory, but generally lacking in the spark that grabs and holds a viewer's attention. For Roe Ethridge, only the lusciously furry bowl of rotten fruit provides much of a jolt. His blurry pixelated plate on top of a crisp black and white scarf seems a bit forced and self-conscious. For Amanda Ross-Ho, appropriation and process have been mixed together, documenting a calculated inner landscape of studio remnants and familial connections. Her sculptural installations clearly have layers of conceptual significance, and yet they left me cold.

Elad Lassry's matchy-matchy isolated magazine images against paired colored backgrounds/frames at least have a bit of playfulness to them. I particularly liked the wild pink hat (owned by collector Peter Brant); the red nailpolish on green pedestals and the Herend monkeys against green were also vibrant and memorable. Lassry smartly breaks up the monotony of the commercial photography feel by adding in a blur or multiple exposure here and there, so the walls don't feel like an endless parade of candy colored stock images. Alex Prager is in many ways an outlier in this show, since her large scale photographs aren't direct appropriations or theoretical exercises, but glossy stylistic echoes of cinematic glamour. That said, they are by far the most approachable works in the exhibit, evidenced by the continued clustering of the crowd in her corner of the gallery. Her retro world is invitingly dramatic and visually stunning, and quite a bit less overtly intellectual.

In the end, while I like the thematic construct of this show (and I think it is altogether worthwhile to explore how appropriation is being updated by contemporary artists), the payoff isn't particularly stunning or sensational. I wonder if simple image reuse has now become so commonplace that it wholly fails to surprise us, unless some additional element of originality or shock (visual or intellectual) is introduced. Is this photographic genre slowly being anesthetized by overuse? Most would say no (it's only the beginning), but perhaps it is time to re-evaluate this approach once again, and look for a crackling disruptive jump to someplace entirely new.

Collector's POV: The photographers in the show are represented by the following galleries:

• Roe Ethridge: Andrew Kreps Gallery (here), Gagosian Gallery (here)
• Elad Lassry: Luhring Augustine (here), David Kordansky Gallery (here)
• Alex Prager: Yancey Richardson Gallery (here), Michael Hoppen Gallery (here), M+B (here)
• Amanda Ross-Ho: Mitchell-Innes & Nash (here), Cherry and Martin (here)

None of these artists has any significant secondary market track record, so gallery retail will likely be the only option for acquiring their work in the short term.

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

Transit Hub:

• Exhibition site (here)
• Reviews: NY Times (here), Huffington Post (here)
• Amanda Ross-Ho interviewed by Elad Lassry, BOMB (here)

New Photography 2010
Through January 10th

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019