Karine Laval: Altered States @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the entry area and the main gallery space. The show also includes 1 video piece, which is shown in the smaller side room. All of the photographs are c-prints, made in 2012. Sizes range from 10x10 to 48x48, and the prints are available in editions of 5 or 7. Two groups of photographs are hung in sets (one group of 8 and one grid of 9). The video is 6 minutes long and was made in 2012; it is available in an edition of 3. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Karine Laval has spent the better part of the last decade photographing swimming pools: their surrounding architecture, the way people interact with them, and particularly the shifting effects of light on the surface of the water. Her newest works stay true to her chosen subject matter, but move further toward distortion, with a stronger emphasis on movement. The results are ethereal and painterly, and often nearly abstract.

Laval's Collision series is the most visually innovative of the projects on view. Starting with large sheets of shiny mylar paper, she has submerged them in the water, allowing them to bend and crinkle as they float underneath the surface. Light glances and refracts off the paper, interacting with the already distorted shimmer of the pool itself, creating blasts of complex pattern in bold transparent red. They reminded me of the way light bounces off a John Chamberlain sculpture or the crumpled surfaces of Nicolai Howalt's car crash studies. I like the depth of space she has created, allowing foreground and background to mix into one swirling explosion of lush color.

Her Flux series (and the accompanying State of Flux video) introduces a more performative aspect to her work. In addition to the loosely floating mylar sheet, a male dancer in what looks to be a mylar set of swimming trunks dives and whirls through the water. He becomes a kind of fleeting blur offset by the bright shininess of the mylar, disrupting the calm flow and adding balletic spins, splits, and somersaults. His ghostly figure moves with purpose, only to disappear into the shifting hues of pink and blue and the jagged reflections from above. Her Echo series plays with multiple reflections of silhouettes, distorted by the proportions of the pool like Kertesz and his fun house mirror nudes. Standing subjects become strange totemic forms with bulging bodies and elongated arms, doubled into gesticulating conversation with themselves.

Overall, I think this new work is less literal and more diaphanous than her previous efforts, willing to explore the edges of the illusory and the immaterial with more abandon. The more she walks the line of unrecognizable abstraction, the more challenging the work becomes.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows, based on size: 10x10 ($2200), 20x20 ($3500), 30x30 ($5500), and 48x48 ($9500). The two sets are $15000 (group of 8) and $28000 (grid of 9) respectively. Laval's work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Interview: Wag (here)

Karine Laval: Altered States
Through May 24th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Abelardo Morell: Rock, Paper, Scissors @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 large scale photographs, framed in black and unmatted, and hung in the entry area, the main gallery space, and a smaller side room painted blue. All of the works are archival pigment ink prints, made in 2011 and 2012. The images are available in three sizes, with varying edition sizes depending on whether the works are in color or in black and white: 24x30 (in editions of 10 for color and 8 for black and white), 30x40 (in editions of 8 and 6), and 50x60 (in editions of 6 and 4). There are 2 works in the smallest size, 9 in the middle size, and 4 in the largest size on display. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This show brings us up to date with Abelardo Morell's most recent work, bringing together images from three distinctly separate photographic projects. In the past two years, Morell has clearly been busy: out on the road with his ingenious tent camera, in the studio making meticulous cut paper collages, and in the darkroom playing with water drop photograms.

While Morell has been working with his periscope tent camera for a few years now, I think the these textural landscapes continue to get better and better. I like the combined experience of the picture postcard views and the rougher reality of the physical location of the viewer: the iconic silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge is decorated with scrubby weeds, star-shaped dandelions and hard packed dirt, while the epic grandeur of the Grand Canyon is underlaid with a rock slab and loose scree. The two simultaneous views outward and downward are flattened together, with recognizable landmarks like Old Faithful and Yosemite Falls interrupted by rocky gravel, pine needles, and delicately strewn flower petals. It's as though the images have been hand painted out of the ordinary, overlooked path around your feet; they're "grounded" in more ways than one.

Back in the studio, Morell has been channeling Frederick Sommer and MC Escher, picking apart 18th century Piranesi etchings and creating complex collaged fantasies of buildings made of impossible colonnades and swirling vortices of prisons and architectural facades. His book plate constructions play with perspective and angle, twisting and clashing in crisp black and white. Morell's photograms have a more Berenice Abbott scientific feel, with water droplets shaped into a perfect triangle and transformed into a starry landscape of tiny round bubble orbs. Human profiles make appearances in both projects, a negative space self portrait is pushed into a ream of white paper, while another face is gently arced in water bubbles.

What holds these three bodies of work together is an interest in both the edges of photographic texture and the underpinnings of process. Morell displays craftsmanlike control over his varied tools, seemingly at ease with any combination of image making methods. Overall, this show is strong evidence of an artist actively and successfully exploring multiple complementary approaches and thought patterns, rather than being satisfied with following just one.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The color works are $11000 each (24x30), $17000 each (30x40) or $24000 each (50x60); the black and white works are $5000 each (24x30), $9000 each (30x40) or $16000 each (50x60). Morell's work has become more consistently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices at auction ranging between $2000 and $17000.

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features/Reviews: TimeOut New York (here), The Two Percent (here), NY Photo Review (here)

Abelardo Morell: Rock Paper Scissors

Through December 22nd

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Matthew Pillsbury: City Stages @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white photographs, generally framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. The archival pigment ink prints each come in three sizes: 13x19 (edition of 20), 30x40 (edition of 10), and 50x60 (edition of 3); there is also one wider panoramic image shown in a 32x78 size (edition of 10). The images were taken in New York in 2011 and 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: At this point in his photographic career, Matthew Pillsbury's long exposure approach, complete with its wispy ephemeral figures, has become a kind of visual signature. From across a room, it's easy to spot one of his works and think "OK, there's a Pillsbury" and not really think more about it. I imagine this is both a blessing and a curse for the artist. The challenge is of course to both repeatedly find new subject matter that lends itself well to elapsed time picture making and to extend his recognizable visual motif in new directions.

Pillsbury's recent photographs capture classic New York moments and locations without falling into the trap of seeming overly familiar or tired. His choices revel in movement: the spinning of the carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the chaos of the packed Jing Fong Dim Sum restaurant, the swinging band at Jazz at Lincoln Center with the headlights of Columbus Circle in the background, and the jumble of TV cameras and press on the roof of the Marriott Marquis on New Year's Eve. Like 19th century spirit photographs, his images document the traces of people who are no longer there, who come and go, leaving behind only a ghostly trail of light; the city itself endures and is indifferent. While other images in this show have more obvious drama, my favorite was the photograph of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zucotti Park, who are reduced to a shifting, undulating pile of bags, tarps, and huddled people, underneath the quiet canopy of trees (on the right in the bottom installation shot).

It takes some artistic confidence to think that original images can still be made of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the World Trade Center light tribute, or the fountains in Washington Square Park. But Pillsbury pulls it off with surprising success, showing us facets of our city that are only visible when time is compressed.

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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced based on size, in ratcheting editions. The 13x19 prints range from $2200 to $3000, the 30x40 prints range from $5000 to $9000, and the 50x60 prints range from $10000 to $15000. The panoramic Above Times Square print is $10000 as shown in the "medium" size. Pillsbury's work has started to become more available at auction in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $2000 to $14000.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub

• Artist site (here)
• Review: NY Times 6th Floor (here)

Matthew Pillsbury: City Stages

Through April 28th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery

41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Massimo Vitali: Arcadian Remains @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 5 large scale color works, mounted to Diasec and not framed, and hung in the main gallery space. The chromogenic prints range in size from 71x89 to 76x100; 4 are single images and 1 is a diptych. The images were taken in Greece, Italy, and Spain in 2011, and are available in editions of 6. A companion exhibit of Vitali's works is on display at agnès b. Galerie Boutique (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Massimo Vitali's newest pictures find him parked in a familiar location: looking down from above on the vast seashore, where sparkling blue water meets sand and eroded rock, and where tiny people in colorful swimsuits cover the available land mass like packs of insignificant ants. As usual, the light is squint inducing, so bright and white that it is almost a physical presence, draping the scenes with washes of blinding glare.

The gallery press release calls Vitali's works "socio-landscapes", and my experience of these new pictures is that they have a bit more landscape in them than his previous photographs. The scale seems broader, the white cliffs and rock formations more like harsh moonscapes, the crashing waves more dramatic. The tiny figures seem almost like the minuscule people found in the foreground of a romantic landscape painting, only multiplied into crowds, with each individual sun bather or pair of lazy swimmers identifiable and unique. The caustic irony I have felt in his earlier photographs seems more muted here, the folly of humanity (when compared to the grandeur of nature) made even smaller and more unimportant.

All in all, Vitali hasn't strayed too far from the formula that brought him success in these new images, but he does seem to be bridging closer to traditional landscape forms than ever before. There are less miles of matching umbrellas and acres of human flesh in these pictures, and instead a more subtle tilt toward the timelessness of the land and sea.

Collector's POV: The single images in this show are priced at 30000€  or 40000€ based on the place in the edition; the diptych is 50000€. These prices are a decent step up from his last show at Benrubi. Vitali's work has become more routinely available at auction in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $5000 to $80000.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Massimo Vitali: Arcadian Remains
Through February 4th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Simon Norfolk: Burke + Norfolk @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 color photographs, hung in the tight entry hallway and the main gallery space. 7 of the works are archival pigment ink prints, framed in black and matted, each 20x24, in editions of 7+2AP. The other 7 works are also archival pigment ink prints, but framed in black and unmatted, each 40x53, also in editions of 7+2AP. All of the images were taken in Afghanistan in 2010. A monograph of this body of work entitled Burke + Norfolk, Photographs from the War in Afghanistan by John Burke and Simon Norfolk was published by Dewi Lewis in 2011 (here); it is available from the gallery for $80. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Simon Norfolk's recent photographs of contemporary Afghanistan remind us that while the daily news might give us momentary examples of both apparent progress and discouraging set backs, there is a repetitive timelessness to the struggle that stretches back centuries. Using John Burke's 19th century photographs of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) as a source of inspiration and dialogue, Norfolk has responded with two sets of images that document the situation on the ground in complementary ways.
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The first group of pictures reference the traditions and expectations of 19th century group portraiture, with rows of assembled peoples arranged and photographed with rigid stone-faced formality. While the subjects are locked in an ageless sepia-toned patina, there is evidence of change and modernization hiding within the dated visual vocabulary: a head-scarfed women's basketball team, young girls at an indoor skate park, the staff from a new Afghan airline, a group of high tech mine sweepers, and American marines paired with Afghan police trainees. Mixed in with shots of traditional musicians and Taliban sympathizers in dark robes, Norfolk highlights the contrasts of new and old, grounding his observed changes in the slow evolution of the society as a whole.

The second group of works are large scale color cityscapes, often taken in the light of the early morning or the twilit evening when the sky is misty and purple. These images explore the two sides of simultaneous modernization and war-torn destruction: a homeless family standing in the hazy, crumbled ruins of the old Presidential Palace, an optimistic pizza restaurant flanked by a massive pile of rusting bus carcasses, red bags of fresh apples piled amidst the frenetic motion of the traffic, and clumps of bamboo construction poles and ladders echoed by the surveillance towers on the dusty hills in the background. Norfolk's photographs capture the essence of the everyday struggle of the locals, where the details of the Western occupation coexist with the remnants of the endlessly beaten down city.

While there are no actual prints by Burke in this show for handy side by side comparison, the mix of ideas between the two seems to have been an effective way for Norfolk to catalyze new visual approaches to the subject matter. Both sets of new images feel very rooted in and mindful of the past, where if we look carefully, the events of today are an updated repetition of those from long ago.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the 20x24 prints are £2500 and the 40x53 prints are £6000 (note the prices are in British pounds). Norfolk's work has begun to slowly enter the secondary markets in recent years, with prices at auction ranging between roughly $6000 and $26000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist page (here)
• Reviews: New Yorker (here), LA Times (here)
• Features: Wayne Ford (here), Guardian (here)
• Exhibit: Tate Modern (here)

Simon Norfolk: Burke + Norfolk
Through December 3rd

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Georges Dambier: Who's That Girl? @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 24 black and white and color photographs, framed in black with white mats, and hung in the main gallery space. The 8 black and white works are gelatin silver prints, made between 1953 and 1959. They are all 16x20 or reverse, printed in editions of 25. The 16 color works are archival pigment prints, made between 1953 and 1961. They are either 16x20, 20x20, or 20x24 (or reverse), also printed in editions of 25. All of the works on view are modern prints from restored negatives. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: French fashion photographer Georges Dambier made his mark working for Elle in the 1950s, taking famous models out of the studio and placing them in the streets. This small show is a mini retrospective of sorts, where solid examples in both black and white and color have been gathered together, showing Dambier's particular knack for the jaunty staged scene and his masterful use of splashes of bold color.

Dambier's black and white work is filled with posed scenes and feminine flourishes: a model nose to nose with a hackney horse, another daintily paying a gas station attendant, a third buying a goldfish in plastic bag. Broad fur collars, cigarette holders, and white gloves complement slyly exaggerated faces and dramatic gestures, in ways we have come to associate with 1950s fashion photography.

I found Dambier's color work to be far more striking. In three pictures, he captures Suzy Parker with flowers: one with an armload of bright yellow daffodils, a second with a pastel pink hydrangea bouquet that matches the ribbon on her white hat, and a third with a bunch of salmon pink tulips that echoes the flounce of her floppy pink brim; all three have an energy that is contagious. Other images on display have this same electricity: a red and white striped top paired with a huge blue surfboard, striped beach coverups in blue and orange, a red hat and red gloves flanked by the big red blob in a painting by Miro. Red coats and suits paired with matching red hats similarly stand out against the anonymous movement of the city in the background. In all of these these works, color has become the compositional anchor, rather than subject or form, and bright areas of saturated color grab your eye.

While many of the works on display seem like well-executed examples of a certain type from a certain time, a few of the color pictures are really quite timelessly stunning. So even if fashion photography isn't your passion, there are a couple of dazzling color photographs on view here that are worth a quick detour.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the 16x20 and 20x20 prints range in price from $2800 to $9500, based on the place in the edition; the single 20x24 print on view is $4000 (rising to $5000 as the edition sells). Dambier's work hasn't reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
 
My favorite image in the show was The Bikini Girl on the Boardwalk, pour Jour de France, Deauville, 1959; it's on the far left in the middle installation shot. This is the kind of image that should be used to illustrate the power of primary colors in photography. The crisp white polka dots on the blue bathing suit and the echo of matching yellow between the umbrella and the glass of juice really make this picture pop. Paired with the model's mischievous smile, the vibrant color turns a simple fashion scene into something sensational.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist page (here)
• Features: NOWNESS (here), On the Runway (here), La Lettre de la Photographie (here)

Georges Dambier: Who's That Girl?
Through May 27th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Abelardo Morell: Groundwork @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 large scale color works, framed in black with no mats, and hung in the entry and main gallery spaces. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made in 2010. The images are available in three sizes: 24x30 (in editions of 10), 30x40 (in editions of 8), and 50x60 (in editions of 6). There are 2 works in the smallest size, 3 in the middle size, and 5 in the largest size on display. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This show of recent work continues Abelardo Morell's explorations of the boundaries of the camera obscura process. Several of the images on view repeat the room-as-camera motif for which he is so well-known: views of Rome and Florence, projected into hotel rooms and cluttered offices, the Duomo or the Roman Forum seen in bold layered color, upside down on the walls.

A new twist on his technical method comes in the form of an unusual apparatus: a tent camera with a periscope lens that projects the image onto the floor. This takes us away from backdrops of walls and doorways with fancy moldings and introduces new textures: the rocky dirt ground of the desert, a carpet of pine needles, streets of pockmarked cobblestones and old bricks, and even the crackled surface of a tar roof. The surfaces are matched to the landscapes that adorn them, providing both deeper context and an additional layer of visual complexity: Acadia National Park in Maine on the needles, the Brooklyn Bridge on the tar roof, the Florence Bapistery on the cobbles.

Most importantly, this new approach flattens out the picture plane, removing the undulating distortions created by the physical depth of the rooms, as well as eliminating the mystery of what the room is "seeing". The result is a much more painterly feel, the texture mixing with the image itself, becoming almost Vik Muniz-like: a postcard picture of a desert landscape made out of rocks. I think this will open up a whole new area of experimentation for Morell, where unexpected juxtapositions of image and texture might generate new visual effects. Who knew the ancient camera obscura had so much more to offer?

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows: the 24x30 prints are $11000 each, the 30x40 prints are $17000 each, and the 50x60 prints are $24000 each. Morell's work has been available in the secondary markets fairly regularly in recent years, with a handful of lots up for sale in any given year. Prices at auction have ranged between $2000 and $17000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist page (here)
• Feature: New York (here)

Abelardo Morell: Groundwork

Through December 19th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Jehad Nga, Turkana @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 large scale color works, framed in black with no mat and mounted to Plexi, and hung in the entry and main gallery spaces. All of the works are chromogenic prints, made in Turkana, Kenya, in 2009. The prints come in two sizes: 26x39, in editions of 9, and 40x60, in editions of 5. The show consists of 7 works in the smaller size and 3 works in the larger size. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Enveloping blackness seems to be a mini-theme in contemporary photography. Subjects peer out from dark shadows, isolated from any kind of context, a mix of highlights and chiaroscuro providing ominous mystery and attention focusing direction. In the past year or so, Touhami Ennadre and Bill Henson have shown this kind of work in NY, and we can go back further to DiCorcia, Callahan and others who also employed this technique in varied ways.

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Jehad Nga's dark portraits of native tribespeople from the drought parched lands of Northern Kenya follow this same trend, adding in a layer of photojournalistic concern. Adults and children in native dress stand alone in the claustrophobic dark, covered in exotic layers of intricate beaded necklaces and luminous patterned cloth, their smoothly shaved heads catching the few shafts of light which intrude on the blackness. The light shines in from the side like a thin spotlight, discovering glancing edges and hidden details: the fragment of a bicycle, the braids of hair, the redness of skin, or the geometries of beads.

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I think these portraits walk a tricky line between powerful and moving imagery and a less savory anthropological examination. While the photographic approach may be modern, there is a whiff of old stereotypes risen again: poor Africans, inspiringly proud and beautiful in their destitution. Nga's pictures undeniably draw the viewer into the individual narrative of a specific person or family. Having been successfully sucked in, we then ask what these images have to tell us that is new; this is where I was left a bit puzzled. Maybe the answer is that unfortunately things haven't changed much, and we are still faced with the same societal challenges that have thwarted us for decades. As a result, I left the gallery with mixed feelings: impressed by the strength of the emotion that these images could elicit, but depressed by the conclusion that we are still telling the same African stories.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this exhibit are priced as follows. The smaller 26x39 prints are $2800 each; the larger 40x60 prints are $5500 each. Nga's works have not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Review: WSJ (here, scroll down)

Jehad Nga, Turkana
Through July 16th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery

41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Massimo Vitali: Landscape with Figures 2 @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 6 large scale works, mounted to dibond plexi and not framed, and hung in the entry and main gallery spaces. Each of the chromogenic prints is 72x86; 5 are single images and there is one diptych. All of the works in the show were made in 2008 and 2009. A monograph of this work is being published by Steidl (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Massimo Vitali's recent images continue his signature combination of large scale photography and intricate detail, his locations once again covered by masses of people. Taken in Sicily and Turkey, these particular images depict the ruins of Ephesus, and various healing pools, sacred grottoes, and swimming locations.

What I like about Vitali's work is that from afar, his images have a sense of immense grandeur, the huge scale creating engrossing, eye-catching scenes (sometimes blindingly lit); up close, I've always found the pictures to border on the ridiculous, the crazy density of humanity literally overrunning every setting, no matter how beautiful or pristine. Tourism and consumerism are skewered quite neatly.

These new works are no different: tourists crawl over the historic library and amphitheatre at Ephesus (mixed together with acres of dusty rubble and tumbledown rocks) and swimmers of all shapes and sizes plunge into various waters, cavorting and frolicking literally on top of each other in the washed out brightness. The works seem to bring together the extra large museum images of Thomas Struth with the ironic tourist pictures of Martin Parr, with a dash of the over the top crowds at Coney Island of Weegee.

The works in this particular show are so large that they crowd each other a bit too much, creating a visual overload in the gallery; the prints are outsized for the display space - shown in a bigger room, they'd have much more room to breathe. Overall, while these works don't depart too far from Vitali's successful formula or show us much that is radically different from his earlier work, they hold up a mirror to ourselves, a potent reminder that we are not necessarily as unique as we might think; perhaps we too are unknowingly part of the thundering herds looking for the same banal entertainments and "memorable" experiences.

Collector's POV: The single images in this show are priced at 25000€ each; the diptych is 45000€. Vitali's work has become more and more available in the secondary markets in recent years and his prices have remained strong, ranging from $7000 to $80000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Interview: Lens Culture (here)
• Foam exhibit, 2009 (here)
• Review: Guardian (here), 1000 Words (here)

Massimo Vitali: Landscape with Figures 2
Through February 27th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Louis Stettner, Tresor Des Rues @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 19 images, in a mixture of formats and sizes, displayed in the entry and main gallery. Here is the breakdown of the show:

• 9 8x10 or 11x14 black and white gelatin silver prints, some negatives/prints from the period 1949-1951, others more recent (1991-2001)
• 3 larger 40x40 gelatin silver prints, again a mixture of early and later negatives
• 3 wall sized (48x60) digital silver images from early negatives
• 4 iris color prints of images from the late 1990s

All of the images are from Paris. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Louis Stettner has spent a lifetime capturing eloquent, real life moments in the streets of Paris and New York. The current show at Bonni Benrubi is a kind of sampler of his Paris work across the years.

The early works (from the late 1940s and early 1950s) are intimate contact prints that chronicle sidewalks, tree lined streets, cafes and shop windows, rain and shadows. There is a romantic familiarity to these images, capturing what some might call the essence of Paris, complete with its ordinary, working class routines. We have been across this same ground with Atget, Kertesz and Doisneau, but it's still an evocative ride.

A second small group of color images from the 1990s are also on display, where Stettner explored abstraction more fully, within the confines of Parisian subject matter (cafe chairs and neon signs). There are echoes of Callahan's dye transfers in this group. That said, these were a little hard to mix in with the other black and white material, and perhaps would benefit from of a show of their own where they could be explored in more depth.

Filling out the exhibit are a number of larger prints of mostly older negatives. These big, beautiful prints amplify the subtleties of the small negatives (they have a definite Wow! factor). This is a mixed blessing however, as romance on such a grand scale walks a thin line between nostalgia and kitsch. I think they fall just short of the "too much" line, and as such are successful, but I can also see how others might react differently.

All in all, this work is a fond, and somewhat sentimental, reminder of why Paris is like no place else.

The artist's website can be found here.

Collector's POV: The images in this show range from $2800 for the small contact prints to $15000 for the wall sized enlargements. While we don't have any Louis Stettner images from Paris, we do have two more recent pictures from New York in our collection, which can be found here.

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

Louis Stettner, Tresor Des Rues
Through January 31st

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Abelardo Morell, Pictures in Pictures @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): 12 pigment prints and 5 gelatin silver prints, arrayed in the entry and the main gallery spaces. (See installation shot at right.) All of the images images are from 2007-2008, although some are continuations of series begun earlier.

Comments/Context: Most collectors are probably familiar with Morell's images of books and maps, and certainly of his black and white camera obscura images of rooms with outdoor scenes projected upside down on the walls. This show brings all of his various projects up to date, and boldly introduces the concept of color to this work. There are images of gold bars/money, a pair of works juxtaposing paintings and sculpture, and a group of chiche verre silver prints of continents. But the real standouts here are the new color camera obscura images.

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Morell's interiors have always felt quite conceptual (for me), while leaving behind the overt trickiness of much of that type of work, and at the same time surprisingly beautiful. The images are full of contrasts, most obviously orientation (upside down and right side up) and position (inside and outside). They are also quite clearly staged, with chairs, doors, beds and other furniture placed just so to compose the picture. The addition of color in these new works amplifies the whole endeavor, making the contrasts more powerful and the images more startling. I think the image from Venice of the hotel room with the jungle wallpaper overlaid with the canal is amazing, and the layering of color is what makes it all the more chaotic and crazy (see the image in the installation shot on the right; proper thumbnails from all the images are on the website, linked below). Images of the Pantheon (right side up), the Colosseum (right side up), and Central Park (up side down) are also quite successful.

Collector's POV: Morell's work doesn't fit into our collection, but I came away very impressed with these new color camera obscura works. (The rest of the show was a bit less inspiring in contrast.) The color prints come in three sizes (20x24, 30x40, and 50x60 in varying edition sizes) and three prices ($9000, $15000, and $20000). Overall, the show is well worth a visit.

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Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating system defined here)

Abelardo Morell, Pictures in Pictures

Through December 6th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery

41 East 57th Street
13th Floor
New York, NY 10022

Four Summer @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): This is a group show of four gallery artists: Pamela Hanson, Peter C. Jones, Jeffrey Milstein, and Lindy Smith, shown in the entrance area and main gallery space. Here's a quick rundown on each:

• Pamela Hanson: 14 images, 2 in color, the rest in black and white. Mostly of fashion/models. Ranging from 11x14 to 24x30.


• Peter C. Jones: 8 images, all in color, 20x20. Window scenes/florals/summer landscapes.


• Jeffrey Milstein: 7 images, all in color, varying sizes from 20x20 to 50x50. Images of airplanes from below and head-on, against white backgrounds.


• Lindy Smith: 5 works, some single images, some diptychs or triptychs. Floral Kallitypes

Comments/Context: One of the big trends of the last decade has been, in the face of the relentless move to digital, the revival of many antique photographic processes, focusing on the hand crafted nature of image making. Artists have taken these old processes and applied them to new and different subject matter and come up with exciting new work that references the history of the medium.

Lindy Smith has taken an abandoned 19th process, the Kallitype, and resurrected it to make larger scale floral images. (see the installation photo at right.) The Kallitype is a cameraless process, where paper is coated with iron salts and silver nitrate and then exposed to the sun (much like the cyanotype, but with different chemistry). The interaction between the chemicals and the plants/flowers she lays down on the sheets creates some unpredictability in the final colors, generating a whole nuanced spectrum of browns, yellows and oranges. The resulting images are quiet, intricate, and lovely.

These pictures however raise for me a larger question about what happens when an artist heads down a path well worn by previous artists. Starting with William Henry Fox Talbot and Anna Atkins in the mid 19th century, and then moving forward to Bertha Jaques (see here) in the early 1900s (and many others since then), the concept of the simple silhouetted botanical image has been around for a long time, and these original artists set the standard and defined the playing field for everyone that has followed. How does an artist innovate and bring a new point of view to subject matter that has already be "done"?

In the world of music, we have seen the emergence of the "retro" and "neo" prefixes, attached to new work that either seeks to emulate the old sounds in full or to take those old sounds and recast them in a new light, while still staying recognizable as the old form. In Soul music, we might call Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings "Retro Soul" and someone like Amy Winehouse "Neo Soul". Perhaps the artists themselves hate these kinds of characterizations, but these terms help audiences understand where the music is coming from and what it might be trying to accomplish.

So back to photography. Should we call Chuck Close's recent portraits "Neo Daguerreoptyes"? No one would ever confuse what Close has done with portraits from the 19th century using the same medium; his artistic viewpoint is clear. Or what about these Lindy Smith florals? "Retro botanicals"? I wonder if her viewpoint comes through prominently enough; the works are clearly beautiful and well made, but are they a ground breaking new voice or a riff on the past? And if the artist's perspective isn't as strong or obvious, will "retro" style work stand the test of time? Will it be forgotten or enjoyed as something wonderfully familiar and comfortable?

In general, I like these Lindy Smith images for what they are and can imagine adding a small one to our collection. But go and check out the work yourself and make your own judgement.

Collector's POV: The Lindy Smith works range in price from $3500 for the single images, up to $12000 for the triptychs, and of course, they are unique prints (edition of 1).

As an aside, my eight year old son would love the work of Jeffrey Milstein in this show. (see installation photo at right.) This is meant as a high compliment, not a slight. My son would love the large, colorful shots of airplanes and would beg to have one in his room if he saw them in person. Ranging from $2600-6000 depending on size, that isn't going to happen any time soon, but the works are striking and would work well in large contemporary spaces.

Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating system defined here)

Four Summer
Through September 20th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
13th Floor
New York, NY 10022