Julie Blackmon: Line-Up @Mann

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 color photographs, framed in white with no mats, and hung in the single room gallery space (with a small dividing wall). All of the works are archival pigment prints. The images on view come in three physical sizes with corresponding edition sizes: 22x29 in editions of 25, 32x42 in editions of 10, and 40x53 in editions of 5. There are 2 of the smallest size, 6 of the middle size, and 5 of the largest size in the show. All of the works were made between 2008 and 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Since our home has a couple of young kids running wild inside, Julie Blackmon's stylized images of the loosely controlled chaos of childhood seem all too familiar. With a touch of humor and an eye for situations that border on the realistically absurd, her pictures are digitally staged vignettes that at once seem both wildly artificial and surprisingly and ironically plausible.

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My favorite picture in the show is High Dive, where a gaggle of mismatched and unmonitored children fire straggly dolls off the second floor deck of a suburban house toward a blue plastic wading pool, while the parents sit outside on the lawn and drink wine in the twilight, generally oblivious to the action going on nearby. An appropriate assortment of abandoned clothing and shoes is strewn across the landscape. It captures both the imagination of summertime childhood play as well as the stress release of communal parenting. I can entirely imagine the scene devolving into tears (likely from a now remorseful or angry doll owner), or perhaps a back-handed shout of "No Injuries!" from one or another of the otherwise happily distracted parents.

Blackmon's pictures both pare down and exaggerate typical family-life scenes, making them almost perfect caricatures of the reality they portray. A girl practices her violin while her brother plugs his ears, a boy climbs the built-in shelving of the library, and kids scatter in the street as a parent loads the trunk of a car. Carefully placed props (a scooter, a half-eaten doughnut, a pile of confetti, a bunch of tinker toys, a Godzilla action figure) make the stories more enigmatically complex, referring to other related but unmentioned narratives that have already played out at some time in the recent past. Or maybe they're just the discarded remnants of everyday, messy life with kids.

While the overt staginess of these pictures can be a bit distracting, their mixing of obvious unreality with telling glimpses of underlying truth is what makes these pictures work. We've certainly experienced variations on this kind of surreal, random weirdness; perhaps lacking the candy-colors, shiny floors, and perfect lighting, but close enough to have resonance and create knowing chuckles. Blackmon references the Dutch Renaissance painter Jan Steen in her artist statement, and the images do have a constructed, painterly feel, drawn from memory and recreated using the powerful tools of digital photography.

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Overall, I came away more impressed with these pictures than I expected to be. In the best of the works, Blackmon's imaginary craziness is a subtle mirror of our own lives, simultaneously mocking and sympathetic. The terrified baby launched into the air by his father is both oddly ridiculous and eerily reminiscent of things we have all done.
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Collector's POV: The works in the show are priced by size and place in the edition. The 22x29 images are priced at $2800 or $3600; the 32x42 images are priced at $3800, $4200 or $5000, and the 40x53 images are $6900 or $8500. Blackmon's work has only recently started to trickle into the secondary markets, so no robust pricing history is really available. As such, gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Blackmon is also represented by Catherine Edelman in Chicago (here), Robert Klein in Boston (here), Fahey/Klein in Los Angeles (here), Photo-Eye in Santa Fe (here), and Gail Gibson in Seattle (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: New Yorker (here), Photo Booth (here), Boston Globe (here)

Julie Blackmon: Line-Up

Through October 23rd

Robert Mann Gallery
210 Eleventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Lynn Geesaman @Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 large scale color works, framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space. All of the works are square format chromogenic prints, made between 2007 and 2009. The prints come in two sizes: 28x28, in editions of 15, and 38x38, in editions of 6; there are 9 small prints and 2 large prints in the show. The images were taken in various gardens in France, England, and the US (Kentucky and Louisiana). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: I've always thought that Lynn Geesaman's photographs were about the simple poetry of tranquil gardens. Her works have a dreamy, almost hallucinatory, feel to them, a shimmering painterly effect that softens the formality of long rows of trees, perfectly pruned hedges, or unusual botanical specimens. Her pictures capture a world of hazy beauty, a delicate mix of Atget and throw back Pictorialism.

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What I found surprising in this show is that for the first time I saw a conceptual edge in her pictures, a move beyond the decorative to something more challenging and subtly ironic. Shaped trees and carefully orchestrated vistas have been enhanced by brilliant exaggerated colors: bright orange, deep red, vibrant green and smashing pink. The dissonance isn't overpowering, but somehow the rules of landscape photography seem to have been broken; the gardens have become more stylized and fabricated, the human hand controlling the natural world seems more obvious, the blurry romance a little more sinister. The most unexpected picture in the show is one from the Hampton Court Gardens in England, where a cluster of perfect conical evergreens sits in front of a jumble of tall scaffolding covered in red cloth. This is the first image I have ever seen by Geesaman that so overtly contrasts the natural and the artificial; it still glistens with glimmery light, but we're a long way from artful reflections in still ponds. Seeing this image entirely changed my mindset, and when I circled back to see the other pictures once again, I was suddenly much more attuned to the ways in which the view was being manipulated, both by the garden designer and the photographer.

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I have always been intrigued by the unique diffusion process that creates Geesaman's signature hazy effect, but these new works forced me to look beyond the obvious beauty of the idealized gardens and to see how the artist was adding a nuance of commentary underneath that I had entirely missed before. I'm sure many viewers will still be enthralled by the easy loveliness of these pictures and will continue to enjoy them at face value. But I think the unlikely conceptual skepticism and the tiniest hint of absurdity give these pictures another richer level of meaning that takes them away from the conventional and toward something quite a bit more thought provoking.

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Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The smaller 28x28 prints are $4250 (including the frame). The larger 38x38 prints are $6700 (including the frame). Geesaman's work does not have much auction history, so determining a secondary market price window is difficult. As such, gallery retail is likely the best option for interested collectors at this point.

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Luckily, Geesaman's work is represented by quite a few galleries around the US. In addition to Yancey Richardson in New York, her representatives include Robert Koch in San Francisco (here), Catherine Edelman in Chicago (here), Thomas Barry in Minneapolis (here), Scheinbaum & Russek in Santa Fe (here), and Jackson in Atlanta (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Book: Gardenscapes, 2003 (here)

Lynn Geesaman
Through July 9th

Yancey Richardson Gallery

535 West 22nd Street

New York, NY 10011

Course: In Focus @Catherine Edelman

While we've been collecting for quite a few years now, it wasn't so long ago that I have forgotten what it was like when we made our first purchases. I remember the process to be a heady mix of excitement and uncertainty, with a strong undercurrent of trying not to make a mistake; the truth is, it's still a little like that.

Many gallery owners, especially in this environment, seem fixated on how to attract entry level and new collectors. Surprisingly, they often think that low prices and "deals" will make all the difference. While price certainly matters, I think this strategy is generally misguided. What collectors need, especially new and inexperienced ones, is information and education to settle their nerves. Only when a buyer feels comfortable will his/her wallet open.

I was therefore pleased to hear about a new set of lectures being put on this fall by the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago (here). For $100 (and if you're not willing to invest $100 in your photography education you have no business calling yourself a collector), the In Focus series (here) takes place on four Saturday mornings and covers a wide range of practical topics, with input from the gallery staff and outside experts (collectors, critics, professors, etc.). Even as an experienced collector, if I lived in Chicago, I'd be tempted to attend these discussions, mostly to hear how Edelman and the others view the current market and its opportunities. And of course, we never get tired to talking about photography.

The trick is of course to get people to show up. So Chicagoland readers, make an effort to support this lecture series, as it's the kind of thing we need to see more of. And for New York area galleries, this is a great example of a low cost/low impact way to invest in your client base to build sales down the road.