Auction Results: Photographies, May 29, 2013 @Sotheby's Paris

The results from Sotheby's recent Photographies sale in Paris were generally weaker than expected. At one point during the early part of the sale, in a run of 36 lots, only 2 lots found buyers. With an overall Buy-In rate over 50%, it isn't hugely surprising that the Total Sale Proceeds missed the low end of the estimate range by a meaningful margin.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 221
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: €1725400
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: €2399800
Total Lots Sold: 105
Total Lots Bought In: 116
Buy In %: 52.49%
Total Sale Proceeds: €1478550

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 103
Low Sold: 43
Low Bought In: 60
Buy In %: 58.25%
Total Low Estimate: €541800
Total Low Sold: €330775

Mid Total Lots: 111
Mid Sold: 59
Mid Bought In: 52
Buy In %: 46.85%
Total Mid Estimate: €1488000
Total Mid Sold: €960875

High Total Lots: 7
High Sold: 3
High Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 57.14%
Total High Estimate: €370000
Total High Sold: €186900

The top lot by High estimate was lot 172, Helmut Newton, Naomi, Cap D'Antibes, 1998, estimated at €80000-120000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 143, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken, Lydia & Tyler, 1985, estimated at €30000-40000, sold at €73500.

95.24% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were thirteen surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 2, Anonyme, Marin Grec, 1844, estimated at €6000-8000, sold at €25000
Lot 4, Anonyme, Les Remparts D'Alger, 1844, estimated at €7000-9000, sold at €30000
Lot 6, Anonyme, Vue du Port D'Alger, 18444, estimated at €5000-7000, sold at €39900
Lot 7, Anonyme, Le Port D'Alger, 1844, estimated at €8000-12000, sold at €37500
Lot 8, Anonyme, Mosquee de Coleah, 1844, estimated at €6000-8000, sold at €18750
Lot 50, Etienne Leopold Trouvelot, Etincelle electrique directe, 1885, estimated at €4000-5000, sold at €11250 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)
Lot 74, Constantin Brancusi, Sans Titre, 1920, estimated at 6000-8000, sold at $37500 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby's)
Lot 75, Constantin Brancusi, Isac, 1920, estimated at €4000-6000, sold at €12500
Lot 79, Laure Albin-Guillot, Orchidees, 1927, estimated at €4000-6000, sold at €32500 (image at right, middle, via Sotheby's)
Lot 118, Philippe Halsman, Woody Allen, 1969, estimated at €1500-2000, sold at €4250
Lot 147, Herb Ritts, Versace Dress, Back View, El Mirage, 1990, estimated at €10000-15000, sold at €32500
Lot 151, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Frida Kahlo, 1933/later, estimated at €4000-6000, sold at €23750
Lot 200, Andres Serrano, The Morgue (Child Abuse), 1992, estimated at €8000-12000, sold at €28750

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Sotheby's
76, Rue Du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris

Brancusi: The Photographs @Silverstein

JTF (just the facts): A total of 32 black and white photographs, framed in black and matted, and hung in the entry area, front room, main gallery space and back room. All of the photographs are vintage or early gelatin silver prints, taken between 1917 and 1936. Physical dimensions range from roughly 5x4 to 16x12 or reverse. A catalog of the exhibit is available from the gallery. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The photographs that Constantin Brancusi made of his sculpture and studio are much more than static evidentiary documents of end product art objects and an overfilled workshop space. They do something quite a bit more radical, employing photography as an expressive method to entirely reinterpret these iconic works, using the interchange of light and shadow to expand our perception of the sculpted forms. Picking up from the small selection of Brancusi photographs in the Original Copy show at MoMA two years ago (review here), this show goes further in exploring how Brancusi used his camera to carefully control and expand our experience of his own work, in the process making photographs that stand on their own as fully formed artworks .

Brancusi's images of individual sculptures show him experimenting with reflected light, shadow, glare, viewing angle, scale, background color, and even multiple exposures to heighten our awareness of texture, form, and drama. Several of the rough wooden sculptures are lit with harsh direct light, turning the three dimensional objects into flat two dimensional shapes in dark black, echoed by multiple shadows on nearby walls. Sculptures made of brass/bronze and other shiny metals capture brilliant flashes of brightness and energy, or reflect artist's tripod in hidden self-portraits. Ovoid marble objects become soft and silky, or turn and pose amid lengthy shadows. An upwards view of one of his famous Endless Columns turns the bumpy totem into an angular thrust skyward. And Brancusi's series of thin, elongated vertical birds are transformed by all these visual effects in turn: black birds with white highlights, white birds with multiple black shadows, and golden birds with radiant glints.
.

Brancusi's wider studio views go beyond the singular attention paid to individual works and explore a deeper sense of spatial interaction between the various sculptures, pedestals, bases, and other objects in the workshop. Pairings accent contrasts of shape, form, and weight (thin and thick), while wider views mix scales into a dizzying jumble of blocky geometric forms and more refined objects. Textures overlap, and the natural light from the overhead windows brings areas of light and dark to the carefully arranged installations. When flattened into two dimensions by the camera, the studio views become complex abstract compositions, filled with interlocking relationships and spatial connections, with particular resonance in the shifting back and forth layering between figure and ground.

While these photographs were certainly successful in increasing (or reinforcing) my appreciation for Brancusi's talents with a chisel or an axe, I think the pictures definitively show that Brancusi was equally adept at controlling mood and emphasis with his camera. This is a well-edited gathering of deceptively complicated vintage photographs, well worth the time spent to savor their intricacies.

.

Collector's POV: The prices for the prints in this show range from $45000 to $250000. Over the past decade, Brancusi's photographic work has been intermittently available in the secondary markets, with roughly a handful of lots up for sale in any given year. Recent prices at auction have ranged between $5000 and $84000.
.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: New Yorker (here), StyleZeitgeist (here)

Brancusi: The Photographs

Through June 23rd

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

2012 AIPAD Review, Part 2 of 2

This is Part 2 of my 2012 AIPAD Review, covering the New York area galleries and a few others located in the larger Northeast (organized alphabetically). The rest of the galleries from around the world, as well as the background on the format I am using, can be found in Part 1 (here).

Bonni Benrubi Gallery (here): Matthew Pillsbury (2), Karine Laval (2), Massimo Vitali (1), Paolo Pellegrin (2), Abelardo Morell (4), Jim Marshall (3), William Gottlieb (2), Amalie Rothschild (1), Linda McCartney (2), Chris Payne (2), Simon Norfolk (1). In this intricate new work, Morell seems to be heading toward Sommer's cut paper collages. (priced at $5000)

Danziger Gallery (here): Robert Frank (8), Christopher Bucklow (1), Karen Knorr (2), Garry Fabian Miller (6), Hendrik Kerstens (2), Susan Derges (2), Chris Levine (1), Yuji Obata (4), Evelyn Hofer (4). My interest in Kerstens' portraits persists, and the two new images in the booth here hold the wall with authority. The aluminum hat is strangely lovely. (priced at $10000)

After seeing so much abstract work from Miller, I was surprised to discover these brand new photograms of flowers. They are small and delicate, in soft colors. (priced at $10000)

Keith De Lellis Gallery (here): Flip Schulke (1), Irving Penn (7), Horst P. Horst (2), Cecil Beaton (1), George Platt Lynes (1), Florence Meyer Homolka (1), Richard Avedon (1), Ruth Bernhard (3), Gleb Derujinsky (1), Margaret Bourke-White (3), Edward Steichen (4), Jorgen Roos (3), Eric Schaal (2), Nino Migliori (1), Herbert Matter (3), Brassai (2), Keld Helmer-Petersen (1), Arnold Newman (1), Weegee (1), Simpson Kalisher (2), Beauford Smith (3), Marvin Newman (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Alexander Rodchenko (1), Barbara Morgan (1). There was plenty of fabulous vintage work in this booth, anchored by a group of Steichens, with help from several Bourke-Whites and Bernhards. This 1925 Steichen boat (tucked on a side wall) was my favorite image in the entire fair. (priced at $125000)

Gitterman Gallery (here): Gita Lenz (2), Frederick Sommer (1), Edmund Teske (3), Arthur Siegel (1), Hiroshi Sugimoto (3), Adam Bartos (1), Ralph Eugene Meatyard (9), Saul Leiter (2), Robert Frank (1), Leon Levinstein (1), Nan Goldin (1), Edward Weston (1), plus 2 bins. A classic Weston industrial image - Middletown, OH steel smokestacks from 1922. (priced at $300000)

Howard Greenberg Gallery (here): Edward Steichen (2), Berenice Abbott (1), Jaromir Funke (1), Sid Grossman (5), William Klein (3), Bruce Davidson (4), Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1), Jerome Liebling (1), Martin Munkacsi (1), Robert Frank (1), Bill Brandt (1), Brett Weston (1), Dorothea Lange (1), David Goldblatt (1 diptych), Saul Leiter (7). This 1915 Steichen is one of the most iconic florals in photographic history; not to be missed. (priced at $275000)

Higher Pictures (here): George Dureau (5), Jessica Eaton (4), Emily Roysdon (12). I like that these new Eaton abstractions are getting more and more visually complex. (priced at $4000)

I hadn't ever heard of George Dureau until Kim gave me some background on him. Apparently, Mapplethorpe knew him in the early 1980s and admired his work. The aesthetic affinity is quite clear, especially in the made nudes of men with amputations. (priced at $4000)

Edwynn Houk Gallery (here): Joel Meyerowtiz (1), Vera Lutter (1), Robert Frank (1), Man Ray (1), Sally Mann (1), Bill Brandt (5), Alfred Stieglitz (1), Sebastiaan Bremer (1), Lee Friedlander (1), Dannyn Lyon (1), Herb Ritts (6), Stephen Shore (1), Robert Polidori (1). The series of close up Brandt eyes on the back wall of this booth was an unexpected treat.

Robert Klein Gallery (here): Jessica Backhaus (5), Francesca Woodman (8), Cig Harvey (4), Henri Cartier-Bresson (2), Walker Evans (2), Aaron Siskind (1), Mario Giacomelli (1), Brassai (1), Lee Friedlander (1), Berenice Abbott (2), Irving Penn (5), Harry Callahan (3), Edward Weston (2), Elliot Erwitt (1).

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Inc. (here): Louis-Emile Durandelle (2), Charles Soulier (2), Julia Margaret Cameron (3), Rufus Anson (1), William Henry Fox Talbot (6), Henri Courmont (1), Jospeh Vicomte Vigier (1), Eugene Cuvelier (1), Gustave Le Gray (1), Unknown (2), Edward Steichen (2), Guillaume Duchenne De Boulogne (1), Etienne-Jules Marey (1), Putnam & Valentine (1), Guillaume Duchenne De Boulogne and Adrian Tournachon (1), Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1).

Robert Mann Gallery (here): Julie Blackmon (4), Leo Goldstein (1), Lisette Model (1), Dan Weiner (1), Weegee (1), Aaron Siskind (1), David Vestal (1), Fred Stein (2), Jorn Vahnhofen (1), Lewis Baltz (1), Robbert Flick (1), Henry Wessel (1), Richard Misrach (2), Jeff Brouws (1), Joe Deal (2), Michael Kenna (4), Chip Hooper (1), Minor White (1), Ansel Adams (1).

Yossi Milo Gallery (here): Sze Tsung Leong (1), Ezra Stoller (2), Lise Sarfati (2), Tim Hetherington (8), Doug Rickard (2), Alison Rossiter (3), Chris McCaw (2), Matthew Brandt (1), Pieter Hugo (1).

Yancey Richardson Gallery (here): Kenneth Josephson (4), Andrew Moore (1), Victoria Sambunaris (1), Laura Letinsky (1), Olivo Barbieri (1), Rachel Perry Welty (2), Bernd and Hilla Becher (1 set of 9), Sharon Core (4).

Julie Saul Gallery (here): Rineke Dijkstra (2), Justine Reyes (2), Charlotte Dumas (2), Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao (1), Reiner Gerritsen (1), Gonzalo Puch (1), Didier Massard (1), Sarah Anne Johnson (1), Miroslav Tichy (5), Gerard Petrus Fieret (2), Nikolai Bakharev (4).

Michael Shapiro Photographs (here): Irving Penn (3), Andre Kertesz (2), Josef Koudelka (1), Jaromir Funke (2), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Imogen Cunningham (1), Elmer Blew (1), Harry Callahan (1), John Gutman (1), Ansel Adams (2), Dorothea Lange (1), Edward Weston (2), Robert Frank (7), Walker Evans (1), Edward Steichen (1), William Klein (1), Minor White (4), and a wall covering selection of small Jefferson Hayman works. I thoroughly enjoyed the layered shadows in this cut paper Funke. (priced at $80000)

The crusted snow by White was an image I had never seen before and is apparently unique; I liked its sinuous figure/ground form. (priced at $18000)

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Edward Weston (1), Lotte Jacobi (1), Edward Steichen (1), Robert Frank (1), Aaron Sikind (2), Lisette Model (4), Andre Kertesz (5), Constantin Brancusi (6), Trine Sondergaard (1), Ryan Weideman (6), Michael Wolf (2), Trine Sondergaard & Nicolai Howalt (5), Keith Smith (28). Bruce has a show of Brancusi photographs coming up, and from the looks of this small selection of prints, it's going to be a superlative exhibit. This shiny gem was priced at $250000.

While the idea is straightforward, I liked these enveloping snowstorm trees by Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt on the outside of the booth. The whiteout is supremely silent.

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs (here): Chris Killip (1), Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (2), Walker Evans (1), John Cohen (4), Mike Disfarmer (1), Andre De Dienes (1), Erwin Blumenfeld (1), Claude Tolmer (1), Anton Bruehl (1), Gyorgy Kepes (1), Gordon Koster (2), W. Eugene Smith (2), Jan Yoors (3), Inge Morath (1). Parker spent some time giving me some further context on 1970s/1980s British photography and introducing me to the terrific early 1970s photographs of Byker by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. (priced at $2500/$3000)

Gallery 339 (here): Philip Toledano (1), Edward McHugh (4), Richard Kagan (2), Amanda Means (1), Ion Zupcu (4), Tetsugo Hayakutake (1), Martine Fougeron (2), Rita Bernstein (2), Yuichi Hibi (3), William Larson (2), Nadine Rovner (2).

Rick Wester Fine Art (here): Richard Avedon (2), Ralph Eugene Meatyard (2), Cindy Sherman (1 diptych), Bill Brandt (3), Joni Sternbach (2), Christian Vogh (1), Marilyn Minter (1), Andres Serrano (1), Laurie Lambrecht (1, 1 diptych), Sharon Harper (1), Sandi Fifield (1), Ken Schles (2), Irving Penn (2), Stephen Shore (1). As collectors of Brandt nudes, we are always on the look out for vintage prints that come out of the woodwork. This was the best Brandt nude I saw at the fair. (priced at $24000)

Sasha Wolf Gallery (here): Andrew Borowiec (6), Peter Kayafas (4), David Nadel (4), Katherine Wolkoff (8), Tribble and Mancenido (1), Paul McDonough (4), Eleanor Carucci (4), TrujilloPaumier (8).

Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery (here): Edward Burtynsky (2), Ola Kohlemainen (1), Jim Campbell (1), Niko Luoma (1), Susanna Majuri (2), Shirley Shor (1).

David Zwirner (here): A solo booth show of the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia (11). Glad to see Zwirner showing at AIPAD and embracing the photography world. This small sampler spanned many of diCorcia's projects, including a couple of newer works.

The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A massive, thematic group show, displayed in a series of 8 connected rooms on the 6th floor of the museum. The exhibit includes 340 works by 110 artists and photographers, covering the period from 1839 to the present. A special exhibition website has been created (here) and a hardback catalog is available in the museum store for $55 (here). The exhibit was curated by Roxana Marcoci. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the exhibit, so there are no installation shots for this show. Aside from the image at right (taken outside the exhibit itself), the single images that accompany this review were taken from the MoMA website.

The exhibition is divided into ten (10) discrete sections; sometimes a theme fills an entire room, in other cases, an idea takes up an adjacent wall or two. The following photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on view in parentheses:

I. Sculpture in the Age of Photography
.

Adolphe Bilordeaux (1)

Brassaï (1)

Jan De Cock (2)

Théodule Devéria (1)

Ken Domon (1 diptych)

Maxine Du Camp (1)

Elliott Erwitt (1)

Roger Fenton (1)

Larry Fink (1)

François-Alphonse Fortier (1)

Ann Hamilton (1)

Alphonse Eugène Hubert (1)

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1)

Clarence Kennedy (6)
André Kertész (4, 1 magazine)

Barbara Kruger (1)

Louise Lawler (1)

An-My Lê (1)

Charles Nègre (2)

Lorraine O'Grady (1 diptych)

Cindy Sherman (1)

William James Stillman (1)

William Henry Fox Talbot (1)
Stephen Thompson (1)

Adam Clark Vroman (1)

II. Eugène Atget: The Marvelous in the Everyday

.

Eugène Atget (29)

.

III. Auguste Rodin: The Sculptor and the Photographic Enterprise

.

Eugène Druet (10) (Eugène Druet, The Clenched Hand, before 1898, at right.)
Edward Steichen (4)

IV. Constantin Brancusi: The Studio as Groupe Mobile

.

Constantin Brancusi (26)

.

V: Marcel Duchamp: The Readymade as Reproduction

.

Marcel Duchamp (3, 1 case of hand colored photos)

Marcel Duchamp/Man Ray (1)

Man Ray (3)

Henri-Pierre Roché (1)

John Schiff (1)

Alfred Stieglitz (1)

.

VI. Cultural and Political Icons

.

Berenice Abbott (1)

Ai Weiwei (1)

Sibylle Bergemann (1)

Bruno Braquehais (2)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (6, 2 magazines)

Walker Evans (2)

Robert Frank (1)

Lee Friedlander (20)

Cyprien Gaillard (table of 90 Polaroids)

David Goldblatt (8)

Anselm Kiefer (1)

Josef Koudelka (1)

Nikolai Kuleshov (1)

Alois Löcherer (1)

S.L.A. Marshall (1)

Igor Moukhin (1)

Charles Nègre (1)

Tod Papageorge (1)

Rosalind Solomon (1)

Guy Tillim (2)

Unknown (1)

Garry Winogrand (1)

.

VII. The Studio Without Walls: Sculpture in the Expanded Field

.

Robert Barry (1 diptych)

Christo (2)

Michael Heizer (1)

Richard Long (1)

Gordon Matta-Clark (1)

Bruce Nauman (1)

Dennis Oppenheim (1)

Robert Smithson (9 as 1, 1 magazine)

Rachel Whiteread (3)

Zhang Dali (1)

.

VIII. Daguerre's Soup: What is Sculpture?

.

Brassaï (5, 1 magazine)

Marcel Broodthaers (12 as 1)

Marcel Duchamp (1)

Fischli/Weiss (6) (Fischli/Weiss, The Proud Cook, 1984, at right.)

Robert Gober (3)

Rachel Harrison (41)

Gabriel Orozco (1)

Man Ray (3, 1 magazine)

David Smith (3)

Alina Szapocznikow (6)

.

IX. The Pygmalion Complex: Animate and Inanimate Figures

.

Johannes Theodor Baargeld (2)

Herbert Bayer (1)

Hans Bellmer (2, 1 magazine)

Claude Cahun (1)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1)

Max Ernst (2)

Walker Evans (1)

Hans Finsler (1)

Laura Gilpin (1)

Hannah Höch (1)

Horst P. Horst (1)

André Kertész (3)

Clarence John Laughlin (1)

Robert Mapplethorpe (1, 6 as 1)

Man Ray (4, 2 magazines)

Jindřich Štyrský (1)

Maurice Tabard (1)

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1)

Gillian Wearing (1)

Edward Weston (1)

Iwao Yamawaki (1)

X. The Performing Body as Sculptural Object

.

Bas Jan Ader (4 as 1)

Eleanor Antin (32 as 1)

Joseph Beuys (1)

Günter Brus (1)

Jim Dine (1)

Marcel Duchamp (1)

VALIE EXPORT (1)

Gilbert & George (1)

Red Grooms (1)

Yves Klein (1, 1 newspaper)

Milan Knížák (1)

Yayoi Kusama (1)

Ana Mendieta (2)

Robert Morris (1)

Bruce Nauman (4)

Claes Oldenburg (2)

Dennis Oppenheim (1)

Charles Ray (2)

Robin Rhode (9 as 1)

Hannah Wilke (10 as 1)

Robert Whitman (2)

Erwin Wurm (9 as 1)

.

Comments/Context: One of the now agreed upon truths of the digital age is that photography no longer belongs in its own separate artistic silo, isolated from the rest of contemporary artistic practice - there are just too many artists routinely drawing on photographic tools and techniques to keep the medium segregated in its own misunderstood backwater. With the convergence of media, art historians, scholars and artists are now exploring connections between heretofore largely separate lines of thinking and discovering new ways to see relationships between works of art that had traditionally been kept far apart.

Roxana Marcoci's smart show on the intersections of photography and sculpture digs into a seemingly obvious theme (artists making pictures of sculpture) and unearths a rich vein of interaction and cross pollination, going all the way back to the invention of photography. It seems these two art forms have been having a complicated, evolving conversation for many decades now, but perhaps we just weren't paying close enough attention to see how the many ideas were flowing back and forth. This exhibit attempts to set the record straight, to follow the connections back to their sources, and to provide a conceptual construct to tease out the underlying influences and important conclusions. While such a task is inherently messy, this show does a generally fine job of giving us new ways to understand the powerful links between these two artistic mediums.

The exhibit gets off to a stumbling start with an introductory room that tries to be too clever. In what should have been a tightly edited group of 19th century works used to set the foundation for how photography and sculpture began their relationship, we instead get a puzzling juxtaposition of 19th century and contemporary works that fails to clarify the thesis to be explored. To my eye, and with the benefit of knowing what comes later in the show, the contemporary works which are interleaved with the 19th century images are those that don't easily match any of the later themes; they are a gathering of one-offs that didn't fit more naturally somewhere else, but were relevant or exciting enough to want to be jammed in. But put these distractions aside for a moment and focus on the 19th century works in this first room. While you might expect that the earliest photographs of sculpture would be straightforward documents, think again. From the very beginning, photographers used effects of light, scale, and composition to subtly alter the way we experience marble statues and stone busts; some grouped collections of antiquities into dense still lifes, others found drama in broken fragments or narrative in studio views.

.

This idea of photography being used to interpret sculpture is explored expertly in the next three sections of the show. Three different sets of images by Eugène Atget show how he applied his own viewpoint in capturing the sculpture found at Versailles, Saint Cloud, Sceaux and elsewhere. He looks up at statues and frames them against dark backgrounds to create drama, he peers across formal ponds and gardens at silhouettes of tiny statues (disregarding the rigid symmetry of the architects), and he gets up close to highlight fragments of ornate door knockers and reliefs on urns. Rodin's sculptures are interpreted in the next section, with Steichen bathing Balzac in green Pictorialist moonlight, and Druet narrowing in on gnarled, expressive hands and experimenting with time via making photographs of sculptures in various stages of completion. Perhaps the best example of interpretation comes in the section of photographs Constantin Brancusi made of his own sculpture. Brancusi clearly understood the different aesthetic options provided by photography. His images experiment with glare, reflection and blurring, and his studio is a cluttered installation of ever shifting permutations of sculpture, bases, and pedestals. All of these techniques are used in the attempt to see the sculpture in new ways, to capture alternate realities not evident in their three dimensional forms. I found these pictures to be astonishingly interesting and multi-layered, in a way that I had failed to notice before. (Constantin Brancusi, Golden Bird, c1919, at right.)

Marcel Duchamp provides the next big conceptual breakthroughs, with his readymade sculptures and assemblages of random objects. While the photographs on display in the Duchamp section aren't particularly inspiring, the ideas of making sculpture out of found objects, or of creating impermanent installations of things that then function as sculpture were groundbreaking. Suddenly, a photograph of almost anyhting could be a sculpture, and fleeting events, performances and happenings could be documented by the camera and preserved as a kind of ephemeral sculpture. These fundamental ideas would provide fodder for artists for the next few decades, and are elaborated on in several additional sections of the exhibit.

.

One nearby room is devoted to a wide variety of photographic documents of altered sites, land art, and outdoor events: Dennis Oppenheim's rings in the snow, Gordon Matta-Clark's cut up house, and Christo's barrels stacked up in front of the MoMA. In each case, sculpture was created to be photographed; photography was both an integral part of the conception of the project and a necessary enabler. The two mediums (photography and sculpture) were now completely intertwined, their combination allowing for new forms of artistic expression. Another room follows Duchamp's readymade concept to its ultimate end, where found objects of all kinds are isolated and turned into sculptural forms. Man Ray's hand mixer, Brassaï's cotton balls, toothpaste, and bus tickets, and Alina Szapocznikow's chewing gum all become something exciting when their context is changed by the camera. (It seems to me that this theme could also have included a Blossfeldt flower or a Weston pepper, as "objectivity" was prized by both German and American photographers in the 1920s/1930s and their collective works set the stage for many who came later.) In all of these images, the photographer is not only discovering the sculpture, but then interpreting it as well; without the photograph, the object would have no life as a "sculpture".
.

The final room of the exhibit opens up the idea of the artist's body as living sculpture, and of the camera being a witness to performance art of various kinds. While many collectors will be more familiar with the works on display here, as they fit more neatly into the conceptual ruts of contemporary art, many seem to take on a freshness when seen from the vantage point of photography as the willing participant in the artistic process. Erwin Wurm's one minute sculptures (pickles between toes, a chair resting on a woman's eye), Ana Medieta's body covered with mud or flowers, Bruce Nauman's visual puns and Robin Rhode's trompe l'oeil flag waving all rely on photography to help create the illusions and unexpected situations. (Robin Rhode, Stone Flag (detail), 2004, at right.)

The other two sections in the show seem like tangential but relevant bolt-ons to the main line of reasoning. One centers on a specific type of sculpture, the public monument, and chronicles how artists have evolved their approaches to photographing it. The mini-thesis here is that from the very beginning photographers have been commenting on monuments via their images. The section starts with a few 19th century images, but quickly transitions to 20th century works that apply increasing levels of irreverence and irony, providing alternate contexts for what were supposed to be heroic or ideal symbols. Igor Mouhkin finds a Russian worker statue in an overgrown alley, Robert Frank silhouettes St. Francis in front of a gas station, Henri Cartier-Bresson captures tourists pulling on Abraham Lincoln's nose, and a series of Lee Friedlanders juxtapose monuments and memorials with beer cars, a lost dog sign, and the chaos of Times Square. David Goldblatt and Guy Tillim provide a more caustic edge, with Nelson Mandela dwarfed by construction scaffolding, and Henry Stanley toppled over and broken off at the feet. In the end, Ai Weiwei gives San Marco square in Venice the finger. (David Goldblatt, Monument Honouring the Contribution of the Horse to South African History, 2005, at right.) The other section loosely connected to the main line of thinking covers a grab bag of mannequins, dolls, figurines and puppets, mixed together with collage and photomontage effects. These pictures draw on themes from other sections: found objects as sculpture, the staging of imagery just for the camera, and the mixing of photography and sculpture to create alternate artistic options.

.

The show ends on a rather abrupt note, and left me wondering why a bridge to the future was left unbuilt. Where are the mixed media digital mashups, the computer generated forms, and the algortihms or executables as sculpture? A final small room of wild, unruly hybrids and flights of fresh fancy would have made the case that the disciplines of photography and sculpture will be inextricably intermingled on a going forward basis, evolving in directions we haven't yet begun to understand.

Overall, I found Marcoci's conceptual argument well-reasoned and thoughtful, with illuminating examples to be found in nearly every section. While I might quibble with a few of the choices here or there, in general, this exhibit successfully delivers a new perspective on the role of photography in the larger artistic discussion and convincingly proves that sculpture and photography have had a long history of co-dependence. It's a challenging, intellectual approach that expects some active engagement by the viewer and rewards this time spent with some simple, but powerful ideas. So in the dog days of summer, go and engage your brain, and whatever you do, don't miss the Brancusis.

.

Collector's POV: This kind of a broad museum survey, heavy on scholarly argument, isn't a great place for a discussion of gallery/auction prices or market dynamics. So we've highlighted a few favorites, but dispensed with the usual discussion of pricing trends.

Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), L Magazine (here), Village Voice (here)

The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today

Through November 1st

.

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