Everyday Epiphanies: Photography and Daily Life Since 1969 @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing the work of 31 artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in a large single room gallery space on the second floor of the museum. The space has been divided into a main viewing area and a smaller darkened space at the very end of the gallery. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with information on the number of prints on view and other background details to follow:

John Baldessari: 1 gelatin silver print, 1971
Erica Baum: 1 inkjet print, 2009
Jean-Marc Bustamante: 1 chromogenic print, 1997
Sophie Calle: 1 gelatin silver print with accompanying text, 1988-1989
Gregory Crewdson: 1 chromogenic print, 1988
Philip-Lorca diCorcia: 1 chromogenic print, 1987
William Eggleston: 1 dye transfer print, 1980
Fischli & Weiss: 1 chromogenic print, 1979
Robert Gober: 1 gelatin silver print, 1999
Nan Goldin: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1980
Dan Graham: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1969
Jan Groover: 1 platinum print, 1980
Mike Kelley: 1 gelatin silver print, 1994
Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: 1 single channel video, 1996-1997
Brandon Lattu: 1 single channel video, 2013
Nikki S. Lee: 1 chromogenic print, 1998
Sally Mann: 1 gelatin silver print, 1987
Malerie Marder: 1 inkjet print, 1998/2013
Tim Maul: 1 chromogenic print, 1981
Elizabeth McAlpine: 1 gelatin silver print, 2012
Mary Nickerson: 3 chromogenic prints, 1970
Gabriel Orozco: 12 silver dye bleach prints, 1991-2003
Martha Rosler: 1 single channel black and white video, 1975
David Salle: 4 gelatin silver prints with affixed advertisements, 1973
Ilene Segalove: 1 single channel black and white and color video, 1974-1978
Stephen Shore: 36 chromogenic prints, 1972-1973 (in case)
Larry Sultan: 1 chromogenic print, 1989
Carrie Mae Weems: 1 gelatin silver print, 1990
William Wegman: 1 gelatin silver print, 1972

Comments/Context: With the unspoken rules that exhibitions in the Met's contemporary photography gallery must be drawn exclusively from the museum's permanent collection and be organized as surveys of the period from the late 1960s to the present, it's no wonder that these long running shows are often so broad that their themes seem to dissolve into edited collections of everything. The newest selection of images is tied up under the umbrella of "everyday epiphanies", a construct that implies a delight in the ordinary, the quotidian, or the familiar, but in fact, reaches outward beyond these routine boundaries to works that have a wide variety of conceptual underpinnings and points of view. With some effort, it's possible to follow the logic of why each piece has been included here, but when seen together, the diversity of the works on view diminishes the show's ability to deliver any durable insights.

The works that function best inside this theme are those that capture moments of unexpected, elemental elegance, often as a result of the way the camera sees the world. Jan Groover turns a tangle of kids' bent arms into a lyrical overlapped abstraction, while Mike Kelley enlarges a dust mote to the point it becomes a swirling mass of lines. Larry Sultan catches the sun as it streams through his father's newspaper, and Gabriel Orzoco notices the back and forth sweep of a dog's tail. The video by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky is perhaps the most graceful of them all, following the tumbling dance of windblown trash on city sidewalks, with the honking traffic as a background score. Why obvious inclusions like Kawauchi, Tillmans, Friedlander, Ghirri, and Parr aren't among these moments of discovered joy is a mystery.

The "epiphany" angle is instead taken in a different direction by works that play with conceptual inversion, where the startling realization is staged rather than found. In fact, the entire genre of Conceptual Photography, especially as practiced in the early 1970s, could fit under this definition, so the few works on view here, while excellent, seem a bit random when taken in the larger context of that period. That said, William Wegman's pairing of a sharp and dull knife (where the dull knife is not sharp in terms of its edge and the image itself is blurry) is infectiously witty and Martha Rosler's video demonstration of kitchen items is uproariously violent (who knew opening a can or using measuring spoons could be so passionate?) Robert Gober picks up a similar line of deviant thinking in the late 1990s, with his industrial drain unexpectedly inserted into the natural environment of a mossy forest floor.

The show includes only three works made in the last decade, which is surprising, since we might have assumed that lots of fanciful digital "epiphanies" would have emerged during that time. Erica Baum's dog eared book pages are a solid choice, with their chance juxtapositions of angled sentence fragments. Elizabeth McAlpine's work was new discovery for me, her ethereal shaped photograph a result of a complex molded camera construction and multiple pinhole openings. Brandon Lattu's video explores the unexpected connections made by computer intelligence, where face recognition software attempts to match images from popular culture and advertising, creating a mesmerizing sequence of similar morphing faces.

Like most of its predecessors, this show brings together plenty of intriguing and worthy photography, but ultimately the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. We're left remembering a highlight here or a highlight there, and losing sight of the overarching idea that ostensibly connected the dots. I'm grateful that the Met has a dedicated venue for contemporary photography, and these surveys certainly expose visitors to a consistently wide rage of work. But I am always left wanting something crisper and more tightly edited, a show that takes a stand of some kind rather than always trying to cover everything.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. Given the diversity of photography on view, we'll dispense with the usual discussion of secondary market prices and artist representation.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here), Yahoo! News (here), New York Photo Review (here)

Everyday Epiphanies: Photography and Daily Life Since 1969

Through January 26th

Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10028

Photography in the 2013 Independent

This was my first visit to the Independent art fair (it's been up and running for four years now, so I'm a little late to the party), and I came away generally impressed with the quality of what I saw. In contrast to the normal, seemingly endless warren of white cube booths in a fair, the Independent is more free form, with 49 galleries shoehorned into angled spaces and spread across three floors. This design is mostly a blessing, as it makes the whole fair flow better; the one downside is that I often had the feeling of being not quite sure whose space I was in, especially in the higher traffic zones. Photography-wise, the show tended toward smartly conceptual work rather than big name churn and burn merch.

The booths/galleries are arranged below by my winding path through the fair, roughly moving up and through the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors of the building starting at the bottom. For each booth, a list of photographers has been provided, with the number of works on display in parentheses. Additional commentary, prices, and pictures of the installation are also included as appropriate.

Murray Guy (here): An-My Lê (9). This booth contained a well-chosen mix of Lê's older and newer work. This image of long sticks with toy airplanes attached to the ends was particularly elegant ($5000).

Maureen Paley (here): Anne Hardy (1), Wolfgang Tillmans (2), James Welling (1). I never seem to tire of Wolfgang Tillmans abstractions ($16000).

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (here): Prinz Gholam (6). This artist duo has recreated poses from classical paintings; they're gracefully reverential and entirely modern at the same time (2200€ each).

The Modern Institute (here): Michael Wilkinson (4)

Office Baroque (here): Leigh Ledare (2), Michel Auder (1 video)

Galerie Meyer Kainer (here): Lucie Stahl (6). The process here is worth understanding: collaged found images/photographs glued onto a trash can, the can then held above a scanner, the entire image then printed and covered with thick transparent resin (7500€ each).

Andrew Kreps Gallery (here): Annette Kelm (4, 1 triptych). A simple, conceptual still life of iterations of folded bandanas, executed crispy and cleanly (8500€ each).

Real Fine Arts (here): Heji Shin (3)

Richard Telles Fine Art (here): Dan Finsel (2)

Galerie Christian Nagel (here): Clegg & Guttman (2)

White Columns (here): Michele Abeles (1), Marc Hundley (1), Type 42 Anonymous (1). Look at all those red dots! This black and white Abeles image in an edition of 50 was sold out by the time I arrived ($150). No wonder; it's wonderfully dense and interlocked.

Herald Street (here): Josh Brand (2). These recent images by Brand have become increasingly hard to parse. Fragments of imagery and improvisational darkroom processes meld together in moody, textural abstraction ($4000).

Printed Matter (here): Erica Baum (2). Baum is represented by Bureau (here), but these two prints were on a Printed Matter wall, as part of a fund raiser I believe. The scalloped gradation of newspaper edges was richly tactile ($2500).

Galerie Susanne Zander (here): Thomas Glendenning Hamilton (5)

Jack Hanely Gallery (here): Jessica Rath (3)

Galerija Gregor Podnar (here): Alexander Gutke (3, 1 slideshow of 81 images). I thought this was a very well-executed but quietly straightforward conceptual project. Starting with soft light on a white wall (morning blue or afternoon orange), the image has been rephotographed and layered multiple times, slowly intensifying the color and creating the Albers-like effect ($7800 each).

KOW (here): Tobias Zielony (5). These images were drawn from Zielony's larger project on the lives of young Berlin prostitutes. They're intimate without being exploitative ($8200 or $12000 based on size).

Erica Baum, Naked Eye Anthology @Bureau

 

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white and color photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung in the single room gallery space and the smaller annex next door. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made between 2010 and 2012. The works come from two separate projects: Naked Eye Volume Two and Naked Eye Anthology. The prints range in size from roughly 15x16 to 19x13 (or reverse) and are each available in editions of 6+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Erica Baum's recent photographs examine the interplay between the physical reality of yellowing paperback books and the two dimensional flatness of a camera-mediated image. The result is a set of abstract images that provide elusive hints at context or narrative but remain pleasingly compressed and tactile.

The dominant visual motif in these pictures is repeated vertical striping, made by fanning out the inked page edges of the books and splaying them at differing widths like a Minimalist line drawing. The aging paperbacks are tinted in purple and red, green and faded orange, offset by the darkening of the paper itself. Between these areas of lines and a sprinkling of cut off letters, small snippets and scraps of halftone imagery peek out: a man sitting in a chair, Brigitte Bardot, a woman smoking, a terrier, a leg, the face of Jean Moral. The story they might have been illustrating (trashy or serious) is unknowable, so the pictures have become separated from any particular context and immersed in the overall abstraction. In a few images, wider strips of adjacent photographs have been laid edge to edge in triangles and trapezoids like a collage, creating a rebus of unrecognizable image fragments that interconnect with surprising harmony.

What I find intriguing about these photographs is that Baum has appropriated the entire book form (not just an image or a passage of text), and then manipulated that form in ways that take advantage of its inherent physical properties. Barbara Astman did a similar thing with newspapers a few years ago, but Baum's works feel both more reverently literary and more richly conceptual.

Collector's POV: The prints in this exhibit are priced at $3300 each. Baum's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

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

Transit Hub:

• Interview: Mousse (here)
• Review: New Yorker (here)

Erica Baum, Naked Eye Anthology

Through October 21st

Bureau

127 Henry Street
New York, NY 10002