Ruud van Empel, Generation @Stux

JTF (just the facts): A total of 4 color works, hung unframed in the upper viewing area in the back of the gallery. All of the works are chromogenic prints mounted to Dibond and Plexiglas. The two large works, each 49x130, are printed in editions of 7+2AP, and were made in 2010; the two smaller works, each 24x17, are printed in editions of 10+2AP, and were made in 2009.(Installation shots at right.)
.
Comments/Context: In Ruud van Empel's newest works, the Dutch photographer has moved away from the lush leafiness of his previous jungle settings and has opted for the buttoned-up formality of the traditional class portrait, with rows of school children in their picture day best outfits, standing on risers against a yellow curtain. Squint your eyes to blur the details and his ten foot wide panoramas look like any school picture taken in the past 50 years.
.
But when your eyes come back into focus, it becomes clear that van Empel's children are unlike any you have seen before. Using Photoshop to composite together hundreds of images, he has created a signature style that has become the hallmark of his work: glossy perfected children with big eyes, staring out from the plane of the picture with an almost surreal oddness - what seems at first glance to be idealized comes out more than a bit unsettling. In past works, he has highlighted a single child, or perhaps a pair of kids, sometimes in matching fancy dresses or sport coats, sometimes with bare skin. These new works amplify and expand his cast of characters, allowing him to play with clothing, hairstyles, and facial features to create a kaleidoscope of different personalities.
.
On one wall, all of the school children are black; on the other, it's a predominantly white class with a lone black student. Subtleties of culture come out in bow ties and sweater vests, braids and barrettes, Peter Pan collars, striped turtlenecks, and bold, candy colored patterns, a range of faces lit by sparkly eyes and hiding underneath big glasses. In his prior work, van Empel used the natural environment of lily pads and flowers to create a kind of protected paradise for his subjects; in these works, he pushes on this concept of childhood innocence, but from a less fanciful and whimsical perspective; the formality of school creates boundaries and limits. The flatness of the compositions and the "optimized" children still make for an unnerving scene, but the entire effect seems better balanced with reality, closer to real life to make his tweaks and constructions all the more resonant.
.
This show only contains a couple of works and its location in the galleries in the back tests the viewer's willingness to wander through another larger show to find the pictures. That said, I was intrigued to see how van Empel is evolving his style and finding new ways to situate his instantly recognizable characters.
.
Collector's POV: The works in this small show are priced as follows. The two large images are priced between $59000 and $69000, depending on the location in the edition; the two small images are priced between $12000 and $14000, again in a rising edition. Van Empel's work has recently become more consistently available in the secondary markets, with a handful of lots coming up for sale in any given year. Prices have been steadily rising, from roughly $15000 to up over six figures, with a sweet spot in the low 30s. Van Empel is also represented by Flatland Gallery in Utrecht (here).
.
As an aside, I think it would be fascinating to hang one of these van Empel school portraits together with one of Tomoko Sawada's class pictures (all of herself) to see the contrasts/commonalities in style and message.
.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Ruud van Empel, Generation
Through October 23rd

Stefan Stux Gallery
530 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001

Book: Carla van de Puttelaar, The Beholder's Eye

JTF (just the facts): Published by the artist in 2008. Unpaginated, with 36 color images. Includes an essay by Bob Frommé and a detailed biography. (Cover shot at right, via Photo Eye.)

Comments/Context: Since part of our collection consists of female nudes, we are always interested to hear about contemporary photographers who are taking on this classic subject and making it their own. Carla van de Puttelaar's nudes are a direct repudiation of the airbrushed commercial perfection of the female form that pervades our culture; her models are ordinary young women, whose extraordinary beauty is found in minute details, small imperfections and subtle gestures.

.

The subjects are set against a uniform black background and photographed in natural light, washing out the skin tones to a soft alabaster; the paleness of the skin then highlights the simple wonders of a birthmark, a bruise, or goose bumps. With closed eyes and careful poses, the women become intimately sculptural, but in a way that celebrates their unadorned naturalness rather than idealizing them to perfect forms. The compositions force the viewer to pay attention to the details, to see the special individual nature of the curve of an arm or the fragile line of a collarbone. To me, these models look neither asleep or dead (there is no Sleeping Beauty fable here). They all seem acutely alive; some are resting serenely, while others are painfully aware of their exposed vulnerability.

.

Many of these images seem rooted in a Renaissance aesthetic, though pared down and stripped away to get at the true underlying beauty of the subjects; there is plenty of flowing hair and artful posing. In the context of photography's history, these works seem most akin at least in spirit to the nudes of Ruth Bernhard and Imogen Cunningham, as the "female gaze" is clearly at work here; van de Puttelaar's images bear no resemblance whatsoever to the work of the well known male photographers of the nude. What I think is unique about this work is that van de Puttelaar has found a way to both honor the individuality of the sitters and transform them into expressions of the universal; not the fashion magazine ideal, mind you, but gloriously imperfect human beings who represent the unique, uncommon, and rare beauty found in everyone.

.

Overall, this volume contains well crafted images, with a novel point of view, well worth inclusion in your library, especially for those interested in the evolution of the photographic nude.

Collector’s POV: Carla van de Puttelaar is represented by Flatland Gallery in Utrecht (here), Galerie Esther Woerdehoff in Paris (here) and Box Galerie in Brussels (here). Her work is not yet available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is really the only option for interested collectors at this point; it's time for someone to bring her work to New York. For our collection, the full body nudes in this book are much too large (approximately 80x30); we'd likely be interested in one of the works that is slightly more abstract and less overtly personal, printed on a more intimate scale.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Amedelio video interview (here)
• Conversation with Conscientious (here)