Photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 2 of 3

This is Part 2 of my review of the photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair. Part 1 can be found here, along with some background information on the fair and an explanation of the format I'm using for the the booth by booth details.


Yellow Section

Metro Pictures (here): Cindy Sherman (1 set of 35, 1 diptych), Louise Lawler (2), Olaf Breuning (1)

Regen Projects (here): James Welling (3), Wolfgang Tillmans (1), Gillian Wearing (1), Walead Beshty (1 diptych), Doug Aitken (1). It was hard to miss the eye-catching blast of saturated color in these photograms by Beshty. Priced at $48000 and already sold.

Renwick Gallery (here): Talia Chetrit (8). The Renwick booth was a solo show of Chetrit's recent work, with up-close fragments of textural skin, hair and body parts. This chain and nipple image was priced at $3500.

Marcelle Alix (here): Charlotte Moth (1 set of 8, 1 )

Hollybush Gardens (here): Benoit Maire (2)

Galleria Raffaella Cortese (here): William Jones (5), Marcello Maloberti (2), Roni Horn (6), Yael Baratana (2). The floor of this booth was covered in magazine cut outs of mountain ranges, echoing Maloberti's photograph of the process.

Karma International (here): Carissa Rodriguez (3)

The Third Line (here): Youssef Nabil (2)

Gallery Hyundai (here): Seung-Taek Lee (15)

Johann König (here): Annette Kelm (2)

47 Canal (here): Michele Abeles (6). The 47 Canal booth was a solo show of Abeles' work, with densely layered still lifes/photo collages. They were priced at $3600 each and all sold.

Carlier Gebauer (here): Paul Graham (1 diptych)

Galerie Diana Stigter (here): Nathaniel Mellors (1), Amalia Pica (slide show)

Laura Bartlett Gallery (here): Cyprien Gaillard (5), John Divola (3), Becky Beasley (1 set of 3). I liked the changing definition of space in this hybrid of sculpture and photography by Beasley. It was priced at £11500.

Andrea Rosen Gallery (here): Josephine Meckseper (5), Walker Evans (3), Wolfgang Tillmans (7), Aaron Bobrow (1 diptych, 1). I found Meckseper's assemblages of commercial items, complete with fog, fluorescent lighting, and shiny mannequins and backdrops unexpected and odd. They were priced at $7000 each. And while I have seen them before, I continue to enjoy the big Tillmans abstractions of misty color. This one was priced at $78000.

A Gentil Carioca (here): Thiago Rocha Pitta (3)


Orange Section

The Modern Institute (here): Luke Fowler (2)

Galerie Gisela Capitain (here): Alina Szapocznikow (1 set of 20), Christopher Williams (1 diptych), Zoe Leonard (5), Barbara Bloom (3)

Galerie Guido W. Baudach (here): Rashid Johnson (1), Jurgen Klauke (1)

Marc Foxx (here): Luisa Lambri (3), Anne Collier (1)

Mitchell-Innes & Nash (here): Amanda Ross-Ho (1). This Ross-Ho sculptural wall arrangement follows along from similar work show at MoMA in 2010. It was priced at $40000.

Alfonso Artiaco (here): Gilbert & George (1 set of 9), Vera Lutter (1 diptych), Darren Almond (2)

Galerie Francesca Pia (here): Elad Lassry (3, 1 set of 4)

Galerie Meyer Riegger (here): Helen Mirra (3)

Corvi-Mora (here): Anne Collier (1)

Galerie Krinzinger (here): Frank Thiel (1), Valie Export (1), Gunter Brus (2), Otto Muehl (1), Oleg Kulik (2), Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy (1), Thomas Zipp (1), Rudolf Schwartzkoger (1 set of 7), Marina Abramovic (1 set of 3), Vito Acconci (1). This large peeling paint image by Thiel is a recent addition to his Stadt series; it was priced at $34000.

Xavier Hufkens (here): Robert Mapplethorpe (4)

Galerie Praz-Delavallade (here): Amalia Saban (1)

Kerlin Gallery (here): Willie Doherty (2)

Richard Telles (here): Dan Finsel (1 diptych), Josephine Pryde (1)

Vermelho (here): Claudia Andujar (3), Rosangela Renno (1), Odires Mlaszho (2 collages)

Sean Kelly Gallery (here): Frank Thiel (1), Alec Soth (2), James Casebere (1), Robert Mapplethorpe (2), Iran do Espirito Santo (1), Yves Klein (1)
Galerie Chantal Crousel (here): Wolfgang Tillmans (2), Jean-Luc Moulene (3)

Salon 94 (here): Liz Cohen (1 set of 150, 1 diptych), David Benjamin Sherry (7), Carlo Mollino (39 Polaroids), Lorna Simpson (19 collages). While still life images of tools have been done before many times, I liked both the choice of smaller individual scale and the wall-filling volume of this typology; it was priced at $72000.

Sommer Contemporary Art (here): Yael Bartana (3), Gregor Hildebrandt (3)

Experimenter (here): Bani Abidi (1 installation). While the content and message of this piece were of less interest to me, I was intrigued by the agglomeration of photographic layers, of the pictures of pictures (in various sizes) then stacked and placed in spatial relationship to each other in a single collection.

Cheim & Read (here): William Eggleston (2), Jack Pierson (1)

Part 3 is here.

Auction: Photographs, May 19, 2011 @Phillips London

The London season continues next week at Phillips, with a various owner Photographs sale on Thursday. This is a diverse sale, with a wide range of vintage and contemporary work, especially at the middle price points. A special selection of Subjective Photography rounds out the auction. Overall, there are a total of 188 lots of photography on offer, with a Total High Estimate of £1627600.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 82
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £279100

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 97
Total Mid Estimate: £980500

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 9
Total High Estimate: £368000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 94, Leni Riefenstahl, Nuba Portfolio, 2002, at £60000-80000.

Here is the list of the photographers who are represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Christer Strömholm (7)
Robert Mapplethorpe (6)
Roger Ballen (4)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (4)
Yto Barrada (3)
Heinz Hajek-Halke (3)
David LaChapelle (3)
Loretta Lux (3)
Vik Muniz (3)
Kiyohsi Niiyama (3)
Irving Penn (3)
Robert Polidori (3)
Herb Ritts (3)
Stephen Shore (3)
Malick Sidibe (3)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (3)

(Lot 65, Robert Frank, New York City, 1947/Later, at £6000-8000, image at right, top, lot 134, Frank Thiel, Stadt 2/63/B (Berlin), 2002/2005, at £7000-9000, image at right, middle, and lot 177, Christer Strömholm, Tangier, c1951/1970s, at £1500-2500, image at right, bottom, all via Phillips.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
May 19th

Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Photography at the 2011 Armory, Part 3 of 4

Part 3 of our 2011 Armory summary covers the entire left side Pier 94, left from the entrance area. Part 1 of the review (which includes an explanation of the format) can be found here; Part 2 can be found here.

Lisson Gallery (here): Rodney Graham (1), Maria Abramovic (group of 20)

Victoria Miro (here): Idris Khan (1), Isaac Julien (1), Doug Aitken (group of 20). This striking purple and orange grid of Aitken images was on an outside wall of the booth; I didn't get a price.

Max Wigram Gallery (here): Slater Bradley (1), James White (1)

Museum 52 (here): Mariah Robertson (1)

Galeria Senda (here): Massimo Vitali (1), Ola Kolehmainen (1), Jordi Bernardo (2)

Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois (here): Alain Bublex (1)

Nicholas Robinson Gallery (here): Petros Christostoumou (1), Indre Serpytyte (1)

Sean Kelly Galley (here): James Casebere (2), Robert Mapplethorpe (2), Iran do Spirito Santo (4), Marina Abramovic (1), Frank Thiel (2). I liked the textured geometric uniformity of this monochrome Thiel. It was priced at 23000€.

Galerie Barbara Wien Wilma Lukatsch (here): Mariana Castillo Deball (4)

Carlier Gebauer (here): Jean-Luc Moulene (1)

Baronian_Francey (here): Florian Maier-Aichen (1)

Galerie Georg Kargl (here): Andreas Forarasi (1), David Maljkovic (1)

Yvon Lambert (here): David Claerbout (5+1 diptych)

Jack Shainman Gallery (here): Zwelethu Mthethwa (1), Hank Willis Thomas (1), Carrie Mae Weems (grid of 42), Richard Mosse (1). This was the first time I've seen one of Mosse's infrared images of the Congo in person. The pink tonality of the mountainous jungle is truly electric; I'm looking forward to seeing an entire show of this body of work at some point soon. The image was priced at $19000.

BlainSouthern (here): Mat Collinshaw (13)

Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie (here): Hrafnkell Sigurdsson (1)

Buchmann Galerie (here): Bettina Pousttchi (2)

Galerie Daniel Templon (here): James Casebere (1)

Kavi Gupta Gallery (here): Curtis Mann (2). I continue to be impressed by these bleached images by Mann. I like the yellowed surface distortions and the glimpses of narrative underneath. This grid was $22000, and there were others to look at in a binder.

Workplace Gallery (here): Marcus Coates (1), Matt Stokes (1), Jo Coupe (1)

Parkett Publishers (here): Paul McCarthy (1), Annette Kelm (1)

Bugada & Cargnel (here): Cyprien Gaillard (4)

Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska (here): Josef Hoeflehner (2), Giovanni Castell (2), Olaf Otto Becker (2), Axel Hutte (1)

Ingleby Gallery (here): Garry Fabian Miller (7), Peter Liversidge (2), Susan Derges (1 diptych). I've always been a fan of Derges' work, especially the River Taw series of photograms. These images of water over sand have an amazing sparkle up close. Unfortunately, I didn't get a price.


Galeria Enrique Guerrero (here): Olga Adelantado (2). Pablo Helguera (6+slides on lightbox)

Faria Fabregas Galeria (here): Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck (1)

Ignacio Liprandi Arte Contemporaneo (here): Adriana Bustos (2)

Galeria Nara Roesler (here): Paolo Bruscky (2)

Lucia de la Puente (here): Edi Hirose (9)

Galeria Isabel Aninat (here): Denise Lira-Ratinoff, Collectivo Aninat & Swinburn (4)

Part 4 of the Armory review can be found here.

Auction Results: Photographs, November 3, 2010 @Phillips London

The results for Phillips' recent various owner photographs sale in London generally met expectations. While the Total Sale Proceeds fell at the low end of the range, they did cover the low estimate, even with an overall Buy-In rate just under 45%. Irving Penn's images of the hands of Miles Davis once again proved to be enticing for buyers, the lot here (see below) more than tripling its pre-sale high estimate; a variant image from the same series performed similarly well at Christie's last month.
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The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
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Total Lots: 192
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1092900
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1552600
Total Lots Sold: 106
Total Lots Bought In: 86
Buy In %: 44.79%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1143863
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 106
Low Sold: 47
Low Bought In: 59
Buy In %: 55.66%
Total Low Estimate: £351100
Total Low Sold: £156563
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Mid Total Lots: 72
Mid Sold: 49
Mid Bought In: 23
Buy In %: 31.94%
Total Mid Estimate: £656500
Total Mid Sold: £522100
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High Total Lots: 14
High Sold: 10
High Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 28.57%
Total High Estimate: £545000
Total High Sold: £465200
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The top lot by High estimate was lot 115, Edward Steichen, Charlie Chaplin, 1925, at £50000-70000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 121, Irving Penn, The Hand of Miles Davis (B), New York, 1986/1992, at £99650. (Image at right, middle, via Phillips.)

93.40% of the lots that sold had proceeds above or in the estimate range. There were a total of six surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

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Lot 23, Herb Ritts, Sand Breasts, Hawaii, 1988, at £8125

Lot 41, Werner Bischof, Courtyard of the Meiji Temple, Tokyo, 1951/Later, at £5750

Lot 81, Frank Thiel, Stadt 2/41 (Berlin), 1999/2002, at £32450 (image at right, top, via Phillips)

Lot 102, Peter Beard, Maureen Gallagher and a night feeder at Hog Ranch, February, 1987/Later, at £79250 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)

Lot 121, Irving Penn, The Hand of Miles Davis (B), New York, 1986/1992, at £99650

Lot 186, Iwao Yamawaki, Untitled, 1932, at £9375

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Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips De Pury & Company

Howick Place

London SW1P 1BB

Frank Thiel, New Work @Kelly

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 large scale chromogenic prints mounted to Plexiglas, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main light filled gallery and two smaller side rooms. Each image is printed 96x71 (a smaller 54x40 size is also available, although not on display), and the images were taken in 2007 and 2008. The prints are made in editions of 5+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: German photographer Frank Thiel's entire career has been centered around images of the transformations in his home city of Berlin, so the massive patterned and monochrome images that are now on view at Sean Kelly might seem an odd departure. The back story to these works is that they are images of curtains, found in abandoned East Berlin buildings and cleaned up by Thiel. The curtains were then hung in brightly lit windows, photographed, and enlarged to three times life size. The resulting images capture the undulating folds of the fabric, the texture of the weaves, and the interplay of the printed patterns, while having an undertone of historical meaning for unified Germany.

There are three subsets to this larger series: monochrome patterns, solid colors, and color patterns. At first glance, the monochrome curtains seem like wavy indistinct vertical stripes and repetitions; step in closer and there is an amazing level of intricate detail in these zig-zagging lines, an echo of Sol Lewitt's wall sized pencil drawings.

The solid colored works (in red, green, yellow, and brown) emphasize transparent texture, with diaphanous light flowing through the gaps in the weave, highlighting the subtle bumps and imperfections in the cloth. The color patterns are interplays of geometric dots, stripes, and printed leaves, further abstracted and reworked by the interlaced folds of the fabric.

While these works surely have a compelling decorative quality (a backhanded compliment in today's world), I very much enjoyed the delicate abstractions that Thiel has discovered in these mundane subjects. What could have been a clever set piece has become something altogether more elegant and ethereal than would have been expected.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at 11500€ or 23000€ depending on size. Thiel's work has started to show up at auction with more regularity in recent years, with prints selling between $8000 and $23000. As we have mentioned before, while the immense size of these works clearly contributes to their interest, it also makes them wholly impractical for us as collectors. So while I certainly enjoyed these works, the prints would need to be much smaller to be a fit for our particular collection.

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

Transit Hub:

• Constructing New Berlin at the Phoenix Art Museum (here)
• UBS Art Collection (here)
• DLK COLLECTION book review: Frank Thiel: A Berlin Decade, 1995-2005 (here)

Frank Thiel, New Work

Through June 20th

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Sean Kelly Gallery

528 West 29th Street

New York, NY 10001

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Administrative Note: There will be no posts on Monday, US Memorial Day.

Book: Frank Thiel, A Berlin Decade, 1995-2005

JTF (just the facts): Published by Galeria Helga de Alvear, Sean Kelly Gallery, Galerie Krinzinger, and Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2006. 260 pages, with 131 color plates and assorted other images. With essays by Robert Hobbs and David Moos. (Cover at right.)

Comments/Context: German photographer Frank Thiel was an unknown for us prior to seeing his work for the first time at the recent Armory show. We were impressed by several of the large scale photographs we saw there, and bought this book to get ourselves up to speed on his larger body of work.

Most people know the highlights of recent German history: the falling of the Wall, the reunification of East and West, and the movement of the capital from Bonn to Berlin. What is perhaps less well known to outsiders and foreigners is that the reunification of the city (and country) led to a massive construction effort, both demolition of the old and building of the new. In joining the two cities once again, the entire fabric of the urban geography has been recently remade.

Thiel has spent the past decade documenting the architectural transformations going on his city, making wall sized images of both wide angle and close up views of destruction and construction. His pictures are full of cranes, scaffolding, bucket trucks, and temporary curtains. What he has chosen to pull out of these scenes of activity are the geometric patterns that lie beneath the perfect facades, often only visible during the building process. There are grids of rebar, intersecting lines of pipes, walls of tile, and repetitions of windows and concrete framing. Many of these pictures are extremely precise, meticulously aligned abstracted images of form and space. Thiel has also focused his eye on the deterioration and decay found in many of the older buildings. A series of peeling paint images recall Aaron Siskind and Minor White, but on a larger scale and infused with a spectrum of soft pastel colors.

What I found surprising in these images is that they are not particularly harsh or critical of the transformations being documented, as one might expect in our current age of skepticism and environmental awareness. Instead, these works have a little of the old 1920s/1930s romance in them, a more positive view of the efforts of man to make awe inspiring buildings; many of the close ups are in fact quite beautiful. Even the destruction shots have an underlying sense of optimism, a feeling that this new world could somehow be an improvement on the old.

Collector's POV: Thiel is represented in New York by Sean Kelly Gallery (here). A show of new photographs will be on display at the gallery starting in May (and we will surely make a visit).

There have been so many pictures made recently of the construction boom all over the world, as a collector, it is often hard not to get confused about which images belong to whom. And while a few of these pictures have echoes of Andreas Gursky in them, most have an authentic and recognizably different point of view (much less cool and detached, even though these are straight pictures), even though the subject matter may be similar. Thiel's work would fit very well into our collection, resonating with other city and industrial scenes we already own. The problem is that his work is universally way too large for our old Colonial home (low ceilings and small walls); we don't have much use for a mural sized image that won't fit through the doors. That said, I have very much enjoyed seeing more of Thiel's work and look forward to seeing a larger group of his pictures hung together later this spring.