Rosemary Laing: leak @Lelong

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 large scale color photographs, generally framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space and the smaller side gallery. The 8 c-prints in the main gallery range in size from 34x52 to 49x103, and are available in editions of 8+2AP or 10+2AP. The inkjet pigment print on laminated adhesive that is on display in the small gallery is sized to the dimensions of the room and affixed directly to the wall. All of the works were made between 2010 and 2012. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: All of the images in Rosemary Laing's new show are different vantage points of the same puzzling scene: a rolling Australian hillside landscape, where the inverted wooden frame of a one story house looks to have been dropped haphazardly on the crest of a scrubby hill covered in gum trees. Its intrusion on this natural scene is altogether unexpected and alien, as though a giant had flung his plaything away into the weeds.

As a commentary on encroaching suburban sprawl and the destruction of the environment wrought by such expansion, Laing goes beyond simple documentation of ugly tract houses and strip malls and instead opts for an approach that mixes a Land Art style intervention with a more conceptual visual motif. In blue skies and in grey, with sheep and without, this skeleton of a house (built and installed in the land, not a Photoshop trick) clearly doesn't belong in this pastoral view. Laing takes this dissonance one step further by hanging some of the skewed photographs upside down (a la Rodney Graham's trees), creating a dizzying mix of land right side up/house upside down and land upside down/house right side up that keeps the viewer off balance (and I promise, no "down under" puns will be allowed). In a side gallery, she plays with scale even further by blowing one the views up to monumental scale and pasting it on to a curved wall; the small size of the room and the massiveness of the photograph make for a claustrophobic IMAX style effect.

Laing's suite of images seems most like the story of an invasion, an unwanted species plopping down in the middle of nowhere and digging in its stubborn roots. As a metaphor for the changing face of the Australian landscape, it is both simple and surprisingly haunting.

Collector's POV: The c-prints in the show are priced between $7000 and $24000, based on the size and the place in the edition. The wall sized laminated image is priced at $30000 (and will be sized at the collector's discretion). Laing's works have not yet become consistently available in secondary markets for photography. Prices for those prints that have sold at auction in recent years have ranged between $10000 and $15000.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Review: Sydney Morning Herald (here)

Rosemary Laing: leak
Through October 20th

Galerie Lelong
548 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Andy Goldsworthy: New York Dirt Water Light @Lelong

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 photographic "suites", 1 video triptych, and 1 sculpture/installation made of dirt, all displayed without frames, in the entry, a side viewing room, and the main gallery space. 8 of the photographic suites are made up of color inkjet prints: the individual prints range in size from 14x11 to 19x11 (or reverse) and are hung tightly in groups ranging from 14 to 40 prints. The other photographic suite is made up of black and white inkjet prints: a group of 20 prints, each 7x4, flanked by a pair of larger 30x17 prints. All of the photographic prints are unique. The video installation is made up of 3 HD video channels with sound, displayed on three 70x42 screens hung side by side. The dirt installation blocks an interior doorway in the back of the gallery. All of the works were made in 2010. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: For the better part of his career, British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy has been making art firmly and deeply rooted in the simplicity of the natural world. Sometimes ephemeral and fleeting, at other times more permanent, his works have consistently explored the fragile limits of found, local materials, always respectfully balancing the existing environment with his own personal point of view. Many of his more temporary sculptures, those that have been washed away by the incoming tide, melted by the sun, or just blown away by the wind, have been carefully documented via photographs, where changing light and passing time have become additional elements in his overall artistic process.

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In his new works, Goldsworthy has applied this grounded, natural sensibility to the frenetic, man-made world of New York city. With no large rocks, sticks, or leaves to use as his materials, the artist was forced to improvise with what was available in the urban jungle. The result is a series of time-elapsed photographs of streets and sidewalks, decorated with shapes and forms made from gutter water, dirt, and light.

While this description might sound either utterly ridiculous or possibly revolting, the actual effect is surprisingly elegant. In several of the works, Goldsworthy uses his characteristic back and forth snake-like squiggle (alternately rounded and jagged) to traverse a busy street or wander down a long sidewalk. The wet line starts out as deep black or white, and slowly fades as the water evaporates; cars pass, people walk right over it, and the sculpture disappears. In others, Goldsworthy uses the nighttime reflections from an ATM or the gaudy lights of Times Square to illuminate wet circles and improvisational splashes; lurid orange, red, and blue spots stand out on the heavily trafficked sidewalks and then slowly vanish. In the video, the artist lies down in the rain amidst the rushing pedestrians, leaving his outlined form on the cement like a chalk circle for a dead body.
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It almost seems like Goldsworthy has slowed down time, or altered our perception of it via his use of the city as a sculptural playground. His gestures look innocent and modest, almost otherworldly in the rough and tumble environment, but it is their utter simplicity that makes them effective. Who would have thought that a seemingly random wet circle in Times Square could become art, and thereby transform our view of the jostling world around us? Rather than being overly clever or grasping for attention, Goldsworthy's forms have remained humble. As a result, he has uncovered new and original moments of grace in this chaotic city, hiding in plain sight, drawn with an unremarkable fistful of muck from the gutter.
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Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The photographic suites range in price from $50000 to $95000, roughly based on size. The video triptych is $100000 and the dirt installation is $75000. Goldsworthy's photographs do come up for sale at auction from time to time. In recent years, prices have ranged between $5000 and $36000.

When we lived on the West coast, our young kids would routinely clamber around a sculpture of his at Stanford (here); now that we live in the East, we make the trip to Storm King (here), or just drive down a quiet dirt round not far from our house to see a private commission of his (called Three Roadside Boulders I think). While Goldsworthy's works don't fit neatly into any of our collecting genres, his photographic pieces still tempt us from time to time, and we remain drawn to some of his smaller, more intimate images.

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

Transit Hub:

• Spire (here)
• Exhibits: Met, 2004 (here), National Gallery, 2005 (here)
• Interview: Time, 2007 (here)
• Review: NY Times, 2007 (here)

Andy Goldsworthy: New York Dirt Water Light

Through June 19th

Galerie Lelong

548 West 26th Street

New York, NY 10001

Book: Sean Scully, Walls of Aran

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2007 by Thames & Hudson (here). 128 Pages, with 73 images, primarily in black and white. Includes a three part essay by Colm Tóibín and an afterword by the artist. (Cover shot at right, via Thames & Hudson.)

Comments/Context: The Irish painter Sean Scully is probably best known for his earthy abstractions: checkerboards, blocks and stripes of alternating color, fit together with soft painterly edges. What is less well known is that Scully is also an accomplished photographer, and this book gathers together a series of black and white images he made of the miles of limestone walls on the remote Aran Islands, west of Galway.

While I imagine most visitors to these rugged islands take "travel" photos of the amazing walls, Scully has made images that clearly feed off his own aesthetic. The best of the pictures are those that select fragments of the intricate dry stacked walls and highlight their startling patterns: layers of flat rocks built up, interspersed with sea worn rounded stones piled in haphazard groups, mixed with flat rocks inserted vertically into the walls for stability, crackled with dark shadows. Often the images are made from a bit further back, using the sky and the grassy meadows as additional stripes of contrasting color and texture.

Of course, all of the photographs bear a striking resemblance to Scully's paintings. It is as if he has found a real place in this world that matches what he sees in his mind's eye; I can certainly imagine him wandering through these stark landscapes for days on end, following the lines and patterns of the ancient stones. This is a fine group of well made photographs, and an unexpectedly resonant book worth adding to your library.

Collector's POV: Sean Scully is represented by Galerie Lelong in New York (here) and Kerlin Gallery in Dublin (here). His photographs have not yet made any consistent appearance in the secondary markets, so no pricing pattern is readily discernible. While these images reminded me tangentially of Aaron Siskind's images of rocks on Martha's Vineyard and of Andy Goldsworthy's sculptured walls, the photographs themselves eerily echo Scully's paintings and his fascination with the interplay of line, tonality and form.

Transit Hub:

• Walls of Aran exhibit, Kerlin Gallery, 2007 (here)
• Wall of Light exhibit, Met, 2006 (here)
• The Art of the Stripe, Hood, 2008 (here)
• Interview: Journal of Contemporary Art (here)
• Aran Islands (here)