Photography in the 2013 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 2 of 5

Part 1 of this five-part Frieze report can be found here. Start there for introductory background and explanatory notes.

Miguel Abreu Gallery (here): Eileen Quinlan, $15000. This is a pulsating, attention grabbing color study - the shiny material of the woven rubber yoga mat picks up tiny reflections, dotting the electric yellow green with flecks of textured red.

Andrew Kreps Gallery (here): Roe Ethridge, $16000. There's something unexpectedly off about these red tennis tights (the racquet seems overly big as well). It's an eye-catching example of Ethridge's mix of commercial and fine art aesthetics working together to produce something puzzlingly compelling.

Frith Street Gallery (here): Dayanita Singh, $19400. This work is actually three, housed in a custom wood box with interchangeable slots. The overflowing piles of ledgers are documented in all three images, giving the entire work a richer resonance.

Stuart Shave/Modern Art (here): Linder, £15000. A simple image intervention interrupts this self-portrait, creating a jarring hybrid face..

Maureen Paley (here): Gillian Wearing, £35000. Another in Wearing's ongoing series of self-portraits in the guise of famous photographers, this time peering out from the face of Weegee.

Salon 94 (here): Katy Grannan, $14000. This booth had a powerful wall to wall installation of images from Katy Grannan's new 99 series. Taken along California's Route 99 and set against blistering, eye squinting white backgrounds, the images get close up to a parade of weathered faces and forgotten lives. They recall Dorothea Lange and Richard Avedon's In the American West, mixing unflinching harshness and quiet authenticity.

Cheim & Read (here): Adam Fuss, $60000. While I had seen this same mattress covered with a tangle of writhing black snakes in Fuss' last gallery show, I hadn't seen the snakes replaced by a black female mannequin before; it adds another detail to Fuss' garden/Eve story.

Sean Kelly Gallery (here): James Casebere, $45000. Casebere's picture perfect stage set world given a darker, worn out alter ego, with a moss covered rooftop, a broken fence, and a landscape of barren, lifeless trees.

Galerie Krinzinger (here): Otto Muehl, complete portfolio €150000. This booth was dominated by an edge to edge hanging of images documenting 10 different actions/performances by Muehl - Viennese Actionism captured in raw, transgressive, experimental brashness.

Massimo Minini (here): Luigi Ghirri, $12000. A street scene through an ice cream store window, seen with Ghirri's subtly surreal playfulness.

Continue to Part 3 here.

Photography at the 2012 Frieze New York Art Fair, Part 1 of 3

In a single audacious shot across the bow, Frieze New York has decisively, at least in my mind, challenged the Armory as the king of the local contemporary art fairs. There is no changing the visual overload or the wearying onslaught of "merch" inherent at such a place, but the organizers have at least made a real attempt to get the surrounding details right. The overall art-seeing experience in meaningfully better: the halls are wider and less cramped, the booths are roomier and more open, and the light is bright and airy. Even when the fair got more crowded and the sun came out to raise the temperature and cook the occupants during my visit Friday, every few yards a blast of arctic air conditioning would whoosh up from a grate under my feet for a shuddering moment of relief.

Photography-wise, the key thing to note about this fair is that there are NO photography specialist galleries included. Not one. So the available photography is broadcast throughout the fair population like tiny seeds, to be searched out and discovered amidst the rest of the contemporary art. There are also very few secondary market photographic trophies on offer (unlike the parade of Shermans in seemingly every booth at the Armory). This is first and foremost a primary market show, with galleries and dealers showing (for the most part) the work they represent.

For each gallery below (grouped by color coded section, starting near the North entrance), I've listed the photographers/artists with work on view, with the number of images on display in parentheses. In some specific cases where something caught my eye, I've added additional information, pricing (watch for different currencies), and installation shots.


Blue Section

Wilkinson Gallery (here): Anna Parkina (3), Laurie Simmons (1), Jimmy DeSana (1)

Anton Kern Gallery (here): Anne Collier (1)

Art:Concept (here): Jeremy Deller (1)

Galerija Gregor Podnar (here): Ion Grigorescu (1), B. Wurtz (1, with paired sculptural object)

Simon Lee Gallery (here): Hans-Peter Feldmann (1 set of 70). A classic of 1970s conceptual ordering, showing the entire wardrobe of a woman, from shirts on hangers to pairs of shoes. Priced at €35000.

Friedrich Petzel Gallery (here): Robert Heinecken (9)

Team Gallery (here): Sam Samore (2), Cory Arcangel (1), Ryan McGinley (6). Death at the foot of a playground slide never looked so wacky and offbeat (Samore's 1973 image from The Suicidist, priced at $20000.) In a side room painted yellow/orange, a series of new cut photo collages by McGinley has a small solo show. The works are densely covered in his signature young men and women, Xacto knifed into a exuberant sea of tiny faces and bodies; this one was priced at $35000 and already sold.

Anthony Reynolds Gallery (here): Paul Graham (1 diptych, 3)

Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle (here): Thomas Ruff (2), Thomas Struth (2), Candida Hofer (1), Goshka Macuga (1). A all-over composition of pipes and pumps by Struth, from his recent series of scientific labs and facilities, priced at €85000.

Green Section

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (here): Uta Barth (1), Gillian Wearing (1), Phil Collins (1 set of 32). Wearing as a creepy rubber masked August Sander, priced at £35000.

Hauser & Wirth (here): Roni Horn (1), Rodney Graham (1 diptych)

Tomio Koyama Gallery (here): Mika Ninagawa (4). Ninagawa's unorthodox use of vibrant color continues to astonish. From her recent series Noir, priced at $1200.

Harris Lieberman (here): Matt Saunders (2), Lisa Oppenheim (3). The delicate lace photogram gets an update by Oppenheim, folded over again and again into a layered progression of increasing complexity. One from the recent series of five, priced at $6500.

Galleri Nicolai Wallner (here): Joachim Koester (6)

Galerie Sfeir-Semler (here): Wael Shawky (8), Akram Zaatari (1), Yto Barrada (1). A haunting set of portraits of crusader puppets by Shawky, priced at €6000 each.

The Approach (here): Lisa Oppenheim (4), John Stezaker (1 set of 3 collages, 3 collages)

Almine Rech Gallery (here): Taryn Simon (3), Curtis Mann (1). Unlike Mann's previous bleached images, in this recent work, he has scraped thin wavy lines across the surface of the emulsion in a completely abstract striped design, a bit reminiscent of Marco Breuer. Priced at $8800.

Timothy Taylor Gallery (here): Susan Hiller (1 set of 9)

Lehmann Maupin (here): Robin Rhode (1 set of 12). I'm a big fan of Rhode's set piece wall drawings. Here cartoon chairs and a curled piece of white tubing provide the raw materials for a flip book story. Priced at $70000, with a solo show at the gallery coming in 2013.

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (here): Guillaume Leblon (1)

Broadway 1602 (here): Penny Slinger (2 collages)

Air de Paris (here): Sturtevant (5), Jospeh Grigley (3)

Altman Siegel (here): Trevor Paglen (3). A long exposure image of the striated trails of dead satellites and space junk flying across the nighttime sky. Priced at $12000.

Galerie Thaddeus Ropac (here): Robert Mapplethorpe (2), Gilbert & George (1 set of 9)

Galerie Lelong (here): Alfredo Jaar (1 set of 5, 1 set of 3), Helio Oiticica (3), Cildo Meireles (1), Ana Mendieta (2). A Mendieta mud sculpture, printed large and priced at $75000.

Taka Ishii Gallery (here): Yuki Kimura (1)

Annet Gelink Gallery (here): Wilfredo Prieto (1), Yael Bartana (1 diptych), Ryan Gander (1)

Sies+Höke (here): Kris Martin (1 set of 10), Etienne Chambaud (1 set of 3)

Andrew Kreps Gallery (here): Goshka Macuga (1), Roe Ethridge (4)

Miguel Abreu Gallery (here): Liz Deschenes (2), Eileen Quinlan (3), Pamela Rosenkranz (1)

Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here.

Gillian Wearing: People @Bonakdar

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 works in a variety of media, including photography, video, and sculpture, displayed in two gallery spaces on the first floor and two divided spaces on the second floor. Four of the works are bromide prints in painted wood frames, sized between 63x45 and 63x52. These works are available in editions of 6+2AP, and were made between 2008 and 2011. One work (Snapshot) is a group of 7 videos in framed plasma screens, hung together on a single wall with an audio voice over provided on headphones. It comes in an edition of 2+2AP, and was made in 2005. The video Bully comes in an edition of 3+2AP and was made in 2010; the video Secrets and Lies comes in an edition of 5+2AP and was made in 2009. The two sculptures are painted bronze on plywood plinths, in editions of 3+2AP, from 2010 and 2011. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Gillian Wearing's new show (her first in New York since 2003) contains a handful of photographs that play a supporting role to three richer and more psychologically searing videos. All of the works on display explore a related emotional landscape: the complex intersection of individual identity, private stories, and public personas/roles. The result is an often disturbing and unsettling experience, where Wearing confronts hidden narratives and agonizing misunderstanding with remarkable nuance.

Secrets and Lies and Bully are two of the most intense video pieces I have seen in quite a long time, so much so that they become difficult to watch as they progress. Secrets and Lies is staged in a small confession box-like room, where individuals in three quarter poses tell their private stories from behind creepy featureless rubber masks. Their disguises give them the freedom to tell their stories of murder, abuse, and other sad and painful traumas; standing in the claustrophobic chamber hearing these sordid tales was just too much and I literally had to move back a bit. Bully is equally powerful and arresting. It restages a tormenting bullying incident with a group of actors; I won't give away its twist, but when the tables turn, the outcome is both harsh and poignant.

Snapshot gathers together seven videos and runs them simultaneously along one wall, framed in brightly colored wood frames like photographic portraits. This piece examines the nature of static portraiture, in that the images of the women at various stages of life move a little, just enough to add contour and contrast. When seen together, each moving image is an echo of a specific type of photographic style, matched with a related women's role: the youngest girl plays a violin, the awkward teen stands stock still Sander-like, a young woman lies fetchingly on a chaise in a swimsuit, a young mother tends her baby, a middle aged woman poses for a studio portrait, an older, tired woman nervously eats chips in a car, and an elderly woman sits in an armchair in a dated flowered dress. The piece successfully tackles group memories, families, and women's identities, spanning the history of black and white and color imagery.

I found the photographs in the show to be less striking and original. Three of the works are portraits of Wearing echoing famous images of Warhol, Mapplethorpe and Arbus. While the masking and staging are entirely successful (apart from the large eyes peering out from inside the bodies), the reverent inversion and identity mixing wasn't as resonant for me; I understand the connection being made to artistic heroes and influences, but the visual idea seemed a bit too obvious. The single image of a bursting bouquet of artificial flowers is also well executed, but this "the flowers are fake" theme has been explored before (Vik Muniz in the 1990s as one example).

So while I didn't find the photography in this show to be its strongest element, the three jarring and sophisticated videos are certainly worth a detour, even if video art lies beyond your normal area of interest.
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Collector's POV: While it seems to happen more and more infrequently these days, once in a while, I still run into the buzz saw of conscious gallery misdirection when trying to gather prices for these reviews. In the past, I have had nothing but helpful, direct interactions with the staff at this gallery, but on this particular visit, I got a comical parody of a gallery run-around. Rather than exhaustively detail my five different inquiries to three different staff members and the subsequent exasperating sales pitches, let it suffice to say that the only actual price I ever received was $30000 for the 64x45 floral photograph; I was unable to get prices for any of the other works on view. I hope my fellow collectors who really want to follow up on Wearing's work will have better luck extracting useful, actionable information than I did.

Wearing's photographs have been only intermittently available in the auction markets in recent years, with only a handful of lots on offer; prices have ranged between roughly $10000 and $50000. As such, gallery retail is likely the best option for interested collectors at this point, assuming you can get someone to tell you the prices.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), T Magazine (here), ARTINFO (here)

Gillian Wearing: People

Through June 24th

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011