Luigi Ghirri, Kodachrome @Marks

 JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 color photographs, framed in silver and matted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are either vintage c-prints or vintage cibachrome prints, taken between 1971 and 1977. Physical dimensions range from roughly 4x6 to 18x12 (or reverse); no edition information was available. MACK Books published a second edition of Ghirri's 1978 monograph Kodachrome in 2012 (here). The show is sequenced to match the order in the book. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In the years that have followed the recent rediscovery of the work of Luigi Ghirri, there has been a strong tendency to try to understand him in the context of Eggleston, Sternfeld, and Shore and 1970s American color. His work was made in color (check), his work was made in the 1970s (check), at first glance, his work has the appearance of a snapshot aesthetic (check), therefore, he's the "Italian Eggleston". But having spent time with this exhibit and the associated reissued monograph, I've come to the conclusion that such a categorization is both overly easy and ultimately misguided. As we see and digest more of his work, his vision seems increasingly innovative and original, with more logical ties to European Surrealism than to anything happening in American photography.

 

The works in this exhibit come from Ghirri's first self published book, and the photographs are full of visual dislocation and wry disorientation. Compositions are often interrupted, with a vertical board bisecting a beach view, a cross shaped window pane quartering the gardens at Versailles, and a dark shadow falling directly across a framed picture. Other works play with subtle optical illusions and the flattening of perspective, almost with conceptual glee: a perfectly straight contrail in the sky connecting the two sides of a mountain valley, the curve of a man's face echoed by the arc of a souvenir Eiffel Tower, and two men sitting on the corner of a gravel roof, its dark edges receding with mirrored precision. Many images have a constructed, collage-like aesthetic, combining painted murals and found cut outs with tourists walking by and bored couples, creating juxtapositions that are unexpected and often absurd or mysterious. While a few images are inherently about photographic color (the blown pink beach umbrella, the glow of foggy red traffic lights, the wall painted half yellow half blue), most of Ghirri's pictures seem less about color itself and more about a specific way of seeing. Time and again, he confounds your expectations (using his own understated brand of Dada), making photographs of the frames not the paintings, or the postcards not the sunset itself.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Ghirri's sense of visual wit, his images carefully composed to make everyday Italian reality seem altogether more surreal and odd. He never crosses the line into heavy handed trickery, staying instead within the confines of the quietly poetic and the unassumingly puzzling. In the end, his pictures are consistently smart, comforting us with their familiar subject matter and then upending our sense of balance with their deft surprises.

 

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced between $12000 and $20000, based on size. Ghirri's prints have only been sporadically available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $1000 to $34000.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: American Suburb X (here), LPV Magazine (here), New Yorker (here), NY Times (here), Gallerist NY (here)

Luigi Ghirri, Kodachrome

Through April 20th

 

Matthew Marks Gallery

526 West 22nd Street

New York, NY 10011

Peripheral Visions: Italian Photography in Context, 1950s-Present @Hunter College Art Galleries

JTF (just the facts): A group show of the work of 22 Italian photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in the entry areas and a series of three small gallery spaces. The works were made between 1953 and 2011. The show was curated by Maria Antoinella Pelizzari. A catalog of the exhibition has been published by Charta (here). (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers were included in the exhibit, with the number of works on view, dates, and processes in parentheses:
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Marina Ballo Charmet (2 gelatin silver prints, 1 DVD, 1993/1994, 1995, 1996)
Olivo Barbieri (2 chromogenic prints, 1 archival pigment print, 1985, 2009)
Gabriele Basilico (4 gelatin silver print, 1 book, 1979/1980, 1981, 2006)
Gianni Berengo Gardin (1 gelatin silver print, 1970)
Mario Carrieri (4 gelatin silver prints, 1 book, 1957-1959)
Vincenzo Castella (1 chromogenic print, 1 video, 2009)
Cesare Colombo (1 gelatin silver print, 1961)
Mario Cresci (1 group of 3 prints, 2 lithographs, 1 book, 1975, 1978, 1979)
Paola Di Bello (1 digital chromogenic print on diasec, 1 c-print mounted on diasec, 1997, 1999/2001)
Luigi Ghirri (6 chromogenic prints, 3 books, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1984, 1985, 1991)
Guidi Guidi (3 chromogenic prints, 1989, 1991, 2000)
Alessandro Imbriaco (4 inkjet prints, 2007-2011)
Francesco Jodice (1 digital print on Hahnemuhle paper, 1996)
Mimmo Jodice (1 gelatin silver print, 1977)
Armin Linke (1 accordion book of 16 chromogenic prints, 1999/2008)
Maurizio Montagna (1 group of 8 gelatin silver prints, 2004/2006)
Paolo Monti (2 gelatin silver prints, 1953-1956, 1959)
Ugo Mulas (1 gelatin silver print contact sheet, 1969)
Walter Niedermayr (1 chromogenic diptych, 1999)
Franco Vaccari (1 8mm film, 1 collage of 2 chromogenic prints, 1971, 1972)
Massimo Vitali (1 c-print diptych on Dibond, 2004)

Comments/Context: While a handful of contemporary Italian photographers have clearly established themselves in the global art conversation, I've often thought that what has been missing was a wider survey of recent Italian photography to provide some deeper national context for their approaches, choices, and influences. Spanning roughly sixty years and using the "little of each" sampler approach, this exhibit fills in some yawning historical gaps and places key figures amid lesser known artists (at least here in the US), offering a smoother continuum of related aesthetic ideas.

If there is a common theme to this work produced since the 1950s, it is an interest in topographical changes in the land, and the influx of urban sprawl on Italian life. There are no pictures of ornate churches, grand palazzos, historical treasures, or tourist sites included here. These images study the effects of hulking apartment blocks, office buildings, and dense concrete compression, often looking at the edges and intersections of old and new. This skeptical investigation has parallels to similar photographs made in America in the 1970s, exploring the complicated results of our own rapid suburban and industrial expansion.

Through the eyes of Paolo Monti, 1950s Milan was a grubby, alienating place: torn chain link fence, smoky skies, rubble strewn vacant lots. Gabriele Basilico picks up some of this same emotion, albeit in a much more rigorous and formal way, with architectural images from the late 1970s and a more recent monumental portrait of the smog covered expanse of urban Naples. Closer looks at details of buildings range from Luigi Ghirri's intimate and atmospheric color works to Guido Guidi's angular construction sites and sheds. Decades apart, Mario Cresci and Paola Di Bello take on similar city-centric subjects with a more conceptual bent. Even the glossy contemporary works by Massimo Vitali and Walter Niedermayr brush up against the encroaching ugliness: a chugging nuclear power plant looms in the distance behind one of Vitali's blinding beach scenes, and an overstuffed auto graveyard abuts a busy highway as seen from Niedermayr's signature bird's eye view.

All in, this is a smartly edited summary that offers multiple artistic viewpoints and interpretations of the dominant societal trend in Italy in the past half century: the tremendous, ever expanding growth of its cities. The space itself makes this show feel a bit cramped and chaotic, but with some visual patience, the choices here provide a thoughtful progression, both through time and across evolving photographic ideas.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum exhibit, there are, of course, no posted prices. For those interested in following up on examples of recent Italian photography, a succinct companion show called An Italian Perspective is now on view in Howard Greenberg Gallery's new second space (here), through March 13th. It includes 12 images by Luigi Ghirri ($12000 or $13500 each), 6 images by Gabriele Basilico (ranging from $8000 to $19000 each), 1 image by Massimo Vitali ($39700), and 5 works by Vincenzo Castella (4 single images at $16000 or $28000 each, based on size, 1 diptych at $15000).

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Village Voice (here)

Peripheral Visions: Italian Photography in Context, 1950s-Present
Through April 28th

Hunter College Art Galleries
Hunter West Building
(southwest corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue)
New York, NY 10065

Olivo Barbieri: The Dolomites Project @Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 7 large scale color photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, sized either 65x85 or 45x59, each available in editions of 6+3AP. All of the works were made in 2010. A monograph of this body of work was published by Damiani (here) and is available from the gallery for $40. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Olivo Barbieri's aerial images of the Dolomites follow in the hallowed tradition of Ansel Adams' photographs of Yosemite: pictures made to convince others of the grandeur of a place to ensure its protection for future generations. With the goal of helping to secure a World Heritage Site designation for the northern Italian region, Barbieri took to a helicopter and made crisp view camera images hovering over the towering rocky crags and crumbling rugged mountainsides.

These landscape photographs are out of the ordinary in several ways. Instead of using his usual tilt/shift approach of selective focusing and flattening, Barbieri has instead gone for selective coloration, playing with positive and negative values and tonalities to create dissonant landscape concoctions. These effects are not universally employed across all parts of an image, but in small areas and regions, often set off by the natural breaks and watersheds in the land. These manipulations mix together hyper-real and surreal, tweaked and inverted, stitching them together in unnatural, layered carpets of jagged cliffs and eroded surfaces. Tiny figures stand on outcroppings and resting points like figures from a romantic landscape painting, showing off the immense, imposing scale of the setting. And the prints themselves are monumental in size, enveloping the viewer in the expansive, all-encompassing detail of the dramatic scenes.

Given the off kilter coloration, the scale, and the looking down viewpoint, I had a few Niedermayr and Maier-Aichen moments in these photographs. In general, I very much like the idea of experimental manipulation, and of using new digital techniques to expand the boundaries of the landscape genre, but the overall impression I took away from these photographs was something more like a feeling of over reaching. What I mean is that the raw land in these images is already astonishing and breathtaking (especially from the air), but these pictures amplify this awestruck impressiveness to the point of subtle searching distraction; I found myself scanning for the visual trickery, rather than enjoying the whole experience. The land has clearly been interpreted by Barbieri in a clever new way here, but I found myself wondering whether his manipulations were diverting attention away from the authentic spectacle of the mountains themselves.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The 65x85 prints are either $25000 or $40000, and the single 45x59 print is $20000. Barbieri's photographs have very little secondary market history to date, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Feature: NY Times The Sixth Floor (here)

Olivo Barbieri: The Dolomites Project
Through March 31st

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Massimo Vitali: Arcadian Remains @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 5 large scale color works, mounted to Diasec and not framed, and hung in the main gallery space. The chromogenic prints range in size from 71x89 to 76x100; 4 are single images and 1 is a diptych. The images were taken in Greece, Italy, and Spain in 2011, and are available in editions of 6. A companion exhibit of Vitali's works is on display at agnès b. Galerie Boutique (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Massimo Vitali's newest pictures find him parked in a familiar location: looking down from above on the vast seashore, where sparkling blue water meets sand and eroded rock, and where tiny people in colorful swimsuits cover the available land mass like packs of insignificant ants. As usual, the light is squint inducing, so bright and white that it is almost a physical presence, draping the scenes with washes of blinding glare.

The gallery press release calls Vitali's works "socio-landscapes", and my experience of these new pictures is that they have a bit more landscape in them than his previous photographs. The scale seems broader, the white cliffs and rock formations more like harsh moonscapes, the crashing waves more dramatic. The tiny figures seem almost like the minuscule people found in the foreground of a romantic landscape painting, only multiplied into crowds, with each individual sun bather or pair of lazy swimmers identifiable and unique. The caustic irony I have felt in his earlier photographs seems more muted here, the folly of humanity (when compared to the grandeur of nature) made even smaller and more unimportant.

All in all, Vitali hasn't strayed too far from the formula that brought him success in these new images, but he does seem to be bridging closer to traditional landscape forms than ever before. There are less miles of matching umbrellas and acres of human flesh in these pictures, and instead a more subtle tilt toward the timelessness of the land and sea.

Collector's POV: The single images in this show are priced at 30000€  or 40000€ based on the place in the edition; the diptych is 50000€. These prices are a decent step up from his last show at Benrubi. Vitali's work has become more routinely available at auction in recent years, with prices ranging from roughly $5000 to $80000.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Massimo Vitali: Arcadian Remains
Through February 4th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Paolo Ventura, The Automaton of Venice @Hasted Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 large scale color photographs, framed in back and unmatted, and displayed in the entry and first two gallery spaces. The works are digital chromogenic prints from two new series: The Automaton (made in 2010) and Behind the Walls (made in 2011). There are 11 works from The Automaton and 5 works from Behind the Walls. The prints come in two sizes: 30x40, in editions of 3 for images from The Automaton and 5 for those from Behind the Walls, and 40x50, in editions of 5 for both series. All of the works on display are shown in the large size. A slim monograph of The Automaton has recently been published by Peliti Associati (here) and is available from the gallery for $35. A 40x30 poster from The Automaton is also available for $50. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: Paolo Ventura’s new work continues his meticulous exploration of self-contained photographic fiction, drawing from his own childhood memories of 1940s Italy and transforming them into evocative historical stories. Using realistic hand crafted dioramas and miniatures as his subjects, he constructs images that are nostalgic recreations of place and time, with period details and doll-like characters who inhabit the set-ups. With each successive project, his pictures have become more immersive and painterly in style, creating fantasy narratives that are evolving toward the feel of carefully sequenced children’s tales.

In The Automaton, Ventura locates his story in Fascist Venice during the occupation by the Nazis and the last deportation of Jews. To keep himself company, an elderly watchmaker builds an automaton in his dingy, clock choked, attic apartment. Nearby store fronts and book stalls are closed, canals are stagnant and foggy, trash and abandoned items are strewn across small piazzas, and a few lonely souls wander the streets or flee from the rooftops. Ventura’s Venice is soot stained and muted, executed in a melancholy, desaturated palette and enveloped in a misty, foreboding silence. There is little or no action taking place - the images are entirely descriptive and atmospheric, and the emptiness of the city is eerie, weighed down by a thick greyness.

These images are certainly among the contemporary "best of breed" in terms of technical image construction. And Ventura’s memory-driven approach has been consistently successful at delivering images with understated emotion. What's different here is that this new story is even darker than the drab, gritty carnival world of his previous series, Winter Stories. The childlike wonder of those pictures has been replaced with more adult themes in these new works, and a stronger undercurrent of uncertainty and despair now runs throughout the narrative. Ventura is still exploring the boundaries of the staged photographic narrative, and as his craft is being perfected, the historical subject matter is becoming more layered and moody.

Collector's POV: The works in the show are each available in two sizes: the 30x40 prints are $7500 and the 40x50 prints are $11250. Compared with the photographer’s show of similar imagery last year, this is a meaningful increase in price. Ventura's work has very little auction history. Recent prices have ranged between roughly $4500 to $16000, but given such a thin secondary market, gallery retail is likely the only real option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews/Features: Photo Booth (here), T Magazine (here), ArtInfo (here), La Lettre de la Photographie (here)

Paolo Ventura, The Automaton of Venice

Through October 15th
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Hasted Kraeutler Gallery

537 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Luisa Lambri, Certain Variables @Luhring Augustine

I have a handful of shows in the backlog from the summer that I think merit a discussion, even though they are now closed. I'll be working my way through these before I dig into the new Fall offerings.
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JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 Laserchrome prints, framed in white with no matting, and hung in the entry, main gallery, and one back room. The images range in size from 29x24 to 43x35 and are available in editions of 5. All of the negatives are from 2007. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: With a cursory glance at Luisa Lambri's new photographs, it might be tempting to slap a label on them and think we can characterize what they're all about. Calling them Minimalism or lumping them in with other architectural photographs from across time would be the two easiest paths forward, since her works are, in fact, elemental geometric images taken through the skylights of famous Modernist buildings. But I think those conclusions would be evidence of laziness on the part of the viewer; I think there's quite a bit more to be discovered here beyond figuring out which bucket or category they might belong in.
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Most of the images in this show have the exact same framing: an upward view out a glass skylight at the Sheats-Goldstein House, where a leafy canopy of trees hangs overhead. Two parallel edges of the window running vertically through the frame act almost like a prism, subtly fracturing the natural scene. Changes in the light conditions generate images that range from hazy white Southern California brightness to dense dark green with moody shadows. Aside from a few fallen leaves trapped on the outside of the glass, the only variable is the light; everything else in the frame stays constant.

While this kind of rigorous set up may sound like the recipe for an academic exercise in photographic tonality, I think Lambri's approach is less about rigid rules and tedious variations and more about a personal response to a specific space across time. The images are full of soft contemplation and quiet meditation, an experience of nature via the context of the building and through the eyes of the architect who placed that skylight just so. They are gradual and intimate, where fleeting shadows dance rhythmically across the glass surface or an ephemeral beam of faint sunlight pokes through the leaves. There is the strong feeling of seeing the "outside" from the "inside" and of becoming intricately involved in the architecture, rather than just recognizing its surface features.

I think this is a case where simplicity is deceiving; these pictures have much more personality than a Minimalist nametag might imply. Instead of showing us obvious views of soaring rooflines or elegant siting, Lambri has brought us down to the experience of the individual, showing us both the wonder and the nearly infinite variation that can come from such a controlled setting.
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Collector's POV:The images in the show are priced at either $10500 or $12000 based on size. Lambri's work has very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point
 
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Exhibition: Luisa Lambri, Being There @Hammer, 2010 (here)
• Venice Biennale, 2010 (here)

Luisa Lambri, Certain Variables
Through August 11

Luhring Augustine
531 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction: Italia, June 30, 2010 @Phillips London

Another installment in Phillips' themed sale series takes place in London later this week with an auction entitled Italia. It's generally a mixed bag of Italian artists, with an additional group of other artists using Italy or Italians as subject matter. Out of a total of 235 lots available in all mediums, 73 are photographs, with a Total High Estimate for photography of £631100. (Catalog cover at right, via Phillips.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 32
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £110600

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 37
Total Mid Estimate: £355500

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 4
Total High Estimate: £165000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 120, David LaChapelle, Statue, Los Angeles, 2007, at £50000-70000. (Image at right, via Phillips.)

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

Piergiorgio Branzi (5)
Mario Giacomelli (4)
William Klein (3)
Enzo Sellerio (3)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Italia
June 30th

Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Olivo Barbieri, site specific_NEW YORK CITY 07 @Richardson

JTF (just the facts): A total of 7 large scale photographs, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the main gallery space. The archival pigment prints are sized 45x61 or reverse, and are available in editions of 6+2. All of the works were made in 2007. Signed monographs are available from the gallery for $75. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: Given the long history of iconic New York photographs, deciding to take on the challenge of seeing famous New York landmarks in an original way takes a certain kind of artistic confidence. What more can really be said about Times Square, the Flatiron Building, or Coney Island?
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Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri has been making aerial photographs of famous world cities since 2004. Using a tilt-shift lens, his bird's eye images of recognizable architecture have been transformed into real-life architectural scale models, or tabletop toy set-ups with ant-sized people. The lens provides a shallow depth of field, so much of the image is semi-blurred, leaving only a small area of sharper focus where the detail is crisp ("selective focus"); the effect is to render reality with more impressionistic flair.
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Barbieri's images of New York city make many of our hackneyed subjects seem fresh once again. I particularly enjoyed the vibrant swath of green of Sheep's Meadow, where the crowd of sunbathers on towels has become a blur of blinding polka dots. The amusement park rides of Coney Island are another highlight, the playful colors and shapes restyled into a swirling mass of interconnected lines. The roof garden of the Met is likely the least known scene on display, with its pyramidal striped roof and irregular geometric hedge.
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While the novelty factor is always high for me with tilt shift photography, I wonder a bit about what lies beneath the decorative fun. Perhaps the answer is that these images so radically alter our common perception of a place that we are forced to see it with new eyes, in the process discovering details and nuances that we had wholly overlooked.
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Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced at either $19700 or $23700. Barbieri's photographs have very little secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Another contemporary photographer who has embraced the use of a tilt-shift lens is Naoki Honjo (here).
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Feature: Metropolis Magazine, 2006 (here)
• Review: NY Times, 2006 (here)

Olivo Barbieri, site specific_NEW YORK CITY 07
Through May 28th

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

Elisa Sighicelli: The Party Is Over @Gagosian

JTF (just the facts): A total of 11 color works, unframed, and sparsely hung in a series of six gallery spaces and a hallway on the fifth floor. There are 9 photographic works and two video installations. All of the photographs are partially backlit c-prints on lightboxes. Most of the images are made up of a single 48x48 panel (plugged in to an electrical outlet); two additional works are 5 panels and 2 panels respectively; a third is a smaller 23x23 single panel. All of the photographs are in editions of 3, from 2009. The two color videos are also in editions of 3, from 2006 and 2009. A catalog of the exhibition is available from the gallery for $30. (Installation shots at right, via Gagosian.)

Comments/Context: Elisa Sighicelli's straightforward nocturnal compositions glow unlike any night scenes you've seen before. The effect comes from a clever adaptation of Jeff Wall's signature lightboxes: mask out large portions of the print from the back, allowing only certain areas to show through, enhancing the contrast. The result is that the dark black areas are extremely opaque, while the brightly lit zones pulsate with vivid luminosity.

Most of the images depict massive, spotlit billboards, anonymous and often seen from behind, the glare of the illumination radiating out into the darkness. Others capture the gold glitter of a brilliant chandelier, the otherworldly glow of a planetarium, or the diffused radiance of a tangle of bamboo scaffolding that covers a building. While the compositions are unassuming, the character and quality of the light is different in each work, shading from smoky warmth to blinding pure white, alternately human and inhuman depending on the circumstances.

I particularly enjoyed one of the videos (The Party Is Over), which depicts a fireworks display running in reverse. The shards and blooms of light retreat upward, imploding, as if they were falling into a black hole. The squelching of the light happens in a regular rhythm, over and over again, twinkles and sparks disappearing into the night; the effect is successfully meditative.

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The medium of photography is filled with exercises and experiments with light. These pictures are something tangentially different; they seem to be "about" light, how it conveys information, mood, and emotion, rather than a demonstration of how it is to be controlled for maximum pictorial effect. This is what is memorable here: it's not the infrastructure of the back of a billboard that matters, but the idea of its light as a beacon of truth, or an ominous consumerist nightmare, or simply an empty but beautiful abstraction, hovering in the darkness.

Collector's POV: The photographic works in the show are priced as follows. The 48x48 single panel images are $15000. The 5 panel group is $55000, while the 2 panel pair is $25000. The smaller 23x23 single panel is $10000. I didn't ask the prices for the videos. Sighicelli's work has started to appear at auction intermittently in the past few years; prices have generally ranged between $9000 and $17000, although the data set is pretty small.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Interview: Brooklyn Rail (here)

Elisa Sighicelli: The Party Is Over

Through February 27th

Gagosian Gallery
98o Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075

Paolo Ventura, Winter Stories @Hasted Hunt Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 13 color photographs, 13 drawings in watercolor/ink, and 1 glass case containing a variety of miniature props, displayed in the entry and first two gallery spaces. The photographs are digital c-prints, framed in black and not matted, and were made between 2007 and 2009. The prints come in two sizes: 30x40 in editions of 10, and 40x50 in editions of 5. The watercolor/ink drawings are framed in black and matted, and were all made in 2007. Each one is unique; they range in size from 8x8 to 16x12. While in many cases there is both a preparatory watercolor and a final photograph of a particular scene in the show, there is not a perfect 1-to-1 correlation in the pairings and some of each are shown without their match. A monograph of this body of work has recently been published by Aperture (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Recently, I've been thinking quite a bit about the applicability of various labels for different categories of photography. Two of the terms I have been considering most carefully have been "fiction" and "non-fiction", as they are used to characterize the printed word. Without going into the full explication of why I think these labels might be of use in understanding the broad sweep of photography (we'll leave that for another day), let it suffice to say that Paolo Ventura's Winter Stories images are a perfect example of the genre of photographic "fiction", fitting neatly into the traditions of Italo Calvino and other Italian writers, painters, and filmmakers of the 20th century.

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One of the basic tenets of literary fiction is the idea of using real memory as raw material that is then used to construct an original (and fictional) narrative. This conversion from memory to "reality" allows for the artist's imagination to evolve the content in new and unexpected ways, often paring down the events to their most elemental forms and evocative emotions. We've talked about this idea before (most recently in the context of the photography of Amy Stein); Paolo Ventura's work also follows an overtly painterly path, beginning with a watercolor and ink drawing, which is then transformed into a meticulous three dimensional tabletop diorama (complete with strict attention to the tiniest of details) and ultimately thoughtfully photographed to produce his large prints.

Watching the various videos linked below and hearing Ventura talk about his process, it becomes clear that photography is really the end point of his creative cycle. The watercolors are like a sketchbook of ideas that capture moods, ideas and the framework of potential vignettes and stories. After the miniature sets are painstakingly built, the "characters" experiment with different poses and compositions, as if they were actors on a tiny stage. Only after a variety of subtly different installations have been tried does a final image get taken.

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In this body of work, Ventura has recreated the magical and melancholy world of the wintertime carnivals and traveling circuses that set up on the outskirts of Italian cities and towns during his childhood. Tiger tamers, jugglers, clowns, fire eaters, and sword swallowers wearily display their skills for thin (or non-existant) crowds, standing in the cold slush under grey skies. While the images are in color, the palette has been meaningfully toned down; muted and worn colors dominate, creating a darker and earthier nostalgic feeling. And yet there are mysterious moments of magical wonder and surreal amazement taking place, or just about to: a bird man appears, a man is lifted into the air by a jumble of colorful balloons, two men in polka-dot horse costume make an entrance, as does a man with a drum on his back; what might happen next (or why) is left to our imagination.

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Ventura's images show us both the gritty, dirty "truth" of these pedestrian fairs, and also give us the sense that something special and unknowable might be going on. Together, each of the small vignettes helps to construct a well-rounded and surprisingly believable and timeless story (an entire world really), made with equal parts strange fairy tale and personal history. In the end, these are successful works of photographic fiction, with echoes of the books and paintings that transport us somewhere else in space and time and take us on a journey outside our own mundane reality.

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Collector's POV: The photographs in the exhibit are available in two sizes, and thus, two prices: the 30x40 prints are $4500 and the 40x50 prints are $7500. The watercolor/ink drawings are $5000 each. Ventura's work has really only entered the secondary markets in the past year or two, and only a few lots have come up for sale. Prices have ranged between approximately $4500 to $16000, although with so few data points, it is hard to chart a reliable line.

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While these works don't fit into our particular collecting genres, I was impressed with both the overall craftsmanship of all the steps in Ventura's artistic process and the ultimate ability of many of the images to suspend my disbelief and draw me into their dreamlike story.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Art in America, Jean Dykstra, 2008 (here)
• Videos: Aperture (here and here), Conscientious (here)

Paolo Ventura, Winter Stories

Through January 23rd

Hasted Hunt Kraeutler

537 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Renato D'Agostin, Tokyo Untitled @Leica

JTF (just the facts): A total of 23 black and white images, framed in thin purplish-brown metal frames and matted, and hung in the back room of the gallery (the Chinatown work of Alessandro Zuek Simonetti hangs in the front rooms). All of the photographs are gelatin silver prints sized 12x16 (or reverse) and are printed in editions of 25. The works were taken between 2007 and 2009. A monograph of this body of work has been published by Mc2 Gallery (here). (Ironically, Leica Gallery does not allow photography in the gallery, so unfortunately there are no installation shots for this show. Tokyo, 2009, at right, via the Leica Gallery website.)

Comments/Context: Renato D'Agostin's Tokyo is a dark, lonely, isolating place. In abstracted and impressionistic views, full of shadows and visual interruptions, D'Agostin portrays the city as a jumble of bustling emptiness, a dislocated montage of modern day Japanese noir.

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D'Agostin was an assistant to Ralph Gibson, and some of Gibson's simplicity of form and mastery of stark contrasts comes through in his apprentice's work. Fragments of salarymen haunt the streets, captured against the stripes of a crosswalk or the sleek lines of an office building. Trains rush past in the darkness, heads caught in profile against the blinding light of the windows. People walk alone or in groups, carrying briefcases, trudging along in the dark, silhouetted against the features of unidentifiable public spaces. Grainy blurs slash across the compositions, reminiscent of Ray Metzker's use of a similar compositional device.

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What I like most about these works is that they successfully combine that feeling of overwhelming visual stimulation that comes from being in Tokyo, with the uneasy sense of polarized remoteness and separation that is so intensely felt by visitors and outsiders.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $1500 each. D'Agostin's work has not yet entered the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point. Some of these images could certainly fit into our city/industrial collecting genre; I particularly enjoyed the silhouette of the man in a hat against a brick wall (Tokyo, 2009) and the dark passing train with four white spots (also Tokyo, 2009).

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Renato D'Agostin, Tokyo Untitled
Through January 9th

Leica Gallery
670 Broadway

New York, NY 10012

Paola Ferrario: Imprevisti/Unforeseen @Sue Scott

JTF (just the facts): A total of 22 photographic works and 1 video, hung in the entry, office space, and main gallery, with the video playing in a darkened room at the back. The photographs are digital prints using archival inks, pinned directly to the walls as single images, pairs, triptychs, or larger series and grids. All of the works are from 2008 and 2009. Individual component images range in size from approximately 8x10 to 22x30; the pictures are then hung as groups of prints or are printed together as one larger piece with multiple images on a single sheet. All of the works are printed in editions of 5+2AP. The video is also from 2009, in an edition of 5+2AP. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Paola Ferrario's photographs strongly remind me (in the best possible way) of an old teaching tool used to help novice photographers learn how to "see" photographically - take an old piece of white mat board and cut a 4x6 hole in it, and then carry it around and look through it to see how the edges of the frame create compositions. Using this simple prop, one suddenly sees the world entirely differently: scraps and fragments start to matter, edges and details come forward, and overlooked and seemingly random things often have a new resonance.

Ferrario's images take the learnings from this simple lesson and evolve them into a unique style that combines the color of Eggleston, the playfulness of Luigi Ghirri, and the abstraction of Siskind. Her compositions find warm humor in unassuming places: a pink sock dangles off a hand railing, a rubbish bin looks to devour a white balloon, a smiley face peeks out from the side of a worn yellow basketball. In others, she focuses on texture and pattern: a door peephole lies amidst peeling plastic, strips of duct tape dangle from a wall, a bright orange potato chip bag lies caught in rough concrete.

Ferrario doesn't stop however with single, clever images; she brings the fragments together in careful juxtapositions, creating rhythms and contrasts between multiple pictures: a series of tar ribbons and road markings are hung together in a interrelated group (almost like a typology), views through molded concrete barriers are hung in a series, fragments of graffiti pop up again and again. The grids become abstract patterns and repetitions of geometry and color, as well as sly rebuses of interconnected metaphors and meanings.

Overall, this show is full of satisfying coincidences and ironies. And don't miss the manic video in the back, a car-sickness inducing montage of the twist and turns of Italian roadways and tunnels taken with a shaky handheld video camera, punctuated by the radio voice over from a soccer match and the final roar of "GOOOAAAL" as Grosso hits the net.

Collector's POV: The works in the show are priced as follows: single images run from $400 to $1400 based on size; pairs are between $800 and $1200, and works with between 3 and 16 component images are priced between $1200 and $6500, dependent on size and the number of images included. A price for the video was not on the price sheet. Ferrario's work is not yet available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

While none of the works on display is an exact match for our particular collection, there were many that I found visually striking and entertaining. Asphalt I, 2009, would likely fit our city genre best, with its subtle variations of abstract grey.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Smith College page (here)

Paola Ferrario: Imprevisti/Unforeseen

Through January 10th

Sue Scott Gallery

1 Rivington Street

New York, NY 10002

Massimo Vitali: Landscape with Figures 2 @Benrubi

JTF (just the facts): A total of 6 large scale works, mounted to dibond plexi and not framed, and hung in the entry and main gallery spaces. Each of the chromogenic prints is 72x86; 5 are single images and there is one diptych. All of the works in the show were made in 2008 and 2009. A monograph of this work is being published by Steidl (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Massimo Vitali's recent images continue his signature combination of large scale photography and intricate detail, his locations once again covered by masses of people. Taken in Sicily and Turkey, these particular images depict the ruins of Ephesus, and various healing pools, sacred grottoes, and swimming locations.

What I like about Vitali's work is that from afar, his images have a sense of immense grandeur, the huge scale creating engrossing, eye-catching scenes (sometimes blindingly lit); up close, I've always found the pictures to border on the ridiculous, the crazy density of humanity literally overrunning every setting, no matter how beautiful or pristine. Tourism and consumerism are skewered quite neatly.

These new works are no different: tourists crawl over the historic library and amphitheatre at Ephesus (mixed together with acres of dusty rubble and tumbledown rocks) and swimmers of all shapes and sizes plunge into various waters, cavorting and frolicking literally on top of each other in the washed out brightness. The works seem to bring together the extra large museum images of Thomas Struth with the ironic tourist pictures of Martin Parr, with a dash of the over the top crowds at Coney Island of Weegee.

The works in this particular show are so large that they crowd each other a bit too much, creating a visual overload in the gallery; the prints are outsized for the display space - shown in a bigger room, they'd have much more room to breathe. Overall, while these works don't depart too far from Vitali's successful formula or show us much that is radically different from his earlier work, they hold up a mirror to ourselves, a potent reminder that we are not necessarily as unique as we might think; perhaps we too are unknowingly part of the thundering herds looking for the same banal entertainments and "memorable" experiences.

Collector's POV: The single images in this show are priced at 25000€ each; the diptych is 45000€. Vitali's work has become more and more available in the secondary markets in recent years and his prices have remained strong, ranging from $7000 to $80000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Interview: Lens Culture (here)
• Foam exhibit, 2009 (here)
• Review: Guardian (here), 1000 Words (here)

Massimo Vitali: Landscape with Figures 2
Through February 27th

Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Walter Niedermayr @Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 15 works, made up of 2, 3 or 4 panels hung edge to edge, framed in blond wood and displayed throughout the entire gallery (entry, 2 small front rooms, and three larger back rooms). The prints are a mixture of C prints and digital ink prints, made in editions of 6. The negatives are from the period 2000 to 2008. All of the works are large, varying in size, but most are approximately 50x100. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Italian photographer Walter Niedermayr has made a career out of documenting scenes of immense natural scale. His most recognizable images are set on mountain tops or at alpine ski reports, where spindly lift machinery winds up the mountainside and people are reduced to tiny blips of bright color, often contrasted with vast open panoramic spaces of pure white. He uses this same formula with wide swaths of bleached out sand and dunes, or with expansive rolling green pastures where the miniature people have been replaced by sheep and hay bales.

While we had seen single works by Niedermayr previously, I very much enjoyed seeing a larger body of his images collected and hung together, as many more patterns in his artistic approach emerged. From afar, the works wash out to painterly expanses of color; up close, they are a potent reminder of the insignificance of life and its entertainments when placed against the backdrop of the timeless and indifferent natural world.

The artist's placeholder website is here.

Collector's POV: The works in this show range in price from $19000 to $32000, mostly based on size/the number of panels in the work. Niedermayr's work has started to become more available in the secondary markets in the past few years, finding buyers at auction at prices from $10000 to $25000. I find these images both visually stimulating from a variety of distances and thought provoking in terms of their environmental commentary. This combination will likely make them successful and enduring over the long run.

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

Walter Niedermayr

Through March 14

Robert Miller Gallery

524 West 26th Street

New York, NY 10001

Luisa Lambri, Photographs @Luhring Augustine

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 black and white Laserchrome prints, framed in white and minimally displayed in the entry, main gallery, and one back room. The images are of three different sizes (29x25, 30x36, and 48x37) and are available in editions of 5. All of the negatives are from 2008. (Marginal installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Italian photographer Luisa Lambri makes architectural images in the buildings constructed by the masters of modernity, and instead of documenting the triumphant vision and bold details that we have seen so many times before, she interprets the spaces in more personal ways and finds introspective moments of meditative quiet.

This is perhaps the subtlest show of photography I have seen in quite a while. On one wall, a grid of six images taken in the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea in Galicia, Spain (built by renowned Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza) are displayed, spread widely on a large blank wall. At first glance, these images appear identical, and are vaguely reminiscent of stairwells photographed by Tina Modotti and Charles Sheeler. As you contemplate these images, minute variations in the light in the images present themselves as slight tonal gradations and color shifts, so small as to be nearly imperceptible. The other images in the exhibit are also grouped to highlight these ethereal permutations.

These solemn and quiet abstractions grew on me over time and I started to appreciate a bit more their tender intimacy. I came around to seeing these images as sensory exercises in light, less about realism and more about minimalism. If however you are wound tight and moving quickly when you see this show, you will have little patience for these delicacies and will likely leave mystified.

Collector's POV: These images will, of course, appeal to the all white, open and airy, minimalist crowd. The images in the show are priced at $9000, $10000, and $12000 based on size. Lambri's work has been virtually absent from the secondary markets for photography, so retail is likely your only avenue for acquiring her work in the short term.

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

Luisa Lambri, Photographs
Through February 7

Luhring Augustine
531 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Gabriele Basilico, Intercity @Cohen Amador

JTF (just the facts): 12 black and white pigment prints, hung in dark grey frames throughout the gallery. The works come in two sizes (approximately 29x37 and 53x42) and are printed in editions of 15. The images were taken in a variety of locations (Naples, Moscow, San Francisco, Monaco, Barcelona, and Bari) during the period 2004-2007. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico has been making careful studies of cities, urban environments and architecture in Europe and in other locations around the world for nearly three decades, and yet he remains a bit of a mystery to audiences in the United States. Except for the show at the SFMOMA last year and a relatively recent relationship with Cohen Amador, Basilico has been virtually absent from America.

Basilico's images of densely built habitats are neither wholly abstracted exercises in lines and planes, nor are they wide documentary views of architecture in the context of its surroundings; they lie somewhere in the middle, giving the structures some larger situation, while playing with the relationships of space and pattern inherent in their design. At first glance, some of the images can seem a bit dull, but upon further inspection, the complexities start to reveal themselves and the pictures become more intriguing.

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An example of this is a set of three images from Monaco, hung together in the back of the gallery (image at right). When I first saw these pictures, I wondered why three pictures which were so obviously similar had been chosen for the exhibit, when they were not designed as a triptych. And yet, as I stood and looked at these images more carefully, it became clear to me that each image had its own subtle variations in pattern as a result of the changes in camera angle. The sinuous street down in the valley of the buildings was entirely different in each image, and the relationships between the structures had been altered just enough to create varied compositions. Each picture could easily stand on its own, and the triptych effect created by their installation together simply highlighted their differences.

Basilico's works merit this type of patient looking. These are silent, almost introspective pictures, that encourage standing and thinking awhile. His work asks questions about our built environments, but it does so without shouting or overt critique. The images are simply put forth, to be read in a multitude of ways. Focus can quickly shift from the interplay of the planes and tones of a dense warren of buildings, to harder questions about how or why they evolved to be that way in the first place.

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In sum, this small show is certainly worth a visit, particularly if you aren't familiar with this important photographer.

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Collector's POV: Basilico's work makes an interesting contrast to a variety of city and industrial photographers throughout the history of the medium, from Abbott, Callahan, and the New Topographic photographers, to newer voices (Struth, Opie, Kanemura and others). His work is solely represented by Cohen Amador here in the US (I believe), and is virtually absent from the secondary market, so there aren't many options for acquiring his prints locally. The images in this show are retailing for 8000 and 11000 Euros, based on size. Vintage works from the 1980s and 1990s are also available (although not part of this particular exhibit).

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

Gabriele Basilico, Intercity

Through March 6

Cohen Amador Gallery

41 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

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UPDATE: We have been reminded by another collector that Basilico also had a solo exhibition at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2004.