Kurt Tong, In Case It Rains In Heaven @Bekman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 16 color photographs, mounted without frames, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the works are undated digital c-prints. The prints come in two sizes: 16x20 (in editions of 10) and 24x30 (in editions of 5). There are 4 of the large prints and 12 of the small prints in the show. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2011 by Kehrer (here) and is available from the gallery for $45. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While many photographers have tried to capture the complex nature of China's recent economic boom and its accompanying cultural transformations by pointing their cameras at towering skyscrapers, endless factories, and expansive construction projects, Kurt Tong has opted for a simpler, smaller scale example of how attitudes have been changing. His photographs document the Joss paper objects burnt as offerings for the dead, showing just how far Western consumerism and luxury lifestyles have permeated traditional Chinese society.

Tong's straightforward still life images, set against black backgrounds, have the look and feel of commerical or stock photography: bright, crisp, and colorful. But the objects themselves tell a more complicated, anthropological story. While mourners once burned paper decorated to look like silver and gold ingots to help provide for the afterlife existence of their loved ones, the variety of items now being burned has expanded to match modern Chinese life, covering both the drearily mundane and the wildly aspirational. For the luxury minded, a large house with a guard and maid is available, as is a Ferrari with a chauffeur, a pair of servants, and a Louis Vuitton handbag. More practical objects include umbrellas, an electric fan, dentures, and a wheelchair. And depending on your view of what comes after death, the machine gun, the swimming trunks and snorkel, or the iPod Nano might make an appropriate gift for the recently deceased. It is clear that the need for "stuff" now extends far beyond the grave.

These objects (and the resulting photographs) have a kitchy, cartoonish feel, but as still lifes they are successful in being both attention grabbing and representative of a larger and more nuanced idea. The story they tell mixes old and new, succinctly showing one facet of how Chinese culture is evolving to incorporate new trends, pressures and mindsets.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $800 and $1600, depending on size. Tong has no secondary market history, so gallery retail is the only option for interested collectors at this point. Prints can also be found on Bekman's 20x200 website (here) in various sizes and editions, all the way down to $24 for an 8x10 print.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Review: Hyperallergic (here)

Kurt Tong, In Case It Rains In Heaven
Through March 4th

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012

Hosang Park, A Square @Bekman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 color images, mounted without frames, and hung in the narrow single room gallery space. All of the works are digital c-prints, made between 2004 and 2007. The prints come in two sizes: 20x24 and 40x50, in editions of 20 and 5 respectively. There are 4 large prints and 5 smaller ones on display. This is Park's first solo show in New York. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Hosang Park's aerial images of meticulously designed outdoor spaces near luxury apartment buildings in Korea are surreal in their perfect emptiness. In the same way that miniature golf is "golf", these spaces are "parks", jam packed with "features": colorful paths and walkways in gentle arcs of tight brickwork, young trees in square planters with carefully aligned benches underneath, plazas surrounded by fake grass, play grounds and ball courts sandwiched in between gazebos, pavilions, and fake streams. Of course, no one is using these brand new spaces: they stand soulless and uninhabited, man-altered nature to fulfill some zoning requirement for public outdoor space.

Park's images highlight the density of abstract geometries found in these parks; they feel like the plans of a landscape architect enamored with a few too many bold graphical elements. While the normal function of a park is to provide a place for restful peace amidst nature, these chaotic designs seem just the opposite: noisy, convoluted and claustrophobic, just the kind of place that drains away any energy a visitor might have.

Overall, while these images certainly have a eye-catching decorative quality, I particularly liked the notes of perplexing weirdness and subtle sadness that run underneath.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $1200 and $5000, depending on size. Park has no secondary market history, so gallery retail is the only option for interested collectors at this point. Prints can also be found on Bekman's 20x200 website (here) in various sizes and editions, all the way down to $50 for an 11x14 print (quite a bargain).

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Review: BLDGBLOG (here)

Hosang Park, A Square
Through November 7th

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012

Praia Piquinia, Photographs by Christian Chaize @Bekman

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 Lambda prints, framed in white, with no mat and no glass, hung in the small single room gallery. All of the images in the exhibit are 44x37, and are printed in editions of 9. The negatives were taken between 2004 and 2008, and each image is titled with its exact date and time. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: A picture of a beach is perhaps the ultimate cliche in photography: the sun baked sand against the clear blue water, perhaps with an artfully captured windy palm tree or perfect sunset in the distance as an added bonus. And yet, there is a surprisingly long list of great photographers who have tackled the subject of the beach and come away with original results: Weegee, Erwitt, Metzker and Callahan to name a few black and white stand outs, Misrach and Vitali more recently in large scale color. In many cases, these images were less about the beach itself, but about the human spectacle that occurs when a large group of people in bathing suits and accompanying gear invade the pristine sand.

French photographer Christian Chaize has come at the subject of the beach with a slightly more formulaic and conceptual bent in his first solo show, now on at Jen Bekman. Over a period of five years, Chaize made color images of the same beach in Portugal, from the same medium distance, on high vantage point. The rugged rock walls of the secluded cove provide the constant frame for the action, and half a dozen variables change from picture to picture: the position and number of sunbathers and umbrellas, the color of the sky and water, the relative positions of ocean and sand (as determined by the ebb and flow of the tides), the angle of the sun (based on the time of day), and the weather.

Seen together, the body of work is inherently more about the passing of time and the evolution of geography than it is about the beach itself, with echoes of Christenberry's pictures of the same shacks and buildings in the South over decades. While not every image is strong enough to stand on its own, taken as a group, the work provides a fresh view of a subject most would have thought had little room for original ideas.

Collector’s POV: The images in this show start at $3500 and range up to $5000, based on the place in the edition. Larger prints (88x68) are also available, in an edition of 6 (I didn't ask the price). Smaller prints are available at 20x200 (linked below), at $50, $500, and $2000 based on size. Given the undercurrent of taxonomy in this work, while the large prints are eye catching, this is another body of work that will perhaps perform best in book form, where more examples can be juxtaposed to get at the subtle changes over time.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• 20x200 (here)

Praia Piquinia, Photographs by Christian Chaize
Through July 11th

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012