Joel Sternfeld, First Pictures @Luhring Augustine

JTF (just the facts): A total of 72 color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and displayed in the entry, the main gallery space and the smaller back room. All of the works are modern pigment prints, sized roughly 9x13, in editions of 5+2AP. The images were taken between 1971 and 1980. The show is divided into four separate projects:

Nags Head, 1975
At the Mall, New Jersey, 1980
Rush Hour
Happy Anniversary Sweetie Face!

A monograph of this body of work has been published by Steidl (here). (Installation shots at right.)

 

Comments/Context: Looking at the early pictures of any artist offers the chance to go back to the beginning and see the experiments and false starts that ultimately evolved into a mature style. Inherent in this kind of analysis is a form of selection bias, where we already know what we are looking for, and so select those images that fit our knowledge of what came later. The opportunity to examine four of Joel Sternfeld's early photographic projects provides just this type of historical pattern matching, where we search the past for signs of the future, discovering visual ideas that were still rough and incompletely formed, but harbingers of later paths and explorations.

My initial impression of these first pictures is that they are looser and more fluid than Sternfeld's later work. His use of a hand held 35mm camera instead of the view camera he adopted later gives these images much more freedom. Some border on a snapshot aesthetic (especially the ones taken on the streets of New York and Chicago), and even the most formal of the compositions are not as strict and rigid as what would come later. In the context of this more forgiving approach, it's absolutely possible to see Sternfeld testing the limits of color, refining the idea of a carefully composed self contained narrative, and playing with subtle visual irony and cynicism, sewing the seeds of the stylistic hallmarks of his successful mature work.

There are many color exercises on these walls, both tighter still lifes and broader scenes that use color as a defining element. Chunky red high heels compete with blue woven polyester pants, a green dress balances a yellow cab, a striped bathing suit sets off deep tan lines, and a flash of blond hair piled up in a beehive has a honey glow. More complex color compositions find a boy with green shoes posed outside a suburban home of the same color (set off by bright pink flowers), a woman riding in a sky blue convertible with matching blue sunglasses, and a neon juke box flanked by lingering men and Playboy centerfolds. Sternfeld was clearly examining the play of different colors, and considering how those weights impacted the underlying structure of his pictures.

There are also plenty of stories and narratives here, many with a nuanced undercurrent of skepticism or humor. Boys with Farrah Fawcett t-shirts pop wheelies on their bikes in the driveway, a baby is carried in a laundry basket mixed in with the dirty clothes, a cop questions a ramshackle beach house resident, and an old man in sunglasses peers with trepidation at an ominously dark sky. Many of the images from Sternfeld's series of mall shots take this further, with lots of men with center-parted feathered hair, moustaches, chest hair, and gold chains posed in odd interior settings, one with an array of wigs and a fluffy dog as props. The beginnings of formality are in evidence in many of these pictures, where compositions are being pared down to their essentials. An emerging political or social edge is also apparent: smoke stacks outside the parking lot of the Tropicana, an oil tank in the window of an empty diner, or a Christina's World echo facing the Sears Auto Service building.

These early images grew more striking as I gave them more looking time. At first they seemed appropriately uneven, with a good number of misses. But even these weaker outcomes show Sternfeld pushing and trying, and the best of the lot absolutely foreshadow the Sternfeld pictures we all know. I came away extremely impressed with the rigor of Sternfeld's trial and error in his early years, his inquiries and questions given visual form, his preliminary steps thoughtful and appropriately risky.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced at $7500 each. Sternfeld's work is widely available in the secondary markets, particularly his most famous images, which have been printed in editions of 50 or even 100. Recent prices have ranged between $2000 and $100000, with his most famous pictures generally in a zone between $10000 and $30000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews/Features: PhotoBooth (here), Capital New York (here), Guardian (here), Time LightBox (here), Wayne Ford (here), TimeOut New York (here)
• Exhibition: FOAM, 2012 (here)

Joel Sternfeld, First Pictures

Through February 4th
.

Luhring Augustine

531 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Reinstallation of the Permanent Collection of Photography, 2011 @MoMA

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of a total of 214 black and white and color photographs from 141 different photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung against grey and white walls in a series of 6 connecting rooms on the third floor of the museum. The works on view span the entire history of the medium, ranging from 1841 to the present, and are arranged roughly chronologically. This reinstallation of the permanent collection of photography was curated by Sarah Meister.

The following photographers are included in the show, with the number of works and dates in parentheses. The names have been listed in their order of appearance around the galleries.

Room 1

David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson (1, 1841-1848)
John B. Greene (1, 1855-1856)
William Henry Fox Talbot (1, 1844)
Bisson Freres (1, 1841-1846)
Felice Beato (1, 1860)
Samuel Bourne (1, 1864)
Robert Hewlett (1, 1857)
Carleton Watkins (1, 1889)
Gertrude Kasebier (1, 1907)
Robert Demachy (1, 1910)
Frederick Evans (1, 1903)
Edward Steichen (1, 1900)
Jules Janssen (2, 1885)
Adam Clark Vroman (1, 1902)
Jacob Riis (1, 1890)
Radio Corporation of America (1, 1926)
E.J. Bellocq (1, 1912)
Eugene Atget (1, 1899)
Unknown (2, 1923 and 1933)
Underwood and Underwood (1, 1910)
Automatic Camera/Photomaton (1, 1928)
Arthur Bedou (1, 1915)
Dornac (1, 1892)
Lewis Hine (1, 1908)
Seeberger Freres (1, 1912)
Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1, 1917)

Room 2
.
Alfred Stieglitz (1, 1922)
Jospeh Cornell (1, 1933)
Imogen Cunningham (1, 1931)
Hugo Erfurth (1, 1926)
Edward Weston (1, 1925)
Alexander Rodchenko (2, 1924 and 1932)
Stanislaw Witkiewicz (1, 1911)
Edmund Kesting (1, 1928)
Man Ray (1, 1930)
Laszlo Mohloy-Nagy (1, 1923)
Tina Modotti (1, 1924)
Umbo (1, 1930)
Walker Evans (2, 1935 and 1936)
Ben Shahn (1, 1935)
Dorothea Lange (1, 1937)
Jack Delano (1, 1940)
Marian Post Wolcott (1, 1938)
John Vachon (1, 1938)
August Sander (2, 1927 and 1929)
Eugene Atget (2, 1921 and 1925)
Brassai (1, 1932)
Ilse Bing (1, 1932)
Bill Brandt (1, 1936)
Helen Levitt (1, 1941)
Antonio Reynoso (1, 1944)
Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1, 1934)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1, 1934)
Paul Strand (1, 1920)
Ralph Steiner (1, 1929)
Berenice Abbott (1, 1936)
Lewis Hine (1, 1930)
Arkadii Shaikhet (1, 1930)

Room 3
.
Barbara Morgan (1, 1943)
Weegee (2, 1942 and 1950)
Emmy Andriesse (1, 1945)
Ernst Haas (1, 1947)
US Army Signal Corps (4, 1944 and 1945)
Dmitri Baltermans (1, 1942)
Times World Wide Photos (1, 1941)
Unknown (1, 1953)
Neal Boenzi/New York Times (1, 1956)
Meyer Liebowitz/New York Times (1, 1957)
Unknown (14 panels of vernacular families)
Robert Rauschenberg (1, 1949)
Geraldo de Barros (1, 1949)
Aaron Siskind (1, 1949)
Minor White (1, 1964)
Frederick Sommer (1, 1961)
Guy Bourdin (1, 1956)
Clarence John Laughlin (1, 1941)
Josef Sudek (1, 1954)
Ansel Adams (1, 1932)
Eugen Wiskovsky (1, 1946)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1, 1952)
Robert Doisneau (1, 1956)
Leonard Freed (1, 1954)
Lisette Model (1, 1942)
Roy DeCarava (1, 1952)

Room 4
.
Rudy Burckhardt (4, 1940)
Philip Elliott (3, 1950)
Lola Alvarez Bravo (1, 1958)
Louis Faurer (1, 1949)
Leon Levinstein (1, 1952)
Robert Frank (1, 1956)
Garry Winogrand (1, 1962)
Christian Stromholm (1, 1959)
Paolo Gasparini (1, 1968)
Diane Arbus (1, 1965)
Unknown (1, 1957)
Lee Friedlander (1, 1970)
Jerry Schatzberg (1, 1964)
Arnold Newman (1, 1955)
Richard Avedon (1, 1965)
Irving Penn (1, 1979)
Harry Callahan (2, 1957)
Zeke Berman (1, 1979)
Kenneth Josephson (1, 1967)
Martus Granirer (1, 1964)
Otto Piene (1, 1964)
Shomei Tomatsu (1, 1960)
Daido Moriyama (1, 1970)
Miyako Ishiuchi (1, 1977)
Kohei Yoshiyuki (1, 1973)

Room 5
.
Joseph Dankowski (20, 1970)
David Goldblatt (1, 1967)
Ernest Cole (1, 1960-1963)
Jeane Moutoussamy-Ashe (1, 1977)
Frank Stewart (1, 1981)
Geoff Winningham (1, 1971)
Candice Lenney (1, 1977)
William Gedney (1, 1975)
Martine Barrat (1, 1984)
Stephen Shore (1, 1973)
Frank Gohlke (1, 1973-1974)
Robert Adams (1, 1974)
Lewis Baltz (1, 1974)
Joel Sternfeld (1, 1979)
Nicholas Nixon (1, 1973)
Bill Owens (1, 1972)
Tod Papageorge (1, 1969)
Henry Wessell (1, 1972)
William Eggleston (1, 1980)
Sheron Rupp (1, 1984)

Room 6
.
Jan Groover (1, 2006)
Michael Spano (1, 2003)
Bernd and Hilla Becher (18, 1959-1973)
Hai Bo (2, 1999)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1, 1981)
Vik Muniz (1, 2003)
Tina Barney (1, 1998)
William Christenberry (1, 2004)
Brian Rose (1, 2006)
Nicholas Faure (1, 1997)
Guy Tillim (2, 2008)
Leandro Katz (6 panels, 1978-1979)
Jiro Takamatsu (1, 1973)

Comments/Context: In between the special exhibitions and annual features like the New Photography series that usually populate the photography calendar at the MoMA, the curatorial team reinstalls the permanent collection of photography in the main series of galleries on the third floor. While this isn't a press release type event (or one that generally gets written about at all), it does offer an opportunity to peer into the minds of the organizers, mostly to see how new acquisitions are filling holes and to consider how the implied narrative arc of the history of photography is slowly evolving.

This is now my fourth year of covering the rehanging of the collection, and it's instructive to go back and remember what has been done in recent years (all the reviews are linked below). Three years ago, a grouping mechanism was used, where half a dozen images or so by a single photographer (from a related series) were chosen and hung in clusters, allowing a deeper dive into a smaller number of master photographers. Two years ago, the show was dominated by recent acquisitions (particularly 19th century) and peppered with lesser known works and artists, making the story more diffuse and harder to follow. Last year, the history of photography was seen through the prism of female photographers (known and unknown), providing a surprisingly different set of anchor points and references.

In prior years, these rehangings were "unsigned", in that they were tacitly meant to represent an institutional point of view rather than an individual one; therefore we could arguably read them as a monolithic perspective, an orthodoxy as to the "right" (or at least most recent) history of photography. What's different now is that MoMA has moved away from this approach and has begun to "sign" the reinstallations; this one was curated by Sarah Meister, and presumably the task (or opportunity) will rotate to someone else in the future. But make no mistake, this is now a new world, where a large number of alternate histories of photography are suddenly both acceptable and encouraged, and the process of identifying any one individual slice through the central mass of the collection could produce an unexpected and insightful outcome.

This selection of works sprinkles in a few more recognizable icons than the effort two years ago, and as a result, feels a bit more comfortably tied to a known line of thinking. The first room does a whirlwind tour of the 19th century (travel, scientific experimentation etc.), starting with the early masters and crossing over into Pictorialism, mixing artful images and vernacular shots with equal aplomb. The recently acquired Watkins still life of a box of peaches is the single best work in the entire exhibit; it is mind blowingly modern and lusciously crisp. It's the kind of picture that forces you to reevaluate everything you think you know about 19th century photography. (Carleton Watkins, Late George Cling Peaches, 1889, at right, top.)

The second room is the standard "between the wars" room, with bunches of European avant-garde and Surrealism, North American modernism, and FSA documentary reportage. To my eye, this group felt a little like "one of each", since there's one Brandt, one Brassai, one Weston, one Strand, one Man Ray etc., although never one of the better known images of the master identified on the wall label, presumably to keep things fresh. (Man Ray, Untitled, 1930, and Edward Weston, Nude, Mexico, 1926, at right, second and third from top.)

The next room follows chronologically into the 1940s and 1950s, bringing together a selection of professional press and vernacular photography with images from those working in a more fine art context where introspection, expressionism, and abstraction were taking hold(Siskind, Sommer, Sudek, Minor White et al.). The styles and approaches could hardly be more different, but their juxtaposition offers the first glimpses of multiple paths forward, of combination, dialogue, and confrontation. (Barbara Morgan, Use Litter Basket, 1943 and Aaron Siskind, Palm Springs, 1949, at right, fourth and fifth from the top.)

The fourth room continues a broad expansion of photographic paths forward, with 1950s hand held camera work (Frank, Winogrand, Levinstein, Faurer etc.), large format portraiture (Penn, Avedon, Newman), various forms of conceptual photography, and the arrival of the Japanese avant-garde (Tomatsu, Moriyama) in the 1970s. (Paolo Gasparini, Bello Monte, Caracas, 1968, and Zeke Berman, Still Life with Necker Cube, 1979, at right, sixth and seventh from top.)

Continuing into the other half of the divided space (which I have named the fifth room), the South Africans are added to the mix, along with the New Topographics photographers and the arrival of 1970s color. Again, many of the names will be familiar, but the specific image choices will keep you guessing. (Joel Sternfeld, Solar Pool Petals, Tuscon, Arizona, 1979, and William Eggleston, Untitled from Troubled Waters portfolio, 1980, at right, eight and ninth from top.)

.
The last room in the show runs from roughly 1980 to the present, and it's here where I think the exhibit loses momentum a bit. Maybe a different way to say the same thing is that I was looking for a more definitive point of view on the current state of the world, and felt like I didn't get as sharp an opinion as I might have liked. The challenge is of course to make sense of the chaos, to follow both "contemporary art" and purely "photographic" progressions and to bushwhack a path through the thicket of competing aesthetics and mind sets, which is tough to do in a single room filled with a relatively small number of large pictures. That said, I did enjoy the Barney, the Tillim diptych, the Christenberry mess of kudzu and the multi-layered diCorcia. Perhaps a better way to look at this last room is to see it as simply a collection of new acquisitions that can tell us something about what the museum is interested in and continuing to follow closely, even if the thematic patterns are hard to discern. (William Christenberry, Kudzu Devouring Building, Near Greensboro, Alabama, 2004, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Catherine, 1981, at right, tenth and eleventh from top.)

In the end, I think this reinstallation of the permanent collection of photography makes a case for three distinct periods: the early period, from inception to roughly 1950, where the influence of vernacular photography and "history" is more pronounced and instructive, the middle period, from roughly Frank to Eggleston, where there is a flowering of bold experimentation in multiple directions, but mostly still connected to the existing photographic traditions, and the current period, where photography is stretching beyond its usual borders, crossing over into the context of contemporary art. In this realm, we're opening a dialogue beyond the confines of looking inward at photographic history and instead playing on a grander stage. While I'm sure this is an oversimplification of the nuanced ideas of the curators, I think this general framework has merit, especially if it can help to make the underlying forces tugging at contemporary photography more legible.

Collector's POV: Since this is a permanent collection exhibition, it seems only fitting to forego the prices and secondary market discussion that usually fills this section.

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

Transit Hub:

• Previous installations of the permanent collection of photography: 2010 (here), 2009 (here), 2008 (here)

Permanent Collection of Photography
Through March 2012
.

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Auction Results: Photographs, October 6 and 7, 2010 @Christie's

The results of Christie's various owner Photographs sale last week fell right in the heart of the estimate range, bringing in proceeds just over $5.5 million. Even though three out of the top six lots failed to find buyers, a large number of positive surprises across the auction helped generate momentum. The overall Buy-In rate came in just under 25%.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 349
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $4565500

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $6795500
Total Lots Sold: 263
Total Lots Bought In: 86
Buy In %: 24.64%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5571538

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

.

Low Total Lots: 189
Low Sold: 142
Low Bought In: 47
Buy In %: 24.87%
Total Low Estimate: $1193500

Total Low Sold: $1026938

Mid Total Lots: 137
Mid Sold: 104

Mid Bought In: 33
Buy In %: 24.09%
Total Mid Estimate: $3302000
Total Mid Sold: $2821100
.

High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 17
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 26.09%
Total High Estimate: $2300000
Total High Sold: $1723500
.

The top lot by High estimate was lot 32, Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, at $250000-350000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 12, Ansel Adams, Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942/1960s, at $338500.

83.27% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of twenty surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 16, Irving Penn, Lorry Washers, London, 1950, 1967, at $128500

Lot 17, Irving Penn, Child of Florence, 1948, at $74500

Lot 35, Man Ray, Madame Xupery, 1935, at $62500

Lot 45, Irving Penn, The Palm of Miles Davis (New York), 1986/1992, at $146500 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)

Lot 65, William Eggleston, Untitled, 1971/1996, at $74500

Lot 78, Joel Sternfeld, Fiesta de Quince, 94th Street and Jackson Mill Road, East Elmhurst, Queens, August, 2004/2005, at $23750 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Lot 100, Lise Sarfati, Suzannah #23, Hillsboro, OR, 2003, at $13750 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Lot 117, Wim Wenders, Lounge Painting, Gila Bend, Arizona; and Sundries, Las Vegas, New Mexico, 1983-1989, at $7500

Lot 129, Alec Soth, Fairway Motor Inn, 2005/2006, at $10000

Lot 140, Todd Hido, Untitled #2690, 2000, at $23750

Lot 142, Robert Adams, Berthoud, Colorado, 1976/1989, at $68500

Lot 146, Stephen Shore, 5th Street & Broadway, Eureka, CA, September 2, 1974/2003, at $7500

Lot 174, Robert Frank, Billie Holiday, St. Nicholas Arena, NYC, 1954/1960s, at $30000

Lot 176, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Malcolm X, 1961/1968, at $22500

Lot 213, Irving Penn, Rag and Bones, London, 1950/1976, at $104500

Lot 274, William Eggleston, En route to New Orleans, 1971-1974, at $50000

Lot 309, Berenice Abbott, El at Columbus Avenue and Broadway, Lincoln Square, NY, 1929, at $30000

Lot 325, Levy and Cohen, Views of Richmond, 1865, at $21250

Lot 326, John Moran, Portico, Construction of the Bank of Pennsylvania, 1867, at $32500

Lot 345, Minor White, Two Barns, Dansville, New York, 1955/Later, at $7500

.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Book: Joel Sternfeld, iDubai

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2010 by Steidl (here). 96 pages, with 243 color images. Includes an essay by Jonathan Crary. All of the images were taken using an Apple iPhone camera. The book itself is small, thin, and rectangular, with the images printed in sets of three per page, each picture roughly the size of an iPhone display. The book is covered in gold sparkled cloth, with a huge gold bar code on the back. (Cover shot at right, via Amazon.)

Comments/Context: If you take a step back and look at Joel Sternfeld's photography over the past decade or so, human sustainability, in the form of how we live our lives, comes back again and again as an undercurrent of exploration. He has documented utopian communities, delegates at climate change conferences, and the subtle nuances of his local Massachusetts landscape (review here). His newest collection of work, found in the book iDubai, takes these ideas even further, via the ubiquity of his mobile phone camera. It is a sustained indictment of consumption as a way of life, a penetrating critique of the excesses and rootless materialism of modern living.

Virtually all the images in this book were taken inside one of Dubai's many over the top shopping malls, where marble floors and glass elevators connect an endless stream of affluent shops, food courts, and indoor entertainments. Basking in the glow of gaudy fluorescent lights, his subjects wander around in a trance, alternating between boredom and apathy, slumping listlessly in pre-arranged seating areas or emotionlessly pushing strollers and shopping carts from one artificial diversion to the next. His pictures document the apex (or ultimate limits) of globalization, where men in robes and headscarves can go bowling, shop at IKEA, get a sandwich from Subway, and take their kids to the Elmo show. After we get past the initial surprise of seeing Middle Eastern families juxtaposed with Western commerce, the pictures take us back to a relentless sameness, the stale, ordinary, mindless repetition of teen fashions, luxury jewelry, and high-end coffee that has blanketed the world.

When the first handheld cameras were introduced many decades ago, many ridiculed them as toys, but some artists found freedom in the movement they allowed and discovered new and exciting pictures that were enabled by the small form factor. We are now in the midst of a new revolution, where the mobile phone camera has empowered an entirely new generation of people to make pictures, and once again, the establishment has scoffed at what a "citizen journalist" might accomplish with such a dumbed down tool. Armed with his iPhone, Sternfeld has made his photographs with the ultimate consumer device, making himself part of the culture of aspirational consumption he is trying to document. He has clearly captured the feeling of his subject, leveling his criticism with sharp effectiveness. The question remains, however: are these great photographs?

In general, it would be hard not to characterize these images as snapshots, and given the sheer number of pictures included in the book, it seems the camera phone encourages a prolific approach to image making. More than any one particular image, iDubai is about the piling up of imagery into a larger whole, of catching hundreds of snippets of the story and weaving them together, of everything adding up to rich portrait of mall life. When Walker Evans made pictures with a Polaroid SX-70, even though the technology was wholly different than what he had used previously, the pictures he made still bore the hallmark of his eye. When Sternfeld uses an iPhone, the formal clarity that I associate with his view camera pictures is gone, replaced by a more fleeting attempt to resolve his compositions; his originality as a photographer seems to have been diluted by these "always on" tools - I can't discern a signature Sternfeld look, even though the narrative as a whole coalesces strongly.

Overall, I think this is the kind of project that is most successful in book form, or when displayed as a dense, atmospheric installation of many images, where the whole is far more interesting and memorable than any one picture on its own. What I take away is Sternfeld's view of how depressing, homogenized mall culture has permeated every corner of the globe, and how it creates a collective unreality where we lose sight of our connections to our communities. While this book is shiny and luxurious on the outside, it delivers a scathing censure of the global culture we are so actively building.

Collector’s POV: Joel Sternfeld is represented by Luhring Augustine in New York (here). At this point, Sternfeld's work is readily available in the secondary markets, especially his most famous images (which have been printed in editions of 50 or even 100). In recent years, prices have ranged between $2000 and $100000, with a sweet spot for the greatest hits between $10000 and $30000.

Transit Hub:

• Review: The National (here)
• Feature: New Yorker Photo Booth (here)

Frank Gohlke and Joel Sternfeld @Queens College, CUNY

JTF (just the facts): A total of 58 images, taken in 2003 and 2004, framed in blond frames, hung throughout the 3 floors and basement of Hortense Powdermaker Hall (the main classroom building at Queens College). Images are printed in two different sizes: large (approximately 4x5 feet) and small (approximately 8x10 inches). The total group seems to be divided generally equally between the two artists. Gohlke's works are gelatin silver prints; Sternfeld's are C-prints. The entire exhibit was commissioned by the college. (Various installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: With the kids and their mother packed off for an afternoon at the grandparent's house, I found myself with a few free hours this weekend and decided to head down to Queens to see the Gohlke/Sternfeld show at Queens College. After parking my car and finding my way through campus to Powdermaker Hall, I was ready to see the combined effort of these two great photographers, part of which I had already seen at the Gohlke show at Howard Greenberg last summer (original review here).

I pulled one of the side doors open and wandered into the building, hoping to find a sign or some other pointer to where the images were hung. No such luck. The building was completely and entirely empty, not a single person anywhere (a few classrooms were inhabited but no random people hanging out), the linoleum echoing as I clicked down the hallways. Powdermaker Hall is roughly shaped like a fork, with three tines, and I finally found my way to the center where I discovered a lone security guard. Along the way, I had spied a couple of photographs, hung in puzzling locations, often by themselves, and indeed these were part of the exhibition. I told the guard that I was here to see the photography show and inquired about where the images were, if there was a map or other literature etc. She looked at me like I had just asked her when the next shuttle to the moon was leaving. Finally she just laughed and said that the pictures were all over the building and that I should start up on the third floor and work my way down.

So I trudged up the stairwell and worked my way down to the end of one long hall to what I thought seemed like a good place to start. Again, there were no other people there. It was completely deserted, the white press board walls lit with buzzing fluorescent lights (eerie installation shot at right), the epitome of soul sapping institutional architecture. I felt like I had a stepped into a Haruki Murakami novel; who knew when some odd person might arrive and lead me to another dimension.

So to be clear, this is not an "exhibition" in the normal sense of the word. The works are spread all over this massive classroom building, sometimes alone, often in pairs or groups, but without any pattern to their display. You often need to walk a good distance (perhaps a minute or two of steady walking) between pictures. Seeing the entire show is like going on a scavenger hunt. I found 56 of the 58 works that are supposedly in the show; where the other two are remains a mystery, as I think I did a pretty systematic search. Probably three quarters of the wall labels have been removed by vandals (a few business cards have been stuck in as replacements), so while you can tell who made the images (black and white = Gohlke, color = Sternfeld), there often isn't any other information available. The discouraging state of this exhibit is exemplified by the image at right: an amazing Gohlke photograph, with the glass broken and the wall label gone.

.

So far I have spent the entire body of this review talking about the environment and not the art, and unfortunately, the staging of these works is so distracting that it is hard to get any complete view of the commission. With so much space between the works, the interrelationships and patterns are hard to discern (was this Sternfeld like a Gohlke I saw up on the third floor? What does this large Sternfeld have to do with the small ones in the basement? etc.). I truly wonder what any student, blowing by on the way to class, can gather from these photographs given the way they are installed.

That said, Gohlke has focused his camera primarily on single family homes and snippets of nature, finding patterns in fences and ironwork, door frames and brick. His images are angled, standing outside, looking in at an evolving neighborhood. The front door portraits that have been enlarged to the big print size are striking, crisp in detail and dense with information.

Sternfeld's images are much more interested in the cultural melting pot that is Queens. All of his works are straight, frontal shots, accenting bold colors, multilingual signage and unusual building styles, often populated with a diverse set of locals staring directly into the lens. Koreans, Bolivians, Muslims and a variety of other ethnicities, nationalities, and religions are represented and mashed together, often with his signature subtle hint of irony hiding underneath. Again, the large prints hold their own better in this environment. (Large print near the elevators at right.)

.

Together, the works of Gohlke and Sternfeld tell a surprisingly rich and successful picture of Queens. If these works were hung in a museum, they would likely expose many more contrasts than they do here in these empty halls.
.

Frank Gohlke's artist site is here. He is represented by Howard Greeenberg Gallery (here).

.

Joel Sternfeld is represented by Luhring Augustine (here).

.

Collector's POV: While I was bit slow in coming to understand and appreciate these Gohlke images, evidenced by my struggles with the Greenberg show, given some time and a second look, I think many of the images of homes and their barriers are quite strong. This was my first look at the Sternfeld body of work, and I believe there are a handful of excellent pictures here as well, especially if printed in the large format, where the complexities of the color relationships are more apparent. While the work in this show merits at least two stars, the Where's Waldo installation makes this a show for only the most devoted fans.

.

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

Frank Gohlke and Joel Sternfeld

(permanent commission)

Queens College, CUNY

65-30 Kissena Boulevard

Flushing, NY 11367

Joel Sternfeld, Oxbow Archive @Luhring Augustine

JTF (just the facts): 13 large scale color landscapes, approximately 5' x 7' each, shown in the entry, front, and two back rooms of the gallery. (see installation shot at right) In editions of 3, plus 2 APs. Negatives from 2005-2007, prints from 2008.

Comments/Context: It's been more than 20 years since Joel Sternfeld produced the work for which he is best known, the series of unexpected, paradoxical, and surprising work from American Prospects. The word most associated with these pictures is "ironic", as exemplified by the image of the firefighter picking out a pumpkin while a house burns in the background.

One of the interesting challenges for the mid-career artist is how to get beyond the work that made you famous; how do you continue to innovate, without repeating yourself or becoming bored. Often, this means heading deeper into more personal territory and taking some more risks with images that are less obviously appealing to the "market" that has developed around the early work. So if you go to this exhibit hoping to find a repeat of American Prospects, you will be left puzzled. But if you go without preconceptions, I think you will find this exhibit quite satisfying, in a low key, quiet way.

All of the images in the show were taken in Northampton, Massachusetts, through the seasons over a couple of years. These are landscapes, but not the majestic grand gestures of Ansel Adams. This is second growth scrub forest, river flats, and meadows of weeds, scenes perfectly reminiscent of the sometimes anonymous and deadening landscape of current day New England. The pictures are grouped into seasons, with rooms for summer and fall in the back, and winter/spring together in the main room.

But unlike the less than beautiful California landscapes of Robert Adams, there is a touching affection buried in these images. There is no irony here; in fact, there are no people at all and no clever juxtapositions. These are pictures of a local, who has taken the time to really see the landscape around him, even thought it might not fit the traditional definitions of beauty. This is a person who is noticing and enjoying the turning of the seasons, and selecting out those moments when the yarrow is high, or the river is frozen, or the warm spring light has finally come back after months of dismal grey. These pictures seem to me to be perfectly grounded in the thoughts and emotions of a 21st century world: what have development and global warming done to our traditional lands? how can we re-embrace the local world around us and reconnect to something more meaningful that consumerism? how can we get more in tune with the seasons and the local foods that grow in our communities? (A few Bill McKibben essays would be a nice pairing for this work.)

These pictures will not blow your hair back when you see them in the gallery. And whether they will stand up to the tests of time is still unknown. Perhaps they will be looked back on through the lens of heightened care for the world around us and seem emblematic of the thoughts of these times. Regardless, these pictures reflect the real sentiments of an artist who is watching the nuanced changes in the world around him. And for that, they should be praised.

Collector's POV: The images are priced at $50000 each, which given their size and the prevailing market for Sternfeld's work, seems about right for retail.

As an aside, as relatively anonymous collectors, we are used to receiving the frosty attitude of gallery staff, designed for the unwashed walk-ins. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to get not only a friendly greeting, but genuine enthusiasm for the work from the staff at Luhring Augustine. And when I inquired about the book published to coincide with the show and found they were already sold out, they went out of their way to offer me options for getting a copy later. Well done. Gallery folks out there, think of me as the mystery shopper at Burger King, checking to see if I get a hot meal and a clean bathroom. (For future reference, I am particularly annoyed by misdirection and sneakiness with the price list.) Luhring Augustine passed with flying colors, and made me eager for my next visit.

Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating system defined here)

Joel Sternfeld, Oxbow Archive
Through October 4th

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