Everyday Epiphanies: Photography and Daily Life Since 1969 @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing the work of 31 artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in a large single room gallery space on the second floor of the museum. The space has been divided into a main viewing area and a smaller darkened space at the very end of the gallery. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with information on the number of prints on view and other background details to follow:

John Baldessari: 1 gelatin silver print, 1971
Erica Baum: 1 inkjet print, 2009
Jean-Marc Bustamante: 1 chromogenic print, 1997
Sophie Calle: 1 gelatin silver print with accompanying text, 1988-1989
Gregory Crewdson: 1 chromogenic print, 1988
Philip-Lorca diCorcia: 1 chromogenic print, 1987
William Eggleston: 1 dye transfer print, 1980
Fischli & Weiss: 1 chromogenic print, 1979
Robert Gober: 1 gelatin silver print, 1999
Nan Goldin: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1980
Dan Graham: 1 silver dye bleach print, 1969
Jan Groover: 1 platinum print, 1980
Mike Kelley: 1 gelatin silver print, 1994
Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: 1 single channel video, 1996-1997
Brandon Lattu: 1 single channel video, 2013
Nikki S. Lee: 1 chromogenic print, 1998
Sally Mann: 1 gelatin silver print, 1987
Malerie Marder: 1 inkjet print, 1998/2013
Tim Maul: 1 chromogenic print, 1981
Elizabeth McAlpine: 1 gelatin silver print, 2012
Mary Nickerson: 3 chromogenic prints, 1970
Gabriel Orozco: 12 silver dye bleach prints, 1991-2003
Martha Rosler: 1 single channel black and white video, 1975
David Salle: 4 gelatin silver prints with affixed advertisements, 1973
Ilene Segalove: 1 single channel black and white and color video, 1974-1978
Stephen Shore: 36 chromogenic prints, 1972-1973 (in case)
Larry Sultan: 1 chromogenic print, 1989
Carrie Mae Weems: 1 gelatin silver print, 1990
William Wegman: 1 gelatin silver print, 1972

Comments/Context: With the unspoken rules that exhibitions in the Met's contemporary photography gallery must be drawn exclusively from the museum's permanent collection and be organized as surveys of the period from the late 1960s to the present, it's no wonder that these long running shows are often so broad that their themes seem to dissolve into edited collections of everything. The newest selection of images is tied up under the umbrella of "everyday epiphanies", a construct that implies a delight in the ordinary, the quotidian, or the familiar, but in fact, reaches outward beyond these routine boundaries to works that have a wide variety of conceptual underpinnings and points of view. With some effort, it's possible to follow the logic of why each piece has been included here, but when seen together, the diversity of the works on view diminishes the show's ability to deliver any durable insights.

The works that function best inside this theme are those that capture moments of unexpected, elemental elegance, often as a result of the way the camera sees the world. Jan Groover turns a tangle of kids' bent arms into a lyrical overlapped abstraction, while Mike Kelley enlarges a dust mote to the point it becomes a swirling mass of lines. Larry Sultan catches the sun as it streams through his father's newspaper, and Gabriel Orzoco notices the back and forth sweep of a dog's tail. The video by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky is perhaps the most graceful of them all, following the tumbling dance of windblown trash on city sidewalks, with the honking traffic as a background score. Why obvious inclusions like Kawauchi, Tillmans, Friedlander, Ghirri, and Parr aren't among these moments of discovered joy is a mystery.

The "epiphany" angle is instead taken in a different direction by works that play with conceptual inversion, where the startling realization is staged rather than found. In fact, the entire genre of Conceptual Photography, especially as practiced in the early 1970s, could fit under this definition, so the few works on view here, while excellent, seem a bit random when taken in the larger context of that period. That said, William Wegman's pairing of a sharp and dull knife (where the dull knife is not sharp in terms of its edge and the image itself is blurry) is infectiously witty and Martha Rosler's video demonstration of kitchen items is uproariously violent (who knew opening a can or using measuring spoons could be so passionate?) Robert Gober picks up a similar line of deviant thinking in the late 1990s, with his industrial drain unexpectedly inserted into the natural environment of a mossy forest floor.

The show includes only three works made in the last decade, which is surprising, since we might have assumed that lots of fanciful digital "epiphanies" would have emerged during that time. Erica Baum's dog eared book pages are a solid choice, with their chance juxtapositions of angled sentence fragments. Elizabeth McAlpine's work was new discovery for me, her ethereal shaped photograph a result of a complex molded camera construction and multiple pinhole openings. Brandon Lattu's video explores the unexpected connections made by computer intelligence, where face recognition software attempts to match images from popular culture and advertising, creating a mesmerizing sequence of similar morphing faces.

Like most of its predecessors, this show brings together plenty of intriguing and worthy photography, but ultimately the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. We're left remembering a highlight here or a highlight there, and losing sight of the overarching idea that ostensibly connected the dots. I'm grateful that the Met has a dedicated venue for contemporary photography, and these surveys certainly expose visitors to a consistently wide rage of work. But I am always left wanting something crisper and more tightly edited, a show that takes a stand of some kind rather than always trying to cover everything.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. Given the diversity of photography on view, we'll dispense with the usual discussion of secondary market prices and artist representation.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here), Yahoo! News (here), New York Photo Review (here)

Everyday Epiphanies: Photography and Daily Life Since 1969

Through January 26th

Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10028

Photography and the American Civil War @Met

JTF (just the facts): A total of 259 black and white photographs, generally framed in brown wood and matted or displayed in glass cases, and hung against grey walls with loose sack cloth edging in a series of ten rooms on the first floor of the museum (in the Greek & Roman wing). The exhibit was curated by Jeff Rosenheim, and a catalog of the exhibit was has been published by the museum (here) and distributed by Yale University Press (here). Since photography was not allowed in the galleries, there are no installation shots for this show.

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the information on the number of prints on view and other background details organized by room. Other related ephemera is typically displayed in cases:

The Crucible of American History (Room 1)

• George Barnard: 1 albumen silver print, 1862
• Reed Brockway Bontecou: 1 albumen print, 1865
• Mathew Brady: 1 albumen carte de visite, 1858-1860
• George Cook: 1 ambrotype with applied color, 1861-1865
• Alexander Gardner: 1 albumen silver print, 1865
• William Marsh: 1 salted paper print, 1860
• McPherson & Oliver: 1 albumen carte de visite, 1863-1865
• Timothy O'Sullivan: 2 albumen silver prints, 1863-1864
• Thomas Roche, 2 albumen stereograph, 1861-1865
• Andrew Joseph Russell: 1 albumen silver print, 1863
• Unknown: 3 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1861-1865, 3 ambrotypes with applied color, 1861-1865, 2 tintype with applied color, 1861-1865

Cases/Ephemera
1 campaign pin
31 lockets with tintype prints
1 necklace with tintype prints
1 gameboard
1 wooden stereo viewer

The Election of Abraham Lincoln: The Start of the War/Photographica (Room 2)

• Mathew Brady: 2 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1860
• Alexander Gardner: 2 albumen silver print, 1864-1865
• Alma Pelot: 2 albumen prints, 1861
• Alma Pelot/Jesse Bolles: 4 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1861
• Thomas Roche: 1 collodion glass negative, 1865, 1 albumen silver print, 1865
• Unknown: 1 ambroytpe, 1861-1865

Cases/Ephemera
1 front page of Harper's Weekly, 1860
5 campaign medals with tintype prints 1860-1864
1 posing stand
1 Mathew Brady studio camera with tripod, 1860s
4 posters, ink on paper, 1861-1863
1 album, Mathew Brady, Incidents of the War, 1862
1 book plate, George Barnard, 1862
1 envelope/ink, 1861-1865

War Portraits/The African American Experience (Room 3)

• George Armstead: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863
• George Barnard: 1 albumen silver print, 1862
• Bonsall & Gibson: 1 ambrotype print, 1863
• Mathew Brady: 2 albumen silver prints, 1861-1862, 3 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1861-1862
• Herrick & Dirr: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1862
• Andrew Gardner: 1 albumen silver print, 1864
• Horse & Peaslee, Gallery of the Cumberland: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1864
• Charles Henry Lanneau: 2 ambrotypes with applied color, 1863
• McPherson & Oliver: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863
• Henry Moore: 2 albumen silver print, 1862
• NA & RA Moore Studio: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1862-1865
• Joseph Carr Moulton: 1 ambrotype, 1861-1865
• AJ Riddle: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1864
• Tappin's Photograph Art gallery, 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1861-1865
• Unknown: 3 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1861-1863, 19 ambrotypes with applied color, 1861-1865, 11 tintypes with applied color, 1861-1865
• George W. Wertz: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863-1865
• Oliver Willard: 5 albumen silver prints with applied color, 1866

Cases/Ephemera
3 leather albums with albumen silver cartes de visite
1 drum

Alexander Garnder and his "Photographic Sketch Book"/ "Mementos of the Fearful Struggle" (Room 4)

• George Barnard: 1 albumen silver print, 1862
• George Barnard/John Gibson: 1 albumen silver print, 1862
• Alexander Gardner: 4 albumen silver prints, 1863-1865
• David Knox: 2 albumen silver prints, 1864
• John Reekie: 1 albumen silver print, 1865
• Timothy O'Sullivan: 6 albumen silver prints, 1863-1865
• Andrew Joseph Russell: 7 albumen silver prints, 1863-1865
• John Wood/John Gibson: 2 albumen silver prints, 1862

Stereographs/Zouave Portraits (Room 5)

• Mathew Brady: 1 albumen silver stereograph, 1862
• Porter Photographic Papers: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1864-1866
• Benjamin Reimer: 1 albumen silver print with applied color, 1861-1865
• George Stacy: 1 albumen silver stereograph, 1861
• Unknown: 1 albumen silver stereograph, 1861, 1 albumen silver print with applied color, 1861-1865, 3 ambrotypes with applied color

Cases/Ephemera
4 albums
1 poster
1 wooden stereoviewer with 36 images from various photographers

Antietam, September 17, 1862/Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863 (Room 6)

• Mathew Brady: 1 albumen silver print, 1863, 1 albumen silver stereograph, 1863
• Alexander Gardner: 7 albumen silver prints, 1862-1863
• Richard Lewis, 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863-1865
• Tyson brothers: 1 albumen silver print, 1863
• Unknown: 1 tintype with applied color, 1862
• Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863

Late War Portraits and Views (Room 7)

• Charles Burgess: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1865
• Gayford & Speidel: 3 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1865
• J Gurney & Son: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1864
• Hall & Company's Photography Gallery: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1865
• JW Jones: 1 albumen silver print, 1865
• Kellogg Brothers: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1865
• Myron Kimball: 1 albumen silver print, 1863
• Samuel Masury: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1864-1866
• McPherson & Oliver: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863
• Timothy O'Sullivan: 1 albumen silver print, 1864
• Charles Paxon, 4 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1863
• AJ Riddle: 1 albumen silver print, 1864
• Unknown: 2 albumen silver carte de visite, 1861-1869
• Charles Wheeler: 1 albumen silver carte de visite, 1863

George N. Barnard and his "Views of Sherman's Campaign"/War Clouds (Room 8)

George Barnard: 13 albumen silver prints, 1864-1866, 1 album

Photography and Medicine/Reed Brockway Bontecou, MD (Room 9)

• William Bell: 1 albumen silver print, 1866-1867
• Reed Brockway Bontecou: 49 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1865, 7 albumen silver prints, 1865, 1 albumen silver print with applied color, 1865
• Unknown: 1 albumen silver print, 1863-1865

War's End and Lincoln's Assassination (Room 10)

• George Barnard: 1 albumen silver print, 1866
• Isaac Bonsall: 1 albumen silver print, 1864-1865
• Mathew Brady: 11 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1865, 2 albumen silver prints, 1865-1866
• Alexander Gardner: 7 albumen silver prints, 1865, 2 albumen silver cartes de visite, 1865/1 album
• John Reekie: 1 albumen silver print, 1865
• Thomas Roche: 1 albumen silver stereograph, 1865
• Unknown: 1 albumen silver print, 1865

Cases/Ephemera
1 poster
1 mourning corsage

Comments/Context: When the Met's photography department plays to its strengths, leveraging its deep collection of 19th and early 20th century photography and matching that rare imagery with in-depth scholarship and research, it can produce shows of such power and authority that they permanently alter the way we think about the history of the medium. This comprehensive show of Civil War photography is one of these special landmark exhibits, an extensive exploration of the point where a traumatic period in our nation's history met the emergence of a new visual medium. The show expertly mixes the known and the unknown: the generals and the anonymous soldiers, the famous battlefields and the forgotten camp sites, the big name photographers and the small town portrait studios, providing a rich, thoughtful investigation of how the war was captured in pictures. It's a parade of the somber and the grim, the grisly and the hopeful, photographs can be equally well read as classic documents of war and the market-ready innovations of artistic minded entrepreneurs.

While the show is roughly laid out chronological in order, it more closely follows the path of photography's approach to the conflict than the strict historical timeline of events. Capturing the action on the ground required multiple photographers and complex logistics, and so we saw the beginnings of the modern photographic agency, where key figures like Mathew Brady invested in large operations and studios to cover the breadth of the war. Given the dizzying variety of technical approaches being perfected at the time and the differing demands of customers, these studios produced everything from elegant albums to low cost cartes de visite and stereographic prints, each targeted at a specific audience hungry for images of the war.

In the early 1860s, photography was still very much in its infancy and crisply stopping action (like soldiers in battle) was beyond the ability of the available technology, so photographers were forced to linger around the action, taking before and after shots that could be set up with more care and patience. The result is a portrait of war that is often silent and subdued rather than noisy and chaotic, where battlefields like Antietam and Gettysburg are strewn with corpses and landscapes are defined by masses of military equipment or fortifications reduced to rubble: skulls mix with cannon balls, bodies are stripped of their boots, and troop carts and prisoners trudge onward. The show uses Andrew Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book and George Barnard's Views of Sherman's Campaign as two linchpin bodies of work, and fills in around these two cornerstones with other supporting imagery. Starting with the destruction of Fort Sumter and ending with the razing of Charleston, Savannah and other cities in the South, it's a wearying slog of trench spikes and ordinance, bodies in ditches, tent camp rest, and landscapes stripped bare, the only elegance to be found in the consistent craftsmanship of the compositions.

The show balances these sweeping views of the war with the up-close intimacy of studio portraits of both officers and enlisted men. This was photography for the masses, cheap tintype and ambrotype portraits, framed in elaborately decorated hand held cases and made for loved ones. In the early part of the war, men stand in fresh uniforms with a mixture of pride and trepidation, brandishing rifles and pistols or long knives and sharp bayonets, and brothers stand together, with beards and backpacks, ready to face whatever they might encounter. The faces peer out with a kind of doomed deer-in-the-headlights poignancy, given that so we know so few came back. Those that did are seen in a second group of portraits later in the exhibit, where lost legs and amputated arms are now part of the picture. An entire room of medical imagery by Reed Brockway Bontecou takes this idea further, following the path of gunshots through bodies, investigating ugly wounds and weeping scars, lingering over lost fingers and eyes. The exhibit ends not with fanfare and trumpets, but with the hanging of the Lincoln assassination conspirators and a heavy feeling of collective loss.

While there is, of course, a straightforward and often gripping visual history lesson here, the exhibit isn't a dry textbook of the Civil War. Instead, it's a visceral, gut punching tale of North and South, battlefields and sacrifices, destruction and desolation. It's also the tale of a trial by fire for the medium of photography, the story of Brady and Barnard, Gardner and O'Sullivan, and countless others, the eyes behind the cameras and how they framed the conflict for the rest of us to see. Taken together, the exhibit educates along multiple lines, seeing the history of the nation through its picture makers, smartly weaving art and war into one inextricably intertwined mass. This is the kind of exhibit the Met does better than almost any other museum, proof once again that when it investigates its extensive core holdings with deliberation and academic rigor, it's nearly unbeatable.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. Prints and albums by George Barnard, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan all come into the secondary markets from time to time. Barnard's individual prints have ranged in price from roughly $1000 to $3000, while the Sherman portfolio has reached more than $100000. Brady's prices have ranged between $1000 on the low end to more than $300000 for his most iconic daguerreotype portraits. Gardner's prints have ranged between $1000 and $29000, with his Sketchbook album reaching $85000. And O'Sullivan's prints have ranged between $1000 and $135000, although many of his highest priced works do not depict this particular Civil War imagery.

Rating: *** (three stars) EXCELLENT (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New York (here), New Yorker (here), Gallerist NY (here)
• Interview: Jeff Rosenheim, Modern Art Notes podcast (here)

Photography and the American Civil War
Through September 2nd

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston @Met

JTF (just the facts): A total of 36 color photographs, framed in brown wood and matted, and hung in a series of three small rooms on the second floor of the museum. All of the works are dye transfer prints, taken between 1969 and 1984; most are vintage prints. Physical sizes range from 12x17 to 15x22 or reverse; no edition information was available. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This exhibit is an example of the entirely natural desire of a museum to show off its new acquisitions. Last year, the Met acquired a high quality selection of early Egglestons (a complete set from his first portfolio, a group of 15 images from William Eggleston's Guide, and a handful of other iconic pictures) and this show gets them up on the walls with little delay. There isn't really any scholarly framework or new thinking here, just an impressive sample of Eggleston's early dye transfers.

While it's hard to beat the tricycle, the red ceiling, the peaches sign, or the green shower stall, I was most interested to see Eggleston's first portfolio from 1974. While the used tires sign, the plastic animals, and the rusted truck in the afternoon sun were familiar to me, the others from the group were more obscure and therefore more intriguing as potential evidence of things to come in his future artistic life. Angles and geometries dominate a claustrophobic brick wall parking space and are also found in the distorted sideways perspective of an office curtain seen through the front window. Decay is never far from view, whether it be the red bars of a swingset poking out of overgrown greenery or a rusted metal target suspended from scraggly treetops. And the quirks of vernacular Southern America are also ever present: a painted dog statue on a stepped pedestal, decorative lights on the roofline of a snack shack, or the plastic flowers that adorn a Faith sign. In a many ways, these first images provide a surprisingly useful framework for what would come later.

I would certainly be remiss if I failed to touch on the rich, saturated color in these dye transfers. Even in the most mundane compositions, Eggleston's masterful command of everyday color is repeatedly demonstrated, coming through again and again with tactile lushness. While most collectors and photography enthusiasts will be familiar with much of what is on view here, that in no way diminishes the enjoyment that comes from a few lazy minutes reveling in the wonders of this color. The orange airplane, the yellow curb, the green dress, the red room, the golden piano, we've seen them before, but they never get old.

 

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. Eggleston's work is routinely available in the secondary markets, with lesser known images and iconic works coming up for sale with surprising regularity. Recent prices for single images have roughly ranged from a reasonable $5000 to the blockbuster $578500, a record achieved last year by one of the new (and somewhat controversial) extra large digital prints. Eggleston is represented by Cheim & Read in New York (here).

 

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

Transit Hub:

• Eggleston Trust site (here)
• Features/Reviews: Wall Street Journal (here)

 

At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston

Through July 28th

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10028

After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 85 photographic/video works made by 20 different photographers/artists, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in a single room divided space on the museum's second floor. The works span the period from 1982 to 2010. Physical dimensions and edition information were not provided on the wall labels. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low (1 inkjet print, 2009)
Nancy Burson (1 gelatin silver print, 1982)
Kelli Connell (2 chromogenic prints, 2006)
Nancy Davenport (2 chromogenic prints, 2001)
Kota Ezawa (1 chromogenic transparency, 2004)
Filip Dujardin (1 inkjet print, 2009)
Joan Fontcuberta (1 chromogenic print, 2005 )
Tom Friedman (1 chromogenic print, 1998)
Debbie Grossman (16 inkjet prints, 2010)
Beate Gutschow (1 chromogenic print, 2000)
Matthew Jensen (1 set of 49 chromogenic prints, 2008-2009)
Craig Kalpakjian (1 silver dye bleach print, 1999)
Maria Marshall (1 video, 1998)
Osamu James Nakagawa (2 inkjet prints, 2008)
Robert Pollidori (1 chromogenic print, 2007)
Matthew Porter (1 inkjet print, 2010)
Bradley Rubenstein (1 inkjet print, 1986)
Thomas Ruff (1 chromogenic print, 2000)

Jason Salavon (1 chromogenic print, 2009)

 

Comments/Context: As a bookend to the much larger Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop show across the hall (review linked below), the Met's photography curators have drawn together a sampler of contemporary work from the permanent collection that brings the manipulation story into the present, highlighting how the introduction of more powerful software tools has impacted the medium. There is no particular stated thesis or analytical narrative to this show; it's a fence-sitter, offering both evolution and revolution without taking sides or picking winners. But the "one of each" example approach does have its own implied conclusion: that these new tools have opened up lots of new artistic freedoms and that profound (and continuing) change is going on in many simultaneous directions.

 

In many ways, the modern answer to the question of why manipulate is breathtakingly simple: "why not, when we can do so so easily?" This starts with works as seeminngly straightforward as Robert Pollidori's image of Varanasi, where stitched together digital negatives allow the artist to pack more information into a single, still plausibly truthful frame, and ends with countless imagination stretching digital fictions, like Filip Dujardin's impossible architecture and Beate Gutschow's fabricated landscapes. Digital composites are a recurring theme here, running the gamut from Nancy Burson's facial composite of 1980s era world leaders based on their nation's percentage of warheads to Jason Salavon's visual average of every portrait by Frans Hals. The Internet-based appropriation trend is represented by a pixelated nude by Thomas Ruff and a series of flared suns drawn from Google Street View by Matthew Jensen. And others are using the new tools to upend our expectations in more subtle and unexpected ways, like Kelli Connell's doppelganger double portraits and Debbie Grossman's all female remixing of Russell Lee.

 

As one might expect, this show leans toward the more conservative edge of the digital realm, leaving out the wilder, more exotic and more experimental edges of contemporary photographic manipulation, especially as it bumps into the fuzzy edge of what we might call digital art. But as a coda to the larger historical show next door, it certainly fulfills its purpose of providing a contemporary reference point, allowing curious viewers to trace the threads from the past all the way into the swirling digital chaos of the present.

 

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. As such, I will dispense with the usual discussion of prices, secondary market history, and gallery representation for this review.

 

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

 

Transit Hub:

• DLK COLLECTION review of companion exhibit Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop (here)

After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age
Through May 27th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of roughly 212 photographic works made by 126 different photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung (or displayed in cases) in a series of five connecting rooms on the museum's second floor. The works span the period from 1846 to 1993. The exhibit was curated by Mia Fineman, and a catalog of the exhibit has been published by the museum (here). Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the exhibit and the Met press office was unable to provide any installation shots, so there are no installation images for this show.

The exhibit is divided into sections with the following titles:

Picture Perfect
Artifice In the Name of Art
Politics and Persuasion
Novelties and Amusements
Pictures in Print
Mind's Eye
Protoshop

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Exterior Walls

William Henry Jackson (1 gelatin silver print with applied media, 1913)
John Paul Pennebaker (1 gelatin silver print, 1933)
Grete Stern (1 gelatin silver print, 1949)
Carleton Watkins (2 albumen prints, 1867)
Unidentified (1 salter paper print, 1865)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print with applied color, 1915)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1920)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1930)
Unidentified (2 gelatin silver prints, 1956-1957)

Room 1

Owen Angel (1 album in case, 2 albumen prints displayed, 1880)
James William Bailey (9 albumen prints, 1880s)
Edouard Baldus (2 salted paper prints, 1851, 1855, 1 waxed paper negative, 1851)
Matthew Brady/George Barnard (1 albumen print, 1865)
Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1 albumen print, 1866)
Levin Corbin Handy (1 gelatin silver print, 1902)
William Henry Jackson (3 albumen prints, 1881, 1906)
Robert Johnson (in case, 2 books, 1913, 1930)
Calvert Richard Jones (1 paper negative and 1 salted paper print, 1846)
Gustave Le Gray (3 albumen prints, 1856-1857)
John Murray (1 waxed paper negative with applied media and 1 albumen print, 1862-1864)
Charles Negre (1 salted paper print, 1850s)
William Notman (4 albumen prints, 1877, 1880, 1881, 1888)
Paolo Salviati (1 albumen print with applied color, 1880s)
Albert Sands Southworth (1 daguerreotype with applied color, 1850)
Albert Sands Southworth/Josiah Johnson Hawes (1 daguerreotype, 1850s)
Raimund von Stillfried/Kusakabe Kimbei (1 albumen print with applied color, 1870s)
Unidentified (in case, 1 ambrotype with applied color, 1860)
Unidentified (2 albumen prints, 1861-1865)
Unidentified (1 albumen print with applied color, 1870)
Robert H. Vance (in case, 1 ambrotype with applied color, 1855)
J.I. Williamson (1 salted paper print with applied color, 1882)
George Washington Wilson (1 albumen print, 1857)

Room 2

Ernest Eugene Appert (4 albumen prints, 1871)
Dimitry Baltermans (1 gelatin silver print, 1942)
Arthur Batut (5 albumen prints, 1885-1887)
Anne W. Brigman (1 gelatin silver print, 1912)
F. Holland Day (1 platinum print, 1907)
Louis Ducod du Hauron (2 albumen prints, 1888-1889)
Francis Galton (2 albumen prints, 1877, 1883)
John Heartfield (1 gelatin silver print collage, 1935, 1 photogravure, 1935)
Lewis Hine (1 gelatin silver print, 1913)
Heinrich Hoffman (2 gelatin silver prints, 1937)
John L. Lovell (2 albumen prints, 1887)
Barbara Morgan (1 gelatin silver print, 1937)
Francis James Mortimer (1 carbon print, 1917)
Herbert George Ponting (4 gelatin silver prints, 1927)
Mikhail Razulevich (1 gelatin silver print, 1933)
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1 carbon print, 1851, 1 albumen print, 1860)
Henry Peach Robinson (3 albumen prints, 1857, 1858, 1860)
Camille Silvy (2 albumen prints, 1858, 1858-1980)
Edward Steichen (1 gum bichromate print, 1902, 1 platinum print with applied color, 1904)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1914)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1916)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1949)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1964)
Weegee (1 gelatin silver print, 1968)
Alexsandr Zhitomirsky (1 gelatin silver pribnt, 1941)

Room 3

Richard Avedon (1 gelatin silver print collage, 1967)
Ralph Bartholomew Jr. (1 carbro print, 1957)
Barthelemy (1 albumen print, 1870)
Erwin Blumenfeld (1 gelatin silver print with applied color, 1949, 1 magazine lithograph, 1950)
William Robert Bowles (1 gelatin silver print, 1900)
Claude A. Bromley (1 book, 1941)
Frank Roy Fraprie/Walter E. Woodbury (1 book, 1931)
Maurice Guibert (1 gelatin silver print, 1900)
J. Halstead (1 albumen print, 1865-1877)
Edwin T. Hamilton/Ralph Sommer (1 book, 1938)
J.C. Higgins & Son (1 albumen print, 1870)
K. Himmelreich (1 gelatin silver print, 1910s)
Albert A. Hopkins (1 book, 1897)
Amos Mallen (1 gelatin silver print, 1865-1870)
William H. Martin/George B. Cornish (9 gelatin silver prints/chromolithographs, 1910s)
Richard C. Miller (1 carbro print, 1941, 1 magazine lithograph, 1941)
William H. Mumler (6 albumen prints, 1862-1875)
Horace W. Nicholls (3 gelatin silver prints, 1906)
Howard S. Redell (1 gelatin silver print, 1930)
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1 albumen print, 1871)
Unidentified (1 daguerreotype, 1855)
Unidentified (in case, 1 stereoscopic albumen print, 1856)
Unidentified (1 tintype with applied color, 1865)
Unidentified (1 albumen print collage, 1870)
Unidentified (1 albumen print with applied color, 1875)
Unidentified (1 albumen print, 1880)
Unidentified (1 albumen print, 1880s)
Unidentified (1 cyanotype, 1890)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1899)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1903)
Unidentified (2 gelatin silver prints, 1905)
Unidentified (in case, 1 gelatin silver print, 1907)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1910s)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1910s)
Unidentified (8 gelatin silver print postcards, 1910s)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1920)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1930)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1949)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1950)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1953)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1954)
Unidentified (1 gelatin silver print, 1960)
Weegee (2 gelatin silver prints, 1952-1959, 1959)
Weegee/Gerry Speck (1 book, 1964)
John Wolters (1 gelatin silver print, 1936)

Room 4

John Baldessari (1 set of 4 gelatin silver prints, 1976)
Herbert Bayer (1 gelatin silver print, 1932)
Bill Brandt (1 gelatin silver print, 1956)
Claude Cahun (1 gelatin silver print, 1929)
Will Connell (1 gelatin silver print, 1937)
Yves Klein/Harry Shrunk/Janos Kender (1 gelatin silver print, 1960, 1 newspaper, 1960)
Clarence John Laughlin (1 gelatin silver print, 1947)
George Platt Lynes (1 gelatin silver print, 1935)
Frank Majore (1 inkjet print, 1987)
Angus McBean (1 gelatin silver print, 1949)
Duane Michals (1 set of 7 gelatin silver prints, 1968)
William Mortensen (2 gelatin silver prints, 1930, 1932)
Dora Maar (2 gelatin silver prints, 1936, 1940)
Ann Rhoney (1 gelatin silver print with applied color, 1982)
Martha Rosler (1 chromogenic print, 1967-1972)
Jim Shaw (4 gelatin silver prints, 1978)
Frederick Sommer (1 gelatin silver print, 1946)
Grete Stern (1 gelatin silver print, 1948)
Maurice Tabard (1 gelatin silver print, 1930)
Jerry Uelsmann (2 gelatin silver prints, 1969, 1976)
Oliver Wasow (1 dye transfer print, 1987)
Wanda Wulz (1 gelatin silver print, 1932)

Room 5

Kathy Grove (3 gelatin silver prints, 1989-1990, 1990-1992, 1993)
Boris Mikhailov (1 gelatin silver print with applied color, 1975)
William Wegman (1 set of 6 gelatin silver prints, 1972)

Comments/Context: In the past twenty years, and with the continuing ascendance of digital technologies, we have come to reluctantly accept the notion that photographs of all kinds are routinely manipulated. This slow change in cultural mindset has been an extremely rough road, and even today, we are still fooled (and therefore outraged) by our trust in the truth of the photographic image. We have grudgingly learned to know better, and many of us have become savvier consumers of media, but that doesn't mean we are entirely happy about the rules of the new world we live in.

Part of the sense of violation that manipulated photographs seem to embody comes from the fact that they are contrary to everything we have been taught that is right and good about photography; they're cheating somehow, and we're not so secretly angry that folks aren't coloring inside the lines. This is why Mia Fineman's thoughtful show is so important - it's a kind of watershed moment of revisionist history. Looking back from our knowing perch of manipulation run amok, she has picked out the overgrown trail of fakery and fabrication that reaches all the way back to the origins of the medium. It's been there all along, of course, but it just didn't fit the rigidly orthodox view of straight photography as the be all and end all, and was therefore marginalized and largely forgotten. In a certain way, this show is the anti-Beaumont Newhall, a history of photography where manipulation is just as valid and creative as straight photography, and extra crisp "truth" is just one of many styles that a camera-toting artist might decide to employ.

While this exhibit is roughly chronological in flow, it's structure is mostly driven by a succession of answers to the question of why photographers were modifying their pictures; it's a rational analysis, not out to score points, but designed to provide a logical, step-by-step progression of justification and proof. The first answer to why is largely a technical one - photographers resorted to manipulation when the existing tools failed them in one way or another. Overexposed skies were a common problem: Carleton Watkins and Gustave Le Gray both combined negatives to get the right clouds above the right land/sea scapes, while John Murray simply blacked the sky out with India ink and Edouard Baldus painted the clouds in or jigsawed negatives together. Group portraits also posed difficulties - multiple negatives allowed missing participants to be added in later or separate details to be combined; in one portrait, Ulysses Grant, a horse, and a background battle scene are combined into a single heroic image. Given a lack of color, many photographers also resorted to hand coloring or painted extras to give their images a more realistic or pleasing look.

The next answer to why seems to have been a more purely artistic one. Oscar Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson created wholly staged/combined tableaux, following their own interests in allegorical scenes and controlled emotional settings. Simple retouching and painting in soon gave way to full blown Pictorialism and its emphasis on hand crafted modifications; two examples from Edward Steichen show the pinnacle of this kind of hand applied finishing. In the same room, a third manipulation answer is proposed: political propaganda and falsification. This collection of images includes anti-Fascism collages, Lenin and Stalin retouched, Chairman Mao smoothed to perfection, and composite views looking for the "essence" of criminal faces, diseased bodies and French regional groups.

The next room contains perhaps the simplest and most obvious answer to why photographers altered their images: to entertain. There are several copies of the same man in a single image, lots of severed heads, a woman riding a moth, plenty of ghosts and spirits, and various fantasies, from oversized produce to Times Square under water to the stork bringing a baby and the Mona Lisa frowning. These outright fabrications then give way to more journalistic/advertising examples, executed in halftone printing: derby crowds in the rain collaged together, a dirigible parked at the tip of the Empire State building, mushroom clouds, a woman in a champagne glass, and doctored Saturday Evening Post covers of Thanksgiving dinner. Richard Avedon even gets in on the action, with a fashion shot of Audrey Hepburn with five heads. Crossing into the next gallery, Surrealism comes to the forefront, with Dora Maar's curved floor, Wanda Wulz' cat face, and William Mortensen's fingers driven into eye sockets. In these images, nothing is as expected, from a two headed Claude Cahun to a multi-armed Brandt nude.

Inexplicably, the rigor and logic that held the preceding thematic sections together so tightly falls apart at the end of this show. In the final rooms, manipulated photographs from roughly 1950 to 1990 are left to roam freely, without so much as a whisper of a connecting framework. Yves Klein jumping into the void is mixed with Jim Shaw's before and after aliens, while Martha Rosler's soldiers in the kitchen compete with Jerry Uelsmann's mysterious levitating trees. Boris Mikhailov's garish May Day Parade sits across from Kathy Grove's erased Satiric Dancer, their relationship completely unfathomable. I sorely missed some kind of clear parsing and unpacking of this later period; it felt like a monumental missed opportunity to chart a path through more recent (and arguably more complex and conceptual) manipulation strategies.

If this show had ended with Surrealism, I would have almost certainly given it my highest rating, as it takes some risks and teaches us something new. As hung, however, I am forced to take it down one notch. Fineman does an admirable job of reconsidering photographic history and explaining the whys of early photographic manipulation, but the last gallery or two left me wanting something more in terms of a continuing analytical thread. I hate to say it, but once again, a comprehensive, thoughtful, well researched Met photography show has lost its way after 1950. I'm not sure if this is a function of the balance of permanent collection or the mindset of the curators, but it's happened too many times not to be some kind of pattern.

But I quibble. Overall, congratulations are in very much in order for bucking the established orthodoxy and offering a credible alternate history of the medium. Photographic manipulation clearly has a long and storied history, and Fineman has deftly provided us with a plausible framework for connecting the ever more complicated fabrications of the present with the long arm of the past. More work is needed to clarify recent developments, but I'm certain this will end up being a first choice reference baseline for future investigations.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. As such, I will dispense with the usual discussion of prices and secondary market history for this review.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: NY Times (here), Wall Street Journal (here), New York Review of Books (here), Time LightBox (here)

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop
Through January 27th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Naked before the Camera @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 75 photographic works, variously framed and matted, and hung (or displayed in cases) in a series of three connecting rooms on the museum's second floor. The exhibit was curated by Malcolm Daniel. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Room 1
Brassai (1 gelatin silver, 1931/1950s)
Nadar (1 salt, 1860-1861)
Julien Vallon de Villeneuve (1 salt, 1853)
Charles-Alphonse Marle (1 salt, 1855)
Franck-Francois-Genes Chauvassagnes (1 salt, 1856)
Eugene Durieu (1 albumen, 1853)
Felix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1 albumen, 1857)
Unknown (1 albumen, 1870)
Gustave Le Gray (1 albumen, 1856)
Unknown (2 salt, 1856)
Thomas Eakins (1 platinum, 1885)
Louis Igout (1 book of albumen pose studies, 1880)
Unknown (1 book of albumen figure studies, 1890s)

Room 2
Nadar (1 albumen, 1860)
Oscar G. Mason (1 book with collotypes with applied color, 1880)
Alphonse Bertillon (1 book with gelatin silver prints, 1902)
Bertrall (3 cyanotypes, 1881)
Paul Wirz (2 gelatin silver, 1912, 1922)
George Washington Wilson (1 albumen, 1892)
Circle of Albert Londe (1 albumen, 1890)
Eadweard Muybridge (1 collotype, 1887)
Paul Wirz and Paul Baron de Rautenfeld (1 book with gelatin silver prints, 1925)
Brassai (3 gelatin silver, 1931, 1932/1950, 1932/1960)
Man Ray (2 gelatin silver, 1930, 1935)
Franz Roh (1 gelatin silver, 1922-1925)
Hans Bellmer (1 gelatin silver with applied color, 1936)
Andre Kertesz (1 gelatin silver, 1932)
Bill Brandt (4 gelatin silver, 1949, 1953, 1960, 1979)
William Larson (1 gelatin silver, 1966-1970)
Lady Ottoline Morrell (2 gelatin silver, 1916)
George Platt Lynes (1 gelatin silver, 1930)
Germaine Krull (1 gelatin silver, 1928-1929)
Edward Weston (3 gelatin silver, 1925, 1936/1954, 1936/1960)
Paul Outerbridge (1 carbo, 1936)
Unknown (4 gelatin silver, 1950s)
Guglielmo Pluschow (1 albumen, 1890s)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype, 1850)
Unknown (1 daguerreotype in wooden viewing case, 1854)

Room 3
Irving Penn (2 gelatin silver, 1949-1950)
Emmet Gowin (1 gelatin silver, 1967/1982)
Harry Callahan (2 gelatin silver, 1950, 1954)
Robert Mapplethorpe (1 gelatin silver, 1976)
Jennifer Johnson (1 platinum, 1995)
Diane Arbus (2 gelatin silver, 1963, 1968)
Garry Winogrand (1 gelatin silver, 1971)
Larry Clark (1 gelatin silver, 1972-1973)
John Goodman (1 gelatin silver, 1976)
John Coplans (1 gelatin silver, 1984)
Hannah Wilke (2 gelatin silver, 1978)
Jim Jager (1 gelatin silver, 1980)
Mark Morrisroe (1 gelatin silver, 1987)
Mark Beard (1 book of Polaroid transfers, 1992)
Robert Flynt (1 book of inkjet prints, 2009)

Comments/Context: I have to give the Met credit for trying to be more daring, at least in its own way. The flashy marquee lights with NAKED in all capitals announcing this small show are something one could have never imagined seeing in this hallowed institution a few years ago. But don't be fooled by the attempt at an erotic peep show atmosphere. While there are more full frontal penises than normal and a masturbating 19th century woman makes a cameo appearance, this is still a very conservative show, with a strong bias toward the old rather than the new. There is no bondage Araki, no explicit Heinecken, no confrontational Newton, no S&M Mapplethorpe or Opie, no huge blurry Ruff pornos. We're naked, but we're still at the Met.

As usual, the Met's powerhouse holdings in the 19th and early 20th century are the most impressive and coherent part of the exhibit. The first room of 19th century work holds some of the standouts of genre; the Nadar and Durieu nudes on view are two of the most elegant photographic nudes ever made, and the Eakins double male nude in platinum is an undeniable masterpiece. Moving into the next room, it becomes clear that Malcolm Daniel has taken an extremely broad reading of "naked" in this show. Where Stieglitz, Steichen, and the Pictorialists would normally be (most likely left out because they were recently on view, but still a glaring omission), there is a wall of scientific photographs (hermaphrodites, diseased bodies, and corpses), followed by another containing ethnographic and anthropological images (Indonesian pygmies, Zulu girls, and natives from Papua New Guinea). The challenge with this approach is that "naked" umbrella is so huge that nearly anything fits under it; I couldn't help but feel like randomness was starting to take over and the connections between the works were becoming less relevant.

The story then jumps to European modernism and surrealism with Brassai, Man Ray, Roh, and Bellmer, followed by an interlude of distortion with Kertesz, Brandt and William Larson. The ground is still pretty solid with Weston (doesn't the Met have better Charis on the sand prints than these two?), Penn, Callahan, and Gowin (I think a Minor White male nude would have worked well here too), but roughly post 1950, I lost the trail, and the show becomes more of a jumble. While the Mapplethorpe portrait of Patti Smith is of course an icon, I'm surprised than a more formal Mapplethorpe nude (either male or female) wasn't chosen. The Arbus portraits make sense (although they are very rippled/warped), but the Garry Winogrand street scene and the Hannah Wilke inclusions left me puzzled. With such a broad curatorial definition, anything goes I guess, but all three rooms could have been filled with images of naked performance artists, why the two of Wilke in particular? Another real mystery is why there is no color photography at all in this show, aside from the Outerbridge carbo on a side wall.

So while the intentions were good here, I think the execution is lacking, especially in connecting the vintage black and white work to the contemporary world. This isn't the first show in these rooms that has run off the rails as it left the 1950s. The Met needs to do a better job of connecting the dots between its vast holdings and more recent artistic activity when it takes on a broad topic like this one, or it should be happy to stay focused on its areas of traditional strength. The photography on view here is certainly of high quality, but the thematic construct is too diffuse to be very enlightening or educational.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), Artnet (here), Daily Beast (here), Flavorwire (here), American Photo (here)

Naked before the Camera

Through September 9th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film and Video @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 14 photographic works (loosely defined) and 3 films/videos from 17 different photographers/artists. The works are variously framed and matted, and hung in a single room gallery space with a main dividing wall, with 1 video on display in a darkened curtained off area of the space and another shown in a nearby paintings gallery. The exhibit was curated by Douglas Eklund. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and details in parentheses:

Diane Arbus (1 gelatin silver print, 1956)
Lutz Bacher (1 single channel video, 2002)
Lothar Baumgarten (1 chromogenic print, 1969/1985)
Sophie Calle ( 1 work comprised of 1 gelatin silver print, 2 chromogenic prints and text, 1986)
Joseph Cornell (1 box, 1950)
Tim Davis (1 chromogenic print, 2003)
Andrea Fraser (1 video, 1989)
Candida Höfer (1 chromogenic print, 1988)
Laura Larson (1 gelatin silver print, 1998)
Louise Lawler (1 silver dye bleach print, 1997)
Peter Nagy (1 laminated photocopy, 1985)
Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer (1 color film, 2006)
John Pilson (1 archival pigment print, 2007)
Cindy Sherman (1 chromogenic print, 1989)
Lorna Simpson (1 screen print on felt, with text, 1998)
Thomas Struth (1 chromogenic print, 1988)
Francesca Woodman (1 diazo collage, 1980)

Comments/Context: The latest thematic installation in the Met's contemporary photography gallery is narrower and more self-reflective than nearly all of the shows that have come before it in this same space. This particular gathering revolves around the relationship between artists and museums, running the gamut from inspiration and investigation to critique and deconstruction. It's a relatively small idea, but there are enough well-selected pictures here to examine the concept from plenty of competing angles.

I don't think it's at all surprising that Struth, Höfer, Sherman, and Lawler are part of this show; they seem like relatively obvious foundation inclusions. The real jaw dropper for me was the incredibly huge Francesca Woodman mural made of photographs on blueprint paper (in the top installation shot). In it, Woodman includes five versions of herself as caryatids, holding up the roof of a collaged together temple; it has much the same intimacy as her diminutive photographs, but on a grand, billowy scale. Nashashibi and Skaer's film Flash in the Metropolitan (found in the darkened portion of the room) is also a standout. Taken in the halls of the museum at night, a strobe light bathes the cases and statues in momentary flashes of brightness, an ancient head or obscure object emerging from the darkness to be recognizable for just a moment before disappearing once again. It's a spooky inversion of the museum going experience, ghostly and fleeting rather than timeless and enduring. And John Pilson's photograph of a stylish 1920s period room interrupted by an anachronistic camera and microphone is a lesser known but smart choice, quietly witty in its upending of the controlled environment of the museum exhibit.
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This is a tighter, less sprawling selection of works than previous thematic incarnations, and I think it holds together as a complete thought much better as a result. There are artworks and patrons as reusable subject matter (in a Sophie Calle multi-part work, a Rodin sculpture is thought to have "a terrific ass"), juxtapositions and relationships created by the museum setting (Laura Larson's unexpected alignment of wallpaper, settee, and carpet), and riffs on looking and seeing (one of Tim Davis' faces in paintings obscured by glare images). All in, this is a neat little package, perhaps not groundbreaking, but certainly thoughtful and well-edited.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Review: NY Times (here)

Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film and Video

Through August 26th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 47 photographic works from 35 different photographers, generally framed in black and matted, and hung spotlit against dark blue walls in a series of three small connecting rooms on the second floor of the museum. The prints were made between 1890 and 1912, using a variety of processes, including gum bichromate, carbon, platinum, and photogravure. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and their dates in parentheses:

James Craig Annan (2, 1890-1893)
Anne Brigman (2, 1905-1908)
Alvin Langdon Coburn (5, 1902-1908)
F. Holland Day (6 plus 1 group of 7, 1896-1899)
Baron Adolf De Meyer (3, 1906-1912)
Frank Eugene (2, 1898-1907)
Frederick Evans (1, 1909)
Gertrude Käsebier (4, 1899-1910)
Joseph Keiley (1, 1898)
Heinrich Kühn (2, 1908-1909)
George Seely (2, 1904-1906)
Edward Steichen (8, 1901-1906)
Pierre Troubetzkoy (1, 1904)
Clarence White (6, 1898-1906)
Clarence White/Alfred Stieglitz (2, 1907)

This exhibit is a companion show for the larger Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe exhibit, on view through January 2nd (here). The photographs included in this broader show are mostly portraits of Stieglitz or other artists with work on view. Details on the photographers and photographs included follow below (not including the large photographic images laminated to the walls):

Alvin Langdon Coburn (2, 1903-1907)
Frank Eugene (1, 1907)
Heinrich Kühn (1, 1904)
Edward Steichen (7, 1901-1915)
Alfred Stieglitz (13, 1893-1933)
Paul Strand (1, 1929)

Comments/Context: It's probably hard to underestimate the influence of Alfred Stieglitz on fine art photography of the early 1900s. As both an artist and gallery owner, he made choices and supported aesthetic ideas that set the standard for the medium, almost single handedly pushing tastes toward (and then away from) what is now known as Pictorialism. The show is strong reflection of what Stieglitz valued, showed, bought, saved, and ultimately donated; both before and after his death, he made important gifts of key photographic prints to the Met, forming the foundation of the museum's outstanding photography collection.

The works on display here were drawn entirely from Stieglitz' personal collection, and together they provide a one-stop master class in Pictorialism, covering the major technical processes/innovations and including gems from virtually all of the important figures of the period. There are portraits and nudes, allegories and religious subjects, classical maidens and dreamlike children, all executed with a meticulous, tactile craftsmanship and a reverence for expressive emotion. De Meyer's The Shadows on the Wall - Chrysanthemums from 1906 turns simple blossoms in a vase into a soft-focus silhouette, clearly influenced by the asymmetry of Japanese wood block prints and reminiscent of amorphous jellyfish in a shadowy sea. Clarence White's Morning - The Bathroom from 1906 shows a woman in a bathtub, wearing a flowy, transparent gown and bathed in the delicate, tranquil light streaming in through the window. And Edward Steichen's Cyclamen - Mrs. Philip Lydig from 1905 pairs an evocative society portrait (with a steely-eyed stare) with wispy strands of almost abstract flowers that jut out across the picture plane.

Given that this kind of work quickly went out of favor with the arrival of straight photography, the exhibit has a kind of time capsule feeling, where we marvel at unearthed items that now seem woefully dated. But while it might be easy to be dismissive of these photographs, there is a consistency of expert skill on view here that is hard to overlook. We may have moved on from the overly evocative, painterly impressionism that these turn of the century photographers found exciting, but even a century later, the mastery of their craft as evidenced by these images is no less impressive.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), NY Photo Review (here), Bullett Media (here)

Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz
Through February 26th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

Night Vision: Photography After Dark @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 44 photographic works from 34 different photographers, generally framed in black and matted, and hung spotlit against dark blue walls in a series of three small connecting rooms. The prints were made between 1896 and 2000, mostly using the gelatin silver process. A glass case in the second room holds two bound volumes. (Installation shots at right.)
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The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view and their dates in parentheses:

First Room

Berenice Abbott (1, 1932)
Frances Allen (1, 1899)
Bill Brandt (1, 1936)
Brassai (1, 1932/1960)
Alvin Langdon Coburn (1, 1910)
John Cohen (1, 1960)
Gordon Coster (1, 1932)
Patrick Faigenbaum (1, 1977)
Knud Lonberg-Holm (2, 1923, 1924)
Edward Steichen (1, 1899)
Josef Sudek (1, 1948-1964)
Werner Mantz (1, 1928)

Second Room
Marcel Bovis (2, 1928, 1932)
Bill Brandt (1, 1942)
Brassai (2, 1931, 1934)
Louis Faurer (1, 1951)
Robert Frank (2, 1952, 1958)
Lewis Hine (1, 1906-1907)
William Klein (1, 1954)
Paul Martin (1 book, 1896 in glass case)
Otto Steinert (1, 1950)
Alfred Stieglitz (1 photogravure, 1897 in glass case)
Weegee (1, 1940)

Third Room

Robert Adams (1, 1981)
Guiseppe Albergamo (2, 1939)
Diane Arbus (3, 1958)
Bill Brandt (1, 1930s)
Gordon Coster (1, 1932)
David Deutsch (1 group of 16, 2000)
Sid Grossman (1, 1948)
Peter Hujar (1, 1981)
Andre Kertesz (1, 1940s)
Daido Moriyama (1, 1978)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (1, 1990)
Stephen Tourlentes (1, 1997)
Pim Van Os (1, 1950)
Garry Winogrand (1, 1955)
Kohei Yoshiyuki (1, 1971)
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Comments/Context: The Met's eclectic new survey of night photography is a budget-friendly drawn-from-the-collection whirlwind, covering a century of work in the span of a few small darkened rooms. By definition, such a show cannot be comprehensive (as the Met cannot own everything of importance in every genre), and night photography doesn't appear to have been a particular collecting focus over the years. As a result, this show feels less like a directed scholarly argument about the important trends in night photography over time, and more like a higher-level gathering of like work culled from the storage boxes.

The exhibit begins with a selection of turn of the century Pictorialist night images, followed quickly by a larger sample of between the wars work from some of the usual nighttime masters and a few well chosen lesser knowns: Abbott's iconic New York, Brandt's darkened London, Brassai's foggy Paris, Mantz' German architecture etc. From here, the story gets more diffuse, mixing Weegee's grisly severed head with Frank's lyrical Coney Island beach sleeper, Arbus' carnival goers, and Winogrand's top-hatted socialites. Post 1960, the connecting narrative is lost entirely, jumping from Yoshiyuki's park couplings, to a Sugimoto night seascape, to Deutsch's terrific series of aerial views of LA homes lit by the intrusive glare of a police spotlight.

My point here is not that this exhibit isn't well selected or sequenced; in fact, from picture to picture along the wall, there are plenty of subtle visual connections that are evidence of curatorial care. I think it just tries to do too much with too little. Perhaps this idea should have been split into two shows, one before 1960 and one after (as an aside, there isn't a single color picture in this entire show, and there are many worthy candidates for inclusion, from Misrach to Ruff to many, many others). It might also have benefited from tighter subject matter grouping, from architectural views, to landscapes, to social life, to movie marquees and light abstractions, over time and photographic styles. The whole subject of surveillance is hardly touched upon.

I actually think the overall concept of a smart show about night photography is a really good one. The challenge is that this exhibit needed either much more breadth or a much tighter focus to make a scholarly contribution to the history of this photographic subgenre; its survey in-betweenness makes for some uneven transitions and a waning of coherent momentum, especially in the latter parts of the show. Instead, I think this show takes the easier path of a tasty night photography appetizer, with some diverting randomness and non-obvious choices to keep things lively; if you visit the show looking for a little slice of the unexpected, you'll probably come away satisfied.

Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display.

My favorite work in the show was George Coster's Impressions of Chicago - The Lights of Grant Park, 1932; it's not actually in any of the installation shots. I like the way the multiple angled lines of circular lights overlap to create an abstract impression of energy and movement. I also enjoyed the Kertesz skyscraper multiple from the 1940s, with its glowing bands of intersecting geometric light.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), Village Voice (here)

Night Vision: Photography After Dark
Through September 18th

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

After the Gold Rush: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection @Met

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 25 photographic works from 15 different photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in a single room gallery space with a main dividing wall. The prints were made between 1979 and 2010, using multiple processes (gelatin silver, chromogenic etc.). (Installation shots at right.)
 
The following photographers have been included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view in parentheses:
 
Gretchen Bender (1)
James Casebere (1)
Moyra Davey (1 grid of 100)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (4)
Robert Gober (2)
Katy Grannan (3)
Hans Haacke (1 diptych)
An-My Lê (1 group of 5)
Curtis Mann (1)
Trevor Paglen (1)
Adrian Piper (1 triptych)
Laurie Simmons (1)
Wolfgang Tillmans (5)
Jeff Wall (1, distractingly large given the narrowness of the space by the way)
Christopher Williams (1)
 
Comments/Context: If you've spent some time trolling through the contemporary photography galleries in New York in the past couple of years, the odds are you've run across many of the works on display in this new group show of contemporary photography at the Met. Roughly half the works in the exhibit are recent acquisitions (look for the little blue logos on the wall labels), so it's a terrific chance to try to extrapolate how the curators and the members of the Photography committee are approaching the addition of new work to the permanent collection.
 

This particular installation puts these photographs in the specific context of cultural interchange, and makes an argument for a pattern of contemporary work that is addressing and responding to the social, economic, and political environment that surrounds us, either as direct commentary or as indirect undercurrents and glimpses of prevailing mood and emotion. It then goes on to dig additional images out of storage from the 1980s and 1990s that fit this overall thematic construct, connecting the dots between different time periods and commonalities of upheaval or uncertainty in society at large.
 
My analytical brain can think of three different ways this show might have come to pass:
 
1.) The Met identified ("top-down") a certain type of photography to look for or that it was interested in (cultural response), and then went out and systematically acquired works that fit those specifications
2.) The Met acquired recent works (of all kinds) that it thought were important and discovered later ("bottom-up") that a real and identifiable pattern was occurring in part of the contemporary artistic environment; the curators followed that trail and then created a show that highlighted those discoveries and placed them in context
3.) The Met acquired recent works (of all kinds) that it thought were important and then shoehorned some of them into a theme so that it could find a rational way to display them and tie them into other existing holdings
 

While we'll probably never know which of three it actually was (unless one of the principals involved weighs in with an answer), I think the theme of art as a reflection of the issues of the times seems like an awfully broad and all-encompassing umbrella under which to stand; apart from abstract, inward-looking, or highly conceptual work, almost anything else might logically fit into such a framework. As such, this show lacked the tightness of vision I'd like to see in a group show; yes, all the pieces fit into the right general bucket, but the selection and juxtaposition of images (walls of economic hardship, subtleties of military might, economic satire, snippets of racism, sexism etc.) wasn't as hard hitting or consistent as I would have expected it to be if you were really trying to make a powerful point about the engagement of contemporary art photographers in current events; the thread was there to be sure, but it was just too diffuse to really grab my attention.
 
So rather than drawing any crisp conclusions about the overall trends in contemporary photography, I came away ticking down a checklist: Grannan, Casebere, Lê, Mann, Davey, Tillmans, all high-quality work that was recently (or still is) in local galleries, now part of the prestigious permanent collection of the Met. Let's agree that these are all solid choices. But still, for the purposes of collection building (a topic in which I have infinite interest), it's intriguing to think about what drew the curators and accessions committee members to these particular works. Why these photographers and not others? Why these specific images and not others from the same project or series (especially for an artist like Tillmans)? What long-term historical significance did they ascribe to these photographs? What holes were they trying to fill? How did they convince each other that these were the ones that money should be spent on? The answers of course are unknown, but thoroughly fun for an afternoon of speculation.
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Collector's POV: Given this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. That said, given that many of these photographs have recently been in local NY gallery shows, an intrepid collector could search through the archive here for the relevant reviews and likely piece together a decently current price list for roughly half of the prints in the exhibit.
 
My favorite work in the show was Moyra Davey's Copperhead Grid, 1990/2009; it's on the right in the bottom installation shot. While I have seen variations on these Davey copperheads before (in different sizes), I continue to be enthralled by their tactile surfaces. Chemical residues of orange and green swirl across the profile of Abraham Lincoln, the coins sometimes scratched and covered to the point that his head is almost indecipherable. Her subtle commentary about the insignificance of the penny, the deterioration of money, and the loss of meaning in the financial system are all wound together into a memorable set of eroded symbols.
 
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

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Transit Hub:

• Review: Village Voice (here)

After the Gold Rush: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection
Through January 2nd

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028