Moyra Davey, Spleen. Indolence. Torpor. Ill-humour. @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 photographic works and 1 video,  hung in the North and South gallery spaces and the entry area. The North gallery contains the video, Les Goddesses, 61 minutes, in an edition of 5, from 2011. The entry area contains 1 unframed grid of 25 c-prints from 2012, each with postage, tape and ink. Each print is 12x17, and the work is unique. The South gallery contains 1 unframed grid of 16 c-prints from 2011, each with postage, tape, ink, and labels with text supplied by Lynne Tillman. Each print is 17x12, and the work comes in an edition of 3. This gallery also contains 5 triptychs and 1 singe image. These works are unframed gelatin silver prints, sized 20x16, in editions of 3, taken in 1979. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Moyra Davey's unabashedly analog, through-the-mail grids seem to have touched a curatorial nerve of late. They are intellectual, autobiographical, engaged with the written word, and an antidote (or corollary) to the flood of digital imagery that has engulfed photography. Her grids were included in the New Photography show at the MoMA last year and are now part of the Whitney Biennial (both linked below). Not many can claim that double play in such a short time span.

In this new show, Davey offers two recent grids, a video, and a selection of earlier vintage work. The Trust Me grid is a collection of still lifes: the contents of a medicine cabinet, a blue glass bottle, a group of shopping bags, a tiled wall, bugs caught in a spider web, strands of hair on the edge of a bathtub, a stuffed animal bunny, which are then woven together into a kind of anti-narrative form with snippets of text by Lynne Tillman. They are pictures about stories, rather than stories themselves. The Subway Writers grid is more literal; strangers on the subway read with a pencil, scribble in notebooks, or get lost in words amidst the chaos around them. They float in thought bubbles, oblivious to the din. It is writing as refuge from the crowd.

The vintage black and white photographs the South gallery have a Brown Sisters feel to them, but with an undercurrent of simmering sibling hostility. Four dark haired sisters pose in matching striped shirts, but there is a subtle closed reluctance here, a dark, arms crossed grudging compliance. Bodies are cut down into arrays of tattoos or tank tops in other shots, but the mix of familial emotions is never far from the surface. Davey probes some of this historical terrain in the video, Les Goddesses, where autobiographical scenes of family and close friends are examined via more cerebral investigations of various texts and essays. Her approach to telling (and/or reading) her personal story is inextricably mixed with a more rigorous arms length analysis.

I think the appeal of Davey's work at this particular moment in photographic history derives from the earnestness with which she is digging into the relevance of the photographic image in one's own personal history, as well as its connections to the written word as part of an overall redefined narrative form. In a time when the digital age is threatening to dumb down our discourse, Davey is re-exploring her own relationship with photography in a serious, high-minded, and thoughtful manner.

Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows. The grid in the entry space is $40000, while the grid in the South gallery is $45000. The vintage prints from 1979 are $18000 each. Davey's work has not yet reached the secondary market, so gallery retail is still the only viable option for interested collectors at this point.

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

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Transit Hub:

• Exhibits: New Photography 2011 @MoMA (here), Whitney Biennial 2012 (here)

Moyra Davey, Spleen. Indolence. Torpor. Ill-humour.
Through May 6th

Murray Guy
453 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

Barbara Probst @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A total of 8 multi-panel photographic works, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the North (3 works) and South (4 works) galleries and in the back office area (1 work). All of the works are ultrachrome ink on cotton paper, available in editions of 5, and were made between 2009 and 2011. Individual panels range in size from 13x24 to 66x44, and the works contain between 2 and 4 panels each. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In walking through Barbara Probst's new show, I kept thinking of the old adage that great photographers "know where to put their cameras" and how Probst's works call into question that such a perfect place actually exists. Her multi-panel observations are delightfully brainy and mind bending, in that a single scene is photographed from multiple angles by multiple cameras, dispelling the idea that there is one "right" point of view. In fact, through the use of backdrops and poster walls, illusions are created and destroyed in the same moment, and the analytical reality changes depending on where you are looking. When placed side by side as groups, the pictures tell stories that are suddenly much more complicated and deconstructed than they appeared at first glance, where positions of figures are displaced and glances simultaneously shoot off in competing directions.

While Probst's two panel works often effectively set up her parallax, when more panels are included and the angles multiply, the works get much stronger and more visually challenging. Given that time is a constant (everything happens in a single instant), the spatial relationships between her subjects and the cameras create angles that attack the scene from all sides; when sequenced just right, the effect can be almost dizzying, as if the viewer was spinning around, going up and down. The works dramatically upend the notions of any constant perspective and of "truth" from any single point of view.

What I liked best about these photographs was that Probst's approach never felt like a parlour trick or a gimmick. Instead, it has sense of an intense, mature, intellectual exercise, where the edges of everyday vision are being challenged and explored. Even her simplest pictures ask questions and offer contradictions that require the viewer to both unpack and then reassemble the constituent parts to come to a conclusion. In the end, Probst's constructions invite a kind of visual thinking that is largely absent from the normal contemporary fare; they defy a quick, superficial read and offer answers only after the bonds of normal looking are broken.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced from $8500 to $24000 based on size. Probst's work has very little history in the secondary markets; but a few lots have come up for sale in the past year or so, ranging in price from roughly $5000 to $14000. Given so few lots at auction, gallery retail is likely still the best option for interested collectors at this point.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)

Barbara Probst
Through October 29th

Murray Guy
453 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

Vision is Elastic. Thought is Elastic. @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of 37 works by 14 different photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in the two main gallery spaces and the back office area. The works were made between 1968 and 2011. The exhibit was curated by photographers Moyra Davey and Zoe Leonard. (Marginal installation shots at right.)

The following photographers have been included in this show, with the number of images and their details in parentheses:

Josh Brand (2 diptychs, gelatin silver prints/c-prints, 2010)
Roy Colmer (7 artist's books (displayed on widow sill), 1976-2009)
Pradeep Dalal (3 books/brochures/inkjet prints (displayed on shelf), 2009, 1 c-print, 2007)
Shannon Ebner (1 set of 10 c-prints, 2009)
Joy Episalla (1 pigment print, 2011)
William Gedney (1 gelatin silver print, 1967)
Roni Horn (1 set of 3 offset lithographs, 1999)
Katherine Hubbard (1 set of 24 black and white c-prints (displayed on shelf), 2011)
Babette Mangolte (1 gelatin silver print, 1976/2011)
Mark Morrisroe (1 black and white print from Polaroid negative, 1981, 5 issues DIRT magazine (displayed in case), 1975-1977)
Adrian Piper (1 photo-text collage, 1983)
Claire Pentecost (2 palladium prints, 2000)
James Welling (8 gelatin silver prints, 1977-1986)
David Wojnarowicz (1 gelatin silver print with silkscreen text, 1980)

Comments/Context: I've often written about my particular distaste for lazy gallery group shows which gather loosely connected works under some meaningless theme. I continually struggle with whether I am more annoyed, insulted or just plain bored by such forgettable endeavors, and regular readers here will know that I tend to avoid reviewing the vast majority of gallery group shows of photography, since I can hardly ever find anything nice to say. An exception to this general rule is the brainy, thought-provoking group show Vision is Elastic. Thought is Elastic. now on view at Murray Guy. This show starts with an intriguing premise (the artistic relationship between words and images) and then probes that concept from different angles, with each carefully selected photographic work providing an individual voice on the subject. 

The thematic construct here is dizzyingly layered: there are images of texts, images with writing in the margins, and texts overlaid and combined with images. There is the idea of the notebook, of notebook pages, where images act like a kind of shorthand, perhaps as a journal or diary (or artist's book). There is the idea of the library (as a physical place, as a storehouse of ideas, and as representation of personality), of books (as objects and representations of ideas), and of footnotes and textual recombinations and allusions. There is the idea of the surface, of writing, both with ink and with light. It's a fascinatingly heady brew of artistic process, image making, and wordy introspection.

While I didn't necessarily resonate with every image on display in its stand alone incarnation, when mixed and juxtaposed, the whole is remarkably larger and more rich than the sum of its parts. James Welling's paired images of Connecticut landscapes and pages filled with the flowing script of a 19th century journal provide a sense of nostalgic place and time. Roni Horn's annotated waterscapes have the feel of a busy brain, jumping from one idea to another and back again. Shannon Ebner's cool spectrum of blank notebook pages brought me back to the quiet emptiness of creation. And Pradeep Dalal's combinations of Indian architectural books and crumpled portraits left me probing other unseen connections. Together, the many ideas jostle and intermingle, creating a composite where every piece adds to the overall understanding of the theme.

This a group show where the curators have gotten beyond the "assortment of pictures" trap and focused the viewer on a central thesis; as such, the included works are less about themselves, but more about how they support the line of thinking being argued. What we're really seeing then is the opinions and interpretations of the organizers, and in this case, that set of ideas is robust, sophisticated, and satisfyingly cerebral.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows, by photographer:

Josh Brand (Diptychs either $6000 or $7000)
Roy Colmer (Not for sale)
Pradeep Dalal (Book/print combos either $1500 or $2500, c-print $2000)
Shannon Ebner (Set of 10 prints, $15000)
Joy Episalla ($4000)
William Gedney ($4500)
Roni Horn (Set of 3 prints, $90000)
Katherine Hubbard (Set of 24 prints, $2400)
Babette Mangolte ($4500)
Mark Morrisroe (Not for sale)
Adrian Piper (20000 Euros)
Claire Pentecost ($2500 each)
James Welling ($2000 each)
David Wojnarowicz ($125000)

While the work of Horn, Welling and Wojnarowicz can all be found in the secondary markets from time to time, the majority of the photographers in this show have little or no auction history. As such, gallery retail is likely the best option for interested collectors at this point.

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

Transit Hub:

• Blind Spot 43 (here)

Vision is Elastic. Thought is Elastic.
Through June 4th

Murray Guy
453 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

An-My Lê @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A total of 17 color works, framed in white with no mat, and hung in the North (8 images) and South (6 images and 1 set of 5 images as one work) galleries and in the back office area (2 images). All of the works are archival pigment prints, available in editions of 5, and made between 2009 and 2010. The prints come in two sizes, 40x57 and 27x38; there are 12 works in the larger size and 4 works in the smaller size on display, with the set of 5 images also in the smaller size. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: An-My Lê has built her photographic career around exploring the militarization of our world. Rather than taking documentary photographs of combat operations like a war correspondent, she has pointed her camera at unseen facets of the military, and investigated the kinds of imagery of war that we have become accustomed to seeing. Her recent work has explored realistic desert training camps and Vietnam re-enactments, asking layered questions about the nature of war, its downstream impacts and the way in which pictures are part of how we internalize and remember these moments.

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Her newest images come at military operations from yet another oblique angle, documenting the day-to-day reality of humanitarian and relief missions, training sessions, security details, and hospital services performed by military personnel. In contrast to our 24-hour news view of exploding bombs and constant intense action, these images have an overwhelming sense of the mundane; in most cases, not much is happening. Soldiers wait around, run through routine exercises, and perform a variety of important services without fanfare: they provide first aid training and fix teeth in Ghana, manage the distribution of supplies in Haiti, cut down trees and clear trip wires in the jungle of Indonesia, and practice putting out naval fires in Senegal. She deftly switches between the massive scale of the military machine (a ship moving through the Suez Canal) to more intimate portraits of individual soldiers and sailors (often women), at work but not idealized. Her pictures are a strong reminder of all the tasks the military performs that don't involve firing rifles and launching rockets, of the many down-time moments and quiet in-between times where straightforward, necessary tasks are getting done.

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Her image of a hospital ship waiting room in Vietnam, where a Buddhist nun and a Navy sailor sit together on folding chairs, is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the mood of this project. There are no obvious bad guys, no generals, no bombs and bullets, just an unexpected juxtaposition of cultures, thrown together by the sprawl of the military. An-My Lê's photographs don't shout at you, and if you blow by them too quickly, you'll miss their resonance. Her images are subtle and nuanced, showing us not the cleaned up head shot portraits of heroic soldiers, but those same folks straightening their ties and fixing their hair before the images are taken. These pictures are the back story to the one you see on the news, large scale vignettes of the unseen military, full of small contradictions and forgotten hard work.

Collector's POV: The works in this show are priced as follows: the 40x57 prints are $12000, the 27x38 prints are $8500, and the set of 5 images is $35000. An-My Lê's work has very little history in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Review: Art in America (here)
• Features: art21 (here)
• Exhibit: MoCP, 2007 (here)
• Book: Small Wars (here)

An-My Lê

Through October 30th

Murray Guy

453 West 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Moyra Davey, My Necropolis @Murray Guy

JTF (just the facts): A total of 53 photographic works and 1 video, variously framed and matted, and hung in two separate gallery spaces and the back office area. The South gallery contains 18 individual c-prints and a grid of 54 gelatin silver prints hung as one work. The c-prints are sized 20x20, 24x20 (or reverse), or 24x18, and are printed in editions of 3, 5, or 10; these works were made between 1990 and 2003. The black and white images in the grid are 3.5x5 each, and were made between 1996 and 2000; this work is unique.

In the North gallery, the main focus is a series of 32 c-prints hung edge to edge without frames, circling the space. Each image is 12x18, and has been folded, taped, and sent via the mail; all were made in 2009. The images are available as the original objects and in editions of 3 as regular c-prints. Also in this room, a single cluster of 25 c-prints has been hung as a single work; the work was made in 2007 and is approximately 51x79 as installed. In the center of the room, a video entitled My Necropolis runs in a loop; it was made in 2009 and comes in an edition of 5.

Finally, in the back office space, a grid of 100 c-prints (sold as a single work) is hung against the back wall. Each image is 10x8, and the entire work (from 1990) is available in an edition of 2+1. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The overall feeling of Moyra Davey's new show is something like reading someone else's daily journal, minus the interior monologue of events and emotions. What is left is a series of understated scenes of day to day living, modest moments that caught the artist's eye or were examined with an unusual level of curiosity, often with a hint of nostalgia. Time is passing before our eyes, but it is doing so slowly, so we can catch the subtle details before they slip away.

This exhibit is a sampler of sorts, providing a few examples of various earlier projects as background, along with a larger body of new work. Ancient stereo equipment, dense racks of albums, empty liquor bottles, and a hodgepodge of apartment interiors tell small stories of domesticity. Enlarged Lincoln pennies (Copperheads), covered in rust, dirt, and other chemical residues, scraped, scratched, bumped, and discolored, become humble worn sculptures, evidence of adventures long gone.

Davey's newer work continues many of these same themes. Coffee cups, gravestones, clocks, keys, books, maps and other desk details all come together to recount an intellectual life in Paris. The images that were folded up, taped shut, and mailed to friends, have now been unfolded and displayed together, where the patterns and repetitions of ideas become more visible. The video on view covers similar territory: tombs, monuments, and parks, held still for a few moments and then replaced by another fragment or scene.

Overall, these works feel like an unassuming but carefully edited daybook, a gathering of simple, introspective images that are evidence of a mind scouring the details of life for meaning.

Collector's POV: The prices for the works in this show are as follows. In the South gallery, nearly all of the individual prints are priced at $5000 each regardless of size or series (there is one single image priced at $10000). The black and white grid of bottles is $40000. The the North gallery, the cluster of prints is priced at $20000. It is hoped that the Paris photos will sell as a group in some fashion; a group of 8 prints is $15000, a group of 16 is $24000, and the entire set of 32 is $40000. Individual 20x24 prints of these same images are $3500 each. The video is priced at $15000. In the back office, the Copperhead grid is $40000. Davey's images have not yet reached the secondary market, so gallery retail is the only viable option for interested collectors at this point.

While Davey's works don't fit into our collecting genres very well, I particularly enjoyed the large individual Copperheads and the Copperhead grid.

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

Transit Hub:

• Interview: Big, Red & Shiny, 2008 (here)
• Feature: Carefully Aimed Darts, 2009 (here)
• Reviews: NY Times, 2003 (here), Boston Globe, 2008 (here)

Moyra Davey, My Necropolis
Through December 24th

Murray Guy453 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011