The Abstracted Landscape @Laurence Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 19 black and white and color works, variously framed and matted, hung in the entry and main gallery space. This a group show of four gallery artists: Peter Bialobrzeski, Stephane Couturier, DoDo Jin Ming, and Toshio Shibata. (Installation shots at right.) The details for each artist's works are below:

• Peter Bialobrzeski: 2 c-prints, 60x50 each, in editions of 10, from 2005; 6 c-prints, 11x14, in editions of 9, from 2008; and 1 c-print, 51x65, in an edition of 5, from 2003
• Stephane Couturier: 1 c-print, 26x48, AP, from 1991; 1 c-print, 52x44, in an edition of 8, from 2005; and 1 digital c-print, 50x88, in an edition of 5, from 2004
• DoDo Jin Ming: 12 gelatin silver prints, hung as a single work, 55x60, in editions of 10, from 1996; 1 gelatin silver print, 30x40, in an edition of 10, from 2002; 1 digital c-print, 51x41, in an edition of 10, from 2004; and 1 digital c-print in two parts, overall 63x49, in an edition of 10, from 2004
• Toshio Shibata: 1 gelatin silver print, 20x24, in an edition of 25, from 1990; 1 gelatin silver print, 50x40, AP, from 1996; and 1 c-print, 50x40, in an edition of 10, from 2005

Comments/Context: This exhibit is a thematic group show of gallery artists, where images have been selected based on a broadly common handling of landscape elements. And while the show is entitled The Abstracted Landscape, none of the works on view is completely abstract in the traditional sense (i.e. non-figurative); rather these images are all landscapes that turn on compositional fragments of form and line, pattern and shape.

Peter Bialobrzeski is represented by two twilight building scenes from his series Lost in Transition (book reviewed here), a typology of shacks, and a massive hillside view from Heimat that dwarfs the people down to ant-like dots. Stephane Couturier's prints take the abstraction a bit further, where a roadway flanked by spindly trees and sculpted land becomes an exercise in blocks of color and texture; another image shows a terraced ground in an unreal shade of green, using the contrasts of the land to create juxtapositions of wild and controlled areas.

Three waterfalls by Toshio Shibata transform rushing water into cottony white curves; the most abstract image in the show peers straight down the face of a waterfall, turning the perspective upside down. (A recent Shibata book review can be found here.) And DoDo Jin Ming's negative prints of a faded sunflower field become a post-apocalyptic nightmare, complete with dark shadowy figures; her typology of pyramids plays with size as well as color, all variations on the simple triangular form.

Overall, this is a solid group show that highlights relevant work by each of the photographers included; the thematic construct is a bit thin, but the work itself is consistently well crafted.

(As an aside, for those of you who are familiar with the gallery space, the overall size of the display space has recently been reduced. What was once the second gallery room is now a private viewing space, and a door on the far side of the entry has now been closed off.)

Collector's POV: The prices for each of the four photographers in the show are as follows:

• Peter Bialobrzeski: $1500 for the small prints, $7500 for the Lost in Transition prints, and $15000 for the Heimat print
• Stephane Couturier: the prices were $7500, $15000, and $35000, based on ascending size
• DoDo Jin Ming: the group of 12 prints is priced at $10000 total, the Free Element print is $16000, and the two images from Behind My Eyes are $15000 and $10000
• Toshio Shibata: the small black and white print is $6000, the larger black and white is $25000, and the color image is $10000

There has been very little secondary market activity for any of these artists, so gallery retail is likely the best option for collectors in the short term. While none of these works is a great fit for our collection, I particularly enjoyed Shibata's look down the steep face of a waterfall (black and white) and Couturier's view through a crumbling light blue building (reminiscent of Gordon Matta-Clark).

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

Transit Hub:

• Peter Bialobrzeski: artist site (here)
• Stephane Couturier: NYTimes review, 1999 (here)
• DoDo Jin Ming: NYTimes review, 2002 (here)
• Toshio Shibata: artist site (here)

The Abstracted Landscape
Through November 14th

Laurence Miller Gallery
20 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Book: Peter Bialobrzeski, Lost in Transition

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2007 by Hatje Cantz. Includes 53 color images, taken in 28 cities around the world, with an essay by Michael Glasmeier. (Cover image at right.)

Comments/Context: There is an old song by the Band called Twilight that has a chorus that goes something like this:

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Don't send me no distant salutations

Or silly souvenirs from far away

Don't leave me alone in the twilight,

Cause twilight is the loneliest time of day

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German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski's newest pictures are all taken at this fleeting moment in the day, when dusk is falling, the lights have just come on, and the cooler breeze gives you a shiver. His subjects are the futuristic mega-constructions that are multiplying all over the world, rapidly gobbling up the old and remaking the world in their own distinct science fiction aesthetic. His pictures have no people, no identifiers of place, no signs or landmarks to give away their locations; whether we are in Abu Dhabi or Bremen, Jakarta or Zurich, it just doesn't seem to matter. When small towns are overrun by chain stores, we bemoan the "Starbucksification" of the neighborhood; Bialobrzeski's images remind us that this homogenization is happening on a much larger scale, as cities across the globe make the transition from old to new.

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While most photographs of great buildings from the 1920s and 1930s had a romantic aura, these pictures seem to have a more complex set of emotions mixed together. Some of the darker images seem to be precursors to a Metropolis or Blade Runner style world, a neo-noir movie in the making. Others are more mundane, with grubby construction sites encroaching on older warehouses and worn out factories.

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This is not to say that these are not beautiful images; indeed they are. One of my favorite pastimes with this book has been to flip through the images slowly, simply looking at the sublime palette of sky colors that Bialobrzeski has captured in this series: greys and soft blacks, mauves and deep purples, and a nuanced spectrum of blues, all carefully sequenced. Due to the stark fluorescent lights that inhabit nearly every locale, the images seem to radiate a silent and lonely brightness.

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Overall, this is a book that provokes some complicated thinking: about architecture and cities, about the "modern world", and about how our collective society is evolving around us.

The artist's website can be found here.

Collector's POV: There was an exhibition of Bialobrzeski's images from this series (printed 40x50) at the Laurence Miller Gallery last fall (here), which we somehow missed. His previous books, particularly Neon Tigers, have been well received.

For more on Bialobrzeski, see an interview (here) and another review of the book (here) at Conscientious.