Every Booth at the 2013 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 3 of 6

Start here for Part 1 of this series. It provides some background and explanation for what's going on in these lists.

Alan Klotz Gallery (here): Josef Sudek, $14000. Not every Sudek table top still life is as active as this one with its shuddering multiplied egg reflection.

Michael Shapiro Photographs (here): Lewis Baltz, $28000. Prices for vintage Baltz prints have sure come up quite a bit in recent years, but this image is the kind I appreciate most. I love the circles on the left as an addition to the rectangular geometries, all executed in middle grey with a dash to dark black at the bottom.

Photo Gallery International (here): Yasuhiro Ishimoto, $7400. This fiery Ishimoto abstraction reminded me of a Morris Louis Color Field painting.

Galerie f5,6 (here): Anne Schwalbe, $2500. Each of the Schwalbe images on display was dominated by a single subtle color hue. This pink wall was quietly refined.

Peter Fetterman Gallery (here): Sebastiao Salgado, $50000. This huge print was shown on the exterior wall, the river at the bottom of the mountain valley shining like a white line.

James Hyman Gallery (here): Gustave Le Gray, $35000. I didn't realize Le Gray had made images in Egypt, so this stone gate was an unexpected surprise.

Robert Klein Gallery (here): Francesca Woodman, $55000. This elegant image is actually a video still from one of Woodman's film projects. I like the mix of torn paper and revealed body.

Bonni Benrubi Gallery (here): Stephane Couturier, 11000€. The immediately identifiable architecture of Brasilia, reconsidered via interlocked image fragment puzzle pieces.

Barry Singer Gallery (here): Lotte Jacobi, $6500. A hallmark of high contrast, unbalanced composition, the big black circle offsetting the oval face and its defined lips.

Hyperion Press Limited (here): Man Ray, NFS. A tiny print, but still impressive.

Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd. (here): Walter Chappell, $3000. Carrot tops that seem to glow with internal light.

Steven Kasher Gallery (here): Irving Penn, $75000. There were plenty of Penns at AIPAD, but this one was my favorite. I like the twisted silhouettes passing through the glass and wine bottle.

Robert Burge/20th Century Photographs (here): D.W. Mellor, $3500 each. A theme and variation sonata of ovals and waved forms in this grid of abstractions.

Continue to Part 4 here.

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