Auctions: Photography and Contemporary Art, May 30 and June 1, 2011 @Lempertz

Kunsthaus Lempertz has both a various owner Photography sale and a Contemporary Art sale (that includes a handful of photography lots) coming up in Cologne next week. As usual, it's the typical mix of generally lower priced European material we've come to expect. Overall, there are a total of 214 lots of photography on offer across the two sales, with a Total High Estimate of 540550€.
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Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including 7500€): 204
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 315550€

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500€ and 35000€): 7
Total Mid Estimate: 105000€

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000€): 3
Total High Estimate: 120000€

The top lot by High estimate is tied between three lots. Two of the lots are groups of 4 winding tower prints by Bernd and Hilla Becher (each individual image titled by location): lot 508 from 1974-1978, and lot 509 from 1966-1968. The third is lot 590, Andreas Gursky, Furkapass, 1989. Each of the lots is estimated at 30000-40000€.

Here's the list of photographers who are represented by four or more lots in the two sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Albert Renger-Patzsch (7)
Umbo (5)
Lucia Moholy (4)
August Sander (4)
Toni Schneiders (4)
Jock Sturges (4)

(Lot 38, Umbo, Unheimliche Strasse, 1928/1975, at 2500€, at right, top, lot 42, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Gemeiner Lowenzahn. Samenstand, 1925-1929, at 3000-4000€, at right, bottom, and lot 193, Tatsumi Orimoto, Untitled from Tire Tube Communication: Mama and Neighbours, 1996, at 1500€, at right, middle, all via Lempertz.)

The complete lot by lot online catalogs can be found here (Photography) and here (Contemporary Art).

Photography
May 30th

Contemporary Art
June 1st

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
D-50667 Köln

Book: Works of Tatsumi Orimoto

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2007 by Seigensha Art Publishing. 88 pages, with 105 color and black and white images. Includes essays by Akira Tatehata and Johannes Lothar Schroder, a detailed chronology, and various texts by the artist. (Cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: I first came across Tatsumi Orimoto's work on a side wall of the DNA Galerie booth at Pulse earlier this spring, and I was so struck by the two images that I saw there that I went back to look for a volume on his work, eventually buying this one from a book dealer in Japan via the Internet.

Orimoto's art blends performance, found object sculpture, and photography together into a singular view of the world around him. While he might easily be bundled under the larger umbrella of Conceptual Art, his work is the polar opposite of the brainy, overly clever school of cool detachment that tends to dominate this genre. His images are filled with playfulness and humor, warmth and humanity.

While this book chronicles all of the artist's various projects going back to the 1970s and provides a complete picture of his output, the two bodies of work which stand out are the Art Mama and Bread Man series. In Art Mama, Orimoto uses his aging mother (suffering from Azheimer's and bouts of depression) as a primary subject for a variety of unexpected scenes. He has photographed her with huge cardboard shoes that make her several inches taller, with a rubber tire tube hanging around her neck, and standing in an oil drum. (Small Mama + Big Shoes, 1997, at right.) In other shots, the artist holds heavy bundles of newspapers or cloth above her head. The contrast between the tiny woman with the furrowed brow and the ridiculousness of the particular situations is powerful. Surprisingly, a potentially exploitative set-up is actually seen to be participatory; mother and son are making the pictures together, with a loving sense of trust and partnership. Orimoto has also made a series of sculptures that capture the life of his mother in other ways: a set of post office boxes filled with videos, photos and other ephemera, a time card box, an accounting ledger, and a medicine bottle filled with all of her discarded medicine packaging, all built with a sense of respect and honor.

The Bread Man series is altogether more provocative and deviant. In these performances, Orimoto ties a bunch of baguettes or bread loaves to his head, completely covering his face, and then walks around in a variety of public spaces. Of course, people don't know quite how to react to the Bread Man, so there is a mixture of unsettled staring, puzzled questions, and general hilarity. (Performance: Bread Man Son + Alzheimer Mama, Gallery Gen, Tokyo, 1996, at right.) But these games don't have a highbrow "art" feel to them; they are inclusive, and welcoming, and communicative; they knock people out of their everyday routines and get them thinking and interacting.

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What I like best about Orimoto's approach is that he has found a way to merge a humanist attitude with compelling conceptual ideas, without over intellectualizing them in the process. These are thought provoking works that aren't afraid to consider the simple absurdities in the world around us.

Collector's POV: Tatsumi Orimoto is represented in Berlin by DNA Galerie (here). This was the only gallery representation I could find, so if there is a New York relationship, please put it in the comments. Orimoto's work is generally unavailable at auction; the few lots that have sold in recent years have ranged between $3000 and $8000. Unfortunately, these works don't fit into our current collecting framework at all; that said, if we were to start over and build a new collection focused entirely on contemporary photography, I would certainly add one of the Art Mama series.

Transit Hub:

• 2001 Venice Biennale (here)
• Reviews: Hara Museum, 2000 (here), MASP retrospective, 2008 (here)
• Finger Dolls performance, 2009 (here)