The Dawn of Modernism: Early Twentieth-Century Mexican Photography @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A group show containing a total of 34 black and white photographs, framed in thick black and matted, and hung in the elevator lobby and main gallery space (divided by several linen interior walls). The prints are a mix of vintage and later prints, in both gelatin silver and platinum. The majority were made between the 1920s and the 1940s. (Installation shots at right.)

The following photographers are included in the exhibit, with the number of images on view in parentheses:

Lola Alvarez Bravo (2)
Manuel Alvarez Bravo (8)
Hugo Brehme (1)
Anton Bruehl (4)
Hector Garcia (2)
Fritz Henle (2)
Leo Matiz (4)
Tina Modotti (6)
Edward Weston (4)

Mariana Yampolsky (1)

Comments/Context: Mexican modernism from the first half of the 20th century really has a special flavor all its own, meaningfully different from the photographic "modernisms" of Europe or America from the same time period. It combines the political fervor of the post-revolutionary period, a renewed attention to the symbols of traditional Mexican life, the historical mind set of the Mexican muralist painters, and the radical ideas of a number of influential artistic transplants into a potent stew of ideas, tinged with a bit of romance and bathed in the harsh, pure light of Mexico's geography.

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This show gathers together a sample of work from the main figures of the period, along with work from a group of somewhat lesser known contributors to the movement. While the aesthetic is modernist, with clean lines, pared down compositions, and found abstractions, the subject matter is uniquely Mexican: men in sombreros, women with water jugs, street markets, cacti, agave, and portraits of famous artists like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. There are plenty of excellent Modottis, Westons, and Alvarez Bravos on display that will be familiar to collectors, as well as some secondary images that are worth a look. I particularly enjoyed Manuel Alvarez Bravo's wood pile and peeled jicamas, spare still lifes with geometric clarity. While this exhibit isn't a definitive or exhaustive scholarly study of Mexican modernism, it does successfully provide a taste of what makes the pictures from this period so distinctly intriguing.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show range in price from $2500 (Brehme) to $35000 (Modotti and Weston), with most under $10000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: New Yorker (here), Village Voice (here)

The Dawn of Modernism: Early Twentieth-Century Mexican Photography
Through September 11th

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Throckmorton Fine Art

145 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Lucien Clergue @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A total of 35 black and white photographs, framed in thick black and matted, and hung in the elevator lobby and main gallery space (divided by several linen interior walls). All of the works are gelatin silver prints, ranging in size from 8x10 to 20x24. The prints are a mix of vintage and later prints, taken between 1955 and 2009, and mostly printed in editions of 30. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The French photographer Lucien Clergue is probably best known for his sculptural and sensual female nudes, often taken in the foam of the sea (like the Greek goddess Aphrodite), at the place where the water meets the sand. This exhibit brings together a variety of his work from several decades, including many nudes partially immersed in the sparkling surf and others covered by striped shadows, as well as a handful of portraits of Picasso and images of matadors and bullfights.

I think nudes are one of the most difficult subjects to get just right, and each viewer will have his or her own personal definitions of what is graceful, or tasteful, or altogether too much. To my eye, Clergue's nudes walk the knife edge. While I can certainly appreciate the photographer's craft in the making of these images, a few too many cross some invisible line for me into the realm of the posed and artificial. Some do have a simple and refined elegance, but many more fall into the slightly overdone and all-too-obvious, as if Weston's nudes were over amplified into a more full bodied and sometimes almost campy cliche.

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Clergue clearly sees the body as natural landscape, where undulations and curves can be used compostionally. Whether covered by a veil of water or dappled by zebra-striped shadows coming through window blinds, the rounded forms of breasts, legs and bottoms sinuously rise and fall, creating lines and forms that look like hills and valleys. His meticulous use of contrasts, of highlights and deep shadows, gives Clergue yet another set of tools to expand the traditional vocabulary of the nude. All in, I came away impressed with Clergue's consistent execution, but still have lingering doubts about his eye and its likely overlap with our own sense of nude aesthetics.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show range in price from $3500 to $8500, driven both by size and print date (vintage/later). Clergue's work is generally available at auction, with typical selling prices between $1000 and $5000.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Exhibit: UCR/California Museum of Photography, 1997 (here)

Lucien Clergue

Through July 3rd

Throckmorton Fine Art
145 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022

Tina Modotti: Under the Mexican Sky @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A total of 45 black and white images, framed in black with white mats, and hung in the main gallery space (divided by a several interior partitions) and the elevator lobby. All of the works were taken between 1923 and 1930, and most of the prints on display are vintage gelatin silver or platinum prints. A selection of posthumous platinum prints by Manuel Alvarez Bravo (late 1970s) and Ava Vargas (1990s, a portfolio of 15 images, printed in editions 20) are also on view. All of the prints range in size from 4x3 to 13x10 or reverse. There is also one image by Edward Weston included in the exhibit (a portrait of Tina from 1924). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In the history of photography, Tina Modotti is one of the standout personalities, whose romantic and exciting life story often overshadows her work as photographer. She was a well known communist activist, entrenched in the revolutionary politics of Mexico and mixing with the larger than life figures of the day (Diego Rivera et al), while also being the muse/lover of Edward Weston during his years there.

This excellent show is as close as to a museum retrospective of her photography as one is likely to encounter in a gallery setting. It brings together iconic still lifes (complete with sickle, bandoliers, corn cobs, guitars and the like), images of painted murals, head shot portraits and close-ups of hands, florals, cultural and religious artifacts, and a wide variety of heroic views of the everyday lives of Mexican workers and peasants. Taken together, the show gives a comprehensive view of her aesthetic approach, highlighting her combination of a Modernist sensibility and a deep and genuine interest in and respect for the cultural heritage and people of Mexico.

While many of the images/genres on display will be familiar to most collectors, it was the strength of some of Modotti's lesser known portraits in this exhibit that was most surprising to me. Their pared down simplicity gives the works a combination of power and warmth that now seems emblematic of the struggles of the period. Certainly her still life compositions of communist symbols or workers/mothers in the streets are her most recognizable images, but I came away from this show with a renewed respect for her ability to capture the bold confidence and unwavering commitment that seemed to flow from the people around her.

According to the gallery, it took nearly 20 years of sustained effort to gather all of these images together. Don't miss your chance to see them all in one place, before they are scattered to the winds once more.

Collector's POV: The prints in this exhibit range in price from $4500 to $75000, with 5 additional works price on request; several of the images were already marked SOLD. Given the relatively small amount of her work that is not already held in museums, Modotti's prints come up for auction fairly consistently, with a handful of works coming to market seemingly every year. Recent prices have ranged between $5000 and $215000, with forgettable images of mural details on the low end and rare vintage prints of her best known images at the top. For our collection, one of Modotti's floral still lifes would be the best match; vintage prints of these images fetch well into six figures, so our only real option would be to go after one of the later platinum prints.

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

Transit Hub:

• Mexico as Muse @SFMOMA, 2006 (here)
• Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution (here)

Tina Modotti: Under the Mexican Sky
Through March 6th

Throckmorton Fine Art
145 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Ruven Afanador, Mil Besos @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A total of 34 black and white images, framed in black with black borders and white mats, and hung throughout the main gallery space and elevator lobby. All of the prints are selenium toned gelatin silver prints. Most of the negatives were made between 2007 and 2009, although a few reach back to as early as 1990. The images come in three sizes: 20x16, 32x28, and 38x34, and are printed in editions of 25, 10, and 10 respectively. A monograph of this work has recently been published by Rizzoli (here) and is available from the gallery for $75. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The fiery, over-the-top passions of Spanish flamenco dancing are legendary: the stamping feet, the clapping, and the flowy dresses swirled and flared with flashes of emotion. Colombian fashion photographer Ruven Afanador has immersed himself in the depths of this stylized world and successfully captured the essence of its intertwined ecstasy and tragedy.

At first glance, it is impossible to miss the extreme contrasts of these images: dancers with long black hair, outfitted in dark black couture dresses, with black eye liner and lipstick, arrayed against blinding white backgrounds of stone and sand; this is a polarized, unreal world we are entering. Some of the most striking images in the show are the up-close images of faces: fleshy older women shout and laugh with fierce exaggerated expressions of agony, anger and joy, their flamboyant features made even more extravagant by their glossy black makeup. Others focus more on the gestures of the dance, with multiple dancers (of all shapes and sizes) moving together, or single dancers caught in an artful pose; in one image, two women strain against one another with their braided hair tied together. The rest of the works on view dig deeper into related themes: more elaborate dresses, unbelievably long hair, wrinkled and flabby nudes, gritty smoking, and plenty of crazed and contorted looks.

Overall, Afanador has done a memorable job of documenting the magical out sized personalities and bodies of flamenco, extending a "fashion" aesthetic beyond obvious shock value and finding outrageous moments of elegance and artistry.

Collector's POV: The prints in the show are priced based on size. The smaller 20x16 prints are $3500 each. The larger 32x28 and 38x34 prints are both priced at $6000 each. Afanador's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is really the only option for interested collectors at this point. While these works don't fit into any of our collecting genres, I particularly enjoyed Ursula Lopez Lopez, 2009, a dancer with a staggeringly long black dress, and Estudio de Baile Alicia Marquez, Outside Sevilla, Spain, 2007, an intertwined cluster of expressive black hands and forearms.

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

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features: Cyana Trend Land (here), Hint (here)

Ruven Afanador, Mil Besos
Through December 12th

Throckmorton Fine Art
145 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Flor Garduño, Mujeres Fantasticas @Throckmorton

JTF (just the facts): A total of 26 black and white images, displayed in wide black frames, throughout the gallery. Most of the works are 20x16 inches, although there are a handful in a larger size (approximately 40x30 inches). Negatives range from the late 1980s to the present. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: Looking at the work of Mexican photographer Flor Garduño, you would never, ever, mistake her work for that made by a man. Indeed, Garduño's images are among the most overtly "female" pictures we have seen.

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Nearly all of Garduño's pictures have a sensual female form/nude staged together with symbols from the natural world (fruit, leaves, flowers, feathers etc.). Her compositions have an earthy mythology to them, an almost dream-like or magical quality that seems drawn from the long history of Latin America. In her early days, Garduño was an assistant to Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and she seems to have absorbed the same love of the uniquely Mexican culture, as well as the ability to structure images with poetic simplicity. She is also a master printer; all of her works are printed with an astounding and meticulous attention to dark and light. This show mixes a few new pieces with a variety of other works from the past decade or two, so there is some ability to see how her approach and aesthetic has been refined over time.

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Collector's POV: For us, while Garduño's work is always made with an original point of view and with thoughtful care, the results are often hit or miss. When it works, the images are stunning; when it doesn't, the works feel a bit contrived and odd. The works in this show are priced between $2500 and $9000, dependent mostly on size it seems. We actually already own an excellent nude by Garduño (Los Limones, 1998, found here and also on display in this exhibit), which we bought a few years ago from Andrew Smith (gallery site here) when we were living on the West coast. In addition to prints found in the retail market, Garduño's work has become more available at reasonable prices in the secondary market in the past few years.

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

Flor Garduño, Mujeres Fantasticas

Through January 9th

Throckmorton Fine Art

145 East 57th Street

New York, NY 10022