Distance and Desire, Encounters with the African Archive, Part II: Contemporary Reconfigurations @Walther Collection

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of total of 26 photographs and 2 videos by 11 different artists/photographers, variously framed and matted, and hung in the main gallery space (with one glass case) and the side book alcove. The works in the show were made between 1994 and 2012. The exhibit was curated by Tamar Garb, and is the second installment of a larger three-part series. (Installation shots at right.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the show, with the number of works on view and their details in parentheses:

Philip Kwame Apagya (2 chromogenic prints, 1998, 2000)
Sammy Baloji (1 archival digital photograph on satin matte paper, 2006)
Candice Breitz (1 chromogenic print, 1994-1996)
Samuel Fosso (2 chromogenic prints, 1997)
Pieter Hugo (8 archival pigment prints on Warmtone Baryta Fibre paper, 2011, 2012)
Sabelo Mlangeni (4 gelatin silver prints, 2011)
Zwelethu Mthethwa (1 digital c-print, 2010)
Zanele Muholi (1 chromogenic print and 2 lambda prints, 2006, 2007, 2010)
Andrew Putter (1 video installation, 2007)
Berni Searle (1 two channel video projection, 2001)
Carrie Mae Weems (4 chromogenic prints with sandblasted text on glass, 1995-1996)

Comments/Context: In spite of its tucked away location on the 7th floor in the rabbit warren of galleries at 526 West 26th in Chelsea (now with an out of service elevator), the Walther Collection has quietly become one of the best places in the city to see thoughtfully curated, high quality African photography. Over the course of nearly a year, the venue is putting on a three part series of scholarly exhibits that revolve around questions derived from the "African Archive", the aggregation of photographic imagery (from ethnographic and anthropological studies to tourist snapshots and classic studio portraiture) that makes up the visual history of the region and its people. This show is the second part in this ongoing dialogue and gathers together a smart selection of contemporary works that react to and often undermine the stereotypes and cliches that run through the archival material.

The loosely posed portrait of tribal men and women, bare chested and wearing traditional beads and skins, standing against a background of thatched huts or wide open bush is likely the most common trope of African photography, so it's not at all surprising that contemporary artists have found countless ways to subvert this genre. Zanele Muholi has substituted androgynous young men for the usual subjects, outfitting them in portions of traditional garb and throwing in a splash of modern cross dressing gender uncertainty. Zwelethu Mthethwa has captured the predictable grassland scene celebrating a religious ceremony, but has documented boys dressed in the kilts of Scottish missionaries rather than the standard loin cloths and spears. Sammy Baloji has collaged together an archival portrait of tribesmen with color landscapes of the ugly hills of mining slag that have replaced the previously unspoiled lands. And Candace Breitz has appropriated a postcard view of a tribal woman and overpainted her skin in ghostly zinc white, highlighting how we might see this kind of image if the skin tones were different.

Staged studio portraiture has been disrupted with equal verve and intelligence. Pieter Hugo darkens the skin of his sitters to the point where the varying skin types all look black, making the old ways of separation and classification impossible. Andrew Putter's video portrait of a Dutch settler in her headscarf and lacy shawl appears conventional, that is until you put on the headphones and hear her singing a lullaby in Khoikhoi with its clicks and glottal stops. And Samuel Fosso exaggerates the styles of Keïta and Sidibé, dressing himself in a patchwork technicolor dreamcoat with high heels, necklaces, and a cowboy hat, or styles himself as a funky colonial chief, with space age sunglasses, a leather handbag and fancy shoes.

In the best possible way, this is a teaching show. It sets up our inherent biases and derived opinions about African imagery and knocks them down with meticulous well-edited precision, while at the same time exposing us more fully to a diverse and talented group of contemporary African artists who are engaging the past with knowledge and purpose.

Collector's POV: Since this is a non-commercial space, no prices were available for the works on view. Gallery representation for the various artists (where available) is listed below:

Philip Kwame Apagya: 51 Fine Art Photography (here)
Sammy Baloji: Axis Gallery (here)
Candice Breitz: White Cube (here)
Samuel Fosso: work available at Jack Shainman Gallery (here)
Pieter Hugo: Yossi Milo Gallery (here)
Sabelo Mlangeni: Stevenson Gallery (here)
Zwelethu Mthethwa: Jack Shainman Gallery (here)
Zanele Muholi: Stevenson Gallery (here)
Andrew Putter: Stevenson Gallery (here)
Berni Searle: Stevenson Gallery (here)
Carrie Mae Weems: Jack Shainman Gallery (here)

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here)

Distance and Desire, Encounters with the African Archive, Part II: Contemporary Reconfigurations
Through March 9th

The Walther Collection
526 West 26th Street
Suite 718
New York, NY 10001

August Sander and Seydou Keïta, Portraiture and Social Identity @Walther Collection

JTF (just the facts): A total of 55 black and white works by Seydou Keïta and August Sander, generally framed in black and matted, and hung in the main gallery space (with a dividing wall) and the side book alcove. There are 19 images by Keïta, taken between 1950 and 1959, most of which are modern or posthumous prints; there are 4 vintage prints (much smaller in size) and 1 self portrait on view in the side room. There are also 36 images by Sander, taken between 1910 and 1929; these prints were made by Gerd Sander in 1994, in an edition of 3. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The second show at the Walther Collection Project Space matches the iconic portraiture of German photographer August Sander with 1950's portraits made by the Malian studio master Seydou Keïta. For most collectors, both of these bodies of work will likely be well known, and one might think that as a result, this show would be somewhat tired; on the contrary, their familiarity doesn't diminish the resonance between them in the slightest, and in fact, when seen together, I saw facets of each that I hadn't noticed before.

The pairing highlights the idea that both photographers were capturing societies in flux. In the past, I had tended to look at Sander's portraits individually, seeing the greatness of isolated single portraits of various types of people, all captured with Sander's signature deadpan, unembelleished, frontal style. When seen together as a group, I started to see the societal movement in between the portraits that Sander was actually documenting. In the beginning, there are stern farmers and country families, matched with coal miners, priests, and rural schoolteachers. But as the society began to change and more people moved to the cities, suddenly there were new occupations to document: bohemians and revolutionaries, writers and painters, politicians and more middle class families. In this period of time (1910s and 1920s), German society was being transformed from rural to more industrial/urban, and Sander's project captured much more of this wholesale national change than I ever really understood.

Keïta's photographs come at this same idea, but with a much different stylistic approach. 1950s Bamako was a place where traditional African society was mixing with post-colonial Westernism, creating a melting pot of visual and cultural influences. Keïta's portraits capture the aspirational aspects of his clients, their desire to create an identity, to be modern. Juxtaposing vibrant African fabrics with bold patterns (as backgrounds) with Western props like cars, radios, handbags, and sunglasses, he made posed portraits that found the essence of the mood of the times, with one foot in the past and one in the future. I particularly enjoyed seeing the intimate vintage prints in the side room (yellowed and wrinkled from age), as they seem to be a more authentic representation of Keïta's process than the larger, more contrasty modern prints.

Both sets of images consistently document formal dignity and grace, an almost regal quality that has nothing to do with wealth or station in life. Steely eyes peer out and tell stories of hopes and dreams and of the constraints of life in a changing world. Even though you've likely seen these images before, the quality of portraiture on view in this small show is nothing short of superlative, and the pairing makes both richer from the comparison.
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Collector's POV: Since this is a non-commercial space, no prices were available for the works on view. Keïta's prints come up at auction from time to time, but very few are vintage; prices have ranged from roughly $2000 to $15000 in recent years. Sander's prints are much more available in the secondary markets; there are portraits, landscapes, and later prints/portfolios made by both Gunther and Gerd Sander. As a result, prices vary widely, from as little as $1000 for lesser known images to more than $100000 for iconic vintage portraits.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Seydou Keïta artist site (here)
• Keïta background: NY Times, 2006 (here)

August Sander and Seydou Keïta, Portraiture and Social Identity
Extended through March 10th
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The Walther Collection

526 West 26th Street

Suite 718

New York, NY 10001

Jo Ratcliffe: As Terras do Fim do Mundo @Walther Collection

JTF (just the facts): A total of 55 black and white works, generally framed in blond wood and not matted, and hung in the main gallery space and the side book alcove. 52 of the images are platinum prints, taken in 2009 and 2010 and printed in 2011; while no dimensions were available, the prints look to be roughly 11x14, and they have been printed as a portfolio of 60 in an edition of 1 for the Walther Collection. The other three images come from an earlier series (Terreno Ocupado) and were taken in 2007 and printed in 2011; they are gelatin silver prints, roughly 20x30 in size, hanging on one side of a dividing panel in the center of the gallery space. Monographs of these two bodies of work have been separately published by Warren Siebrits and Michael Stevenson. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: If there is any single theme underlying my efforts on this site, it is that the informed voice of the typically silent private collector can actually be a valid one (not just an exercise in puffery and ego stroking), and that we collectors can make real and important contributions to the dialogue around contemporary art (particularly photography) if we find ways to insert those ideas into the larger discussion going on around us. So it was with much anticipation that I visited the new Walther Collection Project Space in Chelsea, where collector Artur Walther has opened a bright new gallery and inaugurated it with a solid show of recent work by South African photographer Jo Ratcliffe. Walther is particularly interested in African and Asian photography, two areas that are often overlooked and/or misunderstood in the normal flow of art through New York, and so this space promises to be a place where high quality, out of the mainstream visual ideas will be on view. It is exactly the kind of thing I wish more major collectors would do, so before we get to the work itself, a hearty standing ovation from me for the spirit of collector activism that this new venue represents.

Ratcliffe's images of the aftermath of the Angolan civil war employ a familiar technique from Greek tragedy, where most of the action actually happens off screen, and we are therefore left to primarily confront the effects and consequences of events that took place at another time, perhaps years in the past. Photographers as diverse as David Goldblatt, Robert Adams, and most recently Deborah Luster, have all used this approach to consider how tiny clues left in the landscape can lead us back to an understanding of failures and atrocities that still resonate profoundly in the present.

Ratcliffe's photographs have a silent emptiness to them, where the rocky desert and scrub forest stand mute in the face of history. Her pictures document mass graves, minefields, abandoned crops, ambush sites, improvised memorials, trench systems, and dusty battlefields, singling out some small marker or piece of evidence in the otherwise indifferent landscape. Her platinum prints further soften the harshness of the environment, their tonalities more gentle and forgiving; stands of swaying long grass hide a minefield, pockmarked murals lurk in quiet buildings, or lines of white stones call out the edges of a missle bunker.

While not every one of these images is eye-catchingly memorable, the aggregate effect of their dull weight is surprisingly heavy. The flat land does give up its secrets if you know where to look, and what is left behind is both powerful and ephemeral, an absence and a presence at the same time. These subtle pictures allow our imaginations to fill in the blanks, rather than pounding us over the head with the horrors of war. Instead, they highlight the traces that remain and the stories we pass down, reminding us that these imperfect memories are an integral part of who we are and who we can become.

Collector's POV: Since this is a non-commercial space, no prices were available for the works on view. Jo Ratcliffe is represented by Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town and Johannesburg (here). Ratcliffe's work has not yet reached the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

My favorite image in the show was On the road to Cuito Cuanavale I, 2009; it's on the far left of the right hand group of prints in the third installation shot from the top. I like the spindly angular form created by the intersection of the long sticks emerging from the carcass of a hulking armored vehicle.

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

Transit Hub:

• Review: La Lettre de la Photographie (here)
• Features: ArtInfo (here), Artnet (here), Snapshots (here)

Jo Ratcliffe: As Terras do Fim do Mundo

Through July 15th

The Walther Collection
526 West 26th Street
Suite 718
New York, NY 10001