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

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

Andrea Meislin Gallery (here): Angela Strassheim, $12000. Strassheim has recently joined the stable at the gallery. This image of a young girl cocooned in her interior lit blanket fort is wonderfully protected and vulnerable.

Vision Neil Folberg Gallery (here): Georg Kuettinger, $11000. A massive broad landscape of stitched together tire swipes.

Richard Moore Photographs (here): Johan Hagemeyer, $12000. Another lesser known but worthy Modernist, represented by a well crafted image of city buildings.

Keith De Lellis Gallery (here): Margaret Bourke-White, $18000. I think of 1930 as near the beginning of Bourke-White's professional career, so it was exciting to see this early shimmering airplane hangar study from that year.

Joel Soroka Gallery (here): Gyorgy Kepes, $8000. I had no idea Gyorgy Kepes made any works past the late 1940s, so it is was a total shock to see a group of large scale 1980s Polaroid still life constructions (in color no less) in this booth.

Halsted Gallery (here): Julia Margaret Cameron, $11500. Another ethereal Cameron portrait, very reasonably priced given its quality (refreshingly the norm with the friendly Halsteds).

PPOW (here): David Wojnarowicz, $25000. Vintage prints from Wojnarowicz' Arthur Rimbaud in New York series are pretty rare, so this gem is worth seeking out.

Higher Pictures (here): K8 Hardy, $8000. This booth was a solo show of Hardy's Position series, mixing photograms and self-portraits into arresting hybrids. I was able to flip through the full body of work (in a box on the table) and I came away extremely impressed by Hardy's originality and range. This particular image reminded me of Claude Cahun, but in a harsher and distinctly modern guise.

Stephen Daiter Gallery (here): Harry Callahan, $60000. This image just left me shaking my head in awe. What an astounding, astonishing photograph. Stunning is an overused word in art writing, but this one left me slack-jawed and truly stunned by its brilliance.

Nailya Alexander Gallery (here): Pentti Sammallahti, $1100. I liked the gentle, natural balance in this image, the cross of the broken tree limb and the flanking silhouettes of small birds.

Danziger Gallery (here): Susan Derges, $15000. I've always been a fan of Susan Derges' River Taw photograms, so I'm intrigued to see her returning to similar subject matter, albeit now using digital technologies.

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Jaromir Funke, $175000. This was one of the most impressive prints I saw in the entire fair. Cut paper folds intertwined like staircases, a symphony in subtle white.

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Inc. (here): William Henry Fox Talbot, POR. What better way to end this summary than by going back to the beginning with a lovely plant photogram by William Henry Fox Talbot. Even when we bustle and rush to find the next new thing in photography, it's important to be reminded that the very old still has the power to take our breath away.

2011 AIPAD Review, Part 2 of 2

The 2nd and final portion of our 2011 AIPAD Review is below. Part 1 of the summary (which includes an explanation of the format) can be found here.

Galerie Priska Pasquer (here): Lieko Shiga (3), August Sander (4), Shomei Tomatsu (4), Shin Yanagisawa (2), Daido Moriyama (1), Issei Suda (2), Rinko Kawauchi (5), Nobuyoshi Araki (2), Yutaka Takanashi (6). The Pasquer booth was one of the best edited displays at AIPAD, with a strong mix of vintage and contemporary Japanese photography (with a few vintage Sanders on an inside wall). Takanashi (one of the founders of Provoke) was a discovery for me; the modern prints below were priced at $4900 each. There were also some excellent early prints by Kawauchi and a superb Araki portrait.

M+B (here): Matthew Porter (4), Anthony Lepore (4), Hugh Holland (3), Mike Brodie (6), Alex Prager (1).

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs (here): Jan Yoors (3), Louis Faurer (1), Harold Roth (2), Lisette Model (1), Edward Steichen (1), Irving Penn (1), Erwin Blumenfeld (1), Umbo (2), Charlotte Rudolph (1), Zdenek Tmej (1), Raphael Dallaporta (6). I was intrigued by the scale and ornate detail of these Dallaporta pipe organ images. The large print was reminiscent of Candida Höfer for me, although the level of detail up close was even more meticulously precise; the smaller images were almost like post cards, yet with an astounding level of visual depth and granular accuracy. Prices were $15000 for the large print, $3500 for the smaller ones.

Stephen Daiter Gallery (here): Joseph Sterling (6), Aaron Siskind (5), Ken Josephson (2), Andre Kertesz (3), Berenice Abbott (1), Walter Peterhans (1), Herbert Bayer (1), Stanley Kubrick (1), Eliott Erwitt (3), Weegee (4), John Gossage (3), Lynne Cohen (4), Danny Lyon (2), Ruth Orkin (1), Dawoud Bey (1), Yasuhiro Ishimoto (1), Robert Frank (3), Alex Webb (2).

Michael Shapiro Photographs (here): Irving Penn (1), Helen Levitt (1), Robert Frank (3), Harry Callahan (1), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (8), Eugen Wiskovsky (1), Jaromir Funke (1), Josef Sudek (6), Pierre Dubreuil (1), Charles Sheeler (1), Man Ray (1), Robert Imandt (1), Fletcher Gould (1), Elmer Blew (1), R. Owen Shrader (1), Pirkle Jones (1), Lewis Baltz (6), Ansel Adams, (1), Brett Weston (1), Imogen Cunningham (1), Anonymous (8), Jefferson Hayman (group on outside wall). Shapiro's booth had two of my favorite vintage prints at the fair, hanging right next to each other. The Dubreuil study of spectacles and shadows was simply masterful, full stop. And I don't think I've seen more than a handful of River Rouge Sheelers out in the market since we started collecting, so it was terrific to look at this one up close. The amounts weren't labeled and the booth was crowded, so I didn't get prices for these two gems.

Yossi Milo Gallery (here): Pieter Hugo (2), Alison Rossiter (12), Sze Tsung Leong (2), Ezra Stoller (2), Simen Johan (1), Loretta Lux (2), Yuki Onodera (14).

Higher Pictures (here): Yvon (6), Sam Falls (1), Claire Pentecost (4), Jill Freedman (64), LaToya Ruby Frazier (1). Fall's image disregards all the distinctions that we normally make about the where the edges of the photographic process lie. He starts with photographic imagery, adds a layer of painterly Photoshop effects, and then overlays the resulting print with even more layers of acrylic and pastel. The mixed media result is an abstract hybrid, jolted by splashes of color; it's priced at $4500.

Eric Franck Fine Art (here): Robert Bergman (5), Richard Avedon (1), Antanas Sutkus (2), Rimaldis Vikstraitis (2), Marketa Luskacova (2), Martine Franck (2), Charlotte Bracegirdle (4), Josef Koudelka (1), Geraldo de Barros (4), Erwin Blumenfeld (2), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), Graham Smith (4), Chris Killip (4), Layla Love (2), Karen Knorr (2), Katarzyna Mirczak (16), Norman Parkinson (6), Lottie Davies (2). Mirczak's grid of Polish prisoner tattoos on preserved skin fragments is an unsettling mix of the memorably grisy and the surprisingly symbolic. The set is priced at $15000.

Bonni Benrubi Gallery (here): Massimo Vitali (1), Georges Dambier (4), Abelardo Morell (7), Matthew Pillsbury (3), Andreas Feininger (12), Paolo Pellegrin (3).

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Shinichi Maruyama (2), Michael Wolf (3), Andre Kertesz (12), Man Ray (2), Irving Penn (1), Marie Cosindas (1), Trine Sondergaard (4), Frederick Sommer (4, collage, drawing, painting), Aaron Siskind (3), John Wood (1), Arthur Siegel (1), Henry Moore (1), Nathan Lyons (5 diptychs), Todd Hido (1), Edward Weston (2). I though this early Siegel light drawing was fantastic, with its abstract waves of rhythmic saturated color; this is the kind of image that should have been in the photography room of MoMA's AbEx show, but wasn't. It was priced at $25000.

Scheinbaum & Russek (here): Luis Gonzalez-Palma (2), Eliot Porter (4), Harry Callahan (2), Edward Weston (4), Ruth Bernhard (2), Andre Kertesz (1), Walter Chappell (1), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (3), Edward Curtis (2), Ansel Adams (4), Paul Caponigro (3), Aaron Siskind (1), Minor White (1), William Garnett (1), Lee Friedlander (2), Diane Arbus (1), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1), plus two bins.

Laurence Miller Gallery (here): Simone Rosenbauer (2), Daido Moriyama (1), Toshio Shibata (1), Fan Ho (1), Fred Herzog (1), Ray Metzker (4), Denis Darzacq (2), Lee Friedlander (2), Stephane Couturier (1), Bruce Wrighton (15), Michael Spano (3), Jessica Backhaus (10). This is a 2010 image from Darzacq's Hyper series; this time his young subject is floating through what appears to be a carpet store; it was priced at $7500.

Robert Morat Galerie (here): Christian Patterson (5), Richard Renaldi (2), Richard Rothman (5).

William L. Schaeffer Photographs (no website): Edouard Loydreau (1), Carleton Watkins (1), Eugene Cuvelier (2), Minor White (1), Harry Callahan (1), Clarence White (1), Heinrich Kuhn (1), Walker Evans (1), Margaret Bourke-White (2), Robert Frank (1), NW Gibbons (2), plus three bins and one case of daguerrotypes. This is the kind of 19th century print that makes you rethink everything you think you know about 19th century photography; the massive Watkins tree is seen in crisp dark detail, almost with a modernist sensibility; it was priced at $75000, with a lifetime's worth of enjoyment thrown in for good measure.

Howard Greenberg Gallery (here): Ilse Bing (1), Martin Munkacsi (3), Edward Steichen (1), Charles Sheeler (1), Albert Renger-Patzsch (1), Arnold Newman (1), Minor White (2), Ansel Adams (1), Bruce Davidson (4), Saul Leiter (2), Peter Sekaer (5), David Goldblatt (5), William Klein (1).

James Hyman Photography (here): William Henry Fox Talbot (1), Horatio Ross (3), Roger Fenton (2), Hill & Adamson (3), Julia Margaret Cameron (1), Paul Reas (4), Ken Grant (2), Jem Southam (2), Anna Fox (4), Karen Knorr (4), Thomas Annan (2), Bert Hardy (1), Caroline Coon (2), Cecil Beaton (2), Roger Mayne (2), Lucien Clergue (1), JH Lartigue (1), Eugene Atget (1), Brassai (1), Andre Kertesz (1), Bill Brandt (1), Edward Weston (1), plus four bins. As flower collectors, this rich, dark Fox Talbot study is near the apex of the genre for us; no wonder it was $450000 (the shadow is from the velvet cover being pulled back).

Robert Mann Gallery (here): Kevin Kay (9), Jeff Brouws (33), Holly Andres (1), Julie Blackmon (2), John Mack (2), O. Winston Link (1), Fred Stein (2), Ansel Adams (1), David Vestal (2), Aaron Siskind (2), Joe Deal (2), Chip Hooper (2), Michael Kenna (4), Mario Giacomelli (3).

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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: For the rest of this week, we'll be on spring break. We'll be back next Monday with a backlog of gallery show reviews and auction previews for the upcoming New York photographs season.

Auction: Photographs & Photographic Literature, October 22, 2009 @Swann

Swann's diverse sale of Photographs and Photographic Literature is scheduled two weeks after the rest of the New York auction season, perhaps to entice those buyers who stayed on the sidelines or kept their powder dry during the frenzy this week. The generally lower end sale features a deep selection of Lewis Hine images, a series of unusual artist portraits by Diane Arbus, and a group of crime images of famous gangsters and murderers. Overall, there are 327 photographs on offer, with a total High estimate of $2012650. (Catalog cover at right, via Swann.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 297
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1352650

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 30
Total Mid Estimate: $660000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 0
Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is lot 28 Eadward Muybridge, 125 plates from Animal Locomotion, 1887, at $35000-45000.

Below is the list of photographers represented by at least 5 lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Lewis Hine (15)
Camera Work (10)
Diane Arbus (8)
Edward Curtis (8)
Walker Evans (8)
Andre Kertesz (8)
Horst P. Horst (7)
Berenice Abbott (6)
Civil War (6)
Edward Weston (6)
O. Winston Link (5)

While there aren't too many images in this sale that fit particularly well into our collecting genres, here are a few that caught our eye:

Lot 1, William Henry Fox Talbot, Untitled (lace), 1845 (at right, bottom)
Lot 64 Wilson A. Bentley, Group of 7 snow crystals, 1903 (at right, middle)
Lot 122 Walker Evans, Untitled (John Dais Co. Wholesale Fish), 1934/1950s
Lot 161 Walker Evans, Chicago South Side, 1946
Lot 169 Germaine Krull, Untitled (Parisian street scene), 1930s

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The 3D version is located here.

Photographs & Photographic Literature
October 22nd

Swann Galleries
104 East 25th Street
New York, NY 10010

Hiroshi Sugimoto and William Henry Fox Talbot

JTF (just the facts): Two toned gelatin silver prints by Hiroshi Sugimoto, from negatives by William Henry Fox Talbot. The prints are approximately 37x30 unframed, made in editions of 10. The works can be seen as an addition to the exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lightning Fields, opening today and running through October 31 at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (here).

Comments/Context: A few weeks ago, our friends at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco sent us a pair of image scans to take a look at. As any active collector knows, the sending of scans has become the de facto process for galleries around the world to communicate with their clients: the gallery staff considers which works might fit for a certain collector and then JPEGs of those works are emailed out. For some reason, the press has latched on to this practice as evidence of the irrational excesses of idiot collectors who are buying works "sight unseen". The reality is that scans have made the art market much more liquid than it once was; it is now possible for dealers from all over the world to quickly and easily make their inventory available on a targeted basis, and with "no questions asked" and no cost to the collector return policies, buying from far flung locales is now relatively straightforward. But I digress.

The scans in my email inbox were of two new floral images by Hiroshi Sugimoto, and since we are floral collectors as well as fans of Sugimoto's work, these were potentially a good match for us. I've attached them below: (Asplenium Halleri, Grande Chartreuse, 1821-Cardamine Pratensis, April 1839 and A Stem of Delicate Leaves of an Umbrellifer, circa 1843-1846, © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)

Apparently, Sugimoto has been buying up some of Talbot's earliest negatives out on the open market or from museums and has devised a way to make his own prints from them. As a reminder, original Talbot prints from the 1830s and 1840s are quite small, hardly ever larger than a single sheet of normal sized paper and nearly all of the florals are photograms. They are intimate and delicate in person, requiring the viewer to get up very close to see the intricate details of the flowers and leaves. They also come in a wide variety of colors, due to Talbot's experiments with different chemicals, some of which are faded/dark and generally hard to see.

In the history of photography, the reprinting of an earlier photographer's negatives by another artist has some strong precedents: Berenice Abbott printed Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo printed Tina Modotti, and Lee Friedlander printed EJ Bellocq (readers who can think of others, leave them in the comments). In each of these cases, the later photographer was attempting to the best of their ability to make prints that recreated the style/intention of the original photographer.

With these prints however, Sugimoto seems to be doing something altogether different. Rather than make faithful copy prints from the Talbot negatives, Sugimoto seems to be using them more like a musical score: the melody is the same, but the overall feel is open for interpretation and nuanced modification - he's "playing" the negatives in his own style. As such, the new prints are much larger (37x30 will hold an entire wall), and in the top image, he has apparently combined two negatives into a single work. It may also be the case that the toning is different than the original prints, although we don't have a "before and after" comparison that can be easily made.

Sugimoto is clearly interested in the workings of time, and has explored fossils and ancient art as precursors to photography via his own active collecting (his History of History exhibit at the Japan Society that brought together his photographs and selections from his personal collection of artifacts was one of the most memorable shows we've seen in the past decade). As such, this exploration of Talbot's negatives doesn't seem to me to be an exercise in grandstanding or hubris (which in the wrong hands it certainly could be), but more an archaeological questioning of how the history of the medium and its technical processes can inform the present. To use the musical analogy again, it's like Glen Gould playing Bach; one master reconsidering another.

One thing is certain: from the scans, these are spectacular images. If there is a San Francisco based collector who plans to go to the Fraenkel show and wants to comment further on how the prints look in person, we're all ears.

Collector’s POV: These Sugimoto prints are a direct hit in the center of our collecting target. The problem is that Sugimoto has become too well regarded/famous as an artist and his prices have been driven up too far; these recent prints are priced at $60000 each. So as I told the folks at the gallery, at this point, we'll have to woefully admire/covet them from afar.

Transit Hub:

• Artist website (here)
• Artinfo.com article (here)
• Globe and Mail article (here)