The Checklist: 04/14/11

DLK COLLECTION

Checklist 04/14/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

ONE STAR: Charles Traub: Gitterman: April 23: review

Midtown

THREE STARS: Harry Callahan and Jackson Pollock: Pace/MacGill: April 16: review
ONE STAR: Abstract Expressionist New York: MoMA: April 25: review
TWO STARS: The Mexican Suitcase: ICP: May 8: review
TWO STARS: Wang Qingsong: ICP: May 8: review
ONE STAR: Staging Action: MoMA: May 9: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Stan Douglas: David Zwirner: April 23: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

TWO STARS: Katy Grannan: Salon 94 Freemans: April 30: review

Elsewhere Nearby

TWO STARS: Cindy Sherman: Bruce Museum: April 23: review
ONE STAR: Sam Taylor-Wood: Brooklyn Museum: August 14: review
TWO STARS: Lorna Simpson: Brooklyn Museum: August 21: review

Katy Grannan: The Happy Ever After: The Believers and Boulevard Series @Salon 94

JTF (just the facts): A two-part show, split between the gallery spaces at 243 Bowery and 1 Freemans Alley. The Freemans show consists of 28 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung nearly edge to edge in the single room space. The Bowery show consists of 6 photographs upstairs (framed similarly) and 1 three-channel video (9 minutes long) shown in the main downstairs space. All of the photographs are archival pigment prints on cotton rag paper mounted to Plexiglas, made between 2008 and 2010. The photographs are generally sized 39x29 (in editions of 3), except for one image in the Bowery show which is 26x20 (also in editions of 3). The video was made in 2010, in an edition of 5. A monograph of this body of work is available from the gallery for $45. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: It's a pretty tough challenge for a young photographer to wedge herself into the already crowded field of contemporary street portraiture and then durably and defensibly develop an original point of view. In fact, this genre is so strewn with entirely forgettable, derivative photographers that it most resembles a medieval battlefield after a particularly bloody exchange; hardly anyone actually emerges intact with a brand new formula. Katy Grannan's images of the invisible and marginal inhabitants of the sun blasted streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles aren't pictures that deviate widely from those of a handful of recognized masters, and yet, she seems to have found a way to tweak the proportions of the visual ingredients just enough to generate an unusual recipe. A touch less intimate and empathetic than Arbus, a pinch more offhand and less formal than Avedon's In the American West, and quite a bit more theatrical and performative than most street photography or Sander clones, Grannan's photographs capture a melting pot of quirks and eccentricities with a surprising level of cool distance and mystery.

All of Grannan's images have a roughly similar composition: 3/4 pose with an indirect glance, against a whitewashed backdrop in pure sunlight. From there, the details of personalities expand in an infinite number of directions. A man in a silky green and blue shirt shimmies against a wall, while another with a top knot and heavy makeup frowns into the distance. Bushy beards, long wavy hair, black eyes, elaborate tattoos, breathing tubes and wigs tell part of the story, while simple poses and gestures become almost dance-like against the uniform flatness. While these pictures have the trappings of picked from the sidewalk documents, there is something altogether collaborative and choreographed about the final results; there are multiple layers of subtle performance going on, with the subjects creating personalities both for themselves for and the passing camera.

While not every one of these portraits is completely compelling and memorable, I found the overall effect of the many photographs seen together to be evidence of something new. Grannan seems to have synthesized the lessons of her many predecessors and successfully incorporated a more conceptual mindset, generating an approach that is at once personal and removed. It's a tricky line to walk, and several of the images fall a little flat. But when she gets the emotional temperature just right, the photographs have that timeless sizzle that makes me think we will be seeing pictures from this series again and again in the years to come.

  

Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are available in two sizes: the 39x29 images are $11000 each, and the 26x20 images are $9500 each. Grannan's work is just beginning to become available in the secondary markets; recent prices have ranged between $3000 and $10000. Given the small amount of her work available at auction, gallery retail is still the best option for interested collectors at this point. This project was also recently shown at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (here).

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My favorite image in the show was Anonymous, San Francisco, 2010; it's fourth from the left in the top installation shot. I liked the faded, aspirational glamour of the older woman's swirl of windblown hair, combined with her giraffe print shirt and beaded swan handbag; it's roughly harsh and touching at the same time. I also particularly liked the soft, ironic undertone of Anonymous, Los Angeles, 2009; it's the last image on the right in the third installation shot. In it, a long haired man with a FUCK LAPD tattoo across his chest stands gently holding two small bunnies.
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: La Lettre de la Photographie (here), Huffington Post (here)
• Interview: Daily Serving (here)

Katy Grannan: The Happy Ever After: The Believers and Boulevard Series
Through April 30th

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Salon 94

Salon 94 Freemans
1 Freemans Alley
New York, NY 10002

Salon 94 Bowery
243 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

Cindy Sherman: Works from Friends of the Bruce Museum

JTF (just the facts): A total of 31 black and white and color works, variously framed and matted, and hung against orange and white walls in a series of 6 divided spaces. Information on the specific print processes was not available, but I'm assuming that the works are either gelatin silver prints or chromogenic prints (perhaps digital for the most recent), made between 1975 and 2008. Physical dimensions range between 8x10 and 71x90. All of the works on view were drawn from private collections in the Greenwich area. A catalogue of the exhibition is available in the gift shop for $20. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: It's long been known that there was a significant (and growing) concentration of wealthy, discerning contemporary art and photography collectors in the Greenwich, CT area. If evidence for this claim were still somehow necessary, the fact that a respectable mini-retrospective of the work of Cindy Sherman can be put on by a local museum like the Bruce, drawing only from the private collections of the immediate community, should put any doubts about this to rest for good. Ahead of the full scale Sherman retrospective scheduled for next year at the MoMA, this small show is like an appetizer prior to the upcoming main course.
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Gathering work from a variety of collections has led to a show that jumps from project to project, hitting highlights across Sherman's career, with a minimum of scholarly backdrop or narrative thread. A few unexpected early black and white works from her graduate school days are quickly followed by a selection of Untitled Film Stills (with prints in all three available sizes). Color gets introduced via a pair of early 1980s works, along with a pair of terrific large scale images from the Centerfolds series. A group of tougher images from the mid 1980s Fairy Tales and Disasters projects leads into a selection of the crowd-pleasing History Portraits, flanked by a pair of more recent clowns. The final room of the exhibit mixes images from Women from California and her most recent pictures of aging high society ladies. It's a whirlwind tour of nearly 40 years of Sherman's artistic output, boiled down to a series of easily digestable representative examples.

At its simplest level, this show is a solid introduction to the work of Cindy Sherman for those who are unfamiliar with her brand of self portraiture; it gathers a wide variety of high quality (and valuable) photographs and organizes them in roughly chronological order; even a Sherman neophyte could come away with a general understanding of what she's been up to (while I was in the gallery, an older woman was walking around the show with her toddler grandchild, and at each picture, the boy would scream "it's Cindy!"). I don't think this show will add much to the deeper, academic understanding of Sherman's work, but it is likely to be a local crowd pleaser.

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Beyond the parade of Sherman treasures on view, this exhibit also made me think about the increasing role of large, sophisticated private collectors in lending to public exhibitions at venues like the Bruce, where nearby supporters can now enable impressive, museum-quality shows nearly single handedly. From a quick review of the wall labels, the collections of Pamela and Arthur Sanders, Jennifer and David Stockman, and the Brandt Foundation have clearly made careful, long term choices in the Shermans they own; I'd certainly be curious to see what other photographic gems they (and others) have tucked away on their walls. Given the breadth and depth of the collecting going on in greater Greenwich, hopefully this will be the first of many shows at the Bruce that will mine the rich vein of contemporary art buried in this community.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, the works on view are obviously not for sale. Sherman's photographs have become ubiquitous in the secondary markets in recent years, both in the photographs and contemporary art sales. Prices typically settle into the five and six figure ranges, with a few lesser known outliers on the low end and a few iconic works routinely up over the one million dollar mark and higher. The artist is represented by Metro Pictures in New York (here).

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

Transit Hub:

• Reviews: NY Times (here), Hartford Courant (here), Stamford Advocate (here)
• Most recent Metro Pictures show, 2008 (DLK COLLECTION review here)

Cindy Sherman: Works from Friends of the Bruce Museum
Through April 23rd

Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive
Greenwich, CT 06830

Lorna Simpson: Gathered @Brooklyn Museum

JTF (just the facts): A total of 2 large installations and 1 video, hung along two long walls in a single room gallery space and in an adjacent darkened viewing area. One installation (57/09) consists of 308 small, square format gelatin silver prints, framed in white and matted, and hung in an undulating grid pattern. The second installation consists of 82 vintage photo booth prints and 68 small ink drawings, both framed in bronze, along with 30 solid bronze rectangles and 15 thinner bronze plates, arranged in a loose cluster. The video, Easy to Remember, consists of a grid of 15 mouths in black and white; it runs 2 minutes and 35 seconds. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The three works in Lorna Simpson's new show at the Brooklyn Museum all turn on the idea of cultural memory, of how past and present are often collapsed together and how our history is fully intertwined with our contemporary lives. It's a powerful, sometimes haunting display that explores the universal nature of the passing of time, via its specific embodiment in the African-American experience.

In the first piece, Simpson has juxtaposed hundreds of 1950s amateur pinup photographs (found at flea markets and on eBay) with recent black and white self-portraits, recreating the specific poses, hairstyles and clothing with exacting mimicry. Both women talk on the phone, sit on benches, stand in the kitchen or near a TV, or sprawl invitingly on the floor. The mixing of old and new images and the constant repetition of twinned poses creates a strong back and forth rhythm. At first, I picked out the subtle differences between Simpson's self-portraits (with an obvious edge of conceptual irony) and the genuine vintage photos; what is surprising is that after 50 or 60 images all tightly strung together, the context starts to dissolve away, and after another 100 or so, the contrasts become even more subtle, and they all merge together into an open-ended hybrid of past and present, reality and illusion. More than 50 years separates the lives of these two women, and yet, the connections are there; it's like Simpson has created a kind of mirror that accounts for the changes in cultural context and perspective over time, but highlights the underlying commonality which remains.

The second piece brings together faded and wrinkled photo booth portraits, washes of dark ink, and rectangles of bronze into a complex meditation on the nature of memory. Anonymous faces stare out from the photographs, offering tantalizing clues to lost personal stories (who were these people and what happened to them?). As time passes, these individuals alternately fade and darken, becoming abstract blots of dark ink, eventually transforming themselves into mute blocks of cool bronze. Taken together, the installation seems to document the subtle process of forgetting, where the lives and accomplishments of those who came before us slowly disappear; as more and more specific faces become unknown blocks, it becomes harder and harder to recreate our collective history.

The video installation comes at the idea of memory from a different direction. 15 mouths hum the tune to the 1935 Rogers and Hart classic It's Easy to Remember. The catchy melody will be instantly familiar to most, but the humming removes the actual lyrics, leaving behind a ghost of the song itself. Once again, Simpson has given us a fragmented shard of history, and then opened it up for a broad array of possible interpretations. I left the museum with the tune still stuck in my head, almost like a spooky undefined anthem.

Taken together, this is a thoughtful, understated, and quietly brilliant show about complex, interrelated cultural ideas and how time alters our perspective on these forces. And as a mark of something durably original, it has kept me thinking long after my trip to the museum.

Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, the works on view are obviously not for sale. Simpson's photographs have only been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging between roughly $1000 and $25000. As such, gallery retail is likely a better option for interested collectors at this point. The artist is represented by Salon 94 in New York (here).
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Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Reviews: La Lettre de la Photographie (here), Snapshots (here), New Yorker (here), Brooklyn Paper (here) 

Lorna Simpson: Gathered
Through August 21st

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238

Auction: Photographs, April 13, 2011 @Bonhams Dubai

Later this week, Bonhams is having a Photographs sale in Dubai. While many Western collectors (including ourselves) might still be somewhat uncertain about bidding/buying in Dubai (and figuring out the constraints of the US sanctions on Iran), I think a flip through the catalog is an interesting window into contemporary Middle Eastern photography; there are plenty of photographers in this sale that we just don't see much of in New York. Overall, there are a total of 85 photographs on offer, with a total High estimate of $757900.
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Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 72
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $430900

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 13
Total Mid Estimate: $327000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 0
Total High Estimate: NA
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The top lot by High estimate is tied between two lots: lot 33, Shirin Neshat, Mystified, 1997, (image at right, top, via Bonhams) and lot 70, Halim Al-Karim, Goddess of the Desert, 2010, both at $35000-45000.

Here's the complete list of photographers represented by two or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Norman Parkinson (4)
Sebastiao Salgado (4)
Andre Villers (4)
Jamie Balbridge (3)
Chuck Close (3)
Shadi Ghadirian (3)
Peter Anderson (2)
Lillian Bassman (2)
Majid Koorang Beheshti (2)
Amr Fekry (2)
Philippe Halsman (2)
Horst P. Horst (2)
Bahman Jalali (2)
Rana Javadi (2)
Nadine Kanso (2)
Laila Muraywid (2)
Herbert Ponting (2)
Bijan Sayfouri (2)
Todd Webb (2)
Camille Zakharia (2)
Siamak Zomorrdi-e Motlach (2)
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(Lot 37, Shadi Ghadirian, Untitled from the Qajar series, 1998, at $7000-9000, at right, middle, and lot 50, Faisal Samra, Distorted Reality #36, 2007, at $10000-15000, at right, bottom, both via Bonhams.)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.
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Photographs
April 13th
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Bonhams
Royal Mirage Hotel

Villa No. 23
Beach Road
Jumeirah 1
Dubai, UAE

Auction: BRIC, April 14 and 15, 2011 @Phillips London

Coming up later this week in London, Phillips has brought back its BRIC themed sale, featuring varied work from the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. As you might expect, there are plenty of unfamiliar contemporary names in the mix, and the sale offers Western collectors exposure to work out beyond the edges of the well worn paths we regularly travel. Overall, out of 204 total lots on offer, there are 56 lots of photography available, with a Total High Estimate for photography of £971000.

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 18
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £73000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 32
Total Mid Estimate: £318000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 6
Total High Estimate: £580000
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The top lot by High estimate is lot 25, Rashid Rana, Veil IV, 2007, at £250000-300000. (Image at right, bottom, via Phillips.)
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Here is the list of the photographers who are represented by more than one lot in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Zhang Huan (4)
Boris Mikhailov (3)
Vik Muniz (3)
Wang Qingsong (3)
Cui Xiuwen (2)
Oleg Dou (2)
Gao Brothers (2)
Ma Liuming (2)
Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe (2)
Qiu Zhijie (2)
Rashid Rana (2)
Marc Riboud (2)
Weng Fen (2)

(Lot 154, Zhang Huan, My Boston 2, 2005, at £6000-8000, image at right, top, and lot 165, Cui Xiuwen, One Day in 2004 No. 4, 2004, at £5000-7000, image at right, middle, both via Phillips.)
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The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

BRIC
April 14th/15th
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Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

Auction Results: Photographs, April 9, 2011 @Phillips

There must have been something in the air at the various owner Photographs sale at Phillips last week, as plenty of later prints jumped to astonishingly frothy prices. On the heels of successful sales at Sotheby's and Christie's, if you were looking for further evidence of growing momentum in the market, just look carefully at the list of surprises below and keep an eye out for the large edition greatest hits. Overall, the sale performed well by virtually every measure: a low Buy-In rate (under 10%, which is all the more impressive in a large, mixed owner sale), strength across all price points and genres, tons of positive surprises, and Total Sale Proceeds that far exceeded the estimate range.
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The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 261
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3420600
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $4913400
Total Lots Sold: 235
Total Lots Bought In: 26
Buy In %: 9.96%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5802250
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 138
Low Sold: 125
Low Bought In: 13
Buy In %: 9.42%
Total Low Estimate: $931400
Total Low Sold: $1157875
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Mid Total Lots: 102
Mid Sold: 92
Mid Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 9.80%
Total Mid Estimate: $2217000
Total Mid Sold: $2707775
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High Total Lots: 21
High Sold: 18
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 14.29%
Total High Estimate: $1765000
Total High Sold: $1936600

The top lot by High estimate was lot 171, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #278, 1993, at $200000-300000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $242500.

95.74% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 32 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 2, Richard Avedon, Homage to Munkacsi, 1957/1978, at $37500
Lot 12, Helmut Newton, Karl Lagerfeld, Paris, 1973/1983, at $18750
Lot 20, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rue Mouffetard, 1954/Later, at $57500
Lot 32, Andre Kertesz, Melancholic Tulip, 1939/Later, $18750
Lot 34, Mario Giacomelli, Untitled, 1958/Later, at $21250
Lot 36, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Lesson at La Scala's Ballet School, Milan, Italy, 1934/1995, at $10000
Lot 38, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alberto Giacometti, 1961/Later, at $74500
Lot 51, Peter Beard, Hunting Cheetahs on the Taru Desert, June, 1980/Later, at $74500
Lot 52, Peter Beard, Tsavo Natl. Park, 1970s/Later, at $43750
Lot 53, Peter Beard, Elephant Reaching for the Last Branch on a Tree, Kenya, 1960/Later, at $40000
Lot 54, Irving Penn, Gorilla (Male), 1986, at $30000
Lot 91, Robert Mapplethorpe, Flowers in a Vase, 1985/1988, at $100900
Lot 94, Irving Penn, Miles Davis hand and trumpet, New York, July 1, 1986/1998, at $122500
Lot 95, Annie Leibovitz, The Rolling Stones, New York, 1985, at $12500
Lot 103, Ruth Bernhard, Draped Torso, 1962/Later, at $27500
Lot 113, Alex Guofeng Cao, Jackie vs. JFK II, 2010, at $15000
Lot 120, Ray Metzker, Kayak, Frankfurt, 1961/1995, at $6250
Lot 127, Robert Adams, Denver, Colorado, 1973/1977, at 21250
Lot 129, Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968, at $18750
Lot 131, Robert Adams, Tree, Colorado Prarie, 1984/1985, at $15000 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)
Lot 134, Berenice Abbott, New York at Night, 1932/1980s, at $32500
Lot 145, Robert Frank, Cafe-Beaufort, South Carolina, 1955/1960s, at $182500 (image at right, top, via Phillips)
Lot 158, Sally Mann, Untitled from Virginia, 1996, at $20625
Lot 166, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982, at $17500
Lot 179, Sebastiao Salgado, Churchgate Station, Bombay, India, 1995/Later, at $11250
Lot 191, Steve McCurry, Afghan Girl, Pakistan, 1985/2006, at $60000
Lot 211, Desiree Dolron, Xteriors VI, 2003, at $194500
Lot 251, Martin Parr, Common Sense (woman's hand with cigarette), 1997-98, at $11875
Lot 253, Vee Speers, Untitled #16 from The Birthday Party, 2008, at $20000 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 255, David Levinthal, Untitled/Untitled from Barbie Millicent Roberts: An Original, 1998, at $15000
Lot 260, Sandy Skoglund, Revenge of the Goldfish, 1980, at $47500
Lot 261, Sandy Skoglund, The Green House, 1990, at $30000
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Complete lot by lot results can be found here.
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Phillips De Pury & Company
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Photographs, April 8, 2011 @Christie's

Christie's finished up its successful run of photography sales last week with its various owner auction, which like its two predecessors, also found its way to besting the pre-sale estimate range. Across a much bigger sale, the overall Buy-In rate was still under 20%, there were a number of positive surprises, and the Total Sale Proceeds covered the High estimate by more than $300K.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 211

Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3403000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5046000
Total Lots Sold: 170
Total Lots Bought In: 41

Buy In %: 19.43%

Total Sale Proceeds: $5367500

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 93
Low Sold: 71
Low Bought In: 22
Buy In %: 23.66%
Total Low Estimate: $570000
Total Low Sold: $533500

Mid Total Lots: 101
Mid Sold: 83
Mid Bought In: 18
Buy In %: 17.82%
Total Mid Estimate: $2346000
Total Mid Sold: $2266250

High Total Lots: 17
High Sold: 16
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 5.88%
Total High Estimate: $2130000
Total High Sold: $2567750

The top lot by High estimate was lot 561, Irving Penn, Cuzco Children, 1948/1977, at $250000-350000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 504, Richard Avedon, Marilyn Monroe, New York City, May 6, 1957, 1980, at $482500.

94.12% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 20 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 410, Robert Mapplethorpe, Orchid, 1982, at $27500
Lot 412, Robert Mapplethorpe, Flower arrangement, 1988, at $32500
Lot 413, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tulip, 1984, at $40000 (image at right, top, via Christie's)
Lot 415, Robert Mapplethorpe, Orchid, 1985, at $35000
Lot 484, Etienne-Jules Marey, Chronophotographie du salt en longeur, 1882-83, at $43750
Lot 488, Sergei Alekseevich Luchishkin, Project for a Spatial Construct, 1922-23, at $25000
Lot 489, Unknown Photographer, Princess Alexandra, 1920, at $4000
Lot 490, Guillaume Duchenne De Boulogne, Studies from Photographies Pathologiques, 1865, at $4000
Lot 511, Andre Kertesz, A Hungarian Memory, 1980, at $25000

Lot 536, Bruce Weber, John Sauerland, Olympic Swimmer, Hall of Fame Pool, Summer, 1983, at $13750

Lot 539, Bruce Weber, Boys from Red Cloud, Nebraska, 198, at $8125
Lot 546, Bruce Weber, Kenny, Honolulu, 1982, at $6000

Lot 550, Bruce Weber, George, Upper Saranac Lake, Summer, 1983, at $7500

Lot 553, Bruce Weber, Butterfly Beach Parking Lot, Santa Barbara, 1982, at $16250 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)

Lot 554, Peter Beard, Last Word from Paradise, Loliondo, from The End of the Game, ?/Later, at $80500

Lot 562, Erwin Olaf, Grief, Troy, 2007, at $14375

Lot 573, Irving Penn, Bee on Lips, New York, September 22, 1995/1999, at $182500

Lot 578, Irving Penn, After Dinner Games, New York, 1947/1985, at $158500

Lot 593, Eugene Atget, La Villette, rue Asselin, 1921, at $242500 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Lot 594, Herb Ritts, Fred, Body Shop, Los Angeles, Summer 1984, at $18750

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

David Mahoney on SFMOMA Collection Rotation

SFMOMA has a cool feature on its blog where the museum invites various folks to curate a mini-exhibit of items from its online collection database. Passionate, long-time photography collector and SFMOMA trustee David Mahoney (a true expert on 1970s American photography by the way) has just put his selections up; you can find them here.

Auction Results: Crossing America: Photographs from the Consolidated Freightways Collection, Part I, April 7, 2011 @Christie's

The sale of Part I of the Consolidated Freightways corporate collection at Christie's last week was an all-around success, with better than expected performance at all price points. The overall Buy-In rate was under 15%, there were plenty of positive surprises, and the Total Sale Proceeds covered the High estimate by more than $400K. Once again, all of the top 10 lots found buyers.

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The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 130
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $973000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1404000
Total Lots Sold: 111
Total Lots Bought In: 19
Buy In %: 14.62%
Total Sale Proceeds: $1838438
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 100

Low Sold: 84

Low Bought In: 16

Buy In %: 16.00%

Total Low Estimate: $630000

Total Low Sold: $659188

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Mid Total Lots: 28

Mid Sold: 25

Mid Bought In: 3

Buy In %: 10.71%

Total Mid Estimate: $614000

Total Mid Sold: $910250

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High Total Lots: 2

High Sold: 2

High Bought In: 0

Buy In %: 0.00%

Total High Estimate: $160000
Total High Sold: $269000

The top lot by High estimate was lot 293, Robert Mapplethorpe, Flag, 1987, at $70000-90000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $158500.
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77.48% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 14 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 201, Ansel Adams, Coastal Road, c1953, at $23750

Lot 203, Robert Adams, Golden, Colorado, c1974, at $18750

Lot 216, Garry Winogrand, Untitled, 1960, at $40000 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Lot 218, William Garnett, Train Crossing Desert, Kelso, CA, 1974, at $32500

Lot 219, William Garnett, Waterhole on the Santa Fe Trail with Cattle Tracks, New Mexico, 1975, at $11250 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Lot 224, Robert Adams, Lakewood, 1973, at $18750

Lot 244, David Hockney, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, September 1982, 1982, at $40000 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)

Lot 251, Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936, at $134500

Lot 253, Russell Lee, Oil field worker drinking water, Kilgore, Texas, April 1939, 1939, at $13750
Lot 261, Ben Shahn, Men with Hats, Listening, 1934, at $15000

Lot 262, Weegee, Coney Island, 1940/1950s, at $32500

Lot 294, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #55, 1980, at $134500
Lot 317, Marion Post Wolcott, Migrant Vegetable Pickers Waiting in Line to be Paid near Homestead, Florida, 1939, at $12500

Lot 319, Garry Winogrand, World's Fair, New York City, 1964/Later, at $23750

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Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: The Feminine Ideal: An Important Private Collection of Photographs, April 7, 2011 @Christie's

In the first of three photography sales at Christie's last week, the auction of the Feminine Ideal private collection performed solidly. The overall Buy-In rate was under 20%, and the Total Sale Proceeds topped the High estimate with some room to spare, helped by a 10 for 10 run of the top lots on offer.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 79

Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $594000

Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $881500

Total Lots Sold: 65

Total Lots Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 17.72%
Total Sale Proceeds: $942125
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 59
Low Sold: 47
Low Bought In: 12
Buy In %: 20.34%
Total Low Estimate: $346500
Total Low Sold: $373750
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Mid Total Lots: 18
Mid Sold: 16
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 11.11%
Total Mid Estimate: $415000
Total Mid Sold: $447875
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High Total Lots: 2
High Sold: 2
High Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total High Estimate: $120000

Total High Sold: $120500

The top lot by High estimate was tied between two lots: lot 36, Philippe Halsman, Marilyn Jumping, 1950, and lot 72, Irving Penn, Balenciaga Mantle Coat (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), Paris, 1950/1988, both at $40000-60000; the Halsman sold for $40000, and the Penn was the top outcome of the sale at $80500.
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84.62% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, and there were a total of 10 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 3, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Nude in the Mojave Desert, California, 1947/Later, at $18750

Lot 7, William Klein, Dorothy + feathered hat + coffee, Rome, 1962, at $21250

Lot 10, Henry Clarke, Chapeau, Balenciaga, Paris, c1954/Later, at $9375 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)

Lot 32, Bert Stern, Marilyn Monroe, 1962/Later, at $18750

Lot 48, Paolo Roversi, Kirsten pour Romeo Gigli, Londres, and Kirsten in Nero, 1989-90, at $11250

Lot 51, Jeanloup Sieff, Black Underwears, 1978, at $16250

Lot 56, Irving Penn, Woman in Feather Hat, New York, November 1991, 1992, at $68500 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Lot 59, Erwin Blumenfeld, Nude, 1943/Later, at $18750

Lot 75, Norman Parkinson, In the Moonlight, Carmen, for American Vogue, 1950/Later, at $23750 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)

Lot 76, Matthew Rolston, Lysette Anthony, Reclining, Los Angeles, 1988, at $3000

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10020

Auction Results: Photographs, April 6, 2011 @Sotheby's

Sotheby's began the spring Photographs season in New York with a resounding, optimistic bang. It was a broad based success story, with strength across all price ranges, lots of positive surprises and a solid Buy-In rate (under 20%). Overall, the Total Sale Proceeds covered the high end of the range by more than $1.2 million dollars.

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The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 174
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $2878000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $4339000
Total Lots Sold: 141
Total Lots Bought In: 33
Buy In %: 18.97%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5632188
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Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 64

Low Sold: 49

Low Bought In: 15

Buy In %: 23.44%

Total Low Estimate: $545000
Total Low Sold: $553438
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Mid Total Lots: 97
Mid Sold: 81
Mid Bought In: 16
Buy In %: 16.49%
Total Mid Estimate: $2329000
Total Mid Sold: $2834375

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High Total Lots: 13

High Sold: 11
High Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 15.38%
Total High Estimate: $1465000
Total High Sold: $2244375

The top lot by High estimate was lot 111, Richard Avedeon, Avedon/Paris (portfolio), 1978, at $150000-250000; it sold for $314500. The top outcome of the sale was lot 92, Man Ray, Untitled (Photomontage with Nude and Studio Light), 1933, at $410500 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

89.36% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 27 surprises in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 2, Ansel Adams, Moon and Clouds, Northern California, 1959/1970, at $31250

Lot 14, Edward Weston, Bad Water - Death Valley, 1938, at $50000

Lot 15, Edward Weston, Tomato Field, Big Sur, 1937, at $50000

Lot 19, Ansel Adams, Sand Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley, National Monument, CA, 1948/1977, at $31250

Lot 32, Baron Adolf De Meyer, Dolores, 1919, at $50000

Lot 33, Paul Strand, Selected Images from Camera Work No. 48, 1915/1916, at $31250

Lot 41, Mathew Brady, John C. Calhoun, 1849, at $338500 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby's)

Lot 42, Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins in the Canon de Chelle, NM, 1873, at $134500 (image at right, middle, via Sotheby's)

Lot 44, Ansel Adams, Portrait of Alfred Stieglitz, 1940, at $25000

Lot 45, Helen Levitt, New York (Children with Broken Mirror), 1940, at $34375

Lot 46, Frederick Evans, Aubrey Beardsley, 1895, at $50000

Lot 54, Walker Evans, Alabama Schoolhouse, 1936/1950s, at $40625

Lot 58, Harry Callahan, Torn Sign, 1946, at $62500

Lot 81, Constantin Brancusi/Wayne Miller, Triptych, 1920-1945/1948, at $31250

Lot 82, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, 1932/Later, at $18750

Lot 92, Man Ray, Untitled (Photomontage with Nude and Studio Light), 1933, at $410500 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

Lot 96, Jaromir Funke, Composition (from Abstraktni Foto), 1929, at $350500

Lot 110, William Eggleston, Memphis, Krystal, 1984-85, at $18750

Lot 121, Richard Misrach, Palm Tree, California, 1975/Later, at $20000

Lot 122, Francesca Woodman, From Portrait of a Reputation, 1975-76, at $25000

Lot 123, Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-76, at $20000

Lot 131, Helmut Newton, Elsa Peretti, Bunny, 1975/1981, at $62500

Lot 139, Peter Beard, Kenya Caracals @Warden Woodley's Tsavo Hdqutrs, 1984, at $43750

Lot 140, Peter Beard, Selected Studies in Mixed Media, 1960s/Later, at $34375

Lot 147, Peter Beard, Amboseli Elephants (Tsavo Before the Die-Off, Tsavo North), 1965/1989, at $56250

Lot 154, Irving Penn, Still Life with Watermelon (New York), 1947/1985, at $104500
Lot 161, Robert Mapplethorpe, Silver Dollar, 1988, at $20000

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Sotheby's

1334 York Avenue

New York, NY 10021

2011 Guggenheim Fellows in Photography

Here's the short list of this year's Guggenheim Fellowship winners in Photography. (The entire list of current fellows can be found here.) Of this list, only Mosse and Umbrico are reasonably familiar to me.

Karolina Karlic (here)
Jonathan Scott Lowenstein (here)
Richard Mosse (here)
Pipo Hieu Nguyen-duy (here)
Betsy Schneider (here)
Katherine M. Turczan (here)
Penelope Umbrico (here)
John M. Willis (here)

Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts @Brooklyn Museum

JTF (just the facts): A total of 10 large scale color photographs, framed in brown wood and not matted, and hung along a single interior wall. All of the works are chromogenic prints, made in 2008. Each print is 43x56. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Ask me to name a famous picture of the Yorkshire Moors and my first reaction would be Bill Brandt's black and white image of Top Withens from 1945 (here). British contemporary photographer Sam Taylor-Wood recently made her own series of images of this iconic landscape, recreating once again the gothic drama of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.

The land itself is rugged and windswept, with tawny grasses covering the hillsides and rocky humps. Scraggly trees stand in isolation against stormy grey skies, and lonely footpaths wind their way across the empty expanse. Taylor-Wood's landscapes heighten the melodrama of this bleak land, bringing a cinematic romance to otherwise desolate views. Her palette is drained, full of dark shadows, interrupted from time to time by a fleeting moment of sunshine which warms the golden stubble. I found these photographs to have a strong sense of theatrical stagecraft, of the artist intentionally enhancing the emotive power of the environment to create something expressive. Just like in the famous book, the land has a distinct personality of its own that influences the course of the narrative, and Taylor-Wood has made photographs that capture and intensify those particular gothic Victorian character traits, without exaggerating them into caricatures.

What I found most surprising here is that Taylor-Wood has made landscape photographs infused with film still romance and grand gestures, an approach that seems to react profoundly against a more prevalent contemporary trend toward deadpan sharpness and smaller found detail. In a way, these pictures feel classicly, overflowingly retro, which makes them quite a bit more memorable than you might otherwise expect.
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Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, the prints on view are obviously not for sale. Taylor-Wood's photographs have been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years, with prices ranging between roughly $5000 and $140000. The artist is represented by White Cube in London (here).

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

Transit Hub:

• Features: Independent (here), ArtObserved (here)

Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts

Through August 14th

Brooklyn Museum

200 Eastern Parkway

Brooklyn, NY 11238

The Checklist. 04/07/11

DLK COLLECTION

Checklist 04/07/11

New reviews added this week in red.

Uptown

TWO STARS: Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand: Met: April 10: review
ONE STAR: Charles Traub: Gitterman: April 23: review
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Midtown

THREE STARS: Harry Callahan and Jackson Pollock: Pace/MacGill: April 16: review
ONE STAR: Abstract Expressionist New York: MoMA: April 25: review
TWO STARS: The Mexican Suitcase: ICP: May 8: review
TWO STARS: Wang Qingsong: ICP: May 8: review
ONE STAR: Staging Action: MoMA: May 9: review

Chelsea

ONE STAR: Sarah Anne Johnson: Julie Saul: April 9: review
ONE STAR: Frederick Sommer: Bruce Silverstein/20: April 9: review
ONE STAR: Stan Douglas: David Zwirner: April 23: review

SoHo/Lower East Side/Downtown

No current reviews

Elsewhere Nearby

No current reviews

Stan Douglas: Midcentury Studio @Zwirner

JTF (just the facts): A total of 28 black and white works, framed in black with no mats, and hung in the front and back galleries of both 525 and 533, as well as the hallway between the two spaces. All of the images are digital fiber prints, mounted on Dibond aluminum, made between 2010 and 2011. Physical dimensions range between 18x18 and 43x86, and each image (regardless of size) is printed in an edition of 5+2AP. Each image title includes a fictional date between 1945 and 1951. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The press photography of Weegee from the late 1940s is almost like its own singular genre of photojournalism. Combining the visceral grime of the city with a sense for the dramatic, Weegee's flash-lit images of nightime crime scenes, bloody dead bodies, and gangsters headed for the police van have an unadorned mix of film noir glamour and gritty paparazzi reality that made him "Weegee the Famous". In his most recent works, Canadian artist and photographer Stan Douglas has added a conceptual twist to this bygone style of image making, crafting contemporary images that artificially mimic the look and feel of Weegee's world, down to the tiniest of period details.

Using authentic equipment and props from the 1950s (his "midcentury studio"), Douglas has meticulously restaged a number of Weegee's usual subjects: dead bodies lying on the floor covered with newspaper or burlap sacking, men in fedoras and suits playing dice, a hidden cache of booze, cash, cards, and plastic chips found behind a wallpaper panel, and a jowly boss in dark sunglasses being taken away by police. The works have a convincing sense of authenticity, foiled only by an over-sharpness up close that gives away their fabrication. Other images in the series have the look and feel of period advertising photography: women's shoes artfully displayed on a mirror, the intricate marbled curls of a woman's hairstyle as seen from behind, close-up shots of a magician's interlocking rings and and fire bursting from his hand, and a how-to demonstration of the right way to steal a watch right off someone's wrist. Taken together, the whole project is a satisfyingly atmospheric portrait of a particular time, albeit with the inherent push and pull of reverence and irony that comes from being a complete fake.

Overall, I think this body of work is a bit uneven: the best of these photographs fully entranced me with their celebratory melodrama and their painstaking attention to detail, while a few of the others left me wondering whether the tremendous effort was worth the somewhat underwhelming payoff. That said, for those of you interested in the latest iterations in the complex canon of contemporary photographic staging, this show is certainly worth a visit.  

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced at $30000, $45000, $50000, or $70000 each, based on size. Douglas' work has only been intermittently available in the secondary markets in recent years. Single image prices have ranged between $1000 and $7000, while multi-image groups have ranged between $15000 and $35000. That said, none of his recent large scale images have come to auction, so it's hard to say that the prices above are truly representative of his market. As such, gallery retail may be the only real option for interested collectors at this point.

I think that Hockey Fight, 1951, 2010, is one of the best single images I've seen anywhere all year; it's the middle picture in the top installation shot. It's filled with pitch perfect period detail (the haircuts, the clothes, the spilled popcorn) and captures an angry punch frozen in mid-throw. The flash lit cinematic scene is both visually engrossing from edge to edge and a fitting conceptual homage to the mastery of Weegee. To my eye, it's the "don't miss" image of the entire show.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Reviews/Listings: PhotoBooth (here), Daylight (here)

Stan Douglas: Midcentury Studio

Through April 23rd

David Zwirner

525 West 19th Street

New York, NY 10011