March 2005 Archives

Erik's got an interesting post about editioned works (as many photogaphs are sold) over at "View from the Edge...", specifically about the effects of editions that get "broken", that is when the edition limit is subsequently expanded or a new edition of a work is created in a different size. The whole area of price setting in the arts is fascinating to me. I'd have to do a little research on pricing trends (actually, a lot of research), but I believe broken editions probably have limited impact on the long term value of previously sold editions. It's possible that the very fact that an edition is broken proves the popularity of the work and artist, resulting in an increase in market value for the original production run. Of course, none of this affects the intrinsic artistic value of the piece.

Check out this excellent post (excellent as in "I agree") over at Mark Vallen's "Art for a Change", triggered by a recent Los Angeles panel discussion entitled "Whither Arts Journalism in LA?". While I would probably disagree with Vallen about pretty much everything else he believes, I do agree that "people have not abandoned art because they are stupid… they have abandoned it because art has become stupid." There was a time when art had a functional purpose in people's lives, but somewhere in the past century art became inwardly focused and self-obsessed, a world unto itself - the art world.

Gallerist Caryn Coleman, one of the panel participants, has responded on her blog, art.blogging.la.

2nd St. East & South Main St., Kalispell, Montana, August 22, 1974 by Stephen Shore

For about a year, my top Amazon recommendation - based on my wishlist - has been Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places: The Complete Works. If Amazon's computations are correct, then I should also love the current show of Shore's vintage prints currently at Edwynn Houk. And I probably will. I mention the vintage prints specifically, because the prototypical 70s quality to the color is a critical ingredient to the nostalgic feel of these photos, something that's missing from modern prints. "Uncommon Places" was created in a series of road trips across America and Shore's images are powerfully nostalgic for me as I was just a kid in the 70s, also making many trips across the West in my parents' stationwagon. The image above, though taken in Montana, reminds me of Lovelock, Nevada, the small town where my mother's parents lived, particuarly my remembered mind-picture of its whithering downtown.

If we want to talk about envy, Shore was the first living photographer to show at the Met - when he was 24 - and sold pictures to MoMA at 14. Completely unrelated, but there was a great interview with Shore in Blind Spot a couple of issues back.

Through April 16 at Edwynn Houk Gallery
745 5th Ave
(212) 750-7070

Urbanus #15, by Brian McKee

There must be a word for the grinding frustration I experience when confronted with the acheivment of those younger than me. It's a kind of reverse Schadenfreude. I experienced this feeling when looking at the photographs of Brian McKee, aged 27, currently showing at Mitchell-Innes & Nash. McKee works with deserted places and abandoned buildings, a genre that reaches back to the earliest photographic examples.

Through April 9 at Mitchell-Innes & Nash
1018 Madison Ave (between 78th and 79th)
(212) 744-7400

If you're interested in either the Diane Arbus or Larry Clark retrospectives currently in town (at the Met and ICP respectively), you might want to peruse John Perreault's latest post of over Artopia. He uses the two shows as examples in a collection of observations on various aspects of photography, eventually digressing into a psuedo-zen affirmation: "It is ultimately not what you are looking at that is important, but the looking itself." If that were true, then a quick scan through the latest J. Crew catalog would be as rewarding as any gallery visit.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Roger Fenton show coming to the Met in May. Via SilverSilicon.com, Slate has posted a photo essay on Fenton. Slate seems to be doing more of these clunky "slideshow" essays of late.

ICP probably has one of the worst institutional Web sites around and their phone system is equally bad. Trying to verify tonight's John Szarkowski book signing, I called the main number and got a dead-end voice menu system. I then tried the "Public Information" number listed on the site. The woman who answered told me I'd called the wrong department and tried to transfer me back into voice mail hell. If "Public Information" doesn't know if there's a book signing tonight, what the heck do they do? A second attempt led me to a curt gentleman who's one word answer to my inquiry was "yes".

Long story short, "yes", there is a John Szarkowski book signing tonight at ICP. If you're out in San Fran, Szarkowski's photography is on display at SFMoMA.

William Eggleston in his music room, Memphis, Tennessee, 2000 by Alec Soth

If you're in Minneapolis anytime soon, drop by the Minn. Institute of Arts to check out the ongoing Alec Soth portraits exhibition. Hey, unlike MoMA, its free everyday! If you're a big fan of Seeping By the Mississippi, then you'll probably dig this show, made up of portraits shot all around the world. Soth will be personally leading a gallery tour in April. Many images are posted at alecsoth.com. (I'm not sure if the picture of Eggleston shown above is part of the show.)

Through May 8th at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55404
(888) 642-2787

A few odds and ends to post:

The Met has (finally) acquired the Gilman Paper Company's massive photo collection. The NY Times' reports its value at an estimated $100 million. Director de Montebello describes the Met's 19th C. collection as now "untouchable". Even more reason that the Met is my preferred photo museum in town. The Diane Arbus retrospective has opened there, reviewed by Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker and though I'm vaguely disinterested in Arbus and this show, I'll probably go anyway.

Fraser Gallery's "DC Art News" is hyping its Lida Moser show in a nice post. The show opens tomorrow.

I ran across this Business Week article awhile back about art-based investment funds. Basically you dump a huge pile of money into these funds, have to hold them for 10 years or so minimum, and in some cases get the right to borrow or rent the art in the fund. treating art as pure investment rubs me the wrong way, but the issues of setting prices and market transparency are interesting. Felix Salmon's "A Broken Market" (via From the Floor) brought it back to mind.

Here's early warning (for once) that Eliot Shepard will be showing at the Jen Bekman gallery starting next Wednesday. There'll be an opening on Tuesday evening from 6-8pm, which I plan to attend. Eliot's site, slower.net, is one of the more popular photoblogs out there and he continually does great work. I'm envious. And I'm not just saying that because he's reading this.

March 23 to April 30 at Jen Bekman
6 Spring St, between Elizabth St and Bowery
(212) 219-0166

Interesting article in the NY Times today about the rise of photography as a valued collectable and the variations in pricing as the medium matures. The article claims Man Ray's "Glass Tears" as the most expensive single photograph ever sold, a private sale for $1.3 million. I think the previous record was for a daguerreotype of a greek ruin for something like $900k at Christie's (though that may only be an auction record.) The article is peppered with wry comments like this one:

Rick Wester, director of photography worldwide for Phillips, de Pury & Company, observed ruefully: "You can buy the best Robert Frank you can find for half of what you can expect to pay for an Andreas Gursky at auction. Frank is among the most important artists of the 20th century. Anyone looking for the logic to that will end up mumbling to himself over a bottle of scotch for years to come."

Vince Aletti has posted his review of "First Seen", a collection of early portraits from around the world being shown at the Dahesh Museum of Art through May 1. (I say "posted", as if the Village Voice was just another blog. Weird.) I am a big fan of early photography, and the Dahesh's curatoral sensibilities, so I'm eager to see this show should I get a chance. Aletti's conclusion:

Because the nearly 250 images gathered here come from an important private collection, they are uncommonly good (with fine examples by Felice Beato, Roger Fenton, Hill and Adamson, Charles Nègre, and other key figures) and instructively wide-ranging. It's useful to see George Sand, in her natty suit and tie, in the same space with a helmeted samurai, a group of Turkish street peddlers, and a pair of recumbent opium smokers. Exoticism is in the eye of the beholder.

Flying in the face of Jerry Saltz' modest proposal that MoMA "go lighter on established white guys and Germans", MoMA's first photography show in its renovated space is a mid-career retrospective of the very established, very white, very male, and sehr Deutsch Thomas Demand.

Like a lot of architectural work, with which his art shares some characteristics, Demand’s photographs probably look a lot better in conceptual sketches than in their final executions. Each photograph documents a carefully constructed historical recreation made of paper and cardboard. The choices of historical scenario cover a range of times and places but a number draw on incidents local to Germany that will be only vaguely familiar to many in the US. While a photograph like Clearing requires little context on the part of the viewer to understand the astonishing sculptural and photographic achievement, others such as Zimmer require so much background information that the photos on their own are simply too sterile to really hold a viewer’s attention. On a conceptual level, however, the layer of artifice (constructed reality) upon artifice (photographic capture of said non-reality) often coupled with a refocusing of attention to an off-center aspect of a more well-known story is good fodder for the MoMA cafe.

Elsewhere, Greg and Todd have weighed in.

Through May 30 at MoMA
11 W. 53 St.
(212)708-9400

In addition to their other client-friendly services, the major auction houses offer educational courses for the budding collector. Christie's kicks off a series of classes for the photography collector next week. The roster of topics are:

3/17: Introduction to Photographic Techniques
3/24: History of Photography I
3/31: Conserving Photographs
4/7: History of Photography II
4/14: How to Shop for Photographs
4/21: Photography Sale Walkabout

Classes are held every Thursday from 6-8pm, through April 21st. You can sign up for one or all of the various courses. The final "walkabout" class is a preview of the April 26th auction with the opportunity to place bids; kinda interesting if, like me, you're new to that whole auction thing. Each lecture is $100, or $480 for the whole slate. For more info, call Christie's at (212) 355-1501.

The Village Voice has posted its Spring Photo Preview of gallery shows. Lots of great stuff is on the way, it appears. Kicking off this month are a show by Stephen Shore and the Diane Arbus retrospective at the Met. Others of interest are Larry Burrows, Thomas Struth, Gregory Crewdson and Tina Barney, among others.

A couple of years ago I was involved in a silly but heated debate in an online forum about what constituted art. (Few topics are as pointless as this one yet there is no end to people willing to debate it.) Some guy was insisting that a photo couldn't be art unless a human being made the decision to trigger the shutter. The example in question was whether a camera attached to a dog's neck, its shutter tripping randomly, could produce art. The post flatly stated that this was definitely not art. In May, Sam Easterson will try to prove that guy wrong.

Once again I've nearly let a great show slip away without mention. Closing on Saturday, Karine Laval's "Swimming Pool" series may seem like a great escape from the current deep freeze in New York, but the icy blue tones coupled with white-hot blown out lighting more accurately reflects winter weather than a summer paradise.

Bonni Benrubi's Web site is one of the few I've run across that lists prices for various editions. Laval's works come in two sizes, 20x20 and 30x30, and run from $1500 to $3500.

Through March 5 at Bonni Benrubi
41 East 57th St, 13th Floor
(212) 888-6007