April 2005 Archives

View from the Edge... has a good summary of the recent spate of photography auctions held here in NYC. Followed by a bit of chatter in the comments about who "the next Gregory Crewdson" will be, whatever that means.

Ever leave a $20 million decision up to rock/paper/scissors? According to the Times, this is not uncommon in Japan.

Rosemary's Dock by David Hilliard

On Saturday from 12-2pm David Hilliard, known for his diptych and triptych photos, will be signing his new book at Yancey Richardson Gallery. The book features an interview by Vince Alleti, late of the Village Voice.

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 W. 22nd St.
646) 230-9610

Homo Ergaster by Justine Cooper

I am not alone in finding museums, libraries and other collections particularly photogenic places. Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographs of the dioramas at the American Museum of Natial History here in New York are perhaps the most high profile examples of this, but art commenting on the collector impulse has a long and rich history. I received Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium for my birthday this year, a book cataloging the various artists who have mimicked, mocked or otherwise commented on the museum experience in their works. In one respect I’m amazed at the volume of work that exists in this obscure niche, but then considering how self-absorbed the art world is, I shouldn’t be surprised.

A few weeks back kotte.org pointed to some wonderful museum photos by Justine Cooper, a photographer working in the American Museum of Natural History - the same locale for Sugimoto’s photos referenced above. She exactly captures museums' lonely spookiness. Wonderful photography, a different take from the Terry Evans work in the Field Museum that was shown at Yancey Richardson a couple of years back. Turns out she's showing at the Kashya Hildebrand gallery starting last weekend.

The Hildebrand gallery site is one of the best around, by the way. I only wish their use of Flash would accept direct linking/bookmarks.

Through June 4 at Kashya Hildebrand
531 W. 25th St.
(212) 366-5757

Today is Gallery Hopper's one-year anniversary. Last April 25th I made a rather anemic post on a fashion photo show at MoMA (then still in Queens. It's a shame they didn't keep that outpost.)

Hard to believe I've stuck with this thing for a whole year. Many thanks to all of you out there who keep coming back and reading this stuff. I was looking back through search records and Web stats and it seems my post on Eadweard Muybridge is probably the most popular post I've put up - if only because I used the word "nude."

Seems there's some sort of conspiracy afoot amongst the auction houses... to hold their spring photography auctions in the same week - two on the same day, in fact. It makes one wonder.

The Christie's auction is on Tuesday, Apr. 26th. The Phillips' auction follows on Wednesday, April 27th. (Items are also biddable on eBay, oddly enough, as per View from the Edge....) And Sotheby's auction is also on Wednesday. All three auctions cover the 20th century primarily, from early to contemporary works.

Can't believe I hadn't run across this before, but SeeSaw Magazine is an outstanding new online photography site. Two "issues" have been released, the latest with a "cover" by Thomas Allen. ( The magazine conceit doesn't really work for me. Covers, issues, etc. all seem so superfluous on the Web.)

A few weeks ago, the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery came online, offering a vast range of photographs from its various collections free to the public. Bernice Abbot's Changing New York" and Lewis Hine's recording of the Empire State Building's construction are probably the most high-profile series to be made available through this new site.

Sifting through these online galleries is akin to visiting a flea market for the rare quality photograph worth the steep price of $5. The Library of Congress has also put a large helping of its photography collections online, albeit in a much less refined site than the NYPL. Deep in the bowels of their collections are works from the likes of Edward Curtis, Roger Fenton and the Matthew Brady Studio, all with hi-resolution files available for download. And Ansel Adams. I'm not a great Adams fan, and don't pretend to be an expert on his work (Adams aficionados are a strangely fanatical crew) but the LoC's collection of his photographs of the Manzanar internment camp made in 1943 turned up a couple of gems.

Left: People walking, Manzanar Relocation Center, 1943
Right:View south from Manzanar to Alabama Hills, Manzanar Relocation Center, 1943
(Click images for larger views.)

UPDATE: after re-reading this entry, it struck me as odd and perhaps a bit tasteless to be talking about photo gems in the context of Manzanar. And perhaps it must have struck Adams a bit odd, too, when he was shooting there.

Finally had a free day last weekend to go check out some shows with the family. This time around we hit several galleries in Midtown, a wholly different experience from the usual Chelsea gallery hop. In contrast to the Chelsea street-level entrances, the midtown galleries tend to be in multi-story buildings with door men and I feel a little like I shouldn't be visiting without an appointment, let alone dragging in a 4-month-old baby.

First stop was the "Family" group show at Howard Greenberg, then Thomas Struth's new work at Marianne Goodman, and a final stop at Edwynn Houk to see Stephen Shore's "Uncommon Places" show that closed this past Saturday.

Audience 2, (Galleria Dell'Accademia), Florenz by Thomas Struth

The Struth show, entitled "Audience", is another study of people's interaction with art. While Struth's previous series of art-related photographs have either shown groups of people with the art they are viewing or shown art work alone in an exhibition space, these photographs show the viewers only. (Michaelangelo's David is the work they are viewing off stage, so to speak.) The series shows the variety of responses we have to truly impactful works of art. Unselfconscious, relfexive looks of stunned awe David inspires are clearly visible on the faces in the audience. In one picture, one man's hair and sunglasses appear to be blown backwards on his head by the experience. Other reviews of this work will undoubtedly feature the word "enraptured."

Perhaps without meaning to do so, I think these particular photos, by his choice of using David as the catalyst for the audience's reaction, has made a commentary on the value of print size in modern photography. Large scale prints commonly arouse a suspicion that all the attention drawn to modern photography is a function of outsized prints rather than plain good art. When you see the frozen reactions to David on the faces of these tourists, I think it points to the importance of size in art. It's hard to imagine a similar rapt attention paid to a 12-inch statue of the shepard boy. The scale of today's photography is part and parcel of its power as art, no less so than with color field paintings or Richard Serra's steel behemoths. (Which also explains why the Web-sized photos on most gallery sites do no justice to the real deal. You just have to see things for yourself.)

Ran across a couple of good photography-related posts yesterday. The first, on Modern Art Notes, is about aerial photography, specifically as it relates to the "new" Google Maps satellite view (this has been available for several years on other sites.) Tyler reviews a short history of aerial photography. Terry Evans is one of my favorites in this area, and Edward Burtynsky is currently working on aerial photos of highway interchanges.

The other post is on From the Floor. Todd's reviewed the Arbus retrospective at the Met. My family and I visited Howard Greenberg Gallery this weekend which was showing a small selection of Arbus' work. I had a similar reaction to Todd.

I saw this lecture by Stephen Shore and Thomas Struth listed in the Times' Sunday arts guide, but thought it had already happened. Turns out that it's actually happening tonight (thanks, Eliot.) I attended a talk by Struth a couple years back; he's very engaging and insightful. Really changed my opinion of his work (in a positive way).

Fri. Apr. 8, 6:30pm, FREE
Cooper Union, Great Hall
7 E. 7th St.
(212) 279-4200

Dziecioly 3, 2003, by Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga

Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga have put together one of the more unique photography shows to pop up this year. Each photograph is a digitally stiched-together top-down view of an apartment - making it more akin to collage than photography. Reminds me of cut-away diagrams from books such as The Littles or Gnomes that I read when I was a kid. Highly narrative. Check out Aletti's review in the Voice.

Through April 23rd at Robert Mann Gallery
210 11th Ave.
212-989-7600

The other day I was perusing Frank Einspruch's art blog aggregator, artsfeed, and noticed that Gallery Hopper had fallen off the list of blogs he's tracking. I scratched my head as to why and thought about asking, but today Frank's cleared this up. It ain't pretty.

UPDATE: It seems I was a little too quick on the trigger and a little too tired from working til 4am to realize that today is April Fool's Day.