November 2005 Archives

From what I've read, the Met's current photo show, The Perfect Medium, is an unexpected hit. My wife and I were able to drop in to see this while making a trip uptown to visit the Neue Galerie just up the street. My initial reaction upon hearing of this show's premise was what a wasted opportunity. There can be only so many shows in the Met's photo space each year and it seemed that to focus on such an odd-ball, niche topic was using up time that could be better spent on something more significant. Nevertheless, the show highlights some critical issues facing photography today, particularly digital manipulation and the use of photography as incontrovertible evidence.

The photographs are arranged by subject - spirits, mediums, supernatural auras, "ectoplasm", etc. Each subject raises a range of different issues. The spirit photography created mainly through double exposures caused a number of fraud trials - some won, some lost, that attempted to ascertain the true source of the ghostly images captured on the light sensitive papers. As a technical and scientific process, photography was - early on - seen to have an aura of objectivity but also mystery. Could the camera see things the eye could not?

The section on ectoplasm presses this further. These photographs purport to capture emanations of strange materials sprouting from various orifices. Any artistry in these photos is purely coincidental. They are attempts to make a scientific record of the occurrence, or to fake a convincingly scientific approach, though frequently wrapped up in blatantly sexual contexts.

Not that this information does anyone any good at this point, except perhaps the retired and independently wealthy, but there will be a gallery talk this morning at 11, conducted by senior research associate Mia Fineman. This talk will be repeated in 2 weeks on Dec. 13th.

Through Dec 31 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Ave
212-535-7710
$15 for adults, recommended (see, MoMA's rate increase is having an effect.)

Ran across a review of Geoff Dyers' The Ongoing Moment in the Financial Times on Friday. Dyers touches on a range of interesting concepts that thread throughout photography such as the unintentional connection of individual shots by different photographers or the narrative connection between photography and writing (though, Alec Soth has an alternate opinion on this, perhaps fodder for a future post).

The Saturday NY Times has an article about Paris Photo, supposedly the world's larget photo fair. As such, its got a representative sampling of major photography trends.

The black-and-white masters of the early- and mid-20th century set out to explore what photography could do, through experiments with technique and form, through the near-abstraction of nudes and through documenting, as Henri Cartier-Bresson put it, the "decisive moment" of everyday life. In other words, they were artistic photographers.

In contrast, while today's photographic artists have absorbed this legacy, they are also influenced by advertising, fashion, video art, painting, sculpture and Conceptual art. They seem more intent on altering than on recording reality. They are also responding to an existing - and increasingly competitive - market.

If you live near George Mason University in Virginia, you might be interested in catching the ArtBus tomorrow for a day trip to NYC full of art. Check the site for details, it costs $50 for students and $60 for non-students. The site also has a lot of great links to NYC art events and sites. An interesting service held three times a year (unfortunately this is the last one for 2005).

I meant to post this earlier, but if you're the spontaneous sort, tomorrow the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 200 miles due north of NYC, is hosting a day-long conference on "the Meaning of Photography". The agenda looks to be chock full of interesting panels and lectures, featuring Jonathan Crary of Columbia University, Carol Armstrong of Princeton University, Geoffrey Batchen of the City University of New York, Sally Stein of the University of California at Irvine, Mary Ann Doane of Brown University, Benjamin Buchloh of Harvard University as well as organizers Robin Kelsey of Harvard University and Blake Stimson of the University of California at Davis.

Starts at 9:30am and admission is $25 for the general public, $15 for students and free for Williams College students and faculty. For reservations or registration, call (413) 458-0524.

Well, I got a slew of suggestions for what to read next. The list below was culled from the comments, but I must specifically thank Pim Milo from Holland for emailing me what must be the definitive photography bibliography containing over 500 titles. Whoa.

River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit. (About Muybridge.)
Another Way of Telling by John Berger
Looking at Photographs by John Szarkowski
Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primerby Vik Muniz
The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer
Cruel and Tender by Emma Dexter, Thomas Weski - 2003 show at Tate Modern
Arresting Images by Steven C. Dubin
Autobiography by Helmut Newton
The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton
The Photography Reader, edited by Liz Wells
Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem Flusser
By Geoffrey Batchen:
Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance - recent show at ICP
Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography
Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History
Veronica's Revenge by Elizabeth Janus (this collection was recently auctioned off)
Photography After Photography - GB+ Arts

Feels like I've got to digest Batchen's work, a sizeable chunk of Szarkowski and some history from Beumont Newhall (which no one suggested but was on my list already.)

Stacy asked about my opinions of Sontag and Barthes, mentioned in the previous post. I haven't had time to elaborate, but the short answer is I had exactly the opposite reaction. Too much of Barthes in college, I think. Perhaps something is lost in translation, but I find Barthes' thinking to be a bit convoluted and ends in a "huh?" Sontag is more accessible, made for good subay reading.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Black Cherry by Marilyn Minter

Advertising-oriented photography tends to get short shrift in the fine art world, so I was interested to see "Passionate Image", a one-week show sponsored by "House of Campari" (why a show with works for sale needs a sponsor, I can't fathom). With a few exceptions, this show demonstrates the straight jacket that photographers don when entering into a contract for fashion photography. Creative bankruptcy apparently leads to playing with a single variable - edging as close to the taboo of your choice: animals, homoeroticism, eroticization of children, sadomasochism, etc. Still, there are a few examples where the photorgapher overcame temptation to take the easy way out, such as Horst P. Horst's Round the Clock or Minter's Black Cherry - a set of luscious lips dripping like a wound.

The show is displayed in two rooms, the first hung with the shows' prints, curated by Vince Aletti, Steven Kasher and Craig Hensala. The second is primarily taken up with three walls of actual print advertising, not dissimilar to a college dorm room - an interesting curatorial decision, mimicking how photography is actually experienced by many people.

Through Nov 19th at Steven Kasher Gallery
521 W 23rd St, 2nd Flr
(212) 226-1485

Robin #43, Oakland, CA by Lise Sarfati

I've become so accustomed to seeing large scale color photography that its basically assumed any contempory show I see will feature them. So it was something of a suprise to see Lise Sarfati's The New Life at Yossi Milo and find only modest-sized prints lined up across the main space.

Nevertheless, Sarfati's photography follows other common stylistic approaches in her treatment of the stereostypical modern, disaffected teen such as the blank stare into space or into the camera. In more than a few photos the kids wear wigs - play acting a desired maturity? The vast bulk of the show is medium and close up portraits of teenage "Crewdson extras" with a few longer shots, such as the one above, that are more effective and original at describing the emotional and mental atmosphere of adolescence.

Through Nov 26th at Yossi Milo
525 W. 25th St
(212) 414-0370

New York City is defined by regret. Regret that I cannot experience all the great things the city has to offer, like the range of shows currently going on at the city's multitude of museums. And this is not even to touch on the gallery shows that have come and gone in the last month while I travelled here and there and buried my nose in work. But that is another post. Here's what's shakin' around the museum scene.

PS1
Stephen Shore, American Surfaces
Through Jan. 23, '06

Mount Blue Shopping Center, Farmington, Maine, July 30, 1974 by Stephen Shore

Shore discusses his work in an interview on WPS1 (supposedly. I was never able to get the interview to load.) Read the Village Voice review

MoMA
New Photography '05
Through Jan. 16, '06

Featuring the photographs of Carlos Garaicoa, Bertien van Manen, Phillip Pisciotta, and Robin Rhode, this show resuscitates a dormant tradition at MoMA. Past "New Photography" shows have acted as king maker to some of the giants of contemporary phtography. Not sure about this time around, though. Read the NY Times' review (in the Int'l Herald Tribune.)

As an aside, MoMA and the Whitney (below) used to have amazing Web sites, with significant interactive components for most major shows. All that seems to have been brushed away in the last few years and now there is more or less a simple eplanation of the show and one ore two images.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Perfect Medium
Through Dec. 31

Whitney
The New City: Sub/Urbia in Recent Photography
Through Jan. 15th, 2006

Museum of the City of New York
Mythic City, Photographs of New York by Samuel H. Gottscho, 1925-1940
Through Feb. 20, 2005

Midtown from the Queensboro Bridge, 1932 by Otto Gottscho

There will be an associated lecture on Dec. 1.

New York Changing
Douglas Levere's rephotography project, following Abbott's Changing New York.
Through Sunday, Nov 13

Contientous reviewed the work last year and The Morning News interviewed Levere about the project.

If you haven't already, you've got to read this post, Dirty Dealing, over at From the Floor.

For a long time the advancement of photographic art was intimately tied to developments in the underlying technology of capturing an image. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore, with most effort going into digitally replicating the analog (film) photo experience. Then along come a couple of new developments in camera technology that appear to actually add someting new.

The first is the light field or plenoptic camera. A honeycomb of tiny lenses is placed in front of a digital camera's aperture. The light from each lens is recorded in such a way as to be able to reconstruct where its charateristics at a range of focusing distances and in doing so allow for the digital recontruction of varying depths of field. I've read a couple of sites' explanation of how this works, but I took Physics for English Majors and it just doesn't click with me. But I saw the sample images and I can't wait to see this trickle into commercially available cameras. I would assume high end medium format first, then DSLRs in about 5-7 years. But that's just an uneducated guess.

The second is Clifford Ross' 9"x18" view camera. Ross's homemade camera harkens back to the days when painters crushed and mixed their own paint ingredients. The camera has been dubbed the "gigapixel camera", but there is nothing digital about the camera itself. (Ross does scan in the resulting images for enlargement). The thing is said to pick out individual roof shingles at 4000 feet. An interview with Clifford Ross about the camera (scroll down.)

I've added two new blogs to the list at right. One, Edward Winkleman, is general art thinking and the other, A Photographic Imagination, is more photo oriented. Both recently addressed the elephant in the room, that the art world is politically skewed in a single direction and dissenting opinion is mostly absent or actively "discouraged", so to speak. Which leads to bad art. Ed's site has a lengthy series of comments (he seems to be supernaturally good at generating commentary.)

Edward Winkleman: Hot Political Art that Leaves Me Cold (or A Call for Purple)

Photographic Imagination: The intolerant myopia of visual artists?

Related: When Drama Becomes Propaganda, by Terry Teachout

When you see offers like the UK's "Own Art" program, it's easy to see why socialism's so popular in Europe. Basically the progam (or "scheme" as they put it) provides interest-free loans of up to $3500 for the use of purchasing contemporary art. From the Christian Science Monitor [via ArtsJournal]:

"I think that historically the owning of art has been seen as very elitist activity only for those with substantial incomes and people within an elite set who know about contemporary art," says Ms. Stack. "This is one of the attitudes that we hope we will be able to change."

Certainly one of my life frustrations as a hard workin' family man is that I lack the resources to fill my house with wonderful photography and in doing so become a taste maker. So you can either make art affordable by making it cheap(ish), or institute programs that assist the less affluent obtain what only the wealthy can. Still, this does little to resolve the root cause of art's sky-high prices - its scarcity. Photography, by its reproducability, attacks this head on. And, indeed, $3500 is plenty to obtain works by even the hottest of contemporary phtographers.

The catch is you've only got 10 months to pay back the loan. Payments on the Jag aren't even that high.

Gallery Hopper was listed in yesterday's Entertainment section of the San Francisco Examiner. Welcome readers. The description was a bit off, but no worries. Even though there is a definite Gotham slant to the site, I think there's enough general interest photo posts to keep you West Coasters interested.

If you use RSS, you can add the Gallery Hopper feed with the links at the bottom of the right-hand column.