Last week, I went for a brief gallery tour in Chelsea, to see some shows I had been looking forward to a lot. Neo Rauch’s was brilliant. Andreas Gursky’s, at Gagosian, was a disaster (I have nothing to add to DLK’s review). And then there was Nan Goldin’s Scopophilia at Matthew Marks. Goldin is one of the 20th Century’s most important photographic practitioners. Her Ballad of Sexual Dependency will forever stand as one of the shining moments of American photography. Scopophilia “pairs her own autobiographical images with new photographs of paintings and sculpture from the Louvre’s collection” (to quote from the press release). (more)
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Part 2 of my coverage of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2011 takes me to the exhibitions at galleries and museums across the city. Just like in part 1, this is not a complete list of works exhibited. (more)
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This past weekend, I went to Montréal, to see the exhibitions around this year’s Le Mois de la Photo (Month of Photography) (on view until 9 October, 2011). I had never been to this particular festival, and I was curious about what made it differ from other festivals. The way it’s set up is that there is a curator - this year Anne-Marie Ninacs - who defines a theme: “Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2011 features artists who, in a certain way, turn their cameras towards themselves and conceive of photography as an introspective process, an opportunity for meditation, a mode of consciousness, even a means of revealing the unconscious.” As you can imagine this description leaves considerable leeway to create exhibitions around it, something which was done - I thought - rather successfully. (more)
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When I asked Seth Boyd and Richard Renaldi what made a good photobook (as part of my conversation with them), Seth said “Good pictures. Just good pictures. That sounds ludicrously simplistic, but that’s all I want when I look at a book: to see amazing images.” Once you put images on a wall, this becomes even more obvious: A good exhibition features good photographs. Of course, there are OK shows (lots of those) and good shows (fewer, but still a lot), and then there are great shows. Great shows will make you come back (if you can). Great shows are when you think you know what to expect, but once you’re there you know that something is happening that’s hard to describe. It’s almost magical. Great shows are rare. If you want to see a great show right now, see Sze Tsung Leong’s Cities, on view at Yossi Milo Gallery (until April 2, 2011). (more)
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There is something somewhat deceiving about Youssef Nabil’s exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery, and that’s the fact that somehow, the images make you think that you’ve seen this before. Except that you haven’t. These images are all recent, they are not vintage images unearthed at some flea market or in some photographer’s archives somewhere. They are “hand-colored gelatin silver prints are carefully crafted portraits inspired by Egyptian movie posters and films of the 1940s and 1950s.” (quoted from the press release) (more)
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For the past few days, I have been trying to come up with a joke that starts with “How many water towers does it take to…” Unfortunately, humour (just like so many things) is (are) clearly not my forte. Not that Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work has anything to do with humour anyway. This is no laughing matter, ladies and gentlemen! In any case, the Bechers’ photography seems to be a good case of ye olde “if you’ve seen one you’ve seen it all,” except what they’re trying to show is the exact opposite. Because, you see, they - the water towers in this case - are all a little bit different (click on the image above and you will see). This, of course, makes for a neat reference: Karl Blossfeld, another German artist obsessed with shapes of things, in his case plants. (more)
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The story is simple: There are documentary photography and photojournalism, which aim at showing us the world as it is, and then there’s all the rest, which doesn’t. Especially not when we’re dealing with staged photography. In a nutshell, this is what one could call photographic orthodoxy. Photographic orthodoxy is in no good shape any longer, for a large variety of reasons (the idea that a photograph could ever be an objective depiction of the world is fundamentally flawed is just one problem). So it recently has required an ever increasing amount of support beams (“photo illustrations” vs. photographs etc.). Needless to say, the problems won’t go away. You can whistle as much as you want in the dark, it won’t help. If you’ve followed this blog even just semi-regularly you’re probably aware of the fact that I find this situation rather unfortunate. In this day and age, photography still is less than it could be: Just like in any other area, orthodoxy always stands in the way of potentials being fulfilled. (more)
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When you see Julian Faulhaber’s photography you’re tempted to think that if you were to pry off the plexiglass sheet from the photographic paper there’d be no image left, because it’s actually somehow contained in the plastic. Lest we misunderstand us here, that’s a compliment. If there’s any doubt about the merits of “Diasec,” seeing these photographs should put them to rest - here, it works beautifully. Faulhaber’s current show at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler (on view until June 26, 2010) offers a good opportunity to see the work. It is called “Lowdensitypolyethylene II” (of course!), and it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure. (more)
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Trine Søndergaard’s portraiture never gets boring or predictable. If you know the Monochrome Portraits, you’re sure to get surprised by Strude, on view at Bruce Silverstein gallery (until June 26, 2010). When I walked into the gallery, I thought the photographer had engaged in some sort of conceptual art, wrapping people in scarves and putting hats on them. In fact, only today did I realize that what I thought was conceptual art in reality is the “the mask-like garment that was worn by women on the Danish island of Fanø to cover their faces from the wind, sun and sand.” (quoted from the press release). Well, there’s something for art critics to ponder (who might put off reading the often insufferable Chelsea press releases until the last minute) - and for those who think that if it looks weird - or at least unusual - it has got to be modern art. (more)
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Ed Winkleman is on a roll. After staging #class (pronounced “hashtag class”, my own interpretation was funnier, yet turned out to be incorrect), there now is American ReConstruction, “an exhibition of new photography,” organized by Michael Hoeh. In a day and age where everybody supposedly is a curator, Michael Hoeh, of Modern Art Obsession fame, organized the show. Can we have a moment of silence now, so that this will sink in? (btw, if you click on the image above you can see a much larger version, and yes this wraps around a bit further than it should) (more)
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When being asked about Dutch portraiture, most people will probably think of photographers like Rineke Dijkstra or Hellen van Meene. Less well known are artists like, for example, Anouk Kruithof (see her Becoming Blue) or Melanie Bonajo, who combine portraiture with a heavily conceptual approach. If you look at Viviane Sassen’s portraiture, you’ll find such a conceptual approach (or at least training), with fashion thrown into the mix. Her work is now on view at Danziger Projects (until April 10, 2010; click on the image above to see a larger version). (more)
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Regular readers of this blog I’m sure will be familiar with Lydia Panas’ work (if not, find my conversation with Lydia here). The Mark of Abel work is now on view at Foley Gallery (until April 20, 2010; click on the image above for a larger view).
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The images coming from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were dominated from a combination of what was carefully staged and controlled, what emerged in an uncontrolled fashion, and of what a new generation of photojournalists, working under the toughest of circumstances, produced. There was the commander-in-chief posing in a uniform and proclaiming “MIssion Accomplished”, there were the gruesome images from Abu Ghraib, Tim Hetherington’s award-winning photo, the controversy about a photo of a fatally wounded US soldier, plus a lot more. None of these images have entered the world of David Levinthal’s I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was on view at Stellan Holm recently: The artist is still playing with dolls (click on the image above for a larger view).
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The problem with conceptual art is that, well, that it’s conceptual. Just like Germans are not supposed to have any sense of humour, conceptual art is supposed to be difficult or serious, not fun in any case, and it usually doesn’t take long for someone to start talking about the Emperor’s clothes. I’m German so I can’t tell whether we people have a sense of humour (there’s this or this, but then again there’s this, this, or this, it’s really quite confusing). What I do know, though, is that conceptual art often has much more to offer than most people think, and Ulrich Gebert’s This Much Is Certain, which was on display at Winkleman Gallery, provided a fine example (click on the image above for a larger version).
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There is a sign right at the entrance of Pace Wildenstein gallery that tells you that you are not allowed to take any photos of Richard Misrach’s show. I forgot the exact words, if I remember correctly it’s for copyright reasons. So I only have an installation shot of Ruff’s show at David Zwirner gallery (click on the image for a much larger version).
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There’s an old story that you can boil a frog if you put it into cold water and then gradually increase the temperature. Since it’s not smart enough to notice the change of temperature, it will eventually boil. That’s not true, though. Frogs aren’t that stupid. But humans are. If you replace the frog with humans and the cold water with the Earth’s atmosphere, then you have the situation humanity is in right now. We all know how well our efforts to prevent global warming are working out: Not so terribly well - it seems frogs are smarter than humans! Olaf Otto Becker’s Above Zero, currently on view at Amador Gallery (until 9 January, 2010), tackles the issue photographically. Above Zero shows images of the melting icecap in Greenland and of snow/ice blackened by soot particles. Just like Edward Burtynsky’s Oil, Becker’s Above Zero uses photography to show us the consequences of our life style.
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Given that Roger Ballen’s Boarding House is one of my favourite books this year, I was looking forward to seeing the body of work on the walls of a gallery. It is currently on view at Gagosian’s Madison Avenue location (which makes for an interesting experience this time a year, when one steps from the surreal world of very high-end consumerism into the equally surreal world of Boarding House). Boarding House is by far Ballen’s strongest achievement so far - a sentiment I’ve also heard from literally every person I talked to about the work.
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On his website, under “My Approach”, Touhami Ennadre writes “The sense of my work is to reveal the essential, never to illustrate.” An exhibition at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art (on view until 2 Jan, 2010) provides an opportunity to see whether he succeeds in doing that. The show contains a selections of his photographs, hung in a dimly lit space.
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I always go to Sonnabend Gallery, because regardless of what is on view, there is great photography casually leaning against the walls in the back room, including some of Clifford Ross’ photographs of waves taken during hurricanes. This time, that work was actually the focus of most of the gallery (I still went to the office room to find some Elger Essers), new images (called “Hurricanes XLIX-LXXII), using what the artist, in the statement, calls a “new approach” that enabled him “to capture more dramatic moments, and sweeping views, while revealing more intimate details.” I never thought the older images needed such a new approach, and I failed to detect one anyway. Not that that is a problem - just like their older counterparts (and in a marked contrast to Ross’ submediocre Mount Sopris work), these new photographs of waves crashing on the shore are remarkable and wonderfully beautiful.
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Andrew Moore’s “Detroit” (on view at Yancey Richardson until 9 January 2010) is a body of work that invites knee-jerk interpretations, especially since the image of Detroit as a symbol of American decline has lately been used so widely as a simple and obvious cliché in magazines and newspapers. There even is a name for such imagery now: “Ruin Porn” (see this post) - that’s when a photographer travels to Detroit to take photographs of ruins, for the sake of a simple visual titillation.
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After the addition of new partner Joseph Kraeutler, gallery Hasted Hunt went through instant reincarnation as Hasted Hunt Kraeutler (H2K), it relocated to a new space on 24th Street (an obvious improvement over the previous one) and added Edward Burtynsky to its roster of artists. Recession? What recession?
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I have no recollection what made me go to see Osang Gwon’s Deodorant Type at Arario Gallery (on view until October 24, 2009), but whatever it was I’m immensely grateful for it. I suppose you would call the work on display sculpture, even though its description (“C-print, Mixed Media”) indicates that something else is going on. But these beyond life size statues are sculpture, and the “C print” refers to the photographs that cover their surface, to give them a photo-realistic and also somewhat disturbing appearance.
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You might never have heard of the Sigur Ros effect. I’m not talking about what that music does to you but rather to something else: When Sigur Ros’ first album came out I couldn’t get enough of it (I’m exaggerating slightly, but I did listen to it for a while). It was quite different, it was inventive, it was fresh, and it had an appeal not easily found somewhere else. But then they had their second album out, which sounded just like the first. And the third (ditto). I started wondering why I should even bother listening to the new stuff when, in fact, it sounded just like the old one. It was more or less the same music - that I actually liked - over and over again, and I just grew tired of it. So I was a bit disappointed when I walked into the Silverstein Gallery to see Todd Hido’s A Road Divided (on view until October 24, 2009), only to get a bit of that Sigur Ros effect.
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The press release of Juergen Teller’s current show at Lehmann Maupin states that the artist “removes the artifice between photographer and subject, leaving only the purity of each image, and unlike the sculptures in the museum’s [Musee du Louvre de Paris] collection, his photographs do not present a standard of beauty but are more akin to a tribute to women and the human form.” For those who haven’t seen the show, this “tribute to women”, which is not supposed to be presenting “a standard of beauty”, is achieved by having a model, Raquel Zimmermann, and an actress, Charlotte Rampling, walk around naked inside the Louvre (after hours) so that the photographer can take photographs of the women standing next to statues and paintings. Where to begin?
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Note to self: I shouldn’t read galleries’ press releases. I know, they’re written for a purpose, and that purpose is not to entice this blogger to come and visit the show, but still… I almost didn’t go to see Simen Johan’s Until the Kingdom Comes at Yossi Milo Gallery (on view until October 31, 2009). That would have been a tremendous shame since it turned out to be the benchmark contemporary photography show for this new season. Granted, I had a pretty bad cold the week I was in New York, and I thus had to reduce my schedule quite a bit, missing quite a few shows and openings (plus forgetting about installation shots - sorry!) - but regardless, this is the show that others will have to top right now.
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Noguchi Rika’s show The Sun at D’Amelio Terras drew me in because of its presentation. As you can see from my installation photo above, the photographs are the only bright objects in an otherwise almost pitch-black room. While this sounds like a lousy idea for a lot of photography, in this particular case it works very well (especially once you’re beyond the “What the Hell is that?”, arriving at “Hey, this is kinda cool”). The lighting is done quite smartly.
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Hiroh Kikai’s portraiture was my most memorable discovery last year. I remember seeing his images as part of a group show of Japanese photography at ICP, and I went back to that show a second time just to see those portraits (something I rarely do). A large selection of Hiroh Kikai’s portraits is now on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery (until July 2), and, of course, went to see this show several times (the first time for the opening, to meet the artist).
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In order to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in what is now known as Manhattan, Dutch Seen, curated by Kathy Ryan, done in conjunction with FOAM, and on view at the Museum of the City of New York (through Sep 13), presents photographs by a group of Dutch photographers, with most of the work created in response to the anniversary.
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For years now, Brian Ulrich has been documenting consumption in its various forms. In fact, Brian’s work is probably the most complete survey of the landscape of consumption. His most recent show, still on view at Julie Saul Gallery (until July 3) presents images from its two most recent parts, Thrift and Dark Stores.
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Lili Almog’s “The Other Half of the Sky”, on view at Andrea Meislin Gallery, “showcases images of women in the countryside, small cities, and villages of China, with an emphasis on the extraordinary situation of Muslim women and matriarchical societies in China”, according to the press release. “The title […] was inspired by a quote from Mao Zedong. Mao remarked, ‘women hold up half the sky,’ essentially proclaiming an end to the centuries of inequality faced by women in China. As Almog’s portraits indicate, however, women in these outer geographic and economic reaches of China have not always experienced a quality of life equal to their male counterparts.” (my emphasis)
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Sonnabend gallery features regular shows of some of the most well-known German photography, with what appears to be a focus on what many people would call the Düsseldorf aesthetic. You can see the Becher’s work here, Candida Höfer’s ginormous (and oddly soulless) interiors, and now Beate Gütschow’s b/w architectural work.
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I know a lot of photography, but, thankfully, there is a lot to still be discovered, and I treasure those moments when I stumble upon something new and exciting at a gallery.
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One of the reasons why I have never followed abstract photography much is because so often it is merely decorative. There’s nothing wrong with decorative (I like looking at beauty as much as everybody else), but in an art context I’m usually looking for more, for something that engages me or intrigues me. Unlike abstract painting, abstract photography doesn’t seem to be able to easily achieve this; to me, most abstract photography is like “easy listening” - pleasing, but not more than that (I’m sure abstractionistos/as will disagree with this assessment).
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In many ways, there are quite a few parallels between what curators and art critics do, especially since ultimately, their success depends very strongly on to what extent they manage to apply their personal vision to what they do: The real meat of both professions is where we encounter the person’s mind at work, regardless of whether we actually agree with what the present us or not (even though our contemporary culture is increasingly moving towards the kind of infantile state where we see everything we do not agree with as “bad”). A good critic can write a very scathing review of a show we love - and yet, we would be admiring the criticism. In the same way, a good curator could present us with a show that we would never even have considered, and we would still walk away satisfied.
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Daniel Cooney Fine Art is on my mental list for always offering something interesting, sometimes work new to me. Daniel’s current show pairs two portrait photographers, Francesca Romeo and Tema Stauffer, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition, because you will probably be drawn towards one or the other. How can I say this? Well, from talking about portraiture and getting responses how people react to them I have an inkling.
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I will easily admit that of all the exhibitions I saw the other day, Myuong Ho Lee’s at Yossi Milo confused me the most: Of course, I was aware of this work - having seen it on various websites. I went to the show hoping that seeing the work as actual prints on a wall would make its impact and force clear to me, since I wasn’t sure I’d believe what people wrote about it online. And then it didn’t.
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A friend of mine told me a little while ago that there are two kinds of photographers (I’m paraphrasing this a little bit). There are photographers who obviously are photographers and who show in photography galleries, and then there are photographers who, even though they are photographers, usually aren’t really seen that way and who show in art galleries (just so people don’t misunderstand this: galleries that show different media and not “just” photography). I would put Florian Maier-Aichen into this latter group.
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Having relocated to 24th Street, Tanyth Berkeley’s “Grace” is Danziger Projects’s first show in its new space. A good move: the new gallery space is quite an improvement over the old one.
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I decided to add exhibition reviews as a new feature to this blog. Just like all new features, it will probably remain an experiment for a while, since I have to I figure out what I want to write and how, and numerous other issues.
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