A shameless plug

Be on the lookout for the December issue of Black and White magazine. I am interviewed in the Collector Closeup section by Shawn O'Sullivan. What fun.....

Berlin Art Fairs part 2

Of course, there was more to see than just emerging artists. I knew I could count on Rudolph Kicken to have a scintillating booth filled with a combination of stellar names and less-well-known artists. Of the first type, there were wonderful examples of New Objectivity school and an array of first class photos of Christer Strömholm. Also, I was taken by a beautiful and powerful photo by Ryuji Miyamoto.

Of the second type, there was a very large scale installation by the art couple Anna and Bernhard Blume. I was unfamiliar with their work. I was told that this work is in the collection of MoMA and that they are better known in European collections. This work was from the 80's. I was surprised by the scale(over 10 feet high and at least 20 feet across), and the surreal and serial nature of the work. I had not seen anything quite like it. I will be looking to learn more about this work.


I was really impressed by the show at Postmasters this past year of the young artist, Anthony Goicolea. Aurel Scheibler Gallery (http://www.aurelscheibler.com/) had a larger scale work from that show. It was a standout.


Galerie Anhava from Helsinki had a strong showing you would expect from Helsinki school artists (www.anhava.com). Of particular note for me was the work of Pertti Kekarainen. The series on view was of hallways and glass doorways filled with light and geometric forms. These are "straight" photographs that compel with their formal rigor and luminous aspect. Unlike so much work that I commented on from day one in berlin, this work has the appearance of 3 dimensions while existing in the traditional 2 dimensions of a photo. One can walk into these photos. They may be a little emotionally cool for some tastes, but I like them alot.

Berlin Art Fairs part 1

I spent the last 5 days at the Berlin art fair, Art Forum, and the 3 concurrent satellite fairs: Preview, Berliner Liste, and Kunstsalon. I came for Art Forum for the first time last year and loved it so much, I made a point of coming back this year. Berlin is a wonderful place for art fairs. There are so many interesting large scale buildings and sites it seems that looking at the venues becomes part of the adventure. Art Forum takes place in the Berlin Messe Halle (as it did last year). The website describes the venue as having "spacious exhibition halls with 15m ceilings and natural lighting along with the Palais am Funkturm built in the 1950s providing an ideal setting for the experimental display stands and lounge designs typically found at ART FORUM BERLIN". It's a beautiful and spacious place to see art. The 3 satellites were all at different venues from last year. Preview was at a hanger at the famed Tempelhof airport. Liste and Kunstsalon were at repurposed industrial sites. They all have a scale and atmosphere that I simply don't see at other cities' art fairs.

Another pleasure of Art Forum is that it has a truly adventurous spirit. There is much less "blue chip" art on display than at the other big city fairs. This means the satellites aren't a ghetto for younger artists and experimental work. Of course, this means that there's a lot of art that misses the mark or is not destined for bigger things. Great! The whole weekend feels like one big studio visit. Left and right one is exposed to unfamiliar work. If this was ever the goal of Art Basel, FIAC, and Art Cologne, it is now long gone at those fairs. In the same spirit -- and maybe because there has been such a mushrooming of new galleries in Berlin -- there are a lot of smaller and unfamiliar galleries at these fairs.

It seemed that there were some ideas or materials that were popping up in more than a few places. I saw a LOT of work that used mirrors - photos on mirrors, sculpture made with mirrors, mirrors incorporated into a variety of genres. It's not like this is a new idea, but I believe I was seeing more of it than I've seen for awhile.

Another form I saw many times was the architectural maquette. At Kunstsalon, one gallery had a model that must have been 2yards x 3 yards and showed a city block both in exterior and in cross-section. But there were 2 examples that I thought were particularly noteworthy. One was at Zak Gallery, a newer entry on the Berlin Linienstrasse (http://www.zak-gallery.com/). The artist is Szymon Kobylarz. The website describes the work accurately as follows:
"The series Architektura, consists in part of paper models based on existing buildings in Polish cities. By accelerating the effects of time upon them, and by exposing them to the effects of water and fire, Kobylarz reduces the models to rubble. As though the buildings were predestined to collapse even before their construction, the models – no longer immaculate proposals for the future – have already collapsed. They remind us that even our most stable and concrete buildings are less than certain, indeed, less than enduring. "

The other maquettes I saw were the work of Maurice Van Tellingen at Ulrich Mueller Berlin (http://www.ullrichmuellerberlin.de/). Mr. van Tellingen makes a combination open light box/interior maquette that he combines with a small speaker to make an arresting small wall envirnment. They were beautiful and engaging.

Have I forgotten that this is a photoblog? No. But this three dimensional approach also found its way into a lot of photographic work.

Ji Yeon Heo (http://www.galerie-schuster.de/)is a recent graduate from the class of Thomas Ruff. She employs the technique made famous by John Baldessari of using photos laminated onto foamcore in order to create a multi-layered photographic surface. Here are two views of the same work that show the literal depth of her work.

Her models are mannequins and her tableaux are scenes that recall soap operas or perhaps the covers of dime store novels of the 50's á la Thomas Allen. To my eyes, the work seems fresh and intriguing though rooted in multiple art traditions. I am eager to watch as she develops.

Those who remember William Ewing's "Re-Generation" show at Aperture will recall Martina Sauter's 3-dimensional explorations of cinematic frames combined with a mundane domestic frame. The best of them are thought provoking to me.

At Brussels gallery L'Usine, Jean Charles Delange explores 3 dimensionality by creating a sandwiched sculpture of glass, and then photographing the object with various lighting and angles. In the first image, the sculpture is displayed in front of the photo it generated. One sculpture can yield multiple photographic works as these two images demonstrate:



Artist Frederic D. from Berlin gallery "Nice and Fit" (http://www.niceandfitgallery.com/) had a large scale work mounted to sheets of plastic. The result was surprisingly evocative. There was a craquellin effect on the surface of the plastic plus the surface of the plastic was wavy and textured. The subject of the work was a woman the artist had encountered by chance, but her affect was one of Madonna-like grace taken from 17th century painting. I'm not one to advocate technique over content, but this seemed like a happy marriage.

But the real find for me was Thorsten Brinkman. I first saw his work at the booth of Kunstagenten gallery at last year's Kunstsalon. This year year the gallery was showing at Preview. Mr. Brinkman creates whole environments. He builds the booth like a diorama in a natural history museum. He uses found elements of carpeting, rugs, paneling.....junk, to make sculpture, furniture, and atmosphere. But the stars of the show are the photographs. He makes self-portraits adorning himself with he same junk that fills the "room" and then positions himself in mock heroic classical poses. The result is a a scene that riffs on classical architecture, classical paiting, and classical decor. It's witty and fun with a sarcastic and serious underside that invites lots of further study and reflection. I'm hooked.

Revelations at the Lisette Model show at Aperture

The new show at Aperture is a real pleasure. It's a pleasure partly because one can always find new depths in the work of Model. Certainly part of the pleasure is the intelligent and layered hanging of the works chosen (kudos go to Diana Edkins and Larry Fink, co-curators of the exhibit). But, for me, the most pleasurable aspect of the show was the revelation of the work of her less well-known succesors.

I think most followers of photography are familiar with the opus of Diane Arbus. Followers of fashion work are probably aware of Bruce Weber. But I imagine that the other artists included in the show are not household names except to the most devoted photography lovers. Clearly, this should not be so, and perhaps this show will make headway into changing that.

The work of Bruce Cratsley occupies the entire east wall of the gallery and is the first work I saw as I entered the show. A photograph called "For Lisette" is the curtain opener.


Dark, edgy, mysterious...this is a perfect emblem for the whole show and a clear riff on Model's "Running Legs" series we see later in the show. Cratsley was a brilliant printer. The surfaces and tonal ranges of his prints support and augment the introspective and personal world he illustrates. After looking at just 3 or 4 photos I wondered why I wasn't more familiar with this artist. He seems to have no fear to explore any personal subject. Cratsley seemed to live Model's encomium "Don't click the shutter until the experience makes you feel embarassed". He is present at the sickbed and the deathbed of friends and lovers, and he turns the camera on himself with the same honesty with which he uses to explore extreme close-up portraits. This is wonderful work.

Mr. Cratsley's photos inform some gentle themes that run through the show. I say gentle because Ms Edkins and Mr. Fink present these themes as natural running currents, not as a didactic club. Self portraits are everywhere, but none are more honest and unflinching as Rosalind Solomon's.

Ms Solomon is known more for documentary work and has other powerful images in the show, but this is the one that haunts. Her eyes sear out of the photograph asking and accusing at the same time. Her two fingers censoring her pursed lips reflect onto the title, "Self portrait after 9/11", and make me wonder what combination of horror, anger, and sadness are being held in.

Another theme is portraiture of friends, colleagues, and lovers. This show makes it clear that these artists existed in a community. Peter Hujar photographs Lynn Davis and Gary Indiana, and Bruce Weber photographs Louise Bourgeois; Bruce Cratsley shows his partner from health to last breaths. It was fascinating to make my way through the show multiple times looking for connections and relationships.
Bruce Weber portrait of Louise Bourgeois.

Last on my list of special mention is Leon Levinstein. Mr. Levinstein delights in showing us the strange that resides in the normal and the normal that resides in the strange. We've experienced this perspective before because Lisette Model put it into our culture's visual cortex and then her most famous pupil, Diane Arbus, burned it in as if we'd looked at the sun without a filter. Still, Mr. Levinstein has his own syntax and adds a little dark humor besides. His untitled rear-view portrait could not be more prosaic or more strange but somehow stays in the mind's eye long after.


It's a fitting coda to an exhibition that shows how beautifully an artistic and pedagogical legacy can enrich and inform a cultural dialogue for generations. This is a remarkable show and a home run for Aperture. If you love photography, don't miss it.

Akron Day 3 -- Laura Bidwell collection visit

My 3rd day in Akron I had the chance to view the collection of Laura and Fred Bidwell. The Bidwells were instrumental in making the Akron Art Museum expansion happen, and I knew that they are passionate photography collectors. They had an architect design their home for the optimal pleasure in viewing their collection. As I walked into the foyer of their home, the treasures that Laura first showed me did not disappoint.

First to catch my eye was a photograph that is among my favorites of all contemporary photographs: an Adam Fuss Daguerreotype of a water drop. I love this work and lust after it every time I see it. (The Daguerreotype theme was extended in another room with a haunting and lovely Dag of hands done by New York artist Jerry Spagnoli). Also in the foyer was work of Susan Derges. Those who read my blogs from the London shows know how much I like and admire this artist. A fine example from the "Observer and the observed" series was on view.

Photography fills this home. It is on every wall and catches your eye wherever you look. I could write a laundry list of the artists that fill the collection, but I think it's more important to say something else. I was really struck by how the Bidwells have commited to live with the art that they buy. It fills their home, their eyes, and their thoughts. While there are some "greatest hits" photographs, I was more struck by how personal the collection is. The Bidwells have followed their own muses. Also notable is how they have positioned the art so it creates conversations among the works. There are no real themes at play, but Laura and Fred have found harmonious juxtapositions that really encourage the art to comment on itself. The Dags are one example of this, but there are also interesting threads that include water, statuary, and cityscapes. It was a pleasure to see.

Before I finish, I can't resist mentioning a few more faves. I loved the Abe Morrell camera obscura scene in the front hall as well as the two Tim Lehmachers to the immediate right and left a you walk in. Upstairs are 2 monumental Lynn Davis photos that provide endless opportunity for reflection and meditation in the bedroom. This collection visit was a perfect way to sum up my Akron trip.

When I was a child in Akron, my parents filled our home with art and artists. When I think back, I remember Akron as a place that was ripe with creative people and artistic pursuits. Coming back as an adult, I see it hasn't changed.

Akron Day 2 -- In the archives

I am a big fan of the dye transfer photographs of Harry Callahan. There were 3 beautiful ones included in the room devoted to Callahan in the Akron Art Museum's photo galleries. When I commented on how much I loved them, Barbara mentioned that she had had to choose 3 favorites from a group of 21 that the museum owns. I asked if I might be able to take a look. Barbara was most generous in letting me come back the next day to take a look.


Arnold Tunstall, the museum's registrar, met me to lead me down to a room where he had the prints laid out for me to see. We went through three different boxes. Wow, what a treat. I think this is some of Callahan's least known work. Some of it recalls his best known black and white street scenes only now re imagined in layered, deep, dye transfer color. There were two photos that were like photograms or collage constructions. Unusual and hypnotic. The best of these for me, though, were multiple exposures that also often contained reflections in glass. The frame was filled with information. I could see in one moment a brilliant formal study and in another moment a jumble of conflicting metaphoric images. In one moment a surreal study would fill my view, in another moment I could see a crystal clear street scene that was documentary in its voice (a few were eerie premonitions of Philip Lorca di Corcia's work). That all of this philosophical layering was compounded and enriched by the literal layering of the dye transfer process made these photos a complete delight. I just love this kind of work -- work that provides a doorway in and yet provides and endless labyrinth to explore once you walk inside.


I know there's no shortage of books on Callahan and even a few choice examples of his color work. I would love to see a monograph devoted explicitly to his exploration of the dye transfer process. I believe it would yield wonders.


Thanks again to Barbara and Arnie for the Akron Art Museum for giving me the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful work. If you can find examples of this work, check it out.

Akron Day 1 -- Akron Art Museum

Ok, I'll confess up front, with pride and a straight face -- I was born in Akron, Ohio. This area that was famous for rubber factories, burning rivers, and skies made rainbow beautiful from the pollution burning off in the lower atmosphere, is nothing like what it was in the days of my youth. Still, then as now, northeast Ohio is filled with fine artists and remarkable cultural institutions.

One institution that has run in a thread through my entire life is the Akron Art Museum. It is where I took my first art classes and learned about primary and secondary colors. It's where my father took art classes and met the community of artists whose work still hangs on his walls. Later, I met director Mitchell Kahan and chief curator Barbara Tannenbaum who came to the museum in 1986 and 1985 respectively. They introduced me to Duane Michals in person and to the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, Harry Callahan, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard in the collection. The Peter Keetmans I own I first saw at the exhibition in Akron of the Irmas collection of self portraits. It is one of my favorite all-time shows.

The Akron Art Museum embarked on an ambitious expansion project a few years ago. Last July the project reached its completion with a gala re-opening of a beautiful new space and a dramatic increase in its gallery space. (Read more about the new building, the architects, and the museum at http://www.akronartmuseum.org/). Today, at the invitation of Mitchell and Barbara, my family and I had the pleasure of a private tour of the new museum space and the collection.

Above you can see a few pictures of the new lobby which feature a Claes Oldenberg and a color wall drawing by Sol LeWitt. To those of you who may be surprised to hear the names Oldenberg and LeWitt mentioned in the same sentence as Akron Art Museum, prepare to be genuinely astonished. The Akron Art Museum has some really, really good art. Art that would be at home in any major institution anywhere. And lest you think that Akron is just following in the wake of its bigger city sister museums, one look at acquisition dates on the exhibition cards tells you that this museum has been consistently ahead of the pack.

My favorite example of this refers back to my blog from the Venice Biennial. Remember those massive, byzantine, bewitching wall hangings from El Anatsui? Well, guess what the Akron Art Museum has. I was informed by Barbara that the Biennial catalog needed to use a photo of the one in Akron because they couldn't get photos of the Venice ones in time for the catalog. Cool.

Also, Akron has a stunning display of the work of Chuck Close. Next to a large scale painting of "Linda" are 5 dye transfer "studies" for the painting. Each photo is gridded out in Mr. Close's well-known detailed working method with paint on the margins exploring the palette necessary to match each layer of the dye transfer emulsions. That the artist took the time and care to make a dye transfer for each stage of his working process shows that these photos are not just studies. They also cast brilliant light on the finished painting. It was a treat to see.

Also on view were first rate work by Doris Salcedo, Oscar Munoz, and two sculptural chairs by Yayoi Kusama. Mitchell confided that one of these were donated from a gallery that, at the time(1970), couldn't find a buyer. The other was donated by a collector who had bought it from another collector for whom the work was just too unusual. Mitchell still thinks they're marvelous, but he mused that the fact that they are much sought after now points to the fickle nature of the art market.

Akron Art Museum has long had a reputation for its photographic eye and photo holdings. When the noted photographer John Coplans was its director, he brought many of his colleagues to show at the museum and a few found their way into the collection. Barbara Tannenbaum has furthered and expanded on this history. Some of you will know her from her work on many well known photo books including an important monograph on Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

In 1991, the museum started the Knight Purchase Award for Photographic Media. With a grant from the Knight Foundation, Akron Art Museum was able to collect in relative depth work of a variety of living artists. Often, the purchase of the work from the Knight Fund, spurred local philanthropists to add more work by the same artist. The roster of artists that have been chosen is remarkable not only for the high level of art but also for the fact that there are no weak links. If you look at the roster of prize winners at any cultural institution, one expects to find hits and misses. It's inevitable. I challenge anyone to name the weak link in this roster:

Vito Acconci

Dieter Appelt

Harry Callahan

Sophie Calle

John Coplans

Samuel Fosso
Adam Fuss (including one of my favorite smoke photograms)

Gilbert & George

Eikoh Hosoe

Isaac Julien

Mary Ellen Mark

Richard Misrach

Oscar Muñoz

Robert Rauschenberg

Thomas Struth

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Carrie Mae Weems

As we toured the exhibition space devoted to the Knight purchases, I was struck by the depth represented of each artist -- a room of Callahan, a room of Sugimoto, a wall of Weems, a room of Misrach. This is a fabulous collection. Its been put together with love, intelligence, connoiseurship, and taste. It also points to what can be done with a limited initial gift when it is handled so deftly. One doesn't need to make a Rockefeller-sized gift to me the seed of an important and satisfying collection. Other smaller institutions would do well to study Akron's example.

Though Akron is prettier than it was when I was boy, I still can't say that it's a destination travel locale. But if you want to see a really exciting and satisfying art collection with an emphasis on photography, go to Akron. You won't be disappointed.