make it red

Chelsea Gallery Notes: Eric Fischl, Craigie Horsfield, Tom Friedman, Alec Soth, Adel Abdessemed, Mary Corse, Will Ryman, and Motoyuki Daifu

2012-02-23T09:25:00.002-08:00

Two must see shows up right now in Chelsea are Eric Fischl and Craigie Horsfield. Mary Boone is showing a survey of Fischl’s portraits. Fischl has always been known for his ability to imbue his paintings with a psychological frisson. In his earliest work, that affect came primarily from the narrative of the scene -- implied or actual; as his work matured, Fischl developed the ability to carry psychological content through his brushwork and attention to light. It is a perfect example of a painter’s subject eventually being expressed through the act of painting.

Eric Fischl, Portraits, at Mary Boone, 541 W 24^th St., through March 17

I was trying to remember the last time I saw Craigie Horsfield’s work. It turns out it was 1996, the date of his last show in New York. I did remember large, refined, marvelously gritty, black and white photographs. So it was a real treat to see his most recent work playing off of what I had recalled: two monumental tapestries, based on photographs of a Russian circus, in which the texture of the fabric serves as a visual parallel to the negative’s grain. The work is spectacular and darkly mysterious.

Craigie Horsfield at Marvelli Gallery, 526 W 26^th St., 2^nd Fl, through March 22

There is a paradox in Tom Friedman’s sculptures: they seem strongest when they are at their smallest and most delicate. An example in his current exhibition: a tiny sculpture of a boy flying a kite, with an improbably long and thin thread connecting the two. It seems impossible that the string can support the weight of the kite, and yet it does and that gives the piece a kind of magic and wonderful lightness. However, as Friedman’s pieces get physically larger and more numerous, as happened in Luhring Augustine’s main gallery, the overall effect of his work begins feel leaden. Probably the best approach to this show would have been to have the boy with kite piece alone in the back gallery, and fewer pieces in the main gallery.

Tom Friedman at Luhring Augustine, 531 W 24^th St., through March 17

The story behind Alec Soth’s Broken Manual is fairly complex: curious about white men who have retreated from society – out of anger, frustration, utopianism, or the simple desire to be left alone – he wrote a manual for hermits, survivalists, hippies -- and I suppose uni-bombers too -- about how to escape. He then went out looking to photograph men who had in fact left civilization to illustrate his ideas, using the manual as a way to gain entry and build trust with his reclusive subjects. Soth is an accomplished photographer and there are lots of sociological and political ideas embedded in his project worth exploring. Unfortunately, the photographs in the exhibition – despite often being beautiful and masterfully composed -- do not shed much light on who these men are. Instead, the endeavor seems somewhat circular – we see pretty much what we expected to see. In Soth’s defense, it may be that his idea is better presented in the expanded format of a book than in a gallery exhibition. The manual itself is problematic for me. It becomes part of an odd and redundant assemblage in the exhibition. But more importantly, I think artists should not be so sneaky.

Alec Soth, Broken Manual, at Sean Kelly, 528 W 29^th St., through March 11

There’s been a minor movement over the past 10 –12 years of artists using taxidermy specimens as elements in their work. Adel Abdessemed, with his gigantic conglomerate of burnt stuffed wolves and other animals may have put an end to that trend, as it will be difficult to top in effect. If you go, be forewarned that the room smells kind of funky. His razor wire crucifixions are quite nice – simultaneously expressive and restrained. I also like the drawings of animals with dynamite strapped to their backs.

Adel Abdessemed, Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?, at David Zwirner, 525 W 19^th St., through March 17

Mary Corse’s painted minimalist abstractions reflect light rather than represent it. Composed of a material akin to movie projection screens, these radiant paintings change in appearance as the viewer walks through the gallery.

Mary Corse, New Work, at Lehman Maupin, 540 W 26^th St., through March 10

At Paul Kasmin, Will Ryman is showing an amazing canyon made out of paintbrushes, and at Kasmin’s second location on 27^th St., Ryman has a large bird, made out of giant nails, holding a wilted rose in its beak.

Will Ryman, Anyone and No One, at Paul Kasmin, 293 10^th Ave. and 515 W 27^th St., through March 24

Motoyuki Daifu takes an intimate look into the life of his former girlfriend, depicting everyday disorder combined with moments of tenderness and connection. His work is concerned with feelings of love and loss on a personal level, as well as serving as a documentation of social mores in transition.

Motoyuki Daifu, Lovesody, at Lombard Freid Projects, 518 W 19^th St., through March 3

Of the shows opening this Thursday - Saturday in Chelsea, I have Charles Long at Tanya Bonakdar, Donald Moffett at Marianne Boesky, and Melanie Willhide at Von Lintel Gallery among those I'll make a point to see.

Match Print to Screen in Photoshop: A Simple Method to Get Inkjet Prints to Match What You See on Your Monitor

2012-02-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

One of the most frustrating aspects of digital photography is spending a lot of time and effort getting an image to look exactly the way we want on screen, only to have prints made from that file come out dark and off color. As a teacher, I find this situation particularly egregious, as print mismatching occurs even when the proper color management procedures are in place. Remarkably, I’ve never seen this fact usefully addressed in printing demonstrations or in the standard Photoshop texts used in most schools.

On top is how the image appeared on screen; below is how the print appeared.

As you can see, the images are close, but the printed version is darker in the skin tones, with more saturation, and a slight reddish cast.

Color management is designed for the express purpose of ensuring that what comes out of the printer matches what you see on screen. The way it is typically taught starts with a discussion of monitor calibration and moves to the use of printer profiles and soft-proofing. I don’t want to suggest that this isn’t useful information, but even when applied correctly, ink jet prints still don’t match what is displayed on the monitor. There are some technical reasons for this that may be cited: screen contrast is much greater than that of the print and the range of colors an ink jet print is capable of reproducing is smaller than the range a monitor can display. But as a practical matter, images which contain colors outside the range of the printer’s capabilities are the exception. The real problem lies with the printer driver software – this is the software that determines what size and mixture of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink droplets will be used to represent the various colors and tones of the image. The software that comes with the printer simply doesn’t do a good job of this. The most efficient solution is to buy third party software to drive the printer, but it is expensive, and I’ve never taught at a school that uses it.

Fortunately, if you are using Photoshop, there is a workaround for this problem. The best part is that it is free and it doesn’t require a profiled and calibrated monitor. (If you’re printing at school, who knows the last time the monitor was calibrated?) I came up with this technique to give students a better way of printing. Typically, when the print came out dark and off color, you’d add some adjustment layers to compensate, but it was really guesswork as to how much lighter to make it or how much to adjust the color. You went through a process of trial and error, until you got something that looked OK, or gave up. My solution was to eliminate the guesswork.

The first step is to compare the print to the image on screen. When you do this, you want to be sure that the print is illuminated by the ambient light of the room. A lot of monitors have hoods to block off the ambient light. You don’t want to hold the print so that it is under the hood. I’ve found that it helps to pull away from the monitor so that when holding the print it matches the general size of the image on screen.

Next, make a series of adjustment layers to match the screen image to the print. Typically, I’ll use a curves layer to darken the screen image, followed by a hue/saturation layer if necessary and then a color balance layer to fine-tune the color match. Your three adjustment layers might look like this in the layer stack:

It wouldn't be a bad idea to label each adjustment layer as a print matching layer, and perhaps include the model of the printer, just to prevent them from mistakenly becoming a permanent part of the file.

At this point, the image on screen should match the print as closely as possible. If I’m demonstrating this technique in class, usually someone asks if I haven’t made a mistake: after all, we’re trying to match the print to the screen and not the screen to the print. But this is what we have accomplished through the initial set of adjustment layers: we’ve found the difference between the two. Now we know exactly how far off from the monitor image the print is. To get the print to match the screen, make the opposite correction with all of the adjustment layers. So, if my color balance layer reads +6, 0, -1, I simply switch the signs to -6, 0, +1.

If the overall saturation was raised to +16 to match the print, I’ll invert that to -16. You can click on these screenshots to see a larger image.

The curves layer can be the most tricky. The easiest way to invert the curve is to use the input and output boxes, entering the adjusted values in the output box using the keyboard. Click on the point or points on the curve to select them, and one by one determine the difference between the input and output for each point. Below are the matching and inverted curves. Notice that the arc of the curve as it sags below the diagonal unchanged line is mirrored in the inverted curve.

And this shows the way to make the curve inversion for the upper right point. Of course, the other two points on the curve in this example must be selected and inverted next.

After each adjustment layer has been inverted, you will have an image on screen which will vary from what you intend the print to look like, but will account for the un-cooperativeness of the printer. This is what my adjusted file looked like on screen. As you can see it is lighter and less saturated than how I want the print to appear. Printing from this adjusted file will give me a print which matches the desired look of the image.

The principle behind the technique is simple: find the difference and compensate; however, it may seem like a lot of work the first couple of times. The trick is in accurately matching the screen image with the print when making the initial comparison. With some practice, you'll get the hang of it and improve your ability to discern the nuances of color and tone to boot. It certainly is better and quicker than guessing. One thing to note: the adjustments you are making apply to the particular monitor you are using and the exact model printer. If you are moving from workstation to workstation, or print to a variety of printers, you'll have to redo the process for each printer/monitor combination. If you are a teacher, feel free to try this with your class. If you share it, all I ask is a link back to this page.

March Workshops: Editing a Project and Portfolio Review

2012-02-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

Often times the hardest part of a project is choosing which images to present. In March, I will be offering a workshop designed to assist photographers working on an ongoing project with feedback on the direction of their work, sequencing, and editing. The process of editing clarifies project goals, identifies and highlights latent themes, and enables a clear and concise presentation of your best work. The workshop will be limited to a maximum of 6 participants. Anyone looking to get feedback on an existing body of work or advice on choosing among several potential projects is welcome.

At the moment, there are 2 slots available on Saturday, March 3. Also, I've had a request for a second day for those who cannot make it on the 3rd. I'm considering March 17, pending sufficient interest. Workshops will take place at my studio in Brooklyn. (Easily accessible by public transportation.) Please contact me for more information or if you would like to sign up.

Lower East Side Gallery Notes: Juergen Teller at Lehman Maupin, Thomas Øvlisen at Klaus von Nichtssagend, Ian Tweedy at Untitled, Jon Kessler at Salon 94, and Marble Sculpture at Sperone Westwater

2012-02-12T16:26:00.000-08:00

Juergen Teller is a highlight among current exhibitions in the Lower East Side. Teller’s photographs, typically taken with a point and shoot camera, offer an intoxicating mix of baroque sexuality, beauty, deadpan comedy, innocence, and old world decadence. I’ve always admired his ability to express a sophisticated vision through the simplest of means. A side note about the show: I really liked the understated presentation. Too many photographers these days get sidetracked by unnecessarily fetishizing the physical aspects of the photograph, which comes off as both automatic and insecure.

Juergen Teller at Lehman Maupin, 201 Chrystie St., through March 17.

Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery is showing hybrid painting-sculptures by Thomas Ovlisen. A strong sense of facture dominates the work, drawing the viewer in through some lyrical passages reminiscent of Richter’s squeegee paintings or Stephen Ellis’ scrapings. Notwithstanding their clear object-ness, I read them more as 4-sided paintings. They do have an interesting presence, vaguely suggestive of a personage despite their thoroughly industrial surface. One last detail, not immediately obvious, that I ended up really intrigued by: the tops and bottoms of the planks are covered with a painted coconut husk mat, providing a contrasting texture and unexpected foil to the slickness of the sides. I look forward to seeing more work by this interesting artist.

detail

Thomas Ovlisen, Tomato, through March 4, 2012 at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 54 Ludlow St.

Also worth a look are the visually inventive paintings by Ian Tweedy. Tweedy works on top of the covers of paperback books and upon the backs of thrift store paintings, which imbue a history and weight to his mysterious dystopian images.

Ian Tweedy, A Long Story, at Untitled, 30 Orchard St., through February 26.

My impression of Jon Kessler’s The Blue Period was mixed. When I first saw Kessler’s work in the early 90’s, I really liked it. He made elegant and playful work that spoke to the interface between technology and popular culture. The video part of his current show at Salon 94 seems didactic and technologically dated, and doesn't transcend the spectacle it is meant to critique. On the other hand, the framed paper collages on the walls are engaging. The show has its moments. Take a look and see for yourself.

none of these people are real

there are some clever moments

Jon Kessler, The Blue Period, at Salon 94, 243 Bowery, through March 10.

Finally, there is an amazing show at Sperone Westwater cataloging the various ways marble has been used by artists.

Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to last week, at Sperone Westwater, 257 Bowery, through February 25.

Dealing with a Creative Block

2012-02-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

At some point, every creative person will have the experience of feeling stuck. The ideas no longer flow. Your direction is unclear. There is so much to do; it is hard to know where to start. Or you know what to do, and are afraid to do it – this is probably the worst situation to be in as both the knowledge and the fear may not be operating on a fully conscious level. In any event, there are many reasons for feeling stuck. I’ve had my own experience in this regard, and without going into the painful details, let’s just say I have been familiar with the feeling.

So, you recognize the problem – then what? In my opinion, it doesn’t matter why you feel stuck. Whatever the cause, if a creative block continues long enough, it will be accompanied by feelings of self-doubt. It is the loss of confidence and the anxiety associated with it that becomes the bigger problem – and this is what needs to be addressed first. The first step is entirely prosaic: make work a habit and set achievable goals.

I met with a former student last week. Photography was her passion, but she had gone to college for other subjects. Several years after she completed her undergraduate degree, she started taking Photography classes, eventually earning an MFA. The period after graduate school can be particularly difficult. School provides structure. There are the regular critiques and project deadlines. There is also the competition among fellow students that motivates everyone. Most graduating students haven’t had the experience of being consistently creative outside the context of school, so simply losing that structure can be surprisingly difficult to deal with.

She was feeling overwhelmed and had stopped taking photographs. She had goals, but they were stated in a general way. Sometimes a list isn’t helpful when the items on it are too broad. Looking at such a list can be daunting. My suggestion was to rewrite each goal, making it as specific as possible. Then we would create a schedule for her, based on the new list.

We want to break what needs to be done into achievable portions, so that at the end of the day, you know that either you did what you set out to do or you didn’t. For example, let’s say the bigger goals are to update the website, begin a new street photography project, and promote the work. Tomorrow’s schedule might be to process 15 files so they are ready to post on the website, to spend 2 hours shooting, and 1 hour researching and identifying galleries which might be receptive to her work. And there would be a similarly detailed schedule for each day of the week.

Every item on the schedule is quantifiable. You either processed 15 files or you didn’t. If you can’t process 15 files in the available time, make it 10, or whatever works for you. The point is, you want to set your goals in such a way that you can accomplish the task and it is not a matter of opinion as to whether you have succeeded or not. You don’t want to have “take one excellent street photograph each day” as a goal. Maybe this happens, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you like the picture today and you don’t tomorrow. You want to phrase each goal in a way that there is not any uncertainty about accomplishment. Once goals are quantifiable and achievable and you consistently do what you set out to do, you’ll start to feel a lot better about yourself, and eventually your work. The first step is to regain your confidence and the best way to do that is through a pattern of regular achievement. Follow your schedule for a month, not worrying about the outcome of what you do, and see if you don’t start feeling creative again.

One last point: think about which word was not used in the article above.

Vivian Maier and Vernacular Photography

2012-01-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

I first stumbled across Vivian Maier’s black and white street scenes at Mass MoCA over the summer and had the opportunity to re-visit her work this past weekend at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in midtown Manhattan. By now, everyone is familiar with the story behind this work. Maier worked as a nanny and had a passion for photography. Her time off was primarily spent photographing people on the streets of Chicago. She died in 2009, leaving a storage locker full of tens of thousands of negatives and thousands of exposed but undeveloped rolls of film. At an estate sale, a Chicago real estate agent and amateur historian named John Maloof purchased the contents of the locker for $400. Realizing the significance of Maier’s work, Maloof began to scan and print the negatives, eventually exhibiting the work. You can read the full details of the story at the Vivian Maier website, as well as see many examples of her extraordinary work there. The degree to which Maier’s work has found rapid popularity and wide exposure is phenomenal. It is easy to see why: the work itself is excellent, her story and the story of her discovery are compelling, and her work coheres stylistically and in content with what many of the top photographers of her generation were doing.

As interesting as the images are -- and her work has been compared to that of Harry Callahan, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Helen Levitt among others – equally fascinating is how little is known about Maier’s life and her motivation for taking these pictures. She printed very few of the negatives. There is no record that she ever showed the images to anyone. When she shot, she typically took only one frame per subject. And then there are the thousands of undeveloped rolls. Roberta Smith in her NY Times review interprets these last two points as a sign of confidence in her ability to get the shot. I’m not convinced of that. That could also be explained by simple economy or an urge to accumulate. Maier was a hoarder, compulsively collecting and organizing newspapers and items she picked up off the street. Pictures of the interior of her apartment show all the rooms – including the bathroom -- filled with boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. It seems the way she approached the material aspects of her photography parallels whatever impulse motivated the hoarding.

At its most fundamental, photography is about sharing, an extension of pointing and saying “look at this” or “remember this.” Why didn’t Maier share? Did she ever intend to show the work? Or was this project obsessively personal? Was she collecting moments, faces, and places? Or was the act of taking the pictures a means of connection, of expressing empathy for the people she photographed? Of course, it can be both a bringing in and a reaching out. As I wonder about Maier’s motivations, another set of questions emerges: how is it that her photographs are so good? Was she familiar with the work of the photographers to which she is now compared? Maier is obviously gifted, but usually this level of visual sophistication is preceded by years of practice and training. Is there evidence of her process of growth? We’ll probably never know, unless a diary turns up.

And is this just the tip of the iceberg? The bulk of her work remains in its negative state, so we may be treated to more and more as the film gets processed, scanned and printed. To my knowledge, this situation in its scale is unique: an unknown photographer’s entire body of work is posthumously presented and marketed, without any precedence for how the images should be printed, or any sense of how the photographer might have edited the work. It seems like John Maloof, who controls the majority of Maier’s images, is treating her work with the appropriate care. Certainly, he has done a great service in bringing this marvelous work to light.

There is something that nags at me about all this, and I’m not sure what it is. I felt it the first time I learned about Vivian Maier: perhaps it is the idea that someone else is profiting from her work when she did not herself. The Maloof Collection is authenticating and copyrighting all the images, which substitutes for the signature of the artist. There may be a technical or legal reason for doing it this way, but that feels odd to me: he may own it, but it is her work. It would sound better if the authentication and copyright was done through an entity like the Vivian Maier Foundation, which existed apart from the commercial interest in the work. In his defense, hearing Maloof speak about his efforts during a lecture at PowerHouse Books in December gave the impression that his heart is in the right place and that he is genuinely interested in her work. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that she is not able to share in the affirmation of her work, and disappointing that she didn’t share it with others during her life.

Vivian Maier: Photographs from the Maloof Collection closes at Howard Greenberg Gallery, 41 E. 57^th St., on January 28. A concurrent exhibition of her work at the Steven Kasher Gallery, 521 W. 23^rd St. remains open through February 25.

At Ziehersmith, Other Bodies: A Collection of Vernacular Photography provides a point of comparison. On display is a selection of 65 images from a collection of around 2,000 that were accumulated (the press release says “from a wide variety of sources” – I take this to mean yard sales, flea markets and the like) by artist Jason Brinkerhoff and curated by gallery owner Scott Zieher. These images are “found” images, the makers typically are unknown and they most frequently record images from everyday life. Many of the images are notable for what is wrong in the picture: accidents of composition or the kind of displacement in which the subject seems simultaneously both strange and familiar. There are some visually remarkable images in this exhibition, but a good deal are more interesting for their sociological content than their aesthetics. Unlike the work of Vivian Maier, which is surrounded by questions about authorship, the images in Other Bodies seem to be authored less by the people behind the camera and more by means of photography itself.

Other Bodies: A Collection of Vernacular Photography at Ziehersmith, 515 W. 20^th St., runs through February 11, 2012.

Advice to Young Artists . . . on the Subject of School

2012-01-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

Let’s assume that you’ve made the decision to attend art school. It is expensive and unless you are specializing in an applied art, like graphic design or commercial photography, after graduation, for most students it will be challenging to sustain oneself in one's chosen field. For talented artists, there will always be opportunities. There just won't be as many opportunities for artists as there are for engineers, or many other professions, relative to the annual pool of graduates of each discipline. However, our society does need artists, in the same way that we need continuing generations of geneticists, doctors, carpenters and so forth. Someone needs to take the plunge.

If you are that person, or if you know someone who is, I highly recommend Advice to Young Artists in a Postmodern Era by William V. Dunning. It should be required reading in all 4-year B.F.A. programs, and ideally assigned in the first or second years. Don’t get thrown by the word “Postmodern” in the title. This book is about how to be a good student in art school and how to get the most from your time there. Like many fields, art is competitive, and students will want to leave school prepared.

As an aside, one might wonder if attending art school is even necessary to become an artist. In theory, I would say no, as there have been other models of study and apprenticeship in the past. However, as a practical matter, as I look at work showing at major galleries here in New York City, I don’t remember seeing a resume of an exhibiting artist under 50 without some form of formal art education listed. I’m sure there must be some, but it is rare. In fact most artists have an M.F.A. in addition to an undergraduate degree.

What makes graduate school so important? From the perspective of one’s career: networking. Most schools have a lecture series that brings in prominent artists, gallerists, and curators, perhaps 5 – 10 each semester. Typically, the lecturer will make a presentation to both the entire student body and afterwards meet individually with the graduate students. These meetings can result in studio assistant positions after graduation, recommendations, introductions, and other opportunities to those who are ready. The faculty of the school itself can be a great resource to the M.F.A. students after graduation. And finally, the relationships formed among classmates will provide the initial source of group support and feedback for the student after school has ended. These connections tend to be deeper at the graduate level.

For aspiring artists who have degrees in other fields, graduate school provides a way to catch up to their B.F.A. peers, Sometimes a year or two of preparation is all that is needed to put together a successful application. For these potential students, graduate school also offers something they probably haven’t experienced before: the time to focus one’s attention on art making free of distraction. This will likely be as significant a benefit of graduate school as the networking possibilities.

Two related issues that I hope to comment on at some point in the future: (1) the debate on whether art itself can be taught; and (2) how to keep going after the support system that school provides has faded into the past.

Chelsea Gallery Notes: James Nares, Damien Hirst, Bill Jenson, Joel Sternfeld

2012-01-15T07:12:00.002-08:00

Some highlights of the current group of shows up in Chelsea in January 2012.

James Nares is best known for his elegant brushstroke paintings: gestures which refer to Asian calligraphy scaled-up by means of home-made brushes and a harness system (which suspends Nares above the canvas) to create larger than life marks of the hand.

Paul Kasmin is showing a precursor to this body of work: James Nares 1976: Films and Other Works presents the artist engaged in a quasi-scientific study of mark making, gesture and motion. Involved in the studies are gravity, pendulums of various forms, and an engineer’s natural curiosity about how things work. This is one of the most fascinating and unusual exhibitions I’ve seen in some time because it gives insight into the creative process of the artist.

I had one of those a-hah moments connecting the dots between the motion of the pendulum and the suspended painter, linking through process two bodies of work that visually are so different. That kind of leap is what creativity is all about – and it is refreshing to see. Paul Kasmin Gallery, 515 W. 27^th St., through February 11, 2012.

I say refreshing to see because it is a commonplace to say that with a lot of contemporary art, the art part is eclipsed by the merchandising and marketing aspects. This is obviously a lead in to Gagosian’s Damien Hirst extravaganza: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011. More has been written about the economic and sociological aspects of Hirst’s work than the actual experience of looking at it, and for good reason. I was pre-disposed not to like this show, but to my surprise, there is something to see here.

There is a predicable retinal sensation produced by patterns of multiple discrete elements within a field – this was recognized by the Pointillists and provides the technical foundation of op-art since the 1960’s. Many of the spot paintings – those with lots of relatively small spots -- trade on that kind of optical sensation and are not particularly remarkable.

But there is a subset of the paintings that function in a surprising way. They have fewer elements, square grids of 9 or 16 spots. On these, the spots seem to hover above the ground of the canvas as if detached from it. Additionally, the composition – simple as it is – feels dynamic. The unusual decision not to leave any canvas between the spot and the edge is the reason for the sense of implied motion, pushing the spots on the perimeter outwards. It is an interesting and unexpected optical effect.

Gagosian Gallery, 555 W 24^th St. and 522 W 21^st St., through February 18, 2012. I think it is only necessary to see this work once; the installation at the 21^st St. location is the stronger one.

I’d encourage anyone interested in painting to take a look at Bill Jenson’s work at Cheim and Read. Lush painterly abstractions, suggestive of both the subterranean and the subconscious, these are a real treat to see. Cheim & Read, 547 W 25^th St., through February 18, 2012.

And finally, to relive the vibrance of the 1970’s, head over to Luhring Augustine to view First Pictures by Joel Sternfeld. Masterfully composed slices of life, taken with a gentle eye. Luhring Augustine, 531 W 24^th, through February 4, 2012.

Bertien van Manen at Yancy Richardson

2012-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

Gallery season is starting up again in Chelsea. On Thursday evening I went to the opening of Bertien van Manen's Let's sit down before we go, an exhibition of photographs taken over the past two decades in the former Soviet Union. The show will be up at the Yancy Richardson Gallery through February 11. In this work, van Manen combines the diaristic intensity of Nan Golden with the abjectness of Boris Mikhailov. What is striking is the psychological nuance of Manen's portraits: how unguarded, open or vulnerable her subjects appear -- while at the same time seeming reserved, wary of outsiders, and not at ease with themselves.

This seemed especially so, as I had just been to the Joel Sternfield show at Luhring Augustine: the Americans of the 1970's in Sternfeld's pictures generally seemed so self-satisfied and uncomplicated while the 1990-2000's era Russians in Manen's were anything but. Van Manen on the top; Sternfeld below:

Where does that kind of complexity come from? Was there a sociological reason for it? Was it in the subject, or did it come from the photographer? Part of the answer may lie in van Manen's approach. She tries to become a part of whatever community she is photographing, to the extent of learning the language and developing personal relationships with her subjects. To the degree that she can, she becomes an insider. A few more from the show at Yancy Richardson:

For some background on van Manen, there is a short interview here in which she discusses a prior body work titled Give Me Your Image, featured at MoMA's 2005 New Photography exhibition.

Roland Fischer's Figure and Ground

2012-01-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

Roland Fischer is a German photographer who shows at Von Lintel Gallery in New York. He has done several series of portraits shot in swimming pools that are remarkable for several reasons. One is his lighting, which casts absolutely no reflection on the surface of the water. This has the effect of placing the figure in an almost abstract, ethereal space.

The water reaches the level of the collarbone, creating a portrait bust-like shape which provides the basis for an unusual figure/ground relationship. One can read the image as being broken into two clearly defined sections: the model and the water. In my introductory photo classes, I often talk about the significance of the ground and the importance of creating interesting negative space (non-figure) shapes. Fischer's use of the pool solves this problem in a very elegant way.

But there is a third section: where water and the figure overlap. This area functions as a transitional space in which both elements exist simultaneously and provides an alternative to the either/or of the figure and ground. This area becomes very significant, and I think the intent is to use the suggestion of intermediacy to go beyond portraiture and into philosophy -- a discussion of his work expands to include the ways that we divide and categorize.

There's one more thing: the water as background comes in front of the figure, creating a kind of compositional/metaphysical joke. Below is another example of Fischer's work, from a series of building facades, shown at Von Lintel last September. Is this figure, or is this ground?

Carsten Holler at the New Museum: Zero Impact

2012-01-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

Pills dispensed from a ceiling-mounted chute mass in a huge pile in one of Carsten Holler's pieces in his mid-career survey at the New Museum. There is a nearby water-cooler and stack of paper cups, inviting gallery goers to take a chance. Pulling apart the gelatin capsule, the pill was empty -- an apt metaphor for a show titled Experience. There has been a lot of criticism regarding the show itself and the more general trend in contemporary art towards spectacle. Rather than repeating those arguments, I'll simply recommend Jerry Saltz' recap of curatorial abdication in New York magazine or Karen Rosenberg's review in the NY Times.

The mirrored carousel.

For me, the various experiences were neither profound, intense, nor subtle. Walking away from the museum, I wondered what, if anything, I was taking with me. What was the experience I had just had and how did that measure up against other comparable experiences? There were technical reasons why the exhibition fell short. One example: the mirrored goggles failed to cover the entire field of one's peripheral vision, preventing a complete entering into the upside down world they were designed to create. This isn't nit-picking. For a show constructed to challenge a viewer's perceptual preconceptions, details matter.

The entrance to the slide everyone is talking about. It corkscews through 2 floors and takes about 5 seconds.

Taken as a whole, was my sense of perception expanded? The best art can show how the world has changed. It can give the viewer a greater sense of what is possible. It can facilitate the perception of external change or the awareness of something within yourself you had not recognized previously. I remember the first Gursky show I saw back in the mid 1990's. As I was walking through New York, to my surprise I saw Gurskys everywhere, where I had seen none before. My manner of seeing had been changed, and now I was seeing the world through his eyes. I've been less interested in Gursky's work since that initial encounter, but that first experience was a powerful one. I've had similar experiences after looking at the work of Gerhard Richter and Robert Irwin, and many other artists. I had no such experience walking up Bowery after I'd left the New Museum.

Pierre Gonnard at Hasted Kraeutler

2011-12-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

Pierre Gonnard is a photographer obsessed with light and the tradition of painting. References to Caravaggio, Ribera, Vermeer, and other old masters abound. In fact several of his large-scale portraits at the Hasted Kraeutler gallery look more like copy photographs of paintings than likenesses of the sitters themselves. His subjects are chosen from those whom Gonnard considers existing on the fringes of society: Gypsies, the blind, punks, immigrants, circus performers, and monks.

The intent behind photographing his subjects in this old master style is to both ennoble the individual and to reference the universality and timelessness of suffering. The work is visually striking, and Gonnard’s technique masterful, but there is something very wrong with these pictures.

There is an absence of discovery in the work, which suggests a lack of attentiveness to the sitter. Through the formalized posing, his subjects often seem homogenized. And for work that purports to celebrate the dignity of each person, forcing them into a simulation of a prior era’s style has the opposite effect; people are turned into art historical references and types. It might be easier to consume images this way, but ultimately it is less illuminating and less truthful.

So how does a photographer express a universal social concern and honor the uniqueness of each individual? Part of it is treating your subject as a person, rather than as an object. Another part is maintaining an open mind about who or what your subject actually is.

You can see Walker Evans’ engagement with his subjects. As viewers, we are aware of Evans’ process of looking through the lens; we see how he frames and composes. And we see a fluidity in how he does that – he is actively responding to what is in front of him using a visual language that is fully of the moment. There is modesty in the best sense in his work, and dignity for the people he photographs.

Both Evans and Gonnard are telling stories about their subjects' lives, stories that are intended to elicit an empathetic response in the viewer. Evans invites the viewer to share in his process of discovering the story; for Gonnard, the story already exists prior to his taking the picture.

Adam Fuss, Man Ray, Anna Atkins, Wim Delvoye

2011-12-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

What is a photogram?

Seems worth mentioning now that many people start their photographic education without stepping foot inside a darkroom. Some of the earliest photographic images were made without a camera. The simplest way to make a photogram is to place an object, a piece of lace or a leaf, for example, on top of light-sensitive paper in a darkroom, expose it to light and process it. The resulting image will be a stencil of the object. Early uses of this technique included catalogs of botanical subjects. Photograms were preferred over drawings because they were considered to be more accurate. Prior to the development of continuous tone reproduction techniques, botanical taxonomies were produced by tipping in actual photograms of the species cataloged. Thus each book was illustrated with hundreds of original and unique photograms. Below is an example by Anna Atkins from the 1840's followed by a contemporary approach to a similar subject, by Adam Fuss.

As many of the technical problems associated with photographic reproduction were solved, making photograms became superseded by methods more descriptive of surfaces and corresponding more closely to human vision. Almost eighty years later, the technique was revived by artists and photographers, like Man Ray, who wished to go beyond surface description to get at a physical or psychological essence, combining the realism offered by photography with results which are open and allusive. A Man Ray, followed again by an Adam Fuss:

One final comparison, this one between a Man Ray photogram and a Wim Delvoye photograph derived from an x-ray:

Adam McEwen at Marianne Boesky

2011-12-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

One of the more interesting shows I've seen recently was the work of Adam McEwen at the Marianne Boesky Gallery. McEwen showed a series of life sized sculptures of everyday objects -- a water fountain, mirror, air conditioner, safe -- fabricated out of graphite. The work seems to be a form of ironic perfectionism in which the details of the objects are rendered flawlessly although somewhat abstractly, as if the object had no history. But what I found most compelling is the surface itself, as the graphite oddly mimics the form of the original while being simultaneously suggestive of a heavy layer of pencil on paper. A very clever idea: sculptures made out of the implement of drawings.

The show is up through December 17. 118 E. 64th St.

As an aside, thinking about the surface of these sculptures reminds me of another artist who takes advantage of the materiality of graphite. In the mid 90's, I saw a series of brilliant drawings by Quentin Morris at Larry Becker Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. The pencil drawings were built up of layers of marks until the paper surface develops the sheen of polished metal. There's really no way to describe this well in a photograph, as it has to be seen in person the get the full effect.

Cathode Rayograms

2011-12-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is some earlier work of mine. The images in this series are enlarged photograms, ranging in size from about 40 x 30 to 60 x 48 inches. The photograms are generated by the light a TV set emits as it is turned off. Abstract and ambiguous, yet based in the factuality of the photographic process, I am interested in the connection between the mechanical basis of the image's creation and the images’ metaphorical and psychological possibilities. This mechanical “gesture” connects our culture’s obsessive involvement with technology to what have been enduring concerns in the history of art: the nature of light as metaphor and abstraction as archetypal form.

a detail of the image above: