Month: May 2016

Art Rant: Photo London

(Art Rant: because sometimes you just gotta vent!)

Photo London – Key operative word: customer experience – Evaluation: bad – Somerset House as an art venue, why? A strange and confusing labyrinth of small and mostly badly lit rooms taking photography fairs back to their inception; old men in over used tweed jackets and dirty nails sifting through boxes looking for “cartes postales coquines”. Exaggerated? Of course, but Art Fair customer experience (saturated by choice) should not be restricted by the architectural limitations of the venues they are held in. The city ensconcing the most Billionaires in the world needs to do better than that.

@Anthony Hernandez
Anthony Hernandez Rome #16, 1999 ©Anthony Hernandez, courtesy Gallery Thomas Zander

Best in show: Thomas Zander represents all that is good in photography today. More than anyone he knows how to present “classic” photography with a well-defined contemporary feel. There is no go or bad media; there are good or bad artists, and, good or better works by these artists. The display in his large rectangular space, one of the few good spaces at Somerset house, is a perfect example of his mindset. Across the entrance, above the fireplace, we are pulled in by an intense blue Anthony Hernandez piece, facing it on the other side of the room is a large Mitch Epstein in rich greys. To the left and right of them, two very different artists erupt in conversation. Ensconced by a selection of Larry Clark’s Tulsa series and a Bernd and Hilla Becher vintage grid, a large Candida Höfer in cold and bright acid colours (a 2003 image of a Museum shop bookcase) faces a joyous, brilliantly hung grid of black and white Studio 54 images by Tod Papageorge. Candida Höfer, at 71 is no spring chicken, yet how is it that her picture feels so pertinent and contemporary? It is the result of concept and intent of Thomas’ distinct eye for quality and very astute sense of space.

@Evelyn Hofer
Evelyn Hofer Phoenix Park on a Sunday, Dublin 1966 @Evelyn Hofer, courtesy RoseGallery

West coast flower power: Rose Shoshana; The Mother of photography dealers, always enthusiastic and generous with her time was stuck in a badly lit overly warm corner. Her booth shows magnificent and rare Evelyn Hofer and William Eggleston dye transfer prints going for approximately the same price ($40k or less) as the uninventive pretentious void of a Jean-Baptiste Huynh print. Hello! Dye transfer prints are pure magic! This rare and complicated technique is the most vibrant expression at the heart of the historical renaissance of American color photography. Why have they not sold out?

Bright youngish thing: The poetic and humorous charm of Alec Soth at Weinstein Gallery

©Alec Soth
Alec Soth, ©Alec Soth courtesy Weinstein Gallery

Rant: At Somerset House, some spaces are better than others, one feels for the “emerging” dealers stuck in the bowels of the building surely attracted by the lure of London’s Millionaires. But did they dare go into the cave? Had they any chance of actually seeing anything in this cluttered, unattractive and sad looking space?

The “basic instinct” heterosexual club: Hamiltons Gallery, where you will see more of Peter Beard’s trite ejaculations, some sexy chick pics (in poses they will regret some day) and an uninteresting image by Robert Mapplethorpe. This déja-vu selection is saved by the magical purity of Irving Penn’s flower pictures. Thankfully, for us and the Irving Penn estate, (reminder: one of the most talented, innovative, fundamental and pivotal pillars of 20th century photography/art), his prime dealer is Peter MacGill, whose sense of quality, knowledge and taste should be the golden standard. The difference between Hamiltons Gallery and YellowKorner shops? Price point. Oh and Hamiltons doesn’t sell pictures of cars, or do they?

© Irving Penn Foundation.jpg
Irving Penn ©Irving Penn Foundation courtesy Hamiltons Gallery

Camera Work Berlin; yet again the Worlds number one purveyor of decorative emptiness, is doing very well, thank you. Think of the (already mentioned) vapid, faux-chic works by Jean Baptiste Huynh or the seductive crowd-pleasing images by fashion photographers. Blown up, bad quality prints of Vogue shoots. (Helmut Newton’s estate and Paolo Roversi deserve better company)

Photography, as any art media should rock our world, move us, taunt us, and ravish us. Or, just appease and certainly elevate and educate us. Admittedly, reacting to something, as I am doing now, is already the recognition of its existence. But come on, Art Dealers and Art Fair organisers, always take the discourse to a higher level, don’t take your clients, on whose patronage you depend, for fools. Show quality in surroundings that honour their creator’s intentions.

In Praise of: Wolfgang Tillmans

“Photography always lies about what’s in front of the camera, but it never lies about what is behind, it always clearly reveals the intentions that are behind… Allowing and being as prepared as possible for what might happen, while staying open for what chance may come into play, is my way of working.”

As beautifully said by Wolfgang in a Lecture at Royal Academy of Arts in London on February 22, 2011. The viewer always gets to glimpse at the soul of the artist: the freer and more sensitive the soul, the better his gift to us.

Using the medium of photography in all its forms, hyper sensitive, refined and inquisitive, Wolfgang Tillmans is one of his generation’s most prominent and pertinent artists. He challenges the presumptions of contemporary life, the subterfuge of expected transparency. Like his admired fellow-countryman, Gerhard Richter, well known for his multiple forms of painterly expression, Wolfgang enjoys experimenting with a palette of techniques and variety of subjects. His approach to photography, oscillating between the random and the specific, is sensuous and sensorial. His subjects vary from portraits, still lives and architecture, or  can be abstract, such as  Freischwimmer and Blushes or the earlier Silver series. Painterly images made purely from reactions of light or dirt and agile manipulation of photographic printing paper.

In many ways, he is the natural heir of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Like them, he  develops series, has a love for texture and serendipitous flubs. These imperfections add a touch of humanity, a touch of the relatable. Wolfgang engages us in the pleasure he gets from the chance effects on his first “Photocopy” series, or, in “Arcadia”, the texture of the sweat on nape of the necks of nightclub revellers, to the exuberant explosion of high definition color in his recent still lives.

As Warhol and Rauschenberg before him, he uses photography as a base for his art, but is not limited by it. Much like his forefathers, Wolfgang is man of his times and is aware of the Political power his work can convey. His seemingly ordinary images of modern life always carry an undercurrent message. Freedom to live and love is never a given, it always involves vigilance and work.

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“This photograph (The Cock (Kiss), 2002) of two guys kissing got slashed by a visitor at the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington. I’m always aware that one should never take liberties for granted. For hundreds and hundreds of years this was not normal, not acceptable, and this term of acceptable is really what I connect beauty to … beauty is of course always political, as it describes what is acceptable or desirable in society. That is never fixed, and always needs reaffirming and defending.”

With homes and studios in Berlin and London for the last twenty years, Wolfgang is well aware of the magnificent luck we Europeans have in living in the most progressive and inclusive place on earth. The blatant electoral ambitions of Britain’s Prime Minister and the bleached blond Iago, his brutal and egocentric wannabe successor, remind us of Alphonse de Lamartine’s words: “Charmer, s’égarer et mourir” (to charm, to stray and to die). Enticing youth to enlist and participate in their future, Wolfgang, staunchly anti Brexit, launched a powerful open source campaign denouncing the dangerous and self serving game played by manipulative politicians.

Curious of the alchemy of the world and its vulnerability, Wolfgang transforms his extraordinary sensitivity and intuition into tangible objects for us to admire. Open hearted but attentive, he is unburdened by the corrosive breath of melancholy and studies the world without judgment. A beautiful mirror of our need to love, our battles, our gains and our frailty.

All images ©Wolfgang Tillmans

Published in SuperMassiveBlackHole Mag. 20.05.16