Spirit West

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Taos, New Mexico. Photograph by Ansel Adams. 1929.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Taos, New Mexico, completed around 1815, is relatively well known as the subject and inspiration for many artists and photographers, most famously Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams. It has also long been my favorite building in the world - perfect both as a piece of sculpture and a spiritual symbol. I thought of it recently as I drove by the carved form of Frank Gehry’s IAC building on the Westside Highway.

I was introduced to the church through photographs, but when I first traveled to New Mexico, originally to meet with Eliot Porter in Santa Fe, I went out of my way to visit it. The thing that immediately strikes you about the church is the handmade adobe construction which creates the feeling that it has risen from some giant potter’s wheel. If you walk around it today you are disheartened to find that power lines and encroaching buildings make it impossible to recreate the famous shots of the 1930s. But, of course, the fact that those images are not infinitely reproducible has made them all the more special.

Three images in particular have stood the test of time in my own mental image bank – the Adams, a Laura Gilpin, and a Paul Strand. Each, surprisingly, found different angles of what is actually the back view of the church and it’s uncharacteristically difficult for me to pick a favorite of the three. What do you think?

And if any readers have taken their own favorite picture of the church, please e-mail to: jd@danzigerprojects.com.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Taos, New Mexico. Photograph by Laura Gilpin. 1938.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Taos, New Mexico. Photograph by Paul Strand. 1932.

Weekend Video

With two #1 hit singles, a platinum album and a talent and persona that have made her pop’s new princess, Lady Gaga appears to have come out of nowhere to grab the zeitgeist of the moment.

One clear indication of this is the number of Lady Gaga tributes on YouTube - and having not done this for a while, I felt it was past time to do another of our tribute round-ups. This time to Gaga’s 2nd hit “Poker Face”.

Comments, please, on the one you like best! (Not counting the original above.)

And last, if you're not completely sick of the song, an interesting live version from the real Lady Gaga showing that none of these pop successes are accidental. There's real talent here.

Hugh Van Es. 1942 - 2009.

Hugh Van Es. Saigon Evacuation, 1975.

The Dutch photographer Hugh van Es, who died this week, became famous for his iconic picture of Americans leaving Saigon, on one of the last helicopters out, on 29 April 1975, the day before the city was captured by the North Vietnamese army at the end of the Vietnam war. At the time he was working as a staff photographer for United Press International.

The photograph has usually been assumed to be of the US embassy, but in an article in The New York Times a few years ago, Van Es wrote: "If you looked north from the office balcony, towards the cathedral, about four blocks from us, on the corner of Tu Do and Gia Long, you could see a building called the Pittman Apartments, where we knew the CIA station chief and many of his officers lived. Several weeks earlier, the roof of the elevator shaft had been reinforced with steel plate so that it would be able to take the weight of a helicopter. A makeshift wooden ladder now ran from the lower roof to the top of the shaft. Around 2.30 in the afternoon, while I was working in the darkroom, I suddenly heard Bert Okuley [a UPI staffer who escaped that evening] shout 'Van Es, get out here, there's a chopper on that roof!'"

Van Es grabbed his camera and dashed to the balcony. "Looking at the Pittman Apartments," he said, "I could see 20 or 30 people on the roof, climbing the ladder to an American Huey helicopter. At the top of the ladder stood an American in civilian clothes, pulling people up and shoving them inside. Of course there was no possibility that all the people on the roof could get into the helicopter, and it took off with 12 or 14 on board ... Those left on the roof waited for hours, hoping for more helicopters to arrive. To no avail."

After shooting about 10 frames, Van Es went back to the darkroom and prepared a print for his regular 5pm transmission to Tokyo. It took about 12 minutes to send a single print with a caption but, as he laconically put it: "Editors didn't read captions carefully in those days." The picture was erroneously described as showing the embassy roof and, after years of trying to put the record straight, the photographer gave up. "Thus," he said later, "one of the best known images of the Vietnam war shows something other than what almost everyone thinks it does."

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Currently exhibiting the work of the Bechers, this is the first room you walk into when entering the Fraenkel Gallery.

One of the most impressive photography sites in San Francisco is the Fraenkel Gallery at 49 Geary Street. Now celebrating their 30th Anniversary, the gallery pretty much sets the bar on how to do things with the utmost refinement, quality, and care - as you will see from all these pictures. I'm not sure that the early masters of photography could have even envisioned something like this - multiple galleries and private showrooms, busy staff, a level of finish you would expect to see only when looking at old master paintings. But Fraenkel have not only grown but thrived - and the secret of their success, I believe, is a passion for the work they show and the environment they create for it. Whether in their gallery, or in the cards and catalogs they print, or when they do an art fair there is a level of perfectionism that puts them in a league of their own. Follow me ...

A second gallery leads to yet another room.

In every room, the sight lines into the next room are carefully thought out.

Here, Richard Avedon's portrait of Robert Frank.

In the back office, a wall of invitation posters from previous shows.

Gallery registrar, Claire Cichy at her desk. Note the poster of a great image I had never seen before - Lee Friedlander's "The Topless Bride" from 1967.

A framed group of photo booth portraits taken at the gallery's 25th anniversary party. Click to see how many photo notables you can identify.

A work in progress - a maquette for the gallery's booth at next month's Basel Art Fair.

A Friedlander and an Eggleston in one of the private rooms.

A large Sugimoto movie theater and a smaller Robert Adams.

In the same back room a specially constructed table flips open to present smaller works.

An Adam Fuss and an Idris Khan.

And last but not least, gallery director Frish Brandt, our guide on the tour.

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In the back office, a wall of invitation posters from previous shows.

Gallery assistant, Frish Brandt at her desk.

A framed group of photo booth portraits taken at the gallery's 30th anniversary party. Click to see how many photo notables you can identify.

A work in progress - a maquette for the gallery's booth at next month's Basel Art Fair.

San Francisco ctd.

Currently exhibiting the work of the Bechers, this is the first room you walk into when entering the Fraenkel Gallery.

One of the most impressive photography sites in San Francisco is the Fraenkel Gallery at 49 Geary Street. Now approaching their 35th Anniversary, the gallery pretty much sets the bar on how to do things with the utmost refinement, quality, and care - as you will see from all these pictures. I'm not sure that the early masters of photography could have even envisioned something like this - multiple galleries and private showrooms, busy staff, a level of finish you would expect to see only when looking at old master paintings. But Fraenkel have not only grown but thrived - and the secret of their success, I believe, is a passion for the work they show and the environment they create for it. Whether in their gallery, or in the cards and catalogs they print, or when they do an art fair there is a level of perfectionism that puts them in a league of their own. You'll see ...

A second gallery leads to yet another room.

In every room, the sight lines into the next room are carefully thought out.

Here, Richard Avedon's portrait of Robert Frank.

A Picture for Memorial Day

AP Photo/David Guttenfelder

It may not be "Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima", but the picture above by David Guttenfelder makes an interesting addition to the history of war photographs - a genre we would of course be happy there were no more need for. Nevertheless it's a good picture, so kudos to the photographer, David Guttenfender who was embedded with the battalion, and an interesting story.

Pictured here, soldiers from the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry take defensive positions after receiving fire from Taliban snipers in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. Spc. Zachery Boyd was woken up by the gunfire and rushed from his sleeping quarters to join his fellow platoon members without the time to put pants on over his "I ♥ NY" boxers. At first worried that he would be disciplined, by the time Spc. Boyd's story had made its way on to front pages around the U.S., even Defense Secretary Robert Gates was moved to commend his courage. "The next time I visit Afghanistan, I want to meet Specialist Boyd and shake his hand." said Gates. "Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage!"

The soldiers next to Boyd are Spcs. Cecil Montgomery of Louisiana and Jordan Custer of Spokane, Wash. While they are both wearing pants, Spc. Custer has no socks and is wearing silver running shoes.

From San Francisco

Map charting the three principal trips Robert Frank took from June 1955 to June 1956 shooting pictures for what was to become "The Americans".

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, I had the chance to catch up with the exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The Americans” which originated at the National Gallery and now runs through August 23 in San Francisco before moving to The Met in New York.

As most of you know, Robert Franks groundbreaking book was published 50 years ago and pretty much changed the course of photography. With a sensitive and yet tough eye, Frank looked at America and saw a profound sense of sadness under the rah-rah facade. He noted the changing iconography of America and noted that cars, diners, gas stations, and even the road itself were the new symbols of contemporary life. He saw cracks and divisions between rich and poor, black and white, those with power and those without, and recorded his observations in a seemingly loose but obviously controlled manner – shocking the establishment with his blurred foregrounds, tilted horizons, and off-kilter compositions. Frank’s vision of America was a mix of jazz and blues to his friend and supporter Walker Evans’ classical symphonies and perhaps shockingly every picture holds up today.

It’s a fabulous show, presenting some of Frank’s work prior to "The Americans", showing how the book came together, and then plunging you into a breathtaking display of all 83 pictures from the book laid out in sequence. I obviously can’t show all that – and the book is readily available in it’s 50th anniversary edition – but here’s a special treat:

Right before you enter the first room, there’s a huge display of three enormous frames in which a selection of 11 x 14 inch prints are arranged according to Frank’s memory to simulate the way he pinned up pictures on his wall to edit the book. A number of the prints were ones that didn’t make the final cut and I don’t believe that I, or indeed many people have ever seen them before. So here they are. Enjoy!

RF2

RF3

From Carmel

Well, I couldn't leave out dogs could I? This is Edward Weston's grand-daughter Cara's dog examining me as I'm looking at Edward Weston photographs. My trip to Carmel was to look at the prints that belong to the family that were printed by Edwards' son Cole Weston (Cara's dad).

For a long time these prints were a common denominator of collectors and collections, but they're beautiful and increasingly rare, and I think it's past time for a revisionist approach. So the point of my visit was to work out the details of a show I have been planning with Cara. More on which later.

In the meantime I'll just post a few of the many pictures I'll be showing from the iconic to the less well known, which I've just had the pleasure of holding in my hands.

Shell, 1927

Nude, 1927

Clouds, 1936

Dunes, 1936

Rain Over Modoc Lava Beds, 1937