The 2010 Top Ten list

What is December 31 without a top ten list?

It’s been an odd year. A recovery year where it seemed like there were fewer highs and lows as everyone hunkered down with fingers crossed. Photographers being the creative people they are, however, signs of life could not be kept down and so in no particular order here are my top ten visual pleasures of 2010.

1. Richard Learoyd.

Working with a self-made camera that creates highly detailed near life-size images by projecting an image directly onto photographic paper without any interposing negative – Learoyd has invigorated at least three genres at once – cameraless (or more accurately film-less) photography, portraiture, and still life.

2. Auctions.

Continuing to make inroads into what was traditionally gallery territory, the auction houses (particularly Christies and Phillips) are putting on more interesting, original, and varied sales. And for the astute collector there are always bargains. This Irving Penn self-portrait from 1948 went for what I’m sure will be seen as a buy at $45,000 at Christies in London this past spring. I'd say it's worth at least double.

3. Mickalene Thomas.

The connections between contemporary art and traditional photography continue to intertwine as seen here in Mickalene Thomas’ bad-ass tribute to Seydou Keita. Jumping between painting, appliqué, and photography, Mickalene Thomas is just one of the new breed of hyphenates making waves as the art and photography world continue to grow closer together.

4. Susan Derges.

After a relatively quiet period, Susan Derges – one of the fab four of British camera-less photography – has re-emerged with a series of new photograms based around the idea of rock pools. In this image, Jackson Pollock meets Turner as light, color, and line intersect in a glorious mixture of fresh photographic ideas.

5. Tokyo Photo.

Gaining strength and energy – Tokyo Photo is fast emerging as the go-to fair of the east. Founder Tomo Harada, pictured above, has made it his mission to make the event a must see and entering year three the mix of American and Japanese dealers is creating an ever more exciting cultural exchange.

6. Patrick Smith.

Top of the list of new(ish) names that have emerged in photography this year is French photographer Patrick Smith. While clearly working in the tradition of Vitali and Niedermayr, Smith’s pictorial eye and immaculate exposures have a purity all their own.

7. Surprises.

No matter how much you think you know about photography, there are always surprises. Going through Art Miami I came across a group of pictures of Elizabeth Taylor by Frank Worth. I don’t know how I had never seen or heard of these images before but that is what makes life so interesting. (And boy, was she a beauty!)

8. Bruce Weber.

One of the best museum shows around (and up through February 13), Bruce Weber’s photographs of the residents of Miami’s “Little Haiti” neighborhood at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami are a reflection of Weber’s outstanding skill and diversity. To those who only think of Weber as a fashion photographer, the work may be a surprise, but to any one who has followed his career closely, the humanism and warmth of the work should come only as a welcome treat.

9. Jim Krantz.

One of the few disappointments of this gallery year for me was putting off a show of Jin Krantz’s work when we couldn’t get the releases we needed. Krantz is probably the most distinguished of the Marlboro photographers whose work was appropriated by Richard Prince for his “Cowboys” series. But Krantz is back in the saddle making new images strictly for himself of which the above image shot in 2010 is just the beginning. Stay tuned.

10. Teresa Vlckova

Noted as one of the highlights of Aperture’s latest round-up of new talent - reGeneration 2 – Teresa Vlckova creates pictures that pull us into her otherworldly universe of flying girls and Brothers Grimm-like twins. Born in 1983 in Vsetín, Czech Republic. Vlčková’s work will be seen in the U.S. for the first time in January when Aperture exhibits a selection of work of the 80 photographers featured in the book "reGeneration 2".

Unexcused Winter Absence

Yuji Obata. Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #1. 2005 - 2006.

It has been a long time hasn’t it? That’s the problem with doing art fairs (PULSE Miami) and having a gallery. And a family, And a dog. NO TIME FOR BLOGGING!!!! Anyway, I just checked and saw that I’ve been blogging since November 2007 so bear with me. I won’t let anything really good go un-noticed.

So where were we? Michael Wolf. The answers to the question of which were Wolf’s pictures and which were other Google Earth grabs is: Michael Wolf – numbers 1, 3, 5, 6. Nobody was fooled!

Speaking of good things, my latest enthusiasm is for the work of Yuji Obata who we are now lucky enough to represent. I was introduced to Obata’s work by Yoshiko Suzuki, curator of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, who was kind enough to give me a rare copy of Obata’s study of winter in the Hokkaido Province titled “Winter Tale”.

Yuji Obata was born in Japan in 1962. He attended the Nihon University College of Art and currently resides in Tokyo. In 2003, Obata was compelled to photograph winter scenes in Japan as he stood in front of Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Hunters in the Snow" in Vienna's Museum of Art History. Upon returning to Japan, he traveled to the country's northernmost island, Hokkaidō, known for its cold and snowy winters. As he worked there photographing ice skaters at a middle school rink and a local speed skating team, his enchantment with images of winter deepened. Traveling around different regions of the island in winter, he began noticing the varied qualities of the snow itself, and finally became fascinated with the unique challenge of photographing snowflakes in motion as they fell from the sky.

Obata was inspired by the story and works of W.A. Bentley, an American farmer and photographer who adapted a camera and microscope to photograph a single snow crystal for the first time in 1885. Bentley went on to photograph more than 5,000 snowflakes in his lifetime, and his technique was so successful that it continues to be used today.

Like Bentley, Obata was obsessed with the challenge of doing something no one had done before – in his case photographing snowflakes in freefall rather than on a flat surface without digital or any other manipulation. It took Obata five years to achieve but his breakthrough resulted in the capture of pictures that allow the snowflakes to relate to each other in space and size, creating dynamic compositions and scenes. Obata chose to shoot the series in the mountains of Hokkaidō, based on its extreme cold and its history as the place where Dr. Ukichiro Nakaya did research that led to his invention of artificial snow. And while Obata is properly reverent to those who inspired him in this project, his photographs stand alone as fresh and original works.

I hope you enjoy them and if I don’t get around to posting again for a while I hope you'll find these pictures seasonally cheery and appropriate. Happy Holidays!

Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #4. 2005 - 2006.

Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #10. 2005 - 2006.

Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #7. 2005 - 2006.

Homage to Wilson A. Bentley #8. 2005 - 2006.

Weekend Video

The new single and video from Antony and the Johnsons.

Weekend Video

Antony and the Johnsons performing on David Letterman.

From my iPhone - L.A.

To my pleasure and surprise, when I checked in to the Sunset Tower Hotel, I was informed I was being upgraded to a suite with a balcony and city view. But best of all, when I got in from dinner, the view from my room was this spectacular moonrise over L.A.!

Kick-Ass

This weekend I went to see "Kick-Ass" which turned out to be one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a long time. Best described as teen comedy meets Quentin Tarantino, it kept me riveted with its sheer film-making brio, story telling, interesting characters, and entertainment.

I usually find movies derived from comic books predictable and boring, especially in the plot lines of the villain who is trying to take over the world/destroy our hero. But "Kick-Ass" has a much more engrossing conflict, dimensional characters, and two genuinely interesting and talented young leads.

The movie is generating some controversy over the fact that Chloe Moretz, who plays the profanity spewing, villain slicing and dicing, Hit-Girl was 11 when the film was shooting. And I have to respect that many people might be offended by an 11 year old greeting bad guys with the c-word before killing them all. So that should be the litmus test of whether you see the film or not.

(With that warning, if you want to see what I'm talking about - click here.)

Weekend Video

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

Another art historical referencing video - this one "70 Million" by Hold Your Horses - kindly recommended by my assistant Kate Ryan.

Risky Business

As readers of this blog will know, I'm a huge fan of photographer Ryan McGinley and New York Times Magazine Director of Photography, Kathy Ryan. And I'm pleased to say - they've done it again! After creating a hugely successful Summer Olympics portfolio in 2004, they've just produced a brand new Winter Olympics portfolio on the theme of "Highfliers".

I won't steal the magazine's thunder by nabbing their pictures so here's a link. And by the way, in my opinion, this kind of collaboration, with no absolute guarantee of success, is one of the few things that can keep that business vital and alive. Be smart. Be creative. Take risks!

Gender Bender

In a recent study by Richard Russell of Harvard University, the two faces above were perceived as male and female. However, both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face. One face was created by increasing the contrast of the face, while the other face was created by decreasing the contrast. The face with more contrast is perceived as female, while the face with less contrast is perceived as male.

I'm not sure that this proves much more than that pale skin and darker lips look more feminine, but perhaps it also provides a useful printing (or make-up) tip.

24/7

A while ago I was looking to see what cool iPhone apps there were for the phone’s camera when I landed on the site TechCrunch and a story on Japan’s 32 best iPhone apps. Most of the apps were games (which are of no particular interest to me), but one app appealed to me because of its blend of photography and what seemed a perfect instance of form following function in the most populist (pandering) way. This is Bijin-Tokei - a clock app which shows 1,440 different pictures of girls (one for every minute of the day) each holding a blackboard showing the current time. (Bijin Tokei means Hot Girl Clock.) To be exact, you often get the same girl displaying several different minutes. Apparently finding 1,440 willing models was too tough for v.1..

This seemed like such a simple formula for any kind of photography – I imagine if you’re a birder or a train spotter the thought of a different picture every minute of the day would cause equal excitement - I immediately recommended the idea to the photographer Stephen Schuster who has been working on a spring break project. We'll see if he takes my advice and gets rich!

As of yet there doesn’t seem to be an American version, but according to Asiajin: The Next Generation Internet Trends in Japan and Asia, there is now Binan Tokei – beautiful boys clock, Gal Tokei, Pit Babe version, a Korean version, and a planned French version.

Not surprisingly the latest Tokei, AV-Tokei, features slightly different girls, i.e. pornstars. (“AV” is an abbreviation of “Adaruto Bideo/Adult Video).

Lady and Gentleman photographers of all stripes: start your engines!

Weekend Video

A summer clip for a winter day:

One of the highlights of last summer's Woodstock anniversary was Barbara Koppel's documentary, "Woodstock: Now and Then", full of old newsreels, concert footage, and now and thens of many of the performers and concert goers. One of the interviewees who particularly stood out for me was Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, who I remember from my teen years as being about the coolest guy around and whose cool I thought stood up pretty well 40 years on!

A great anecdote from the film, was the story of how Carlos Santana was so zonked out on mescalin he thought his guitar was a snake and most of his performance was trying to hold on to the writhing snake and keep it under some kind of control. So here are both the full performance of "Soul Sacrifice" (above), and a clip from the Koppel doc. (below). I noticed that only 488 people had seen this clip on YouTube so I hope it's fresh content.

Jowhara Al Saud

Airmail. 2007.

I only posted a single installation shot of Jowhara AlSaud's work (in my Paris Photo report) so here is a little more information to fill you in on another of the photographers who I'll be showing in my new exhibition.

Jowhara AlSaud is a 32 year old Saudi photographer whose photographs combine straight photography and what could almost be described as scrimshaw. She photographs an image that will become her ground and then elaborately and painstakingly carves traced images onto the negative using an array of tools. The foreground figures are all family and acquaintances sometimes photographed by Jowhara and sometimes using found photographs, but their facelessness is a commentary on censorship in Saudi Arabia and its relationship to visual communication.

I found the work immediately striking without knowing the full meaning, but I find this often happens with me. In my experience good work frequently communicates itself viscerally before revealing more subtle and complex meaning, and what appealed to me first was simply the resonance of the airmail border combined with the graphic illustration.

AlSaud explains the work and her intentions so well in her artist statement I'll let her speak for herself, but illustrated are the two prints we'll have up on the wall in our "The Year in Pictures" show. (They're worth clicking into to see larger.)

Artist Statement:

This body of work began as an exploration of censorship in Saudi Arabia and it's effects on visual communication. While there is a lack of consistency from region to region, overall, images are highly scrutinized and controlled. Some superficial examples of this would be skirts lengthened and sleeves crudely added with black markers in magazines or blurred out faces on billboards.

I tried to apply the language of the censors to my personal photographs. I began making line drawings, omitting faces and skin. Keeping only the essentials preserved the anonymity of my subjects. This allowed me to circumvent, and comment on, some of the cultural taboos associated with photography. Namely the stigma attached to bringing the “personal portrait”, commonly reserved for the private domestic space, into a public sphere.

It became a game of how much can you tell with how little. When reduced to sketches, the images achieved enough distance from the original photographs that neither subjects nor censors could find them objectionable. For me, they became autonomous, relatable, pared down narratives.

I've always been interested in how photography functions, and I try to undermine any documentary authority it may possess as a medium. I've always felt that a photograph functions more like a memory, in that it's a singular perspective of a split second in time, entirely subjective and hence impressionable. By etching these drawings back into film and printing them in a traditional darkroom, I'm trying to point out how malleable it is as a medium, even before digital manipulation became so advanced and accessible. With these interventions emerges a highly coded and self-reflexive language. What also interests me is that the information omitted (faces, skin and emulsion) creates an image of its own, as do the censors to our cultural landscape.

Golden. 2009

The Wave

I am putting this picture in after multiple requests from my brother, Danny, a regular reader of this blog. The reason I didn't put it in when he first sent it was because as astounding a meteorological phenomenon as it is, the picture didn't have that certain je ne sais quoi that makes me snap to. It's a little flat. But I don't want him to feel bad, and so I'll let the readers tell me whether it was worth posting.

FYI - this picture, taken in January 2009 at Las Olas Beach in Maldonado, Uruguay, shows a rare roll cloud. These clouds form when a downdraft from an advancing storm front causes moist warm air to rise and then cool below its dew point. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may sometimes form.

Tsukasa Yokozawa

Approach Lights #4. 2006

Tsukasa Yokozawa is an interesting story. As a Japanese postman, Yokozawa was much taken with the concept of distance, and as a novice photographer this became the idea he wanted to explore. Beginning in 1999, he began to photograph different Japanese cities by day and night, but from enormous distances with a very long lens. This night view of Hiroshima, for example, was taken from a mountain top several miles away.

Yokozawa not only gave up postal work for full time photography, but before long began to teach photography. Just over a year ago he was given a grant by the Japanese government to come to New York to photograph and make a name for himself (and Japanese photography). His New York series continues his interest in distance but adds to it what he sees as the particularly New York phenomenon of parallel living and lives. Below you will see some of his New York work as well as more of his earlier Japanese pictures. (The pictures of mid-town Manhattan were taken from Brooklyn!)

He is also the last photographer I am adding to the forthcoming Danziger Projects show based on work featured in this blog. The show, not surprisingly called “The Year in Pictures”, opens on January 21 and includes 15 young photographers plus a tribute to the four major photographers and two muses who passed away last year. I’ll parse out details for now, but save the date and if you’re anywhere near Chelsea, the festivities will run from 6 to 8 p.m. on the 21st.

From the series "Parallel Lives". 2009

From the series "Parallel Lives". 2005

On White #1. 2002

Spilt Milk #2. 2001

On the Margin. 1999

Sedgwick by Name

One of the many reasons I'm addicted to the print version of The New York Times is the pleasure of being surprised by the terrific photographs that unexpectedly show up, often quite randomly. (And which you would never find online.) This photograph of Edie Sedgwick was taken by Factory resident documentarian Billy Name while Warhol was filming Sedgwick's "screen test". It ran in Saturday's paper to illustrate the sorry tale of how Name's negatives have gone missing. The story was written by culture writer Randy Kennedy who is building up quite a collection of oddball stories of lost archives, forgotten artists, and other curiosities. Just type his name into the Times' website search box.

Weekend Video

With all the current fuss about photoshopping people in magazines, let's not forget that these special effects can often be used well. Case in point, this Evian commercial!

My Top Ten List

With all the year and decade end reflection going on - most of which I’m finding pretty depressing - I ‘m going to make my annual year end top ten list about the things I’m looking forward to in the year ahead. I’ll start with shows I’m planning.

1. (Above.) Viviane Sassen. Opening in March, I’ll be doing the first U.S. show of work by Viviane Sassen. A Dutch photographer who grew up in Africa, Sassen has long been a highly regarded fashion photographer in Europe. However, starting several years ago, Sassen returned to Africa and began making collaborative portraits with people she met on her travels. Mysterious, colorful, and complex, these works are like visual haikus – compact, poetic and resonant.

2. Annie Leibovitz. (Opening in April.) Whatever has been going on in her life, Annie Leibovitz not only remains but reigns as the number one portrait photographer in the world. Over a career that has now spanned four decades, Leibovitz’s work has deepened along with her color palette and time has allowed us to see her as a major colorist and conceptualist and the key photographer of her era.

3. AIPAD. Having had a terrific fair at Art Basel Miami Beach, I’m looking forward to participating in this March’s AIPAD Photography Fair in New York. Every fair if done properly should be more than just an assemblage of greatest hits. A booth should make a statement. And while I have to admit I haven’t yet figured out what I’m going to be doing at AIPAD, the journey is half the fun.

Susan Derges. Gibbous Moon Cloud, 2009.

4. Brits. I’ve enjoyed following the work and renewing my ties with a number of British photographers over the last year – in particular Susan Derges, Christopher Bucklow, Richard Learoyd, and Tim Walker. I’ve also had the chance to meet two of the photography curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum – Martin Barnes and Susanna Brown – who are both bursting with ideas and as opposed to their U.S. counterparts enthusiastically looking at and showing good new work. There’s something particularly energetic and positive in the London air right now - and I’m looking forward to bringing as much of it as possible back to the States.

5. Jim Krantz. (Opening Fall ’10.) Krantz was one of the original Marlboro photographers whose work was appropriated by Richard Prince for his famous series of images of cowboys. This fall we’ll be turning the spotlight back on Krantz who you’ll see is a uniquely talented photographer. Unlike the Manny Garcia/Fairey situation, however, in this case both Krantz and I feel (to different degrees) that Prince’s work was more insightful and legitimate. So rather than picking a fight with Prince, we would rather accept his homage and take the opportunity to educate people about the source.

6. A time for healing. If you feel the 00s were one sick decade, I’d like to propose the 10s as a decade of healing. Starting with healing oneself – get in shape physically, fiscally, emotionally, professionally and let this work its way out exponentially. It’s clear that just about every system has failed - from the safety of our food, to travel, the financial system, and on a macro level - the ecology of the planet and hope for peace. So here’s to proposing that if everyone tries, we can begin to reverse things just a little!

7. Magazines. The relationship between photography and magazines has been one of mutual nurture and creativity for almost a hundred years. Now that we’re firmly in the world of new technology, let’s hope that either the new or old media companies can find a way to be profitable and continue to be the vital link between art and commerce.

8. Digital photography. Now that we’re firmly in the digital age, let’s stop grousing about the death of film, continue to improve the quality of digital cameras, and get serious about easy ways to archive our snaps so that we can replace drawers full of old snaps and outdated hard drives with reliable and accessible image retrieval.

9. Documentaries as entertainment. Two of the films I most enjoyed seeing in cinemas this year were “Every Little Step”, a documentary following the casting of the revival of “A Chorus Line”, and “The September Issue” the documentary that followed the making of VOGUE’s biggest issue ever. If movie companies and filmmakers continue to broaden the range of subjects covered in feature length documentaries, my hope is that we can enter a new golden age of intelligent and entertaining film going.

10. Blogs. Many of the year end summaries in newspapers talked about the growing influence of blogs and bloggers and their effect in the real world. Happy to hear this! And to do my part in taking it to the streets, opening on January 21, I will be putting on a full five week long show of selected photographers whose work I’ve featured on this blog. So stay tuned and Happy New Year to all!