Photography Collection

A picture can tell a thousand words, some say. In a competition held annually, Leica, the makers of cameras “much like a Rolex” as one fan calls them, awards up and coming photographers around the world that do tell a thousand words with their photos. This year's award-winning photographs are being exhibited at the Leica Gallery at the Istanbul Photography Center (?FM), before traveling to other Leica galleries around the world. The exhibition can be visited through Dec. 28.
“It is a very prestigious award,” says photographer Mehmet K?smet, the founder of the Istanbul Photography Center. He adds: “For example, the legendary [Brazilian photographer] Sebastiao Salgado has won this award twice. This is a very important reference. The young photographers can become more distinguished [in the international arena] after they win this award.” K?smet explains the awards are given to a work as a whole, rather than a single photograph. He adds that there needs to be unity of meaning and that this results in awards being given more to projects such as series that constitute a visual interview. “It is not like ‘best portraits taken in various places,'” he says. The winner, the 27-year-old Brazilian photographer Julio Bittencourt's series revolve around the inhabitants of a run-down building in downtown Sao Paolo. Bittencourt has photographed the residents from 364 windows of the building in his project since Nov. 3, 2002.
One of the two mansion awards of the competition went to Spanish photographer Jose Cendon for his work in psychiatric hospitals in Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo. The photographs depict the psychological disorders in the civil war regions using bright colors and color contrasts. The other mansion award went to Norwegian photographer Margaret M. de Lange's long-term black and white projects that depict the photographer's daughters throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Since 1979, the German camera producer Leica distributed Oskar Barnack awards, named after its former head engineer who was the inventor of the first compact camera. “There is an innovation that Leica has introduced to the history of photography. Up until the end of 1920s, photo cameras were always big and hard to carry. It was Leica's head engineer Oskar Barnack that first used the 35mm film in a small, portable camera,” says K?smet. This became a turning point for the history of photography and for social life in general. K?smet says: “The history of photography changed with this in a way because photographs became involved in daily lives and in social happenings.” He explains this paved the way to capture events during World War II and other social events using this camera. “We can say that the history of social photography started with Leica,” he adds.

Prestige and trust

The winners of the prestigious awards are being exhibited in the Leica Gallery in the ?FM before being put on display in other Leica galleries around the globe. This shows the significance that the company places in its Istanbul partners. Leica's headquarters offered to hold the exhibition in Leica Istanbul at the beginning of 2007, months before the winners were declared. “And I accepted with pleasure,” says K?smet. He explains Leica has evaluated ?FM and Leica Istanbul as an establishment as well as its activities and found it to be prestigious. Beyond simply being a photography gallery, the ?FM aims to be a center of photography in the true sense of the word. The center offers courses in many aspects of photography, from photo shooting to black and white dark room printing techniques, from digital photography courses to photoshop courses and studio photography. “There is also another thing that we attach great importance to. When we were established five years ago, we introduced and became a pioneer in Turkey of museum quality fine-art printing. Our aim is to use these techniques in producing high quality prints of successful photographers and to bring together these prints with collectors,” says K?smet. It was also the ?FM as an institution that undertook the establishment of the photography galleries in the popular Istanbul Modern Museum in the Karaköy neighborhood. “The high standard of the gallery itself, as well as our fine-art printing collection affected Leica's decision to establish the prestigious Leica Gallery within the ?FM. They saw that there was quite a collection and a high-quality printing system befitting of a serious gallery,” says K?smet.
The ?FM is currently holding a Robert Cappa collection, donated by the United States Consulate in Istanbul, through the prestigious photography agency Magnum and the permission of the U.S. State Department, as Cappa's photos are considered to be part of national cultural heritage. “Moreover, we have formed a collection of most of the Turkish photographers, almost 90 percent, and have archived them by using museum quality printing techniques. We preserve them with a special preservation technique and sell them to willing collectors,” he adds.

By Susan Chandler

LaSalle Bank's storied collection of fine-art photographs survived a perilous fire at the bank's Chicago headquarters in 2004. Now it appears it also will survive Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of LaSalle, which runs counter to the trend of mergers resulting in the liquidation of corporate art collections. "We are not planning to sell anything from LaSalle. We are not planning to liquidate the photography collection," Rena DeSisto, Bank of America's arts and culture executive, told the Tribune on Wednesday. "We plan to keep it and make use of it in a way that will benefit the Chicago community and museum-goers across the country." DeSisto said the bank plans to circulate portions of the collection among various museums so that public can see more of the photographs, which span the 165-year history of photography. Many are framed and hanging on the walls in the bank's public areas and offices.
Speculation was rampant that the merger might spell the end of the 5,000-piece collection, fueled in part because collections generally are sold off after mergers, and because corporate art collecting has generally declined in the past decade as activist investors, including hedge funds, have pushed managements to be more bottom-line oriented. For example, hedge-fund operator Edward Lampert sold off the corporate art collection of Kmart Corp. and has reduced the number of works gracing the walls at Sears Holdings Corp.'s headquarters in Hoffman Estates.
After British Petroleum's acquisition of Amoco Corp., the Chicago-based oil company's art collection was downsized and some pieces were auctioned off, said BP spokesman Scott Dean. Various pieces were recirculated to other BP locations, and some works were sold and the proceeds given to charity.MB Financial is selling off the art collection of First Oak Brook Bancshares Inc., which was an aggressive collector under the stewardship of Chief Executive Richard Rieser Jr. And commodities trading firm Refco Inc. liquidated its art and photography collections after a financial scandal forced the Chicago company to seek bankruptcy protection. The same thing happened to Andersen's art holdings when the Chicago-based accounting giant collapsed in the wake of a federal indictment related to the Enron scandal.
So, the latest news about LaSalle's collection was greeted with relief. "That's terrific. I'm glad they understand the value of it," said Catherine Edelman, who owns an eponymous contemporary photography gallery in River North. "It would be a tragedy if this collection got disbursed. It's one of the most public corporate collections in the U.S., let alone Chicago." Rod Slemmons, director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, agreed. "The collection is a treasure. There's material in there from the beginning of photography from the 1840s," he said. "There is important documentation of Chicago post-fire, with historic prints. There is also a lot of contemporary work by Chicago and international people." The worry that the collection was slated for a breakup wasn't limited to the art photography world. Requests for tours of the collection from bank employees as well as others have picked up in the past several months, a LaSalle source said.

A Bank of America spokesman said the concern was premature.

"Bank of America has one of the largest, most significant art collections in the world," said spokesman Scott Silvestri. "We believe our collection is an asset that should be shared with our customers in the communities we serve. The LaSalle collection is now part of the company's corporate art program and will continue to be used for the public benefit."

Curator, staff to stay for now

Carol Ehlers, the curator of the LaSalle photography collection, and her staff continue to be employees, although DeSisto declined to comment on whether that would continue in the future. About 2,500 of LaSalle's 7,900 employees are expected to lose their jobs during the next two years, Bank of America said in September. More than 30 of LaSalle's executives, including its chief executive, have been hired by PrivateBank, a Chicago-based bank that this week raised $200 million in new capital for expansion purposes (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Before the merger, LaSalle was the Chicago area's second-largest financial institution.
Photography collectors will be disappointed they won't have a chance to bid on a piece of LaSalle's legacy. "There would be a lot of excitement about the LaSalle collection going up for auction," said Paul Berlanga of the Stephen Daiter Gallery in River North. "These are my friends, and I would hate to see them out of work, but galleries thrive on this. Death and divorce brings these things back on the market." The LaSalle collection could be worth between $5 million and $10 million, experts estimated, but it could fetch a lot more than that. Last year, a platinum print by influential American photographer Edward Steichen sold for more than $3 million at a Sotheby's auction.
What is now known as the LaSalle Bank collection was started in 1967 by Exchange National Bank President Samuel Sax. Sax hired photography expert Beaumont Newhall to build the collection. Exchange was taken over by Dutch-owned LaSalle National Bank in 1989, and the collection was passed on. Under LaSalle parent ABN Amro, the collection continued to expand, with a special emphasis on contemporary photographers and Dutch photography. In addition to being a buyer, the bank sponsored the photography field in other ways, including funding exhibitions and co-publishing a book on Dutch photographer Rineke Dykstra with the Art Institute of Chicago.

Bank of America agreed in April to buy LaSalle for $21 billion.

The collection contains the work of more than 300 photographers, including heavyweights such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Its fate hung in the balance three years ago when a fire broke out in the LaSalle building. Six days passed before curator Ehlers was allowed a close-up look at the damage, but she was relieved to see that all but 50 photographs survived the fire.

Vaults protected works

Many of the most valuable pieces were stored in the bank's two temperature-controlled vaults -- one for black-and-white work and the other for color. If Bank of America hadn't decided to retain the collection, it's unlikely it would have stayed intact. Five thousand pieces is too much for an individual collector to store, gallery owners say, and museums unlikely would be interested in acquiring someone else's vision.

Andreas Gursky is one of the most influential photographers of Postmodernism, who creates icons of the zeitgeist in which only a subordinated position leaves to people in large spaces. Gursky documents what happens as a basis for a digital creation of reality. In this respect he goes back seemlessly to the media realities which designate the conception of our time. The artist reveals thus the propagandist of a time which appears to be value-free and where people long for values and orientation again. "Few artists have managed to distil the specific characteristics of a main culture, the mindset of a generation or the zeitgeist of an era into a single work. Just as a handful of iconic paintings have shaped our view of the Renaissance, so too has Andreas Gursky captured the essence of the economic and social situation of the late twentieth century in such works as Loveparade or 99 Cent." (Nina Zimmer¹)
In the art museum of Basel his large format photography are still to be seen up to the 24th February, 2008.
Gursky tends to focus on crowds of people and the places where they assemble, and on the structures of the globalised world with its production, trade, consumption and leisure. In one of his most recent cycles of photographs, Pyongyang, he takes this theme one step further, casting his gaze on a country that is one of the last unmistakably non-globalised societies in the world. This is no everyday scenario, but an organised mass event with an ideological back-ground. Gursky, however, does not use the images to make a statement about the political background of the event. Instead, he uses them as visual raw material to be processed according to his own distinctive compositional approach. In addition to the Pyongyang series, other recent groups of works indicate a shift in direction away from his previous individual photographs. These new cycles cover a broad range of themes as diverse as landscapes, Gothic church windows and Formula 1-racing. For all their differences, however, the works share clear compositional similarities that speak the same aesthetic language that rings out in Gursky’s earlier work. In his choice of detail or the arrangement of digitally juxtaposed visual elements, Gursky explores the question of how to generate ornamental structures and even symmetries on the picture plane. This calls for an abstract take on the subject matter, seeing it not only in terms of its mimetic function, but also as a kind of construction kit filled with the building blocks of formal vocabulary that Gursky uses to compose his pictures. For this purpose, the artist often chooses an elevated vantage point, as in the James Bond Islands or Dubai World. By giving the structure precedence over the visual reality, and thereby making it absolute, Gursky manages to lend his photographs a universal validity. In this respect, his compositions go far beyond documenting the situation they describe, becoming symbolic forms that provide an insight into the way the world is today.This exhibition, in concentrated form, presents some 25 works by the artist, most of them created in 2007. They include new motifs within the familiar thematic spectrum of recent years, such as a stock exchange trading floor in Kuwait and the interior of a Frankfurt nightclub, as well as photographs from the latest series Pyongyang and F1 Pit Stop.

Swann Galleries’s December auction of Photographic Literature & Photographs opens with nearly 300 lots of significant examples of photographic literature, including early books and periodicals, scarce Japanese works and Modern and Contemporary titles. Among the earliest works are several editions of the publication Camera Work, including the sought-after Number 36, with 16 photogravures by Alfred Stieglitz, New York, 1911 (estimate: $18,000 to $22,000); and a different Stieglitz publication, Camera Notes and Proceedings of the Camera Club of New York, Volume 5, Parts 1-4, signed and inscribed by Stieglitz to a founding member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society, New York, 1901-02 ($9,000 to $12,000). Also from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries are photographically illustrated medical texts, such as a German book documenting orthopedic conditions of the hip, with 10 albumen prints, first edition, Leipzig, 1863 ($2,000 to $3,000), and Hardy and De Montmeja’s Clinique Photographique de l’Hopital Saint Louis, with 49 photographs of patients afflicted with syphilis, eczema and other skin diseases, Paris, 1868 ($9,000 to $12,000); albums of exotic locations, including Tree & Serpent Worship: Or, Illustration of Mythology and Art in India by James Fergusson, with 57 albumen prints, London, 1868 ($2,500 to $3,500); and The Imperial City of Peking, China, Photographs of Palace Buildings of Peking, Volumes I&II by Kazumasa Ogawa, with 166 collotype plates and three fold-out panoramas, Tokyo, 1906 ($1,000 to $1,500); as well as Owen Simmons’s The Book of Bread, with 30 images of loaves and slices of bread, first edition, London, 1903 ($4,000 to $6,000).

Important modern works include Steichen the Photographer by Carl Sandburg, one of 950 signed by Sandburg and Steichen, New York, 1929 ($2,000 to $3,000); Man Ray’s Photographs 1920-1934 Paris, Hartford and New York, 1934 ($2,500 to $3,500); Brassaï’s Voluptés de Paris [Pleasures of Paris], Paris, 1935 ($2,000 to $3,000); a signed and inscribed copy of Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York, New York, 1939 ($4,000 to $6,000); Walker Evans’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Boston, 1941 ($1,500 to $2,500); and a signed and inscribed copy of William Klein’s Life is Good & Good for You in New York, Milan, 1956 ($2,000 to $3,000).

Among many prized Japanese highlights are Ken Domon and Shomei Tomatsu’s Hiroshima-Nagasaki, Document 1961, first edition, 1961 ($5,500 to $7,500); Eikoh Hosoe’s Ba-Ra-Kei [Killed by Roses], one of 1500 numbered copies signed by Hosoe and Yukio Mishima, who wrote the introduction, Tokyo, 1963 ($3,000 to $4,000), and Hosoe’s Kamaitachi, Tokyo, 1969 ($3,500 to $4,500); Daido Moriyama’s Sashin yo Sayonara [Goodbye Photography, Dear], signed, Tokyo, 1972 ($4,000 to $6,000), and Karyudo [A Hunter], signed, Tokyo, 1972 ($4,500 to $5,500); and Masahisa Fukase’s Karasu [Ravens], Tokyo, 1986 ($3,000 to $4,000).

Highlights from the late 20^th century include Lucas Samaras’s Samaras Album, Autointerview, Autobiography, Autopolaroid, one of 100 signed by Samaras and issued with a Polaroid, New York, 1971 ($3,000 to $4,500); Callahan, deluxe edition, signed and numbered and issued with a print, New York, 1976 ($3,000 to $4,000); Robert Adams, From the Missouri West, Photographs by Robert Adams, one of 100 signed and numbered by Adams with a photograph, New York, 1980 ($2,000 to $3,000); Paul Graham’s The Great North Road, deluxe edition, one of 75 planned copies, signed and issued with an original photograph, Bristol, 1983 ($12,000 to $18,000); Robert Frank’s Flower Is . . . , one of 500, Tokyo, 1987 ($5,000 to $7,500); and Luis Gonzales Palma, one of 100 signed and numbered and issued with a photograph, New York, 1999 ($2,000 to $2,500). The auction continues at 2:30 p.m. with a selection of more than 250 Photographs. Among featured items are early cased images, Civil War views, and several albums with subjects such as Australia, China, maritime and performing arts. Among individual highlights are Karl Struss’s Storm Clouds, platinum print, 1921 ($6,000 to $9,000); Tina Modotti’s Roses, platinum contact print, 1924, printed 1993 ($8,000 to $12,000); August Sander’s Bricklayer’s Mate, silver print, 1929, printed 1990 ($7,000 to $10,000); Paul Strand’s Grazing Horses, New Mexico, double-coated platinum print, 1930 ($20,000 to $30,000); Edward Weston’s Cypress, Point Lobos, silver print, 1930 ($12,000 to $18,000); Herbert Bayer’s Lonely Metropolitan, silver print, 1932, printed 1969 ($7,000 to $10,000); Charles Sheeler’s View of New York, silver print after a painting, circa 1934 ($9,000 to $12,000); and Margaret Bourke-White’s Steps to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., silver print, circa 1937 ($5,000 to $7,500).

Portraits include Ansel Adams’s photograph of Edward Weston, Carmel Highlands, California, silver print, 1945, printed 1974 ($7,000 to $10,000); W. Eugene Smith’s Albert Schweitzer, silver print, 1949, printed 1960s ($6,000 to $9,000); Arnold Newman’s Picasso, silver print, 1954, printed 1980s, ($3,000 to $4,500), and Georgia O’Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, silver print, 1968 ($3,000 to $4,000); and Philippe Halsman’s Marilyn Monroe, silver print, 1956, printed 1981 ($1,500 to $2,500).

Mid-century highlights include Andreas Feininger’s Brooklyn Bridge at Night, silver print, 1948, printed 1997 ($5,000 to $7,500); Bill Brandt’s Untitled (nude distortion), silver print, 1950s ($7,000 to $10,000); Dave Heath’s Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, silver print, 1958 ($4,000 to $6,000); Ormond Gigli’s New York City (Models in the Windows), chromogenic print, 1960, printed 1990s ($8,000 to $12,000); and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Sifnos, Greece, silver print, 1961, printed early-mid 1960s ($7,000 to $10,000). Among contemporary images are Larry Clark’s Untitled (from Tulsa), silver print, early 1970s ($10,000 to $15,000); Sally Mann’s Untitled (from “At Twelve”), silver print, 1980s, printed late 80s ($4,000 to $6,000); Flor Garduño’s portfolio, Witnesses of Time, with 10 lyrical photographs of Ecuador, Guatemala and Bolivia, platinum palladium prints, 1988-1990, printed 1993 ($14,000 to $18,000); Roy De Carava’s self-titled portfolio, with 12 dust-grain photogravures, each signed, dated and numbered, 1991 ($20,000 to $25,000); Shirin Neshat’s I Am Its Secret, Chromogenic print, 1993 ($7,000 to $10,000); and a portfolio entitled Printed Matter Photography Portfolio 1: Portraits, with 11 photographs by major artists including Nan Goldin, Richard Prince, and Lorna Simpson, cibachrome and silver prints, 1994 ($20,000 to $30,000).

photo MIAMI, the International Contemporary Art Fair for Photo-Based Art, Video, and New Media, returns to the Wynwood Art District, in a new location, when the event takes place during Art Basel Miami Beach, December 4-9. Organized by artfairs, inc., producer of globally acclaimed photography and contemporary art fairs in Los Angeles, the second annual fair will be staged in a 40,000-sq. ft. marquee structure at NW 31st street and North Miami Avenue, just steps away from the Rubell Family Collection and the developing Midtown Miami district. photo MIAMI, the only fair during Art Basel Miami Beach dedicated exclusively to contemporary photography and media based art, offers an expansive and immediate overview of these current international trends. It showcases a range of established to emerging galleries, presents curated sections by global artists and curators, and partners with local and international art institutions. This year the fair will host an even greater number of selected exhibitors from 11 countries. 60 galleries will be represented at photo MIAMI including ADN GalerÍa (Barcelona), Charles Guice Contemporary (Berkeley), Galerie Caprice Horn (Berlin), DNA (Berlin), Galerie Conrads (Düsseldorf), Galerie Dominique Fiat (Paris), Galeria Fernando Pradilla (Madrid), MKgalerie (Rotterdam), Skew Gallery (Calgary), The Third Gallery Aya (Osaka), Camara Oscura Galeria de Arte (Madrid), and Voss Galerie (Düsseldorf).
Highlights of the fair include invitational solo projects by artists including Alex Prager (Robert Berman Gallery) and Lidia Benavides (Estiarte) and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ premier showing of his photographs of returning injured soldiers from Iraq (Wetterling Gallery). Madridbased independent curator and writer Paco Barragán will curate “The Last Painting Show,” a series of works investigating traditional aspects of painting through a combination of mediabased arts and installation.
All exhibition tickets are available for purchase at the door and online through Acteva.com. For additional information on photo MIAMI, please visit www.artfairsinc.com or call (323) 937-4659.

photo MIAMI Wynwood Art District, NW 31 Street and North Miami Avenue

Public hours:
December 5; 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
December 6 – 8; 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
December 9; 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Tickets are $10.00 for a one-day pass. All exhibition tickets are available for purchase at the door and online with Acteva.com.

A photograph owned by Sir Elton John is not an indecent image, the crown prosecution service (CPS) has said. The picture, entitled Klara and Edda Belly Dancing, was taken from the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead (Great Britain) by Northumbria Police on September 20th. According to today's CPS ruling, "the evidence is insufficient to justify proceedings for offences of possession or distribution of an indecent photograph". The piece is part of the Thanksgiving installation by American photographer Nan Goldin and is owned by renowned art lover Sir Elton. But while the rest of the collection – some 148 photos – continued to be displayed after the photograph in question was seized, the singer later asked for the exhibition to be halted ahead of its scheduled January 20th completion.
A spokesman from the Baltic confirmed at the beginning of the month: "Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, at the request of the Sir Elton John Photography Collection, has closed the exhibition. "After the removal of one image from the series it was no longer possible for Baltic to exhibit the collection of works as the artist intended. "Therefore Baltic is sympathetic to Sir Elton John's request and supportive of the decision."

Africa

For the first time Paris Photo is hosting an African gallery. The Michael Stevenson (Cape Town) is showing work by five artists: Pieter Hugo, Guy Tillim, Zanele Muholi, Berni Searle, Youssel Nabil.
Trained as a photojournalist, starting in the 1990s the South African Guy Tillim began documenting the armed conflicts and civil wars that have ravaged the continent, focussing on to the scars and other signs left on the landscape and on the psyche of their victims. Both an artist and an activist, Zanele Muholi’s recent series looks at life in Johannesburg’s black lesbian community. Her portraits of couples in their homes subvert traditional African society’s clichés and prejudices against alternative sexuality. Pieter Hugo’s work is centred on portraiture. His straightforward photos of individuals, taken amidst their signature surroundings, alone or with their families, are the product of an interchange between the artist and his subject.They reveal the emotionally charged and complex history of South African society. Bernie Searle works with the concepts of appearance and disappearance, visibility and invisibility, as applied to his own body during the course of performances transcribed by means of still photos, installations and videos. His themes include self-representation and identity, both personal and collective. In the series “Sleep in my arms,” Youssel Nabil stages his relationships with other men. Using manual photo-retouching techniques from another age, he transforms these photographic self-portraits into something like old-fashioned movie shots, reflecting a world of forbidden desires, fantasy and inner conflicts.
The Anne de Villepoix gallery (Paris) is showing a recent series by Zwelethu Mthethwa on sugarcane cutters and the wretched conditions endured by South Africans who choose exile to survive. Documentary in its approach but with an objective and evocative aesthetic, this South African artist asks farm workers pose in their own environment, revealing their personality and state of mind.
The Galerie du Jour Agnès b (Paris) joins the Fifty One Fine Arts Photography (Antwerp) in a tribute to Malick Sidibé (born 1935), one of Africa’s great photographers, with a selection of recent prints of unpublished portraits taken between 1965 and 1974. This Malian artist began his career in the late 1950s when he set up a photography studio in a lowerclass suburb of the capital, Bamako. His portraits record life’s major rituals (weddings, celebrations, etc.) in a traditional society undergoing radical transformations under the growing influence of Western fashions and music.

Asia

Japan’s presence at Paris Photo is reinforced with the arrival of the Taro Nasu gallery from Tokyo who comes to the Osaka galleries MEM and Photo Picture Space. For its first participation in Paris Photo, the Taro Nasu gallery has chosen to bring recent works by Taiji Matsue and Hirofumi Katayama. Born in 1963, Matsue is known for his black and white views of deserts and cities in which the sharpness and precision of the images recall ancient scroll paintings. At Paris Photo, he is showing his most recent colour series, “JP 22,” aerial views of coastlines where the overlapping of land and water are metaphors for fullness and void, Yin and Yang. Katayama’s smooth-surfaced doorways and antiseptic halls are deceptive: they are completely computer-generated, the product of algorithms this artist calls “Vectorscapes.” Japanese artists are also prominent at many Western galleries. Among them are Yasumasa Morimura at Juana de Aizpuru (Madrid), Masuyama at Studio La Citta (Verona), Mayumi Terada at Robert Miller (New York), Daido Moriyama and Rinko Kawauchi at Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and Shinichi Maruyama at Bruce Silverstein (New York).
This year Chinese artists are represented by Italy’s Marella gallery, which set up a local office in Peking. The gallery is showing some of today’s rising talents: Ciu Xiuwen (born 1970), whose "Angel" series (2006) shows a pregnant 13-year-old surrounded by her clones, embodying the dreams and questions of Chinese youth.Yang Huang (b. 1966), is a poet inspired by classical landscapes and calligraphy, who photographs the bluegreen mountains he tattoos on his body. The video stills of performances by Ma Liuming, depict an androgynous silhouette that brings Taoist monks to mind.

Luis Adelantado, Valencia/Miami
Artists presented: Aggtelek, Diego Bianchi, Richard Orjis, Oswaldo Ruiz, Monserrat Soto,
Eduardo Sourrilles, Priscilla Monge.

Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid
Artists presented: Eric Baudelaire, Jordi Colomer, Jonas Dahlberg, Dora García, Carmela García,
Alberto García Alix, Cristina García Rodero, Pierre Gonnord, Cristina Lucas,Yasumasa Morimura, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Andres Serrano.

Anhava, Helsinki
Artists presented: Sandra Kantanen, Pertti Kekarainen, Arno Rafael Minkkinen.
The gallery opposes the work of one of Finland’s historically most influential photographers, Arno RafaelMinkkinen, whose success starting in the 1970s stimulated many other artists, to that of two rising talents of the Helsinki School, Sandra Kantanen and Pertti Kekarainen. In his black and white shots, Minkkinen relentlessly examines the relationship between his body and places. His self-portraits show him nude, becoming one with the landscape by, for example, blending himself with two trees in an intense relationship with nature. Kantanen and Kekarainen represent conceptual photography at its highest technical and formal level. Kantanen’s spare, milky-toned still lives produce a poetry of the object and light. Kekarainen creates coloured abstractions by juxtaposing architectural details and playing with opacity and transparency.

Martin Asbaek Projects, Denmark
Artists presented:Trine Sondergaad (1972, Denmark), Nicolai Howalt (1970, Denmark), Ebbe Stub Wittrup (1973, Denmark), Lisa Strömbeck, (1973, Sweden).
“Man meets nature” could be defined as the common theme of a show featuring a continuation of Trine Sondergaad and Nicolai Howalt’s “How to Hunt” series. Against a background of romantic, foggy landscapes,these fascinating studies depict an act that was once necessary for survival and has now become a ritual. In Presumed Reality, Ebbe Strub Wittrup appropriates slides documenting a Norwegian mountaineering expedition in the1950s. The double exposures of disturbing landscapes place reality and its representation in an endless hall of mirrors and question the world of nature and the nature of the image. Pets - dogs, cats, rabbits, etc. - are the subject of Lisa Strömbeck’s photocollages and videos. She makes them pose in a humorous manner, highlighting the interdependence of people and their animals.

Oliva Arauna gallery, Madrid
Artists presented: Chema Alvargonzalez, Per Barclay, Botto & Bruno, Jota Castro, Concha Prada, Alexandra Ranner,Miguel Rio Branco.

Bonni Benrubi gallery, New York
Artists presented: Simon Norfolk,Abelardo Morell, Matthew Pillsbury, Massimo Vitali.

Camera Work, Berlin
Artists presented: David Drebin, Josef Hoflehner, Robert Polidori, Frank Rothe.

Clairefontaine gallery, Luxembourg
Artists presented: Marie Taillefer, Giacomo Costa.

Charles Cowles gallery, New York
Artists presented: Mona Kuhn (1969) and Edward Burtynsky (1955, Canada).
In conjunction with the publication of Quarries by Steidl books, the gallery is showing photographs by Edward Burtynsky from his famous series of views of stone quarries taken around the world. The uneasy beauty of these industrial landscapes is followed by Mona Khun’s nude studies of her friends in their familiar home settings. Reminiscent of Ingres, the contrasting soft and sharp focuses, and the fresh, sensual tones, create a hedonistic world in which nudity is a celebration of the natural.

Max Estrella, Madrid
Artists presented: Eugenio Ampudia (Spain), Roland Fischer (1958, Germany), Dionisio Gonzalez (1965, Spain), Duane Michals (1932, US), Aitor Ortiz (1971, Spain), Adrian Tyler (1963, UK).
The relationship between architecture and space is the common theme running through the work of the artists presented by this gallery: the digitally-created grey and white imaginary buildings of Aitor Ortiz; Roland Fischer’s abstract double exposures of the façades of the Alhambra; Adrian Tyler’s “archistructures;” and the computer-generated panoramic views
of chaotic, proliferating cities by Dionisio Gonzales.

Anne de Villepoix, Paris
Artists presented: Luigi Ghirri, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Martha Rosler,Alessandra Sanguinetti, Sam Samore, Erwin Wurm.
Erwin Wurm’s One-Minute Sculptures show ordinary people in incongruous poses, while the digital photocollages in Martha Rosler’s 2004 Bringing the War Home series denounce the disasters of America’s “war on terrorism.” The gallery is also showing photos by Alessandra Sanguinetti (1968,Argentina), a series much noted at the 2007 Arles photography festival called
“The adventures of Guille and Belinda and the enigmatic meaning of their dreams,” an epic narrative of the daily lives of young women on a farm near Buenos Aires.

Galerie Du Jour/ Agnès b, Paris
Artists presented: Ryan McGinley (1977, US), Malick Sidibé (1935, Mali).
The gallery features work young American photographer Ryan McGinley with his latest series of images of friends cavorting nude on the Western plains in an approach that brings to mind the work of his elders, Nan Goldin and Larry Clark.

Dominique Fiat, Paris
Artists presented: Philippe Gronon (1964, France), Ola Kolehmainen (1964, Finland),Thomas Lélu, Rut Blees Luxembourg,Tania Mouraud.
The city, its reflections and movement are are some of the threads running through the work of threeartists in this show:Rut Blees Luxembourg. His series “Piccadilly’s Peccadilloes ” was inspired by Charles Holden’s 1930s drawings of stations on that London Underground line.This German artist’s pictures capture pieces of the station’s lit-up signs reflected in a puddle of water or gleaming wet pavement, highlighting the elusive and inevitably misread meanings our eye finds in the mirrored urban night.Philippe Gronon. His “Tableaux de Mouvements - Chrysler Building, New York” is a recent series of six elevator control panels in the Chrysler Building, closeups taken at six different moments.The photos freeze precise instants in time, with the random movement of the elevators indicated by the red lights.These abstract images are symbolic of the verticality of the city and its dynamics,and the ups and downs of the human condition. Ola Kolehmainen. Frontal photographs of façades of glass building whose reflections deconstruct realityinto shimmering abstract surfaces.

Galeria Fucares, Madrid
Artists presented: Jaime de la Jara, Candida Hofer, Rita Magalaes, Rosa y Bleda.

Flatland, Utrecht
Artists presented: Erwin Olaf (1959), Cornelie Tollens (1964), Ruud Van Empel (1958).
Three Dutch artists share the gallery walls: Cornelie Tollens stages erotic boudoir scenes, where accessories and items of clothing (high heels, silk stockings, lace, silk lace, flowers and fruit) are an exploration of feminine desire. Ruud Van Empel, known for his digital work, presents his latest series,“Venus,” images - half dream, half reality - of diaphanous girls floating in water. His compositions evoke the Pre-Raphaelite painters. In settings that evoke the life of American high society in the 1960s, Erwin Olaf’s new series “Grief” examines the suffering embodied by lonely women immured in their sorrow.

Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris
Artists presented: Charles Fréger, Paul Graham, Mohamed Bourouissa, Karen Knorr.
Along with Charles Fréger’s “uniform photographic portraits” in the “Empire” series (2006), ”American Nights” by Paul Graham and Karen Knorr’s animal fables (“Les Fables,” 2004/2007), the gallery introduces a new French artist, 29-year-old Mohamed Bourouissa. His
“Périphérique” series depicts Paris’ suburban housing projects: nightly clashes between rival bands, confrontations with the police.The pictures look like live-action reportage, but in fact the scenes are entirely set up. In this way, the artist deconstructs the clichés associated with the way the suburbs are commonly described and seeks to address issues such as the balance of power and its mechanisms.

Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp
Artists presented: Carl de Keyzer, Malick Sidibé, Friederike
Von Rauch.

Michael Hoppen Gallery, London
Artists presented: Ari Ashley, Jeff Bark (US, 1963), Scarlett Hooft Graafland.
Alongside to Jeff Bark’s latest painterly tableaux, contemporary reinterpretations of mythological scenes whose themes are eroticism, desire and physical abandon, visitors will also discover the work of UK photographer Ari Ashley, shown for the first time at Paris Photo. Like Lartigue, she photographs daily life, her friends and family and outdoor games. Her images reflect moments of pure happiness that recall the carefree days of the Belle Époque. Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s work lies at the intersection of photography, performance and sculpture.The arid Bolivian highlands serve as the background for surrealist interventions in the landscape recorded by her camera: a spiral jetty made of balloons on the reddish waters of a salt lake, hats floating in the desert…

Kudelk Van der Grinten, Cologne
Artists presented: Pierre Faure, Izima Kaoru, Reto Camenish.
Known for his phantasmagoric scenes in which actresses and models imagine and act out their own deaths, Izima Kaoru presents two recent small-format series: “Kuroki Meisa wears Gucci” (2006) and “Kimura Yoshino wears Calvin Klein” (2007). Pierre Faure delivers his impressions of Japan. These photographs, with their highly cinematographic quality, reveal the colours and lights, shapes and odours of cities, the faces and gestures of their inhabitants, all rendered abstract through the use of black, the common element running through these pieces. Swiss photographer Reto Camenisch presents “Zeit/time,” a black and white series of landscapes from
all corners of the world,transformed into timeless visions through the use of contrasts and deep black tones.

Magnum Photos, Paris
Artists presented: Antoine d’Agata, Bruno Barbey, Bruce Davidson, Thomas Dworzak, Bruce Gilden, Leonard Freed, Harry Gruyaert, Richard Kalvar, Carl de Keyzer, Guy Le Querrec, Alex Majoli, Peter Marlow, Mark Power, Miguel Rio Branco, Susan Meiselas, Paolo Pellegrin, Trent Parke, Martin Parr, Gilles Peres, Lise Sarfati, Dennis Stock,Alec Soth, Patrick Zachmann.
As part of its sixtieth anniversary celebrations, Magnum Photos, is opening a new gallery in Paris. At Paris Photo, the agency is presenting “On stage,” previously unseen contemporary and vintage prints from its rich and diverse archives, selected by Matthew Humery, director of the photography department at Christies New York. He brings together work that capture those magic moments just before or after a dramatic event taking place backstage during a performance or in the street.

Robert Miller gallery, New York
Artists presented: Bill Henson (1955,Australia), Walter Niedermayr, Mayumi Terrada (1958, Japan).
A subtle interplay of light and shadow links the minimalist interior scenes entirely recreated in the studio by Mayumi Terada with Walter Niedermayr’s milky snow-covered Alpine views and the chiaroscuro images of teenage bodies set in twilight industrial landscapes by Bill Henson.

M Bochum gallery, Bochum
Artists presented: Lucinda Devlin (1947, US),Thomas Florschuetz (1957, Germany), Peter Hendricks (1955, Germany), Aino Kannisto (1973, Finland).
This gallery’s eclectic show includes “Sehsüchtig /Sehnsüchtig” by Peter Hendricks, a 1994-98 series on female prostitution. In these rare an intense depictions of human suffering,pathos is absent from the tightly framed portraits and the close-ups of drug-ravaged bodies. Recent German history is the subject of Thomas Florschuetz’s “Palast” (2006), a series on the Palace of
the Republic in the former East Berlin, monument to the power of the now defunct GDR, as it undergoes demolition.The artist set up his camera inside the ruined building, shooting from the inside and looking out. Stripped of its opaque façade and ornamentation, the building reveals its structure and the world outside. For Florschuetz, this is both a formal exploration in the cold style of the German school of photography and a metaphorical reflection on inside and outside, opacity and transparency, enclosure and opening, concepts inseparably linked to the history of this site. The gallery also offers the latest narrative work by Finland’s Aino Kannisto, a series on existential anguish that reads almost like a short film.Also on show is the previously unseen “Subterranea” series by Lucinda Devlin. She makes subtle use of the effects of artificial light in stone-age caves that have been converted intotourist attractions to create a strange world as a metaphor for nature that has been alienated by man.

Galerie M+B, Los Angeles
Artists presented: Alison Jackson, Jehad Nga, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Rocky Schenks.
Among the artists shown at Paris Photo, the gallery is highlighting Alison Jackson’s “Confidential” series recently published in a book by Taschen, portraits of ‘celebrities’ taken by surprise in startling poses: the Queen of England on the toilet, George Bush and Tony Blair chatting in a sauna, Osama Bin Laden playing backgammon and Monica Lewinsky lighting Bill Clinton’s cigar. The resemblances are striking, but of course the models are look-alikes. In a highly sophisticated and subversive style, this British artist questions our contemporary obsession with celebrities and their private lives, truth and the artifice of image.

Olivier Robert Gallery, Paris
This gallery’s display centres on three young artists: Riyas Komu (India, b.1971) Joel Tettamanti (Cameroun, b.1977) and Boogie (Serbia, b.1970). Boogie goes deepinto the shadows of Bed-Stuy, Queensbridge, Bushwick and find his own fully-realised vision of unsolvable urban hopelessness: smiling young men revelling in violence and pointing guns at the camera; graffiti-covered walls and scarred flesh; needles and glass pipes.The charged energy of his pictures takes Boogie beyond the classic mode of photojournalism.

Polaris gallery, Paris
Artists presented: Yto Barrada, Stéphane Couturier, Assaf Shoshan.

Yancey Richardson gallery, New York
Artists presented: Olivo Barbieri, Esko Manniko, Hellen Van Meene.
In Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri’s bird’s-eye views (2007), Las Vegas looks like a miniature city. In the recent “Harmony Sisters” series by Esko Manniko (Finland), the close-ups of animal heads become almost abstract by the sharpness of the shapes and the intensity of the colour. The Dutch artist Hellen Ven Meene’s candid portraits of teenagers combine an investigation of the identity issues that arise with the passage from childhood to adolescence, with a formal approach that is closer classical portrait painting (the poses, garments and treatment of light).

Senda gallery, Barcelona
Artists presented: Jordi Bernardo, Jane Hammond, Ola Kolehmainen,Anna Malagrida.
Filomaena Soares gallery, Lisbon Artists presented: Pilar Albarracin, Helena Almeida,
Vasco Araujo,Axel Hütte.

Taik gallery, Helsinki
Artists presented: Susanna Majuri, Ola Kolehmainen, Ea Vasko, Anni Leppälä.
A promoter of the Helsinki School,Taik gallery director Timothy Persons presents new emerging talents, including Susanna Majuri, Ea Vasko and Anni Leppälä.The smallformat series by Leppälä (born 1981) is a chronicle of everyday life in which she moves from landscape to
portraiture, depicting a floating world charged with the sensations and emotions of childhood.

Van Zoetendaal gallery, Amsterdam
Artists presented: Analeen Louwes, Kyungwoo Chun, Holger Niehaus.

Gallery Esther Woerdehoff, Paris
Artists presented: Lillian Birnbaum (1959, US), Matthias Koch, Loan Nguyen (1977, Switzerland), Michael Schnabel.
In addition to Lillian Birnbaum’s discrete and powerfully evocative exploration of childhood giving way to adolescence, this show concentrates on landscape photography: vast, softly coloured scenes populated by little people, like an illustration for a story, in the work of Loan Nguyen; Normandy landscapes devastated by war documented in the style of the German New Objectivity movement by Matthias Koch, a student in Bernd Becher’s last class; and the nocturnal mountain views of Michael Schnabel, who exalts the power of nature, in a renewal of the romantic pictorial tradition inherited from Caspar David Friedrich.

Xippas gallery, Paris/Athens
Artists presented: Petros Chrisostomou, Dionisio Gonzales,Vera Lutter,Vik Muniz.
Make-believe is the theme here with Vik Muniz’s photographs of “canvases” reconstituted from raw pigments; the digitally-generated anarchic cityscape panoramas by Dionisio Gonzales and Petros Chrisostomou’s surrealist interiors.This Greek artist (b. 1981) makes miniature environments using ordinary objects and rubbish from daily life. When they are rephotographed and blown up and thus change scale, they become strange sculptures that question the relationship between social class and taste. The gallery is also showing the camera obscura work of German artist Vera Lutter: large-format negative and reversed images of buildings, industrial neighbourhoods and parks in the big cities of Europe and North America. What we see in these pieces is as unique as the pictures themselves, filled with a strange serenity.

1917/1930s

Surrealism is the subject of a display at the 1900- 2000 gallery (Paris) of historic pieces by Man Ray (1890-1976), Hans Bellmer (1902-1975), Eduard Ludwig, Germaine Krull (1897-1985) and Raoul Ubac. One trend emerging at Paris Photo is the growing interest in Central European avant-garde photography from the period between the two world wars. The Kicken (Berlin) features Czech photography, with a show of work by its most outstanding exponents, Frantisek Drtikol (1883-1961), Jarumir Funke (1896-1945), Josef Sudek (1896-1976) and Jaroslav Rössler (1896-1945).
While influenced by the various international trends from the neighbouring countries - German New Objectivity, Bauhaus experimentation and Russian Constructivism, the Czech school developed its own, immediately recognizable approach, combining a poetic, lyrical vocabulary with powerful formal simplicity Drtikol, the most “classical” of these Czech photographers, opened a studio in Prague in 1910. The Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) aesthetics that marked his early work gave way, in the late 1920s, to the modernist style of the “Nude Studies,” with their highcontrast lighting and backgrounds with geometric patterns, shown at the Kicken and Michael Hoppen (London) galleries.
Rössler (who had been Drtikol’s assistant) and Funke were closer to the Bauhaus style, with its photograms and photomontage, while Sudek strove to get beyond mere representation of an object and to use light to produce a poetic rendering of the object.To complete this overview of Czech photography, the book Czech Vision, published in 2007 by Hatje Cantz is being presented at Paris Photo.

The thematic show “Modern Hungarian Photography 1919-39” at the Vintage gallery (Budapest) is a reminder of that period in which the avant-garde flourished and photographer avidly experimented, as can be seen in the work of Làszlò Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus. The exhibition presents some of the finest Hungarian photographers of that key period: Marta Aczel, Angelo, Karoly Escher, Ivan Hevesy, Kata Kalman, Imre Kinszki, Klara Langer, Zoltan Seidner, Istvan Szendra and Erno Vadas.

The Bruce Silverstein gallery (New York) focuses on the Parisian period of celebrated Hungarian émigré André Kértész (1894-1983).Taking up residence in the French capital in 1925, he developed a personal style in which his poet’s eye transfigured the ordinary. He was especially attentive to the transitory and ephemeral, such as capturing the shadows from the chairs in the Luxembourg Gardens in “Chairs, Medici Fountain, Paris” (1926).
The Gitterman gallery (New York) offers a rediscovery of work of two French photographers active in the New Vision movement of the 1920s: Daniel Masclet (1892-1969), a talented portraitist and friend of Edward Weston and the German photographer Otto Steinert. In 1933 he organized a celebrated exhibition of nudes by various photographers, immortalized in the book “Nus, la beauté de la femme”. Jean Moral (1906-1999), whose place in the history of the New Photography in France has been reconsidered recently, thanks to the book and exhibition by Christian Bouqueret, “Jean Moral, L’oeil capteur” (1999). In the 1930s Moral showed his work with Kértész, François Kollar, Germaine Krull and Dora Maar.While employing typical New Vision stylistic practices (highangle shots, graphically rigorous composition, photograms and double exposures), he achieved a more personal expression, especially evident in the intimate portraits of his wife, his self-portraits and Paris scenes on view at Paris Photo.

1940s - 50s

The Laurence Miller (New York) and Johannes Faber Faber (Vienna) galleries concentrate on the documentary photography that predominated in the 1930s and 1940s, characterized by a the anecdotal, an uncomplicated treatment of the subject and a general desire to document human activity. Helen Lewitt’s New York street scenes, including a selection her 1940s vintage The Laurence Miller (New York) and Johannes Faber Faber (Vienna) galleries concentrate on the documentary photography that predominated in the 1930s and 1940s, characterized by a the anecdotal, an uncomplicated treatment of the subject and a general desire to document human activity.Helen Lewitt’s New York street scenes, including a selection her 1940s vintage images are shown at Laurence Miller. Henri Cartier- Bresson’s images of pre-war Paris, such as the iconic 1932 “Behind Saint Lazare Train Station” are presented at Johannes Faber, the Vienna gallery that is also offering the celebrated work of Life magazine photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, including “V-Day,Times Square” from 1945.

The Kicken (Berlin) pays tribute to Otto Steinert (1915-1977), one of post-war Germany’s outstanding photographers. Steinert, who revived the creative spirit of the 1920s, was an exponent of a subjective mode of vision and of photography as a form of self-expression, in contrast to the documentary style predominant during the war years.This approach was to become a point of reference with the 1951 exhibition Subjektive Fotografie Steinert organized in Sarrebruck, which exercised a decisive influence on the era’s younger generation of European photographers. Alongside his experimental work, Steinert also took portraits, still lives and landscapes, most notably a 1949 series on Paris, shown in its entirety at Paris Photo.

The Gitterman (New York) confronts the abstract work of the American Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) with that of France’s Roger Catherineau (1925-1962). Siskind was a sort of photographic Abstract Expressionist. He isolated from their context the shapes formed by dilapidated walls, objects and graffiti, giving them an abstract symbolic and emotional content. Catherineau took up photograms and solarization in a spirit akin to the European branch of 1950s abstraction. He was discovered by Steinert, who put his work in the second Subjektive Fotografie exhibition in 1955. He died prematurely at the age of 37.

The Eric Franck Fine Art gallery (London) offers a selection of vintage pieces from the 1940s and ’50s. Among them are the spare, highly composed photographsof snowy landscapes in northern Japan by Kiichi Asano (1914-1993); the experimental photography of Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998), a pioneer of modernism and Concrete Art in Brazil; and the fashion work of famous British photographer Norman Parkinson (1913-1990), whose estate the gallery has represented since 2005. In a salute to this year’s guest of honour, Italy, Fifty One Fine Art Photography (Antwerp) is showing vintage prints from William Klein’s 1956 book, “Rome, the city and its people”, a flamboyant, raucous view of the Eternal City - the opposite of its usual conventional representation.
The Howard Greenberg gallery (New York) is back with a new selection of vintage prints by Saul Leiter (born 1923), including his 1959 Paris scenes. This American photographer close to the Abstract Expressionists interprets the urban condition of the great metropolises with the eye of an intimist painter. The resulting fragmented vision and almost abstract handling of colour chart little islands of human poetry in the city’s continual maelstrom.

1960s - 70s

Coinciding with the publication by Steidl in 2007 of thenew book “New York 1974”, the M Bochum gallery (Bochum) presents previously unseen vintage prints by the author of that series, Dirk Reinatz (1947-2004). This German artist was internationally known for his work on the concentration camps. His black and white New York pictures constitute both a very personal narrative of his encounter with its inhabitants and a testament to a city in full swing of urban renewal, brimming with creative energy and promise. The effervescent 1970s New York art scene is invoked at the Yvon Lambert gallery (Paris/New York), where Andy Warhol’s self-portraits are redolent of high times at the Factory, alongside Nan Goldin’s black and white Drag Queens, first seen in 1973. Then there are the American masters of the “New Documentary” school, including Diane Arbus at the Rose (Santa Monica) and Robert Miller (New
York) galleries, and the California masters of the “New Landscape” - Henry Wessel’s nocturnal urban views at the Charles Cowles (New York) and Luisotti (Santa Monica) galleries. The minimalist, bare landscapes of Lewis Baltz, are also at Luisotti, whose offering focuses specifically on the “New Topography” movement and its contemporary heirs, with recent work by Frank Breuer, Mark Ruwedel,Toshio Shibata and others. In contrast to the documentary sensibility of the “street school” and the New Landscape, the Agathe Gaillard gallery (Paris) covers the parallel current of subjective photography with vintage work from the 1970s by Ralph Gibson, whose “sombre images, bathed in a surreal climate, privilege vast spaces and the strange vagaries of light to produce a universe heavy with unresolved mysteries,” in the words of Michel Frizot.

1980s

Hamiltons gallery (London) revisits the practice of auteur fashion photography with a display mixing the sculptural elegance of Herb Ritts’ black and white photographs (Djimon with Octopus, 1989;Waterfall IV, Hollywood, 1988), the fake simplicity of’ Irving Penn’s still lives (Italian Still Life, 1981), and the ice-cold eroticism of Helmut Newton - represented here by a rare large-format 1979 print of Two Pairs of Legs in Black Stockings, Paris. The gallery also presents a series of ten images of flowers by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). These studies, made in 1985 using 19th-century techniques, are exemplary of the experimental work of this emblematic photographer of the 1980s.

Presenting the work of more than 500 fine art photographers from every continent, the 104 galleries and publishers gathered at the Carrousel du Louvre offer an overview of the medium from the mid-19th century to the early 21st. On view are examples of the most diverse practices, styles and techniques, including documentary work, “painterly” photography, fashion shoots, photoreportage, etc.

Early Photography (1839 - 1914)

The UK’s Robert Hershkowitz gallery, specializing in the work of early masters, offers rare work from the medium’s first years:
• An 1843 view of the York Minster Cathedral by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), who in 1840 invented Calotype, a printing process that combined the concepts of paper negative and latent image on which modern photographic practice is founded.
• A landscape by Charles Nègre, part of a series he did in the South of France in 1852, typical of his naturalistic, pre-Impressionist style.
• “The snowy marshlands,” an 1893 work by Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1926), founder of the London Camera Club and pioneer of British pictorialism. The gallery will also offer a rare 1910 platinum print by Frederick Evans, “York Minster - Door to Chapter House,” in which this British photographer, a religious philosophy adept close to the Symbolist movement,
focuses on the motif of the spire. Paying hommage to Italy, Charles Isaacs Photographs
(New York) presents topographic views of ancient sites taken in 1852/1853, most notably “Pompeii: temple ruins” ($10,000) by Louis-Alphonse Davanne (1824-1912).The photographer trained as a chemist, was a member of the Calotype circle at Rome’s Greco café. Also on show is “Temple of Jupiter, Roman Forum” ($30,000) by Firmin-Eugène Le Dien and Gustave Le Gray.

Kicken from Berlin unveils a rare series by an emblematic figure of 19th-century European Pictorialism, the Austrian Heinrich Kühn (1866-1944), honoured by Alfred Stieglitz with a show at his legendary 291 Gallery in New York. Made circa 1899, these large-format landscapes (a spectacular size for the time) are testament to Kühn’s virtuosity in the use of gum bichromate prints, which made it possible to greatly vary the range of values within a picture. In these
landscapes, the contrasting tones - from very dark to very light - in the manner of Impressionist painters, create an emotionally-charged image. Kühn’s Symbolist-inspired 1907 “Nude Study” (platinum print on Japanese paper - 36,000 euros) is on view at the Johannes Faber gallery (Vienna).

The Daniel Blau gallery (Munich) examines the early days of colour photography with a selection of rare autochromes, including a 1907 still life by the Lumière brothers, who invented the process earlier that year; a view of Notre Dame Cathedral at sunset made in 1909 by Léon Gimpel (1878-1949), a photographer for the magazine L’Illustration who also shot
previously unshown colour views of Paris in the early 1900s; a portrait of an Italian cardinal by Franklin Price Knott (1854-1930) and a 1930 forest scene by Robert Dasché (1907-1988).
The autochrome was a single-print process best seen against the light or in projection.The Lumière brothers said about it , “Let’s not restrict ourselves to making it produce dazzling tonalities; let us instead turn our gaze to the great masters of the landscape like Cazin, Monet and the divine Corot.” Inevitably, this technology raised the questions on the relationship between photography and painting. The Lumière brothers’ many still lives brought
out the full potential of the process,especially its ability to render sharp images and finely nuanced colours.

Baudoin Lebon gallery (Paris) has invited Lindsey Stuart (Bernard Quaritch, Ltd in London) to show 19th Century Orientalist photographers: Hill & Adamdson, William Gundry, Robertson & Beato, Bechard, Geiser…

The Lumière des Roses gallery (Montreuil) is exclusively concerned with anonymous amateur photography of the 19th and 20th centuries.This is the only gallery in France to specialize in this field. Photos taken from family albums and collections, dating from 1890 to 1940, bring back to life those who have been lost and forgotten,recreating a narrative of their private daily lives.

Paris Photo, 15th - 18th November, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris

From November 15-18, the Carousel du Louvre will be hosting the 11th Paris Photo, an essential event for collectors of vintage, modern and contemporary photos. On this occasion, 83 galleries will be presenting their selection. At the same time, Parisian auction houses like Piasa, Artcurial and Ader are organising various thematic sales. On the other side of the Channel in London, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are presenting a few hundred photos. This is the opportunity to examine one of the most fashionable sectors on the market.

The photography market is still enjoying extraordinary growth. In only 9 months, this sector has racked up sales of EUR 75m in 2007 compared to 65m the year before. Nevertheless, with ten thousand images presented over this period, photography still only accounts for 4.5% of Fine Art transactions today. The market is still concentrated in the United States. Over the last 10 years, 65% of proceeds (40% of lots) were generated in New York. London was second (19% of proceeds) and Paris third (9%).
Supply is still limited but the sector stands out for high valuations. Photography is easily the highest growth medium, even over the long term. For example, between 1990 and October 2007, prices for photography rose 70%, compared to +43% for sculpture and +15% for painting. Even so, the market still offers many opportunities: 86% of lots went for less than €10,000.

Recent price rises have resulted in an increasing number of records being set. Last February, Andreas Gursky was honoured with a £1.5m bid (€2.27m) at Sotheby’s London for 99 cent II, (2001) an absolute record for a photo, or rather two as the work is a diptych. Then comes Edward Steichen (1879-1973) whose The Pond, Moonlight is the most expensive modern photo on the market, with a $2.6m bid a year earlier. Last May, during the contemporary art sales, other million dollar bids arrived. The most remarkable were $2.5m for a Cowboy by Richard Prince (2001), $1.85m for Cindy Sherman with Untitled No.92, (1981) and $1.65m for a Hiroshi Sugimoto triptych entitled Black Sea, Ozuluce/Yellow Sea, Cheju/Red Sea, Safaga, (1991-1992). Primitive photography was a media favourite up till 2003 with a record €700,000 paid for a photo by Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892), but no 19th century image has come near the million dollar mark. Only very rare portfolios have managed that.

In Cologne, Germany, 250 photographs by Leni Riefenstahl and 300 artworks of Elliott Erwitt have been stolen. Among the photos of Leni Riefenstahl are according to experts pictures from the Olympia's series of 1936. At that time the photographer had worked during the Olympic games in Berlin. Those photos are obviously vintage prints. All the stolen photographs have been kept in a cellar room of the Photo Estate GmbH in the centre of the city, a subsidiary of the Berlin Camera Work AG. The room has been protected by a burglar alarm, the offenders have opened him by force, said a spokesperson of the police. „ All stolen photo works are registered and numbered, so it is impossible to sell them.“ Gallery owner Rudolf Kicken from Berlin also estimates that the thieves have no chance to sell photographs of Leni Riefenstahl. „ There are for political reasons not many dealers, that offer photos of the artist.“ Riefenstahl was controversial because she produced films by order of the National Socialists and reflected in her photos the aesthetics of national-socialist art. Critics accuse Leni Riefenstahl that she has never argued really self-critically and intensely with her past in the Third Reich.

Jock Sturges, Clarice; Montalivet, France, 2005, 20x24, digital pigment print on fiber paper, Edition of 25, 2/25, signed, numbered, and dated.

Opinions are divided when it comes to Jock Sturges, at least in the US. Some value him as a photographer who can portray children, adolescents and grown-ups in a very aesthetic way, others see him as portraying child pornography. To classify Jock Sturges as either one or the other, puts him right in the middle of the debate between the liberales and the religious fundamentalists of the US, a group in its peak in the 1990s. Back then the FBI raided his home, confiscated his photographs and his camera equipment. Even though it sounds very dramatic, these events can be attributed to religious and judicial norms in the US at that time. Freedom of expression in the arts emerged as the winner and one thing was made abundantly clear; the scale of the social environment is long and nudity and adolescence have many different meanings to many different people. In Europe, Jock Sturges is simply an extraordinary photographer and his controversy has heightened his fame and left his pieces highly sought after on both sides of the Atlantic. After things have calmed down, one question still remains: Why are his photographs so highly sought after? What is the basis of the fascination with him? His photographs reach much farther than a pure image on paper. They clearly show the relationship between Jock Sturges the photographer and Eva, Marine, Vanessa, Thomas and all the other families that have been photographed by him. „I am fond of saying, that 99 percent of my time as a photographer is invested in the people and personal relationships that make possible the one percent of time I spend actually making the pictures”, he says.

Every day we see thousand of pictures in ads and magazines that lack a relationship between the photographer and the model depicted in those photographs. Contemporary photography is said to be shrouded in an aura of chilled emotions. But then a photographer like Jock Sturges comes along, a photographer who depicts something that still prevails, even within the never ending strive for success and money: some happiness and joy at the end of the tunnel. Human relationships, conviction, and faith are timeless. Jock Sturges’ photographs fascinate so many people because their true meaning is just the beginning that pulls the beholder towards something else, some sort of emotion. An emotion that can hardly be put into words, but is the deepest longing of all of us.

The Scalo|Guye Gallery in West Hollywood is a new representation of Jock Sturges. Co-curated by Walter Keller the first show for Jock Sturges ending at November 10th consists of color photographs he took during the last years mostly in France. Prices range from $1,200 (16x20 color, edition of 40) to $10,000 (20 x 24, b/w, edition of 40), the price for the photograph above is $3,600.

Scalo|Guye Gallery, 302 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, Monday - Saturday 11am - 7pm

Nautilus, 1927 Photograph by Edward Weston, 9 3/8 by 6 5/8 in. Mounted, signed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the mount, matted, framed. © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

Iphotocentral reports about Sotheby's Fall sales of photographs in New York. A highlight of the auction was Edward Weston's Nautilus from the collection of Alexandra R. Marshall, an early version of the photograph from 1927 which has been sold for $1,105,000. This was an auction record for pictures of Edward Weston. The phone has outbid people present at the event in New York. Other photos offered were e.g. Dorothea Lange, At the Cotton Wagon, Migrant Agricultural Worker, Elroy, AZ ($103,000), Walker Evan's Breakfast Room, Belle Grove Plantation, White Chapel, LA and Imogen Cunningham's Formen einer Blume. Collectors like Michael Mattis, Harald Greenberg and Bruce Silverstein competed at the auction. Mattis outbid Greenberg and Silverstein on Edward Weston's nude study of Miriam Lerner.
Sotheby's offers a new service, detailed condition reports on their website so potential buyers don't have to call anymore.

Thanks for the help of Denise Gosé from the Center of Photography, Tuscon, for this posting.