Richard Barnes is perhaps best known for his memorable photographs of the Unabomber Cabin made on assignment for the New York Times Magazine. With these photographs he transformed a crude and prosaic cabin into an iconic black and white study.

Barnes has two series of work currently on exhibit. I found the black and White prints the most compelling. At once, abstract and descriptive, these prints demonstrate the expressive potential of the photographic medium. From a distance, one might think that these works are textured drawings or prints. A closer look reveals the subject to be thick flocks of birds flying so close together that they seem to be strange shaped clouds of black dust.

These photographs depict scenes that alternate between wondrous and sinister. Though these are pictures of natural phenomena, some of Barnes’ images suggest a most unnatural apocalyptic visitation. The exquisite digital prints are shown without glass, allowing close study of their textures and shapes.

Like several photographers, such as Richard Ross and Sugimoto, Barnes has been making color photographs in Natural History Museums. Barnes has chosen to photograph the displays before completion. While depicting ironic juxtapositions of museum staff at work inside of realistic dioramas, these images feel more editorial than Barnes’ black and white images discussed above. The works I found the most engaging were of taxidermy subjects in shipping crates. The opened crates, plastic covering all sides but the one facing us, serve as both containers for and frames of the animals. Inside a majestic brown bear seems to be caught mid stride. The wood frame, the soft lighting and diffuse plastic wrapping all combine in a more subtle counterpoint to the naturalistic pose of the bear.

In his photographs of the crated animals, Barnes has brought a more subtle irony to what could have a simple depiction of the kind of simulated natural landscapes found in museums.

Like the photographs of the Unabomber Cafe, the strongest works in this show demonstrate a unique visual transcendence in photography.

Light  maybe known to many for his exquisite printing technique which he used to great effect in making prints from NASA moon explorations photographs. Equallly noteworthy is a book of his prints made of the images of the United States Atomic Bomb testing programs.

This exhibit is comprised of framed photographs and six innovatively displayed handmade books of Michael Light’s photographs.  The richly printed books are the best way to see Light’s talents. Printed on heavy stock using Epson ink jet  machinery, the images spreads are seen in a book in which the  open pages spread to approximately 40×50”. Each book is supported on a  stand constructed from large vintage movie camera tripods, their legs splayed out wide so that the viewer can look down and easily view each open page.

After Light had completed the book of the moon photographs, he  had decided to photograph our own planet from the air.  Those photographs were compiled in the book Some Dry Space,. The photographs were made of Nevada and California desert landscapes. In this book, the landscape looses scale, and dimensional reference. The black and white images are tonally rich, graphic, and texturally sharp. The aerial photos of ground foliage render small bushes and their shadows  as black, negative space, and so the land appears pockmarked and cratered. Similarly furrows in the ground appear as severe scars. In these works, the transformative capabilities of photography are well demonstrated.

Two books of Los Angeles are on view. One was made in late afternoon light, and the other at night fall. With both series, Light deliberately defies technical convention, and the results are expressive studies in searing light or velvety blackness. A long standing rule in photography is to keep the sun behind the lens, but Light points his camera into the sun. In the last hour of the day, the late afternoon light rakes the cityscape at a low angle, and with the sun itself at the top of the picture frame, the entire image flares with indistinct shadows and diffuse highlights. Graded on technical excellence and defined detail, an important requirement for general aerial photography (say for a land survey ), these images would be considered to be poor quality. In this case, the artist sucessfully breaks the rules for expressive purposes.

The strongest images conjure an apocalyptic view. The upper portions of the images dissipate into an explosion of whiteness. The smoggy atmosphere spreads across the streets and buildings. In these photographs, not  one human figure can be seen; only vehicles. One could imagine that every car and truck is fleeing  the aftermath of an atomic explosion.

The night book captures the view from  the airplane window that we all have marveled over when  landing over a major city. Light’s richly printed images are of the deepest carbon black dotted with glowing orbs of every manner of electric illumination found in Los Angeles. Virtually no architectural detail can be seen in these images.  The specular quality of these night photographs suggest the work of Vija Clemens. To make these night photographs from an airplane entailed breaking a number of technical rules. But no matter, Light is a virtuosic printer, and these images envelope and engage the viewer.

Street Photography,  long championed by MOMA and John Szarkowski is a genre that has varied results. Walking the streets of major  cities, a photographer can, fisherman like, cast a rectangular picture frame into the waters of the urban peoplescape, and sometimes land a striking image. Inside of the picture frame an  unusual or quirky moment from the continuum of everyday life can be frozen forever.

At best, a photographer has an alert eye and a great sensitivity about how to organize the many elements into the photographs borders. At worst, this kind of work seems  to be nothing more than  a snapshot of people doing something that only the photographer thought was interesting when he pressed the shutter button. Essentially a voyeuristic activity, street photography  preys on unsuspecting people freezing them for  photographers’ knowing audience to examine. Some photographers are rather cruel,  and their photographs portray people more as specimens. Other  photographer treat human beings as elements that are arranged within a formal relationship inside of the picture frame. When to release the shutter is crucial, and the best practitioners have created enduring images.

Todd Papageorge knows well when to press his shutter button.   Unlike the cruel and  ridiculing manner of many street photographers practice, he has a light touch. The black and white photographs are made in Central Park, and capture most people in moods that range from amorous, playful or relaxed. A   man stripped to his briefs lies on his back on a slope of uncut grass. The warming sun  that encouraged the man to disrobe makes both the grass and his white skin glow.

Papageorge, captures people in  relationships both emotional and physical. One image depicts two young girls dressed with the same style (short scanty shifts and hairstyles) standing on the left and right sides of a tree.  The girl on the right  is clutch kissing a young man, while the other appears to be brooding about being alone. Friends or sisters, who can tell, but their nearly identical appearances poses a question as to why one girl is being kissed and the other is alone. This show presents a small   selection from more than 20 years of Papageorge’s work published in a new book.

There is humor in many of the photographs. A standing girl with her arms loosely hanging at her side stares at a ball hovering a few  inches from her face. This instant make what is probably ordinary play into a kind of mystery.  How is the ball suspended? It is a simple, offhand image, made without meditation of any sort, but the girl’s eye contact with the floating ball makes the statement.

The book is filled with all sorts of simple observations plucked out of everyday life. No image is terribly penetrating or dramatic, but as a whole the compilation of all those years of looking have proven that Papageorge has a sure and deft vision.

Astrid Korntheuer, Galerie Poller, 547 West 27th St.  Through June 23rd. Like many German photographers, Korntheur has great command of her technique. Her subjects are not extraordinarily scenic, nevertheless she makes truly beautiful landscape photographs that are delicate and atmospheric. These are large,   color ink jet images  approximately 40×50” Many depict  woods and grasses at twilight. The textures and colors are subtle but very engaging and  a very deep spacial illusion is created. In one image,  drops of water hang from the branches looking like pea size golden balls. The technical qualities of these photographs invite the eye to examine the entire image, and tiny sharply rendered detail provide much  to examine. Also on hand are black and white images.

I encourage a visit to see Gefeller’s photographs. A quick look at this work calls to mind some of Gursky’s more formal synthetic imagery. Like Gursky, Gefeller digitally combines multiple photographic frames to construct a single image printed at an imposing scale. His work also shares the formal structure of Gursky. Probably unable to resist, Gefeller has examined some of the same subjects of Gursky (namely High Rise buildings). So too, Gefeller’s work may have been inspired by the photographs of Grzeszykowska & Smaga, which I had discussed last year. Geffeller has photographed empty apartment flats in exactly the same manner as they did with the occupied apartments. While influences can be seen, Gefeller advances our understanding of the medium.

Gefeller’s work has much in common with aerial photography, where subjects seen from above show an unfamiliar way of seeing. His aerial views are of the ground beneath our feet, and his most striking images show us the ground that most of us would regard as ill kept and in need of a good clean up. Take as an example the image of the floor of a race track, littered with losing tickets, horse racing papers and beverage cups. Seen directly overhead all of these details coalesce into a striking composition.

Similarly he photographs a litter of lottery tickets strewn about a cobblestone street. Not knowing what is outside of the picture area, one can imagine that the holders of the losing tickets dropped them at the source of information about winning or losing. A accumulation of tickets at the bottom of the frame dissipates as fewer and fewer tickets can be seen scattered towards the top of the frame. The extremely fine detail of the photograph allows for each ticket to be examined closely.

Beyond this investigation of flat subject matter, this artist has added a technical innovation to the work. Each image is made from hundreds of individual digital pictures, all seamlessly assembled as a grid. David Hockney employed a similar methodology using small prints aggregated to a whole image comprised of numerous prints.

Gefeller has refined the technique, by moving his camera position directly over the ground. Keeping the camera at a fixed distance from the ground, he allows his camera to function as a kind of flatbed scanner. In a film clip available at the gallery, Gefeller is seen pacing the ground, supporting a camera tripod with the legs poking into his belly like a flag bearer on parade. He marches a few steps forward, stops and makes an exposure then moves on to the next spot in a grid, always keeping the camera parallel to the ground.

This technique produces extremely detailed images, as the large prints are comprised of low magnification frames all assembled to make the larger whole.

Another image of a nursery appears to be a delicate spidery grid of trees , some with bare branches and some with brown leaves against what seems to be a snow covered ground. As all of Gefeller’s other images are taken from above, the viewer is surprised to learn that all of the trees were photographed directly looking up from the tree base.

The best images in the show are complex and surprising. An image of the Holocaust memorial is abstract to the point of bafflement, but photographs of painted pavement is conventional. Rigorous formal organization of flat subject matter in the photographic frame has oft been explored, taking inspiration from abstract painting. But in Gefeller’s best work, this pursuit is practiced to a high degree of achievement.

In 3 hours spent last  Saturday afternoon at Chelsea galleries I found a lot of time being consumed with video watching. With some art videos requiring 20 or more minutes of viewing, sometimes I find that as intriguing as things are, I might not want to sit still for that duration.

I will recommend visiting Taxter and Spengemann (504 W. 22nd St, Through Feb 10) for the 4 videos which are short enough to watch from start to completion and then again.

Matt Calderwood, by observing common objects  from a fixed point of view makes engaging and meditative videos.

Upon entering the gallery, the most striking video shows a floating light bulb bobbing and spinning in the black space of a large high definition video monitor. Calling to mind a classroom science demonstration of how a ball can be made to float, we are immediately made aware that the bulb is kept aloft by a stream of compressed air, which can be heard hissing on the video sound track. Because of the bulb’s shape, it does not float with the consistency of a sphere. The video image records the bulb, threaded base up, spinning eccentrically, becoming more and more unstable in flight. The air pressure seems to increase, because the bulbs oscillations increase in height and speed appearing ever more dizzying and  absurd. In a few moments, the bulb begins to move  in and  out of the top of the  camera frame, until it is blown completely off camera, followed by a loud popping sound, which would be the bulb breaking after being blown off of the air jet. The short film has humor and magic.

On the gallery’s second floor is a video that begins with the camera frame completely filled with hundreds of wooden match sticks bunched together. The red match heads  are filmed  directly above so the effect is more of  texture than description. For what seems like a surprisingly long time, we sense that the image on the screen is flickering, provoking the thought that there are many matches out of frame that are burning and illuminating the matches. The light becomes brighter and flickers strongly,  the intense red of the match heads seen in the video image  starts to degrade, becoming lighter and more yellow, then whiter. Finallly the flames  appear at the bottom of the camera frame, igniting the match heads consecutively across the entire image. The flames reach the greatest intensity, diminish, the wood of the match heads burns for a fitful moment, flames out, smolders, and extinguishes. It all seems to take longer than I would have imagined, but the whole process fascinates in the same way that playing with matches  would captivate a child. Calderwood asks us to take the time and look at the seemingly trivial, and what he shows us is surprisingly rich.

Reading the Bellwether web site today about the   Brent Green exhibit  clears me of my guilty feelings that I should of stayed to see all of the videos showing there. Turns out there that there are  (according to the press release) 11  20 minute videos. The brief look that I did take at the videos being screened at the gallery was fascinating. Using stop animation and handmade film cells, the world in these videos is somewhat nightmarish, resembling the films of the Brothers Quay and Tim Burton with a little William Kentridge thrown in. The animation had a somewhat staccato quality. The artist used acetate animation cells, and these were very much in evidence, because the camera lighting was reflected in the material. Ordinarily, animators would  eliminate these reflections. The artist also used tape to hold the cell in position, and the resulting effect  shows not only the animation of the action, but also the movement of the acetate cell across the image area, as well as the pieces of tape moving about the cell. This work is both crude and sophisticated; Brent Green is a strong artist. (134 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, between 18th and 19th Streets Closes on Saturday)

Amy Yoes at Michael Steinberg Fine Art.526 West 26th St. Suite 215 Painting and sculpture with video,  Video with painting and sculpture, and small photographs of painted sculpture. Yoes uses these media in varying proportions but to good effect. The main room at the gallery has a large painted sculptural relief jutting out from wall, suggesting “built in” shelving or furniture.  Two videos  are projected within the space on the wall occupied by the  relief. One  animation depicts  a ball of clay changing shape and rotating, and the other image shows an animated thick black line that  incrementally appears and disappears.

A single channel video  employs a stationary camera to make a  stop animation of a sculptural set with shapes reminiscent of the room installation. In this engaging film loop, objects mechanically move about the set, and various white panels appear to be covered in black paint, only to have the black disappear as soon as it appears. It is  is  short film loop, but one could watch it over multiple cycles to see the transformations taking place in  the sculpture.

In the back gallery are black and white photographs of small painted constructions, similar to that of the video. In these images, the ambiguities of space that can be created in painting by the use of  shading, volume and line are captured. When looking at these photographs,  it is difficult to differentiate the  actual space and volume from that which is merely painted.

The investigation of painted spatial illusion through photography seems to be the concern of many artists these day, and Amy Yoes has added her fresh insights.

At Max Protetch ( 511 West 22nd Street, New York, New York 10011, through Feb 17th) Tim Hyde, comes late to the world of  Night, Urban and industrial landscape photography. Previously working in the commercial film industry, Hyde’s images, while at first atmospheric, quickly remind the viewer of  ot other artists’ work done earlier.

There is a short video which combines Hyde’s knowing eye and flair for dramatic composition along with the mood of film noir. His most elaborate work, the scene is of a russian high-rise apartment complex. Filmed at night with a soundtrack of muffled shouts, the barks of dogs and snippets of  incomprehensible  russian , the mood is desolate. The scenes are tightly framed with a stationary camera and the lens is zoomed  in and out to draw the viewers’ eyes. Humans hastily walk across darkened courtyards and wild dogs scamper about.  A young woman on her haunches laughs and talks at the camera while smoking a cigarette. In a different scene a frog hops into the frame. It’s all put together very well and is fairly evocative, but it all seems to be a drama waiting for a narrative. Hyde appears to have in his mind a compendium of strong images remembered from photographs and films he has seen before. He is able to make images that are evocative, but these works are  mainly evocative of the work of others.

Hyde’s most distinctive work is the seven channel video made over several hours during a snowstorm at night. Here the video camera’s auto focus mechanism is unable to find a point of focus, and so the horizontal bank of images rack in an out of focus and definition while the tape runs on. Each video screen shows diffuse, ghostly white images of  a New York City panorama. With this work, the artist has discovered a phenomena of camera technology which he has employed to individual effect.

See you at the galleries!

An excellent photography show can be seen at Yossi Milo, 525 West 25th St. until September 14th. Alessandra Sanguinetti’s work shows the potential for photography to transcend mere description. And she does this with images of farm animals.

Documentary photography can show us subjects we don’t have the chance to see with our own eyes. Far flung and unknown scenes have always been one of the subjects of photography. At its beginning photographers, accompanying explorers, brought back images of the strange and fantastic, whether it be the ruins of ancient civilizations or the untouched natural world. In the 19th Century, photography and exploration were very similar pursuits, practiced by a hearty and determined few.

In time, the practice of photography became an independent exploratory activity driven by the interests and curiosities of the photographer. In the 20th century viewers were fascinated by photographs of the exotic, for example, bygone Paris, rural americana, and drug abusing teenagers. With the cumbersome nature of the picture taking apparatus and uneven results, early photography required a technical ability and fortitude few had.

Today, it’s relatively easy to visit remote parts of our world. Tourists flock regularly to Antarctica or even Mt Everest. Along with the evolution of photographic technology almost anyone can take a picture almost anywhere. As a result of this ease, there are many photographs which faithfully capture the sights.

In the past few years, extraordinary disasters such as Katrina or the World Trade Center disaster have yielded prodigious amounts of photo documentation. In “Here’s New York” – a compilation of thousands of images of the WTC disaster – most pictures were searingly powerful. Yet these images had a sameness to them. The power and interest of the images was from what was described rather than any particular sensitivities for the subject. Whether crudely made or possessing subtlety and insights, a photograph depicting dramatic or unfamiliar subjects can astound and fascinate.

Many galleries are now presenting photographs that have documented an aspect of this world. Viewers are shown what a subject would look like if they too were able to be a witness. But it is a rare photographer who brings insights into the subject that they choose to study. Most often, documentary photographs are simply descriptive images, lacking in any distinguishing viewpoint.

Alessandra Sanguinetti’s images of farm life show a unique vision of this world encompassing both beauty and catastrophe.

Holding her camera at close range and at the height of the particular animal in the photographs, Sangunetti’s images are intensely vivid. By no means bucolic, the images depict the filth, violence, and death that can be found on a farm. Many of the images also evoke a pathos for the animals. The images portray an intelligence in the expressions of those animals photographed alive. In one photograph, two chickens are poised to peck at a tiny animal fetus in the grass. Perhaps a moment after the exposure, they mercilessly consumed the carcass, but from the photograph one might imagine that the chickens felt an empathetic sadness for the dead thing.

To look at Sanguinetti’s photographs makes us transfer our emotions to the animals, and we feel the expression of emotion from these images.

Another print depicts two lambs roped together by the neck as they stagger in opposite directions. The camera point of view is low, showing one lamb wearing what looks like an S&M hooded head mask with no eye holes. The struggle of the two animals as they lurch obstinently towards their chosen directions evokes our human condition: yoked together must we always try to go our own way?

In another image a cow’s eye can be seen peering above a fence. The composition is rigorously formal. At the bottom of the frame, a band of the wood fence can be seen, above that a bit of the cow’s nose, an eye, the ears, and then above the fence three dome like shapes of tree tops. And finally the blue sky. The cow’s eye catches ours and empathically engages Never have animals seemed so alive with emotion and intelligence.

There are 18 works in this show and most reveal a distinctive and insightful vision. For urban dwellers who might not visit farms, the images show us what we have never seen. But it’s unlikely the people who own the farms have ever seen their animals in this way either.

Sanguinetti, exploring what could have been familiar territory, has created a view of the farm which looks completely new and fresh. Sometimes exploration need not be done in far flung corners of the world. There are some who, through the exploration of the close by and familiar, will discover something quite astonishing.

Blessed are the Merciful
Curated by Jerome Jacobs
February 10 – April 29, 20 at Feigen contemporary , 535 W. 29th St.

This group show, has a few photo an video based works. I was quite taken with the two videos by Nezaket Enkici. In one video, the face of a young woman in red head scarf, fills the TV screen. The action begins as she jerks her head about in a circular fashion to begin spinning a bright purple hula hoop about her neck. A sound track with a lively, happy production music score can be faintly heard over the screen’s speaker. Nominally an exercise activity or a child’s game this video imagery of the hula hoop evokes a distinctly unsettling quality. With downcast eyes and a pained expression, the woman’s actions appear to be a manifestation of an obsessive compulsive disorder. This image of a severe looking young woman dressed in ostensibly Muslim garb presents an extreme contrast to the long held western associations about hula hoops: a fun loving, shapely bathing suit clad woman gyrating to keep the hoop orbiting around her body. This video is not about having fun.

In the other video, the woman is clothed entirely in black, including the headdress. Grabbing the ends of her scarf with both her hands, she violently shakes the fabric about her head, in a kind of self flagellation. The audio track reproduces the flapping sound of the cloth.

Ekici’s resume notes her studies with Marina Abramovic, and that tutelage is evident in these videos. Nevertheless, the two short films are quite haunting.

Richard Misrach on view at Pace Wildenstein from March 25 through April 22, 2006 at 534 West 25th Street. Presented in this show is a Whitman Sampler of Misrach’s photographs from over 30 years and most will be rather tasty bites. Beginning with his black and white desert photographs, one can see the innovation and originality that Misrach has brought to this medium. Misrach’s long term pursuit of landscape imagery has yielded a remarkably consistent sensibility which has probed the expressive potential of his subject and materials. The work assembled in this show has been very influential to the work of other photographers.

If you have not followed Misrach’s career, this retrospective will be essential viewing.

Victor Schraeger show at Edwin Houk Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue through March 4th. This is Schraeger’s second exhibit from a body of work that has significantly departed from the work he has been known for- black and white still life photographs. This show consists of extremely out of focus images of books.

Not long after the advent of this technology, photographers began to discover devices which could be used to degrade clear and accurate descriptions of their subjects. One such device is soft focus photography which actually had its own movement, Photo Secessionism. Over the 150 years of photographic practice, various methods were devised to add interest to what might otherwise be an uninteresting photograph. When technique drives the main characteristic of an image, we should consider if its use is merely a gimmick, or if the artist has reached another level of visual investigation and thought.

For a few years, Victor Schrager, also, has been employing the technique of soft focus. These photographs are immediately suggestive of painting, with a kinship to De Stijl as well as some of the glowing qualities of Rothko. The color palette ranges from muted to intensely glowing colors.

Using just a handful of volumes, without book jackets, Schraeger has selected the books for the color of the covers. The books are then arranged in formal relationships to each other within the picture space. It all could have been a simplistic exercise, but Schraeger has a fine understanding of his technique, and he has created some surprisingly engaging images with great economy.

By using a very limited point of focus and light and shadow, his prints confound our expectations about still life imagery. When looking at Schraeger’s work, the viewer will not immediately perceive that these are images of books. What appears are glowing color shapes in overlapping or free standing configurations. When moving in closer to examine a print, one can see that within each image, a narrow portion of a book cover that is depicted with absolute clarity, while the surrounding books are increasing out of focus. That clear edge, when juxtaposed to an out of focus color of a book behind creates unusual spatial ambiguities. This effect is rather like that which can be seen in the work of Zupcu, which was discussed in an earlier E-mail.

The glowing colors, formal composition and the negative space that can be seen in Schraeger’s have all been explored before in painting. What is unique and exciting about this work is that it declaratively photographic. Schraeger has ingeniously used focus, a characteristic unique to optics and photographic technique to make us think about composition and space.

On a personal note, I seem to be particularly interested in these aspects of representation and spatial illusion. However, photography exploring these issues does seem to be part of a wider sensibility that has appeared in the galleries lately.