Rineke Dijkstra’s recent show at Marian Goodman Gallery has remained on my mind (June 29 – August 21, 2010 New York). Until this show, Dijkstra’s  photographs did not figure large in my pantheon of photography. I found the well-known portrait series of children and young adults at the seaside to offer little sustained interest. The images were an immediate read, utterly factual and heavily referential to art historical precedents. Her photographic technique dates to the time of August Sander and her results except for being in color and of contemporary individuals were very similar to his. Many photographers who have worked with a 4×5 or similar view camera end up making portraits that have a studied awkwardness like those of Sander. This is a function of working with this type of camera, and very few photographers are able to make images that significantly depart from the qualities that are identified with Sander’s work.

Some may question a reference to Sander’s work without going into detail about the thematic underpinnings of his study of contemporary Germans or how the images were different than the practice of his contempories, but I am limiting the discussion to the characteristic nature of his work . With the 1969 Exhibition of Sander’s work at the Museum of Modern Art, many of us were astonished by the strikingly evidentiary nature of his photography. Part of that had to do with the time capsule nature of old photographs- the quaint costumes and accouterments of another era, but the other aspect was that in the decades since Sander’s time, many more people were being photographed with hand held cameras by friends and family and in those photos people generally looked much more relaxed and casual than those who had to set still for a portrait in Sander’s day. Seeing Sander’s photographs brightly illuminated on the white walls of Moma further heightened the impact of their starkly rendered factuality. Large format straight document was one of the photographic views of the world being championed by Moma. Along with Sander, the photographs of Walker Evans and Atget which were also shown at the time. These shows were very influential for contemporary photographers, and quite a few rejected the practice of  handheld 35mm cameras in favor of working with large format cameras and tripods.

For those who haven’t used this kind of equipment, I will attempt a short summary of their relatively complex operation: Most 4×5 cameras do not have viewfinders and so the photographer must put his or her head beneath a focusing cloth (other viewing aids are available which can be substituted for a focusing cloth). It can take several minutes for the photographer to: 1. frame the subject,  2. focus the image, 3.  close the lens of the camera and cock the shutter,  4. load the sheet film holder, 5. remove the dark slide on the film holder. While all of this is going on, the sitter must remain fairly still so as not to disturb the composition, focus and sharpness of the image. This would be the time when the photographer may try to influence the sitter’s pose and expression.  After all those steps, the exposure is made. For the subject sitting or standing with little to do but uncomfortably stare back at a big box with a single glass eye, large format portraiture can feel like a medical examination. This procedure tends to insure that the sitters have solemn, dignified and stiff countenances rendered in exceptional clarity, very much like the faces in Sander’s portraits.  It’s why so many images made by Joel Sternfeld, Alec Soth, and others are very much alike. Besides the individual appearances of their subjects, I didn’t think that many large format portraits images are strongly differentiated from one artist to another. That is, until Dijkstra’s last show.

Instead of using a still camera, Dijkstra has mounted her video camera(s) on a tripod. Of course, making filmed or video portraits has been practiced by other artists, including Andy Warhol. These video portraits merely added monotony to the results by extending the awkward confrontation between camera and subject beyond the few minutes normally involved and also extending the time required to view the work. Little more was yielded by the extra time.

Dijkstra inventively sidestepped the tedious nature of the filmed portrait by making her works actually cinematic. For the video, Weeping Woman, three cameras were mounted on low tripods upon which was affixed a reproduction of the Picasso painting, Weeping Woman. Facing her video setup are nine fresh faced, young, teenage boys and girls. The camera was allowed to roll without interruption for 12 minutes. With this work, Dijkstra has brought portraiture to a whole new level. Whereas her large still portraits describe similar likenesses of awkwardly self-conscious individuals, her video presents 9 exquisitely detailed specimens for us to observe for an extended interval.

In using the Picasso painting as distraction from the camera and videographer, Dijkstra effectively absented herself during the filming and the sitters were able to forget that they were being filmed. Being under the observation of three cameras, would likely make most people self conscious, but these children, dressed in their school uniforms, are preoccupied with a discussion that they are having about the painting.

With this work Dijkstra has created a beautifully voyeuristic experience for her audience. The high definition video spools on allowing us to stare at the expressive faces of the children, something we might wish to do in life, but would not for fear that our intense gaze would be noticed. At best, a still photo might capture a single expressive moment, but in this video, expressions and feelings fleetingly cross their nine faces.  It’s as if we are watching time lapse films of weather patterns: furrowing brows, pursing lips, and narrowing eyes animate these nine fascinating faces. We can listen in and we can scrutinize 12 minutes of a life infused group portrait. Their expressive intensity and rapt concentration reminded me of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. In that painting, he portrayed the  very expressive faces of eight surgeons and  one corpse. In viewing the video Weeping Woman, we might imagine that if Rembrandt stood in place of the video cameras, he could have chosen from each face of the children one momentary expression from which to make a painting of this group. The experience Djkstra is truly a breakthrough in portraiture.

Similarly Dijkstra’s Ruth Drawing Picasso (approx. 6 minutes) examines a young teenager at the Tate Liverpool sketching a Picasso. In her school uniform and sheepskin boots she sits on the floor, a sketch book in her lap, her face looking up over the camera and then down at her book while intently drawing what we can assume is the Picasso on the wall behind the stationary camera. Scarcely moving, Ruth becomes an analogue of the artist’s model. She sits very still, while the video camera renders her image. It is Ruth’s intense focus that makes the video so engaging.  It is the great accomplishment of this artwork that its viewer can remain interested in watching a person quietly sit in place for six minutes.

By contrast the videos of club patrons at The Krazyhouse, Liverpool UK (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee), 2009-2010 are not nearly as evocative. Perhaps studies in self-conscious posturing, the videos seem much more like Dijkstra’s still photographs, only animated. These videos are of young adults slowly dancing and gyrating to cheesy dance music. In one, the dancer is more talented and inventive,  and this made this video more interesting than the other three. But all of the videos seemed bound in their specificity. Despite showing much more ‘action’, these video evoke much less feeling. Neither the subject nor the photographer had transcended the process, and the results feel inert. Compared to the keen observation of her young subjects, there is a monotonous and listless quality to the portrayals of the dancers.

In many of Dijkstra’s technically adept still photographs she seems unable to bring more than simple observation to the subject. In her work, the process of photographing and being photographed seemed to impede the evocation of anything more than awkward likenesses. The genius of her video studies of the school children is in the observation of her subjects’ observation. In turn, Dijkstra has acutely studied their intense attention to something outside of themselves. By doing that, she has portrayed something far richer and surprising than her still photographs. Also, by allowing the video camera to run more or less unattended, she took herself out of the process, and in doing that, she invested the results with more of herself than ever before.

The show is accompanied by prints of the same subjects. At best, they are well-chosen film stills, but feel more like souvenirs than the fully formed works that the videos are.

Previously seen at art fairs over several years, Julie Blackmon’s new photographs currently showing at Robert Man Gallery continue to construct tableaux fictions of bourgeois family life. Rather than documenting the lives of her subject, Blackmon, a mother of three children, photographs her family, nieces and nephews using digital techniques to blend and recombine many images of the characters depicted in her imagery. Staged photography has remained a staple at contemporary art galleries, with the most ambitious of the genre being created by Gregory Crewdson.   Representing the polar opposite of Crewdson’s bitter dramas of human alienation, Blackmon’s photographs come across as the idealized good life of affluent young families. In seeing Blackmon’s work singly or in small groups, the viewer will likely delight in the comical relationships depicted in the  images as well as the carefully constructed formal and narrative qualities).

Whereas Crewdson often depicts despairing individuals inhabiting grimy film noirish sets,  Blackmon photographs well dressed adults and children in splendidly appointed interiors and homes with the bright strobe lighting techniques seen in shelter magazines.  In fact her work teeters more to the side of editorial illustration, and these confections often seem too sweet.

Not usually seen in galleries, similar efforts are  frequently found in   “work books” of commercial photographers. In these glossy pages (used by art directors  in the advertising field to find photographers for assignments) can be found more than a few staged photographs  depicting a quintessential American moment . A  skinny tow headed boy tinkering with his soapbox derby car is one such trope. Another- the beautiful blonde young woman in bikini washing a classic red Camaro while being sprayed  with  a hose by the  handsome varsity hunk. Similarly, recent Smuckers Jam TV  commercials  traffic in an idealized 1950’s representation of an American farm boy’s life of bluejean overalls and vintage bicycles filmed in gauzy soft focus. We owe these treacley scenes to the covers of Saturday Evening Post and the former illustrator, now celebrated  artist, Norman Rockwell. And while Blackmon’s images, styled with the accouterments of today’s well off homes, avoid the nostalgia of Rockwell, they are heavily invested in cuteness.  Because the compositions of the imagery are so expertly assembled from multiple photographs, the work looks more contrived than evocative.

Take “Lost Mitten” in which a  gently contoured snowy hillside below a cloudy sky divides the picture frame roughly in half. A black labrador (often appearing as a prop in  Ralph Lauren Ads) enters the photograph from the lower left, pointing our eyes to the red coated mother towing a beautiful wood sleigh and toddler while presumably his sister of 3 or 4 years age attired in a tasteful gray over coat and yellow knit cap prepares to slide down the hill on plastic sled. The mitten in question can be seen on the snow bank.

In Blackmon’s photograph, “Line-up” -seven children are placed against a granite block wall and overhead balustrade of a solid looking house. All the children are fashionably styled and are assembled across the lower half of the square image in a perfect  composition which even includes the children’s’ chalk marks on the pavement.  In what could be a portrayal of the mischievous nature of boys,  one kid pulls his ears and sticks out his tongue for the photographer. But it looks like so much stage direction and comes across as cloying as the Smuckers Ad. When every child’s expression looks selected for maximum expression and every detail looks deliberately placed, the artifice comes on heavy handed in the same way that Norman Rockwell’s paintings left nothing for the viewer to imagine.  Wide eyed, pigtailed blond girls, freckle faced boys, kindly gray-haired granddads and apron wearing grandmas,  were some of the types cast by Rockwell. Each were photographed posing with particular expressions on their faces and then assembled in the paintings which would so deftly and obviously play on our heartstrings.

Representing the other end of the rainbow are the photographs of Gregory Crewdson. With considerable skill and evocation, Crewdson broke from the aforementioned  sentimental imagery and rightly found himself to be a highly sought after artist. Over the years, Crewdson’s work, for all it’s power, began to create its own tropes- alienation and misery photographed in exquisite clarity and detail. Never the less, it serves as a contrast in which to examine Blackmon’s work. If Blackmon can be likened to Rockwell, Crewdson can be compared to Edward Hopper. The paintings of Hopper depict people in situations of which the interpretation is not as obvious as those of Rockwell. Viewers of his work can try to imagine the thoughts and feelings of these individuals, reflecting on their own lives and feelings.

In Blackmon’s photograph,  “Girl Across the Street”, pictures the back of a very young  boy of 18-24 months,  with his hands and head at the sill of a picture window. The very formal composition uses the drapes and window as a proscenium to the stage like view of the lawn and house across the street, capturing the boy’s view of a girl of similar age  across the street, arms akimbo, dressed only in panties. The picture’s details are perfectly propped- 1950’s era star burst wall clock on the left of the window, 50’s yellow tiered lamp shade and a half eaten chocolate donut on the floor. The view outside is a stone mid-century suburban house, lawn with  small turquoise blue inflatable splashing pool and a scooter.  At first glance, the scene conjures up this adult’s childhood memories of being confined to the house when the world outside beckoned powerfully. But for all of the precisely arranged details, the image seems rooted  in stasis.

In Baby Toss, a photograph that I was initially  drawn to, a super cute baby girl is frozen in flight against the pure blue sky  of the upper right quadrant of the photo. Below, the man who tossed the kid stands with his hands stretched overhead to catch the kid.  This little bundle of joy with  a slight hint of terror on her face is wearing a green hand knit cap, a light brown double breasted overcoat with red buttons, striped purple and black tights and red shoes.   Balancing the photographs composition on the left are the head and shoulders of another child whose knit hat, amusingly is pulled down over her eyes.

Whether depicting fantasy or reality, art seems to be most successful when the portrayal  leaves room for the variable meanings that we find in living.  In thinking of photographs of children the work of Sally Mann and Helen Levitt come to mind.  In the case of Mann , the evocation of her work was so rich and multivalent  that some viewers own darkest fears colored their interpretation of the work . Many years earlier, Helen Levitt photographed children candidly and in action,  capturing a rich and evocative portrayal of their lives and relationships.  There is an authenticity lacking in Blackmon’s photographs. However carefully Blackmon assembles all of the elements that comprise her imagery, for this viewer it never brings anything more to mind than cutely appealing imagery. Plucking the same heart strings as Norman Rockwell, there is never any squalor or struggle in Blackmon’s work. These images could easily be confused with those made for a lifestyle magazine.

Having raptly watched the entire season of “WORK OF ART: THE NEXT GREAT ARTIST”, I couldn’t get the program out of my mind. I began to reflect upon the program and its concept. While this show broke new ground with its art and artists theme, the format was a TV staple- the reality game show.

Reality television shows of this type first crossed the Americans consciousness with the broadcast of CBS’ Survivor. That show introduced television viewers to a cast of 16 men and women who competed with each other in a succession of physical and strategic challenges over 13 weekly episodes. Every week, the host Jeff Probes would portentously brief the players (organized into two ‘tribes’) about the new game, its rules and conditions. Taking place on a remote tropical island, the play would begin with scenes of the contestants struggling to complete physical tasks that were later cut and edited and amped up by an emotional soundtrack. At episode’s end, the host would reappear at a tiki lit fire circle meeting of the tribes to review the challenge results. Building suspense with lingering pauses and shimmering music, one cast member would then be eliminated from the game. Survivor captured the attention of an astonishingly large television audience and was one of these American cultural moments where the show was endlessly promoted and discussed in most media, including the serious press. As the show’s cast diminished, who the final winner might be became a national obsession. Anyone residing in the US would have had to be well insulated from any media to have remained unaware of the show.

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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.