War is Surreal

The more that war or combat is portrayed in various media the less I feel like I will ever really be able to understand what the experience is like. If that is true, is it possible to truly prepare our service men and women for what they will face? They may be prepared with the best physical and technical training, but how can we prepare them psychologically for something that can’t really be simulated? And, if we can’t prepare them psychologically, how will we deal with the inevitable post traumatic stress some may encounter on their return home. These are all questions that came up as I view two well-paired bodies of work currently hanging at SFCamerawork dealing with different aspects of the prosecution of war.

Mother with Babies, Fort Polk, Louisiana from Theater of War
© Christopher Sims

The first, Theater of War by 2010 Baum Award Winner Christopher Sims, is a combination of portraiture and environmental images that shows us an aspect of soldiers preparation before deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Sims shows us a glimpse of the fake villages the military creates and populates with “actors” to provide a stage upon which various scenarios are acted out. Despite the fact that, as Sims’ artist statement sates, “The designers and inhabitants of these worlds take great pride in the scope and fidelity of their wars-in-miniature,” the absurdity of a woman sitting in a folding chair spinning wool next to a RPG only makes me think there is no way to properly prepare soldiers for what they will encounter. It also highlights the near impossible task regular armed forces face when they’re up against irregular forces, especially in a populated area. Even if you take the military aspect out of it the images are representation of a simulation. They are one person’s edited view of an interpretation of a foreign place and people which calls into question, more so than usual, the veracity of photography.

Captain Elizabeth A. Condon, New York Army National Guard, veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with daughter, Kate, and mother, Elizabeth, Troy, NY, June 2008 from Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan
© Jennifer Karady

In contrast to the careful preparation prior to deployment, the second body of work shows us the aftermath of deployment, the psychological damage, and the sometimes faulty support system that soldiers face on their return to the US. Jennifer Karady‘s Soldiers’ Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan show soldiers reenacting  traumatic situations from their deployment, but in their home setting, often with friends or family members in the scene as well. Though perhaps not as intricately staged as Gregory Crewdson’s work, I feel that Karady’s work is more immediate. By that I mean that though both artists construct staged narratives replete with psychological drama, I think of Crewdson’s work as being more removed and clinical, lacking the emotional weight of Karady’s work. A lot of that may have to do with being able to read the soldiers’ recounted descriptions of what they were feeling or the situations they were reenacting. Yet even before I read the accounts, I looked at the images and wanted to learn more about the people pictured. Not something I often feel with Crewdson’s work.

from Twilight
© Gregory Crewdson

All in all, a really smart paring of two thought provoking bodies of work. Both are up through the first week in August, so if you’re in San Francisco this summer, check out the show.

More Dollar Signs

I went to last Saturday’s SFCamerawork auction expecting to see a lot of photos being sold below the low estimate which is pretty much what happened. Of the 151 lots, 114 sold for below the low estimate, 33 sold within the range in the catalog, and only 4 exceeded the high estimate. As I said, this is what I expected given the state of the economy. What I didn’t expect was, when I went back and looked at my notes from the last auction I attended, that those numbers were roughly the same distribution as in 2006.

Though there were more lots in 2006, 180  to Saturday’s 151,  the percentage of pieces that sold for below the low estimate was actually greater 78% to 75%. There were more sold above the high estimate in 2006, 7% to 3%, but there were also fewer sold within the estimate range, 15% to 22%. It makes me wonder how they come up with their estimates. Does Camerawork come up with the estimates or are they provided by the person who donates the work? In Camerawork’s case it’s probably in their best interest to have the estimate high so that the buyer will feel more inclined to bid if they think they are getting a piece for within or below an estimate. With the donors, especially if it is a gallery representing the artist or the artist themselves, then it gets a bit trickier. You want the work to go for as much as possible, but you don’t want it to go for under the estimate and possibly effect future prices. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure that this auction has that much influence on prices.

The four pieces that sold for above the catalog’s high estimate were Richard Gilles’ Clement Ave. & Oak Street, Ann Hamilton’s book weight (human carriage), Dinh Q. Le’s Untitled, and Hank Willis Thomas’ Who Can Say No To A Beautiful Brunette?. The Dinh Q. Le actually went for $12,000 on an estimate of $5000/$8000 establishing a new record (according to the auctioneer) for a piece sold at a Camerawork auction.

Dinh Q. Le, Untitled, 2004

I’m missing data from 2007 and 2008, but Le’s work seems to be on the rise in terms of popularity. In 2003 a piece estimated at $850/$1000 sold for $1100. In 2004, on the same estimate a piece sold for $2600. In 2005, for a work the same size as 2004, the estimate moved up to $4500/$5500 and the work sold for $3200. Though it didn’t meet the estimate there was still an increase in the price reached compared to the previous year. The work on offer this year was the same size as both 2004 and 2005 and again the estimate had moved up and was exceeded. The bidding can down to two particular bidders. The winning bidder also bought lots from John Collier, Flor Garduno, Todd Hido, Pirkle Jones, Marion Post Walcott and Edward Weston. I don’t know if the winning buyer was a dealer or collector, but the underbidder was a dealer, who could have been bidding for a client, his gallery, or himself.

In general the lots are quite affordable. Whether it was a boom year like 2005 or a bust year like this year a majority of the lots went for $500 or less (roughly 60% in 2006 and just over 50% in 2009). So, if you are looking for affordable art or just want to watch the show, the SFCamerawork auction is a good place to start.

I also mentioned Sarah Thornton’s book, Seven Days in the Art World in my last post and wanted to follow up with a mention of the special report on the art market that she co-wrote with Fiammetta Rocco in the Nov. 28th–Dec 4th of the Economist. The report considers the art market in light of the current economic conditions and addresses issues like primary vs. secondary markets, Andy Warhol as a “bellwether”, and the flow of Chinese art back to China. It’s worth checking out as either an addition to the book that deals with more current events or as an introduction to the topic.

Dollar Signs

If you were wondering how the recession has changed the art world, judging from the $43.7 million payed at auction for a Warhol painting (fittingly a painting of money) the answer is not very much. At least not at the top end of the market where, like any other part of the economy, the people with money still have money and are looking to consolidate or expand their holdings. This is the world that Sarah Thornton is largely dealing with in her book Seven Days in the Art World, an entertaining introduction into various facets of a very insular world. Anyone looking for an expose will most likely come away disappointed. It’s not that kind of book. Instead you’ll get snapshots of a Christie’s auction, a crit at CalArts, the “feeding frenzy” at Art Basel, the presentation of the Turner Prize, the workings at Artforum, Takashi Murakami’s studio, and the Venice Biennale which end up showing how small and connected the art world is at the very top.

Most of the research for this book took place before the bottom fell out of the economy. The auction she covers was in 2004 and the most recent entries (the studio visit and the Biennale) are based on events in 2007 so reading it now adds an interesting twist. One point made in the book was that the most recent boom in the art market was fueled largely the work of living artists, the Damien Hirsts and Jeff Koons’ of the world. And that, like other sectors of the economy, there was a lot of speculation. Like the housing market, the art market was distorted by the huge amounts of money flowing into it. The money had to find a place to go and, with the fixed number of Monets and Van Goghs in the world, it flowed into living artists and the search for the next big thing. With the downturn I imagine there will be a return to the blue chip artists like Warhol. As a side note I also recently saw the documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, a film about one woman’s quest to sell what she believes to be a Jackson Pollock painting that she bought in a thrift store for five dollars. As you may imagine, this film portrays the art world in a somewhat different light.

On a completely different scale, it’ll be interesting to what kind of economic indicator SF Camerawork’s benefit auction (Saturday, December 5, 1 pm) will be this year. Will it be positive like the Sotheby’s auction, an indication that there are still people willing to spend money on art? Or will it be another grim reminder that the next boom is still a long way off? Let’s hope it’s the former.

“Items I Thought I Needed”

Have you ever been seized by the urge to just rid yourself of all your possessions? You may not actually do it, but there’s this desire to purge that’s a counterpoint to the urge to collect. In a recently opened show at the Haines gallery called The Relative Value of Things Nigel Poor examines these two competing desires. The work on display was created during a residency at the San Francisco Center for the Book, but reflects the ongoing examination of the idea of collecting. By collecting things that have no value (hair and lint) and keeping a record of all the things she has discarded for a number of years she prompts the viewer to examine their own choices about what they keep and discard.

Nigel Poor, 18 Years of Date Books

The show consists of three twelve book sets, eight triptychs that combine text and image, and a wall of compositions made of either hair or lint set up salon style. All three sets of books are mounted on the wall in a way that there covers combine to form a single large compositions. Like the salon wall, one set of book covers is compositions done with lint and the second is done with hair. The final set of books displays the shared back covers that form a single large image called Someday I will be as Insignificant as a Swarm of Summer Insects. This piece is composed of the same tiny handwriting that appears in the triptychs.

One frustration I had with this, and pretty much any show of book art, is the inability to turn the pages*. In this case the books are mounted on the wall, the only hint we get about the interior is from the cell phone tour. It states that the interiors are much like the triptychs which combine two photos of discarded items with a fraction of the written list of discarded items. Which brings me to my second quibble, I wanted to see more. There are only eight triptychs to represent the entirety of years of discarded objects. I don’t know if it was a function of the space available (Poor’s work is in only a small section of the gallery), but I would be interested in seeing more of this facet of the project and, even if I can’t turn the pages, at least one spread of a books interior.

Nigel Poor, S’Rilla #2

That said, I appreciate the way in which Poor’s work is often a combination of the intensely personal and the participatory. For this work, in addition to keeping track of everything she has discarded, she is inviting people to contribute their own stories and images of discarded items at www.nigelpoor-relativevalue.com. The lint and hair were also gathered from other people, putting yet another strange spin on the idea of collecting.

I knew going in that, both visually and conceptually, the work would be right up my alley and my minor quibbles with the set up of the show did nothing to change that. I’m looking forward to see how this project evolves and what will catch Poor’s collector’s curiosity next.

The show runs through June 13 with an opening Saturday, May 2 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

*Correction:
I went to the opening this afternoon and maybe I missed it the first time, but there were copies of the book available at the front desk that you could look through upon request.

Spring Cleaning

The first full day of spring seems to be as good a time as any to clean out my drafts folder of the various fragments I have written over the past couple of months.

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if you get there before me, will you save me a seat?
if you get there before me, would you save me a seat?
but if i never get there at all,
would you leave the seat empty?

My favorite thing about the Mountain Goats is the poignancy and occasional strangeness of the lyrics. By his own admission, John Darnielle isn’t the greatest guitarist, but he more than makes up for any lack of musicianship with the poetry of his words and the conviction of his delivery. It seems fitting, therefore, that he would sit down for an interview with a writer like Tobias Wolff as he did last night (Feb. 24) at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. They seemed to share a mutual admiration for each others work that went beyond the usual interviewer-interviewee relationship. At several points Darnielle was much more interested in asking Wolff questions than he was in answering.

The conversation was fairly wide ranging and covered topics from initial creative influences to downloads of digital music. I was particularly interested when they talked about the difference between being a working artist and being an artist while working some other job. Both were thankful that they are able to earn a living doing their art, but also feel pressure to produce something great with that opportunity. They also spoke of the almost elicit excitement they felt working on their art while holding down a regular job. How it felt like stealing time.

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From Maya Lin’s Systematic Landscapes at the de Young

On my way to Maya Lin’s Systematic Landscapes show at the de Young earlier this year I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for, but that didn’t make it any less fascinating. While you could call the work reductivist, in that the pieces are abstracted explorations of landscape, that would neglect the thorough nature of the exploration. Lin is able to work in a wide range of media including wood, glass, metal, pins, and paper while still keeping faithful to the clarity of her vision. She also manages to stay true to each of the materials. None of the choices seem arbitrary and there is something transformative, for example, in the way she uses simple 2x4s cut to different lengths to create the wave/hill that dominated the museum’s atrium. I got the feeling that each piece, though varied in size, material, or execution, was part of a unified whole.

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Still from Götz Spielmann’s Revanche