I like the gallery but usually, almost always, they mostly show paintings and some modern sculpture. Tonight was the V.I.P. opening for their first Austin, all photography show. Local photographer, Greg Davis, (National Geo regular!) was there and giving a talk. Much of the photography was at a very high level but some work is not for everyone. Greg's was really wonderful. A very classic sensibility.
Prices ranged from $550 for 8x10 inch prints of celebrities by Ron Galella, to $75,000 for a large constructed mural of nature. Most of the work was priced between $4500 and $35,000.
I found a wall full of black and white prints by Galella and there were three or four I really wanted to buy. There was a print of Avedon with Kate Moss, a print of Mick Jagger with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and a print of a young Woody Allen with an even younger Diane Keaton. All wonderful stuff.
But the print that B. and I really appreciated was a close up of Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger. A really nice, tight study of two incredible faces. I decided I liked it enough to actually splash out the cash and buy it. I'll probably go back and buy the Woody Allen print as well.
This is the 3rd print I've bought from contemporary photographers in the last six months. My acquisition of a Wyatt McSpadden print was the episode that opened the dam. Which all begs the question: Do you collect current or recent photography? What metric do you use to decide what you'll pay money for and. what you won't?
Since I'm also a photographer I don't want to display other people's art in the "public" rooms of my house because I don't want guests to confuse other people's work as mine. Instead I've got one room which I mostly use for writing and that room is the designated photographic display area. That's where I put prints I've collected. Including a print I bought 40 years ago from an artist who was displaying his black and white prints on the sidewalk in front of MOMA in NYC. Seems appropriate to make one room of the house a gallery.
Have you recently bought work you admired? Where do you display it?
I don't buy art prints as an investment so I only buy stuff I really like. You might have a different point of view and if so I'd love to read it.
I'll pick up the print and a C.O.A. (certificate of authentication) at the end of the show; sometime in late April. After that B. and I plan to make a trip to San Francisco to the De Young museum to see the Irving Penn retrospective. That should be exciting. So much great art to look at. And it's everywhere.
If you are in Austin be sure to drop by the West Chelsea Contemporary Art Gallery and see Greg Davis' work in the show. It's certainly worth a visit.
All good here. Fun to buy interesting art.
8 comments:
Our walls are hung salon style. Other people's prints and paintings, my wife's prints, mine. Have you ever visited the Barnes Foundation gallery in Philadelphia? I sometimes think that I need to photograph each of our walls, and print a guide so that our guests/visitors/family know what's up. But, we're not the Barnes, and it's fun to take them around, and explain where, when, how.
Hi Kirk - Two years before my wife and I met in Sacramento, CA she worked at the Medical Clinic in Yosemite National Park. Ansel Adams was also living there at that time. While there she took a couple of classes from him and over several months purchased a half dozen prints directly from and signed by him. I'm a lucky guy - for having both my wife and the signed prints. The prints are hung in a prominent space in our home.
Seeing and “falling in love with” a print of photography is such an important guiding force in photography it cannot be underestimated. I know that many older photographers here will agree (and immediately think of theirs). Whether or not you can own it, and whether or not it’s famous and valuable, make the effort to see vintage prints of photographers whose work you admire. I guarantee the rewards will last a long time.
I have a collection of work by other photographers/painters/artists that, like you, I don't display in my studio. In fact, I have too much of it to display at all, not enough walls or frames. Especially in the case of photographs I generally trade prints, nobody famous, just fellow photographers whose work I like but I have also traded for pottery and paintings. My heirs won't get rich selling them after I die but I get to enjoy them and that's what counts.
on the offchance you haven't spotted it already there's a whole world of special edition photobooks that come with a print, I think I've only got one, a book about horse racing, martin parr has one room in his house where he's allowed to exhibit prints, all other peoples.
there a publisher called benrido who publish folio's of collotypes, some nice looking stuff
I also like gallery51 in antwerp they are harry gruyaert's dealer
I've only purchased a select few photographic prints, my favorite is an Ardean R. Miller print that was a promotional shot for Airstream. In contemporary art I'm distinctly lowbrow, with a couple of mainstream pieces by Josh Agle (aka "Shag"), a staple artist in the Tiki community (who has done very well for himself commercially, even has a storefront in Palm Springs).
I'm quite fascinated with the work of artists from the mid-20th century. I have multiple volumes of the works and words of architectural photographer Julius Shulman, multiple serigraphs by Charlie Harper, and other random pieces of decorative art from that era. I flirt with the works of the New Topographics, and roam the many directions of designers from that era such as the Eames and Alexander Girard.
I will buy other peoples' works as soon as other people buy my work. At the moment, I'd be interested in the usual suspects. Vivien Meier, for example.
Rather not something like Jürgen Teller or Thomas Ruff. Them, I do not understand.
And I think it would be a suitable time to invest in disgraced artists like David Hamilton (mind: I never was a fan of him) or Terry Richardson. The age of prudery won't last forever; it won't even last two more decades, I'd say. A good investment opportunity.
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