It is refreshing to see that galeries offering photography at ArtBasel this year are not bunched up in one section. Contemporary and modern works mingle on stands offering classic phootgraphs. The quality of 20th century prints remain top notch, like at Edwynn Houk (New York & Zurich). One notices the absence of Hans P. Kraus Jr. (New York, USA), one of the last bastions of qualitative 19th century prints, and of Galerie Françoise Paviot (Paris, France), a customary exhibitor these last few years. Record price-breakers in photography : Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, are all present. Cindy Sherman, disguised as an X-Men, casts her reassuring presence at Sprüth Magers (London & Berlin), where a giant Gursky : Katar, is deployed like a golden beacon.
The most recent monumental sculpture by Jeff Koons holds center stage on Gagosian’s stand. Running along the side wall, a Richard Prince from the Cowboy series (edition of 2) is offerd at 2 million euros. (I am informed the second print will be auctioned at Christie’s, in London, June 30th. Estimate : 980 000 euros / 1 260 000 euros). At the back entrance a mural-sized Gursky featuring a village of tents, lit from inside, at night (a gathering of Catholics in Cologne, not a refugee camp) is priced at 500,000 euros. And is sold!
Fraenkel Gallery highlights an autoportrait by Adam Fuss, a life-sized photogram similar to his baby series. Astounding. Works by Alec Soth or Robert Adams complete the “man’s place in the environment” theme running throughout the stand. A small contact print of Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe session (which I am not allowed to reproduce here), suggests the San Francisco dealer still has a few jewels left in his crown. At Marianne Goodman (Paris, London & New York), an Annette Messager installation, attracts much attention. Another French artist, Sophie Calle, deploys her In Memory of Frank Gehry’s Flowers, 2014 at Gemini G.E.L. (California, USA).
New Yorker Bruce Silverstein organized a retrospective of André Kertész prints with a new show every day. Unusual and daring. A treat for modern photography afficionados.
At Thomas Zander’s (Cologne, Germany) one takes time to view the black and white series of prints by Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, or the large color Larry Sultan. Always an impeccable stand with lots of variety. MOT International (London & Brussels) exhumed a set of Polaroïds by Ulay : Retouching Bruises, a series created with the artist Marina Abramovic in 1975.
Hiding behind a screen of NASA prints of lunar topographic images, Daniel Blau (Munich, Germany) unveils an oversize canvas with the iconic portrait of Mick Jagger by David Bailey in silkscreen and paint. Masterful. At Kicken (Berlin, Germany), Newton has a place of honor. A Big Nude III towers over visitors. An outer wall is devoted to rare prints from the Playboy archive. The gallery team, made up solely of women (since Rudolf’s dissapearence) produced a magnificent stand which has heads spinning. Rudy would be proud.
Several Man Ray rayograms, rare prints, surface at Kicken, 1900-200 (Paris), Cheim & Read (New York) and Howard Greenberg’s (New York). On the latter’s stand, one appreciates the William Klein and Saul Leiter prints, an unusual and astonishing Ray Metzger, a Robert Frank from The Americans (always a treat) and the mesmerizing creations of Korean artist Junjin Lee (recently shown at Camera Obscura, in Paris).
Christophe Lunn
Christophe is a collector, expert for photography at Artcurial and President of Photo Saint Germain 2015.
FAIR
June 18-21, 2015
Art Basel
Basel
Switzerland
