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Case in point with David Benjamin Sherry. He showed at a four-artist manipulated photography exhibition at Sikkema, Jenkins & Co. this past March (alongside Mariah Robertson, also showing at “Greater New York”). At the time, I was impressed with Sherry’s dexterous color-soaked palette but the salon-style hanging and the visual assault of so many, many concentrated colors didn’t appeal to me aesthetically (as compared to Robertson’s fractured darkroom manipulations). However, Sherry’s inclusion here, lining the walls of Amy Yao’s room installation, totally works for me. His super-saturated C-prints (including Self Portrait As The Born Feeling Begins, 2009, used effectively in promotional materials for Greater New York) act as vacation photographs to Yao’s color-shifted prefab doors (Entryways to Exit Strategies, 2010). Yao’s own solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery this May overlapped slightly with this exhibition, though her contributions to “Greater New York” are even more hopped up on color. The cumulative effect is akin to living within a Lite-Brite and is conducive to Yao’s periodic performances (with collaborator Jacob Robichaux), where the “residence” becomes all the more apparent.

The shared Michele Abeles and Nick Mauss room, at first blush, is the antithesis to Yao’s and Sherry’s room, precisely a floor beneath it. Mauss’ white-painted wood and silk ribbon framework Depend, fasten, lower, suppose, dwell, (2010), is a more minimalist take on his installation from his late-2009 solo show at 303 Gallery. This forms a structural component to Abele’s prints, most from her current series “C.NOBODY” and most restrained in coloration and truncated in figuration (plus prosaically named, like Plant, Hand, Paper, Table, Lines, Numbers, 2009). I am impressed by the dialogue between these almost Dadaist “still lifes” (Abeles’) with Mauss’ L-shaped stage: the subdued atmosphere encourages much contemplation on our part.

Mariah Robertson’s abstracted-architectural prints (incredible processed-film interventions, a bit like James Rosenquist’s “Water Planet”-era shard paintings, only photo-based) were my favorite from that Sikkema, Jenkins & Co. show. Her works here, including the partially unfurled, 100′-long 88, 2010, despite their kinetic glow, play rather delicately off Caleb Considine’s restrained, representational paintings (which is decidedly in the minority at “Greater New York”), like Annie, 2010. The former donates some of its nighttime-vibe atmosphere to Considine’s muted canvases, which in turn grounds Robertson’s prints in their complicated, visual richness.

And despite the unmistakable vividness of the Yao-Sherry room, my vote for most colorful domain goes to Debo Eilers and Tamar Halpern. Fresh off a carnivalesque solo show at On Stellar Rays, Eilers’ acid-toned mixed media sculpture (like the waxy gatorboard Coolhaus (pink), 2010, series, suspended from chains like in a surreal nursery) are inclined to dominate any space they pervade. Eilers is tempered, however, by Halpern’s large ultra-chrome ink prints, like raspberry-jam explosions on enlarged photocopies. They’re more inclusively abstract than the fragmented prints at her show “Short Trip to Nowhere”, which just ended at D’Amelio-Terras, and they command your attention just as intensely as Eilers’ chaotically beautiful confections.

Some of these pairings, plus loads others in the exhibition, seem obvious on paper (put two color-hungry artists together…). But I found one of the most intriguing in a narrow room on the third floor, lined with black-and-white prints from LaToya Ruby Frazier and Alice O’Malley. I know Frazier best for her family portraiture, like her works in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” triennial. But her ongoing “The Notion of Family” series here focuses entirely on spaces — a dilapidated house (Home on Braddock Avenue, 2007) a mural in an overgrown lawn (The World is Yours, 2009) — yet retain the essence of those (unseen) who inhabited them. O’Malley’s extensive documentation of downtown figures — Kembra Pfahler, Nomi Ruiz, Bianca Casady, etc — in raw spaces or bare studios, bear similar familial interconnectivity, in their intrinsic ties to the Lower East Side and their past collaborations with the photographer.

A major challenge in these biennial-type exhibitions is fitting the entire roster in, juxtaposing unlikely artists from various galleries without them one-upping the other for visual (or contextual) command. This is largely successful at “Greater New York”, whose art-filled rooms inspire introspection amid an organic harmony. Get to know the artists: we’ll no doubt be seeing much more of them in the future.

“I started ‘KnifeFight: Noches de los Artistas’ to give artists a comfortable environment to present and discuss their work,” said KnifeFight founder A.P. Smith. “Turn on the projector, turn off the lights, maybe have a beer, and listen and learn from some of NYC’s most innovative creatives… so many of us create things, make art, but it’s become increasingly difficult to showcase work in an atmosphere that is both relaxed and engaging.” Beginning the series were three of New York’s rising and well-known photographers; Rebecca Smeyne, Tod Seelie and Maxim Ryazansky.

Differing styles and subjects aside, throughout all their work and discussions are miles of road racked up covering bands, and the skill to recognize that a good photo, a good story is a matter of foisting yourself into a situation. Smeyne, co-owner of myopenbar.com (and behind some of its entertaining sardonic descriptions) traveled with band Dark Meat, and covers events for Spin Magazine and the Village Voice. During her presentation, Smeyne joked that the common theme in her work is “Shit flying through the air with stuff all over the lens.” The result finds you in bizarre and interesting places, putting you face-to-face with the subject at hand; whether it be fetish parties, Voguing competitions, pet markets in China, Princeton parties, SXSW, or Brooklyn’s West Indian Day parade, the latter receiving some backlash when the photos were published in the Village Voice. Smeyne captures character-driven shots that distill the subject’s culture identity, as if by accident.

Along with Seelie and Smeyne, Ryazansky graduated from Pratt, where, through the advice of a friend, visited Keansburg, New Jersey and was enamored with what he referred to as “the Shelbyville of New Jersey”. Seeing boardwalk games where you could win cigarettes, and a “Spook House”, Ryazansky was drawn to the “little moments that seemed a little bit off, but normal anyway,” adding that “maybe I have a sick sense of humor.” From there he delved deeper into Americana by documenting a rural ‘KKKristmas’ in Indiana, and documenting bands, awkward teenagers, and absurd advertisements along the way. Ryazansky may be most well-known for his ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ series, where he followed and documented the family that is apart of the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, who are notorious for picketing outside of soldiers’ funerals, (and more recently Synagogues) with outlandish signage. “I hate photographers who are mean towards their subject,” said Ryazansky, “people who maliciously shoot photos.” Although he is apart of the majority who see the ridiculousness of their ‘crusade’, Ryazansky shot photos of the family as they really are; a large, unremarkable Midwestern family who happen to be self-contradictory religious fanatics.

A documenter of bike culture, raft culture, and ubiquitous in the New York DIY scene, photographer Tod Seelie credits his work to “never saying no to an opportunity even if it’s ridiculous, and always staying close to your friends.” Seelie, who has been in New York for about ten years since moving from Ohio, explains his work as “two different monsters”; boiled down one side represents an explosive conflagration of music, sweat, sex, and cheap swill where the other side of his work explores gorgeous, silent landscapes. As a result, Seelie maintains several websites for each of his wants. For the past four summers, Seelie also participated in the junk raft flotilla led by artist Swoon, which has sailed down the Mississippi and Hudson, as well as the Adriatic Sea. That evening Seelie showed both sides of his work, while interspersing anecdotes and advice about making his excursions feasible. By working throughout the winter as an art handler and other odd jobs, cutting his bills to zero, and subletting his apartment, Seelie has been able photograph both the violent and serene.

Incredible as their work, some of the best moments throughout the early evening were the anecdotes from the photographers themselves. Photos projected onto the screen, facilitating conversation about the subject and circumstances surrounding it. ‘Noches de los Artistas’ will pick back up on Friday, July 8th with more art, talk, beer, and, with all KnifeFight events, no rules.

The installation, which filled the second floor ballroom, included twenty-five films, almost all of them produced exclusively for XXXX magazine. “We prefer to publish original production,” said Indira Cesarine, the magazine’s Creative Director. “It is far more interesting than picking up previously existing content.”

Upon independent production, each video had been set to its own music. But at the Soiree Au Louvre event, XXXX was not given control over the audio. Instead, a rather talented DJ Ari took care of the sound scape, although he later explained that he was assessing the room, not the video.

“We had to present the visuals in a dynamic way in order to compensate for the lack of accompanying sound,” said Ms. Cesarine. The solution was both successful and lyrical: Cesarine looped two separate projections, which like a musical round moved separately to the same music.

Indelible imagery filled the ballroom. Splashes of glittering light reflected spots of film off the back of guests’ hair, or the edge of white wigs, which covered coupled mannequin heads atop bistro tables, an elegant, playful interior design by Kyle DeWoody.

The video sequence itself was striking. Monochromatic Kaleidoscopic directed by Indira Cesarine, features a symmetrical mix of still and moving images in perfect tone, intertwined with lighting effects, negatives, and layered motion. Vertical lines and small speckled circles emerge at the inversion of these images, accenting Cesarine’s photographic eye for a good shape in negative space.

Four Walls opens with an empty chair in an empty room, highlighted by the soft glow of a vertical window. A young woman holding a hair brush fades slowly into the chair. Her eyes, as empty as the room, remain fixed, while her hairbrush descends into a slow rhythmic movement.

Suddenly, a close up of the woman’s eyes brings us to another scene where colors explode; the tempo increases; the girl divides like a protozoan. One, two, or three at a time, the girl moves wildly through hues, footage, perspectives, black stars. She begins to look dizzy. A bottle of eye drops appears depositing a single drop into the close-up her eye. It doesn’t help. She blinks, breaks a tear, and transports us back to her empty room, where once again she sits on her empty chair. This time, she does not brush her hair and she does not stare fixated in trance; instead, she looks directly at us, through two dark rings of smudged eyeliner and the stiffness of over-brushed hair.

If captured in its first or final scene, this video could make a remarkable photograph; the delicate use of space, shadow, and light show the remarkable sophistication of these directors. It is essentially an Academy poem without words.

Indira Cesarine makes a language of her videos; a narrative-free visual language that somehow, through only a fleeting image, evokes the strongest emotional response, a most hunted talent among those in the “branding” industry. But this is no surprise; by the time Cesarine completed high school, she had already soloed 4 exhibitions before going off to Columbia University where she triple majored in Art History, French Literature and Women’s Studies.

Cesarine is the brain behind XXXX, a 3-dimensional platform for original productions of conceptual film, contemporary art, fashion, photography and multimedia articles, which according to the magazine’s website, “Instead of reading an article, you can watch a documentary.”

To those questioning the fecundity of the New York art scene, meander the halls of PS1 and scope out every nook and cranny (as the El Greco quote goes “Art is everywhere you look for it”), and any fears should be swiftly allayed. There is substance here, and through the 68 artists showing, there is a lot to discover. Like any Biennial-type genre-blasting exhibition, full to the brim with performances and add-ons, one cannot hope to catch it all in one go. The mutability of some of the works further emphasizes this. I will do my part by taking several journal-style entries to examine the themes and ideas at play in this season-spanning destination. But note: “Greater New York” is precisely the kind of exhibition you will want to revisit. It is broad enough to include a favorite for virtually the toughest critic, and the static nature of some of the art (paintings are minimized here, but there are some beauties) should not be overshadowed by the freshness of performances and shape-shifting works. But the understanding that some things will change — the slow-decay of David Brooks’ Preserved Forest 2010, concrete-coated nursery-grown trees, a visceral take on deforestation and global climate peril; the ever-adapting I came here on my own. (work in progress) 2010, installation/performance by robbinschilds — makes each trip a unique one.

There are three broad elements to Greater New York:

1. the “5 Year Review” in the 1st Floor Painting Gallery, a bips & bops contribution from invited curators and critics on what’s been happening in NYC the past five years, and a wildly nostalgic romp for this writer. It is non-chronological nor comprehensive, but includes gems like “Little Boy”, Takashi Murakami’s curated “exploding Japanese subculture” fest at Japan Society in 2005, the wonderful X Initiative at the former Dia:Chelsea space last year, and the “Younger Than Jesus” inaugural triennial at the New Museum, which necessarily has some overlapping artists here. This space has two stages for performances throughout the exhibition’s run, like Terence Koh’s hyperspeed 500 EAR REVIEW: 1510-2010 art history lecture, held on opening day.

2. the “Rotating Gallery”, held in the 1st Floor Drawing Gallery, hosting four New York-based curators’ unique exhibitions. The lead, Olivia Shao’s decidedly sparse and conceptualist affair “The Baghdad batteries” (running through June 13), is a palate-cleanser from the overall busy exhibition.

3. “Greater New York” itself, occupying practically every available square inch of the building. Don’t miss the lift: it contains Nico Muhly’s Stepping Up 2010, a custom sound composition, all atmospheric synth chords punctuated by footsteps, that reiterates the emotive nature of some electronic music. I tend to eschew lifts in museums as a rule, but I ride this one at least three times a visit. Some artists get their own rooms (Franklin Evans’ ecstatic timecompressionmachine a walk-in “painting” of sorts composed of cut-up art magazines and gallery press materials; Ismael Randall Weeks’ untitled studio-within-a-gallery, which will feature subtle interventions by the artist throughout the exhibition) but most share, to intriguing and often delightful effect: works plucked from recent gallery shows (like Mariah Robertson’s and David Benjamin Sherry’s manipulated photography, seen together at Sikkema Jenkins & Co’s “A Word Like Tomorrow Wears Things Out”) in new configurations (Robertson with Caleb Considine’s understated paintings, Sherry’s with Amy Yao’s vibrant painted doors installation).

I reiterate: there is a lot going on here. Performances by Aki Sasamoto (fresh off the Whitney Biennial) in the basement begin June 16. The ever-changing films in the Vault (screenings are generally at 3p). And you just may run into Ryan McNamara and his mobile barre and mirror (Make Ryan a Dancer) or robbinschilds in the middle of a piece. I’ll be reporting in again later this month.

Close was referring to Dean Kamen, who had invented the artist’s wheelchair, a device that, despite his disability, allows for Close to continue painting with the brush strapped on to his wrist.

Close’s other portraits, which were commissioned by AOL, feature actress Claire Danes, filmmaker Gus Van Sant, Close himself (in a new self-portrait) and the Dalai Lama. Each portrait was scribbled at the bottom with Close’s loopy signature.

It is common for Close to stay away from iconography when it comes to photographing, but even knowing that, it was almost startling how realistic his latest portraits appear. Claire Danes was almost unrecognizable. Sure, a few pores were present, but somehow she still looked better in Close’s portraits than in any of her blown-out magazine spreads. Indira Cesarine, creative director of XXXX Magazine and guest at the event last night noted Mr. Close’s “raw ideal.” Having worked as a Fashion Photographer for a long time, Cesarine found “Close’s essence of humanity comforting,” as “people are overwhelmed by the amount of retouching” in modern-day portraits.

But Close, who sat with a peaceful smile in the middle of an explosive celebration on the 7th floor, explains that “[the portraits] are just a placeholder for a whole campaign,” that there are many more to come. The legendary artist did after all spend the year photographing the most “creative thinkers” in the world (who use AOL). “These people make the Arts different,” he said.

In addition to the work of Mr. Close, forty-one other artists were given a chance to premiere their work at the New Museum through AOL’s program. Maureen Sullivan, a strategist for AOL, said that the idea behind it was to get a plethora of artists to help AOL create a new logo. Surprised that 41 artists followed through, Sullivan said, “I thought we’d only get ten!”

Dave White makes a cheeseburger look good to vegetarians with his paintbrush. Known for his unique choice of subject (Star Wars, superheroes, food), superior skills, and unique method of painting (one that he describes as “explosive”), the Liverpool-based artist has gained attention through both his own work and his commercial collaborations with Nike, Coca Cola, and other major companies, On viewing his food paintings, White says, “if people lick their lips, my job is done.”

The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. hosted a non-traveling retrospective of Anne Truitt’s work last year, the first of its dimension since 1974. Matthew Marks Gallery, the sole representative of Truitt’s estate, responded in kind to New Yorkers with a splendid retrospective of its own: 13 of Truitt’s painted wood “totems” spanning over 40 years, from her earliest in 1962 to 2004. The gallery devotes its largest central space to a forest-like environment, a non-chronological grove of Truitt’s sculptures. Walking amid them, like human-scale oil pastels, is akin to being part of a painting in progress as the elements hover in and out of sight on their just-elevated bases. Check the white-capped The Sea, The Sea (2003), an otherwise monolith wrapped in royal blue, and the glimmering First Spring (1981), whose planes alternate white and baby blue, to encapsulate a refreshing late March sky in sculpted form. Though the array on view here, in comparison to the four dozen or so at Hirshhorn, are just a glance at Truitt’s oeuvre, we’re left with a strong impression. The gallery thoughtfully installed this show without the low platforms at Hirshhorn, encouraging our meandering about the sculpture, as we note their dynamic interactions.

The creative electricity one feels while traversing the Tanguy/Calder “Between Surrealism and Abstraction” exhibition at L&M Arts carries with it the obvious question: why hasn’t this been done before? Meaning: why haven’t we seen Yves Tanguy’s arid landscapes of the subconscious in proximity to Alexander Calder’s biomorphic mobiles and sculpture? The answer is, in fact, “we” have: gallerist Pierre Matisse staged their first dual NYC show in the spring of 1943, and several of those works from that exhibition are on view here, their first reunion since. This is required viewing, so thoughtfully curated and harmonized. Though Calder may be more the household name stateside, Tanguy’s “alien desert” paintings are unequivocal, but I’ve never seen such multitude in one place before. A clever exhibition of this caliber should be in a museum (the Whitney? the Guggenheim?), but it is to L&M Arts’ credit that they composed it and host it, in this charming two-story suite, and it’s on us to check it out.

The Gagosian is certainly doing its part in elevating the gallery into a museum-like aura, both in the nature of its works and the transformation of the space itself. Nor is it a stranger to costly borrowings and extensive acquisitions on par with any museum retrospective. Two of its galleries focus on a known artist’s career, to intriguing results. The lovely Claude Monet “Late Works” exhibition morphed the 21st St location practically into the Special Exhibitions Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, only without the long queues, personal headsets and tacked-on gift shops that are ubiquitous at a museum outing. What we do get is the final two decades of Monet’s gardens at Giverny (windowpane-sized paintings of sumptuous water lilies and ponds plus delightfully autumnal Japanese footbridges and tree-lined paths). Though there are no mural-sized triptychs like at the MoMA’s excellent “Monet’s Water Lilies” installation, which ended last month, the inclusion of more abstract, color-drenched works and pairing these with tidier, figurative pond scenes provides a rich viewing experience.

The extensive “Still Lifes” exhibition at Gagosian’s other Chelsea location focuses on Roy Lichtenstein’s late career as well, though the space eschews soft lighting and elegant partitioning for white walls and lots and lots of fine art. The brightness totally works; Lichtenstein’s characteristic bold primaries and black outlines and crosshatchings leap off the walls, in his hard renderings of the classic (bowls of fruit, reduced almost to abstraction here) and liberated (the sly takes on Cubism and Expressionism). This is an interesting point: to contemplate Lichtenstein’s references to other modern artists (a MoMA who’s who, really, including Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, and Henri Matisse). Plus, you can see these respective artists, plus Lichtenstein’s classic ’60s style, at MoMA — and Monet’s older works at the Met — to compare and contrast with what is on view here. Only thing: you can bypass check-in at the Gagosian.

Mike Kelley’s classic “Arenas” show at Skarstedt Gallery (with seven of the eleven works from the original 1990 Metro Pictures exhibition, assembled again for the first time) permits an interesting opportunity for comparison. Kelley is, in my words, the epitome of the “sexy” contemporary artist. He enjoyed a fantastically subversive new exhibition called “Horizontal Tracking Shots” at Gagosian last November, and he’s back on the radar with stuffed animals, his recurring medium in the ’80s and early ’90s. Art-goers who caught the Gagosian show can compare that — its propped, flat-panel colors and cartoon frogs and appropriated nostalgic imagery set against a range of relative transgression — with the blankets spread across Skarstedt’s floor, occupied by various cast-off playthings. As the craft-animals are devoid of their former child owners, we can’t quite help but anthropomorphize their “actions” (like Arena #8 (Leopard) slouched over a swelling knit blanket). And speaking of appropriation, Mary Boone Gallery hosts two key examples of this discipline in both locations: a selection of Sherrie Levine’s handcrafted “readymades” plus David Salle’s multilayered “nonreferential” paintings. I find the two shows provide a great conversation in the reflexive, echoing nature of art (contemporary or otherwise). Include Kelley and compare these with the current scene (like Andy Coolquitt at Lisa Cooley Fine Art, Gabriel Vormstein at Casey Kaplan and, ahem, Richard Prince’s exhibition at Gagosian uptown) and the notion and influence of appropriation is ever prevalent.

One other hot art topic is assemblage. It was the subject of the New Museum’s debut exhibition at their Bowery location, and its roster of contemporary rockstars are indebted to Edward Kienholz. Roxys (1960-1), on view at David Zwirner Gallery, is Kienholz’s first large-scale environmental “tableau”, modeled after a 1943 Vegas brothel, and is a pivotal work in the history of assemblage and installation art. Roxys hasn’t been in NY since Kienholz’s retrospective at the Whitney in 1996, but age hasn’t muted its power to sink under the viewer’s skin. The era-appropriate tunes wafting from the jukebox, mixed with the odor of cigarettes and perfume in the stuffy, low-lit room, produce a multisensory reaction. This is equalled by the brutal cast of characters (prostitutes assembled from various disparate, though respectively emotive, found objects, and the glowering The Madam with her tattered linens and boar’s skull head). It is rare that I yearn for a shower after traversing an installation, but Kienholz will lead you there, as what you just witnessed overwhelms your soul.

The profusion of “not new” art at the galleries is not terribly unusual. A complete list from just last year would be prohibitively long, and unnecessary, but so many of these spaces continue to advance the line for the inventive, enriching exhibition, while challenging the larger institutions around town to up their game. Whether it means an overdue retrospective on an overlooked artist, or a deeper view into a period of their career, or a fresh new look at a theme or a movement, it is to the credit of these galleries and the independent curators for conceiving these exhibitions. This message lies beyond the goal of commerce, which I’m not naive to think doesn’t exist in many of these shows. Ultimately, for the greater art-going public, it is the reward of access. If the museums are not providing the sufficient visual and intellectual satisfaction, we have several hundred galleries as worthy alternatives.

It wasn’t until 2006 that I actually witnessed Lee’s works up close, at “The Past Made Present: Contemporary Art and Memory” in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Lee’s piece comprised of crystal beads on wiry tendrils, a combination of freeze-framed shattered glass and some fantastical deep-sea lifeform. Though Lee had progressed from overtly ‘cyber’ sculpture at this point, the piece was still imbued with an almost uncanny living essence. I was thrilled when Lee had a solo show in New York in 2008, at Lehmann Maupin, as for years I’d been somehow missing the forward-thinking artist on my own turf. I wrote then that Lee’s statement piece in the show, this gigantic hanging flotilla of beads and aluminum, reminded me of Stephenson’s nanotechnology novel Diamond Age — which totally makes sense for Lee: she has in two decades of work matured beyond the classical cyborg into a much more varied, abstractly architectural direction, both chillingly futuristic and yet somehow utopian.

Lee’s newest exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, which just opened, is an exciting cultivation of technologically advanced work. Besides two hanging polyurethane and acrylic tangles and Study for The Infinite Starburst of Your Cold Dark Eyes (2009), a brilliant biomorphic work on paper upstairs (the cyber-suit reminds me of Jean-Michel Nicolett’s artwork for Métal Hurlant — the physical work, a massive hanging female humanoid mirrored sculpture, appeared in the titular show at PKM Gallery in Seoul earlier this year), Lee’s focus here is architecture. What I’m calling ‘crash-architecture’, these seven fantastic labyrinthine wood-and-metal hanging works (plus two others mounted on the wall), all jagged angles and impossible corners, as though they inhabit several higher dimensions. To peer up into them, you lose yourself in the cascading panes of stainless steel, aluminum and mirrored polygons. Check how your reflection flits in and out, simultaneously from multiple points-of-view, as the sunlight gleams off interspersed metallic surfaces, as if you are experiencing higher dimensions.

In my geekier days, when I was into Superstring Theory (full disclosure: I still am), I read about Calabi-Yau manifolds; these computer-generated higher-dimensional analogues that, through some visual ingenuity, model the notion of extra ‘unseen’ dimensions in our universe. Lee’s suite of contorted sculptures come closest to illustrating the essence behind Calabi-Yau manifolds. Upstairs, Lee’s ‘maquettes’; painted polyurethane panels and works on paper, hint at the exhibition’s direction. She has embraced and conveyed a physicality in these on-paper implausibilities. It’s one thing to model a ‘multi-dimensional’ form (Calabi-Yau or otherwise), but quite another to bang out the real thing in a symphony of wood panels, steel and aluminum sheets, and fragmented mirrors and acrylic.

The fact that these dynamic forms sustain themselves in mid-air — most of the suspended sculptures have one industrial winch attachment, permitting the wings and attenuated limbs to ‘explore the space — is proof in Lee’s accomplishment. Sternbau No. 28 (2010), a curvaceous glass and crystal tornado surrounded by a steel and aluminum armature, shares more than a name with its larger sibling from Lee’s 2008 exhibition at the gallery. It’s an intriguing mix of the decorative ‘jewelry explosions’ I noted in that exhibition with the fantastical architecture in the current show. The wood-and-metal sculpture in the main gallery space, though, whittle down the decorative elements to spectacularly varied forms without embellishment. With Lee, I’m never quite sure what she’s got in store next, but I could envision it further pared down, streamlined and elegant, though never ‘simplistic’.

In an age where nearly everyone with a cellphone can consider themselves a photographer, Joseph Kraeutler and the Hasted Hunt Kraeutler Gallery in Chelsea net an array of classic photographers together in “Great Photographs of the 20th Century: Staged and Startled”. Recently, NYAB contributor Rena Silverman interviewed Kraeutler about the show, commercial viability, and the Kennedys.

NYAB: Do you want to tell me a little bit about the show?

Kraeutler: Basically it came together because we had been speaking with clients who had large collections and who were interested in selling bits and pieces and there was such a high quality of work. We were able to come up with an exhibition that really can include many of them, which are pretty hard-to-find images, many iconic and desirable.

NYAB: Do you expect these images to sell?

Kraeutler: Yeah, everything with the exception of one or two are for sale. Yeah, they’re being consigned for sale.

NYAB: Is that normal for you guys?

Kraeutler:I mean our general rotation is with our represented artists but every now and then when the opportunity comes we’ll do this.

NYAB: You have a lot of recognizable images. Tell me about the theme of this show. can you talk about?

Kraeutler: It’s a study of portraiture; kind of on the one end you have the Richard Avedons and the Irving Penns which are very much arranged ahead of time–studio lighting, hired models–and then everything from there to street photography which is really capturing a moment. It’s kind of that perfect moment at the right time, and kind of just the concept between what an artists does in preparation for each shot or no preparation.

NYAB: Tell me about the time periods involved; it looks it goes from–

Kraeutler: 1927-2005, I believe….

NYAB: A lot of these photographers have very specific theories and many of them come out of schools. How do they compare to one another…for example, somebody like Tina…

Kraeutler: Tina Barney?

NYAB: Yes–her subject matter had a lot to do with it.

Kraeutler: She got her start shooting family members. She was raised by a white family in a very wealthy town and this was a theme that she found very interesting–the way people dressed, their mannerisms, the children and the adults–which is where she got her start and after that she went and explored what was left of the aristocracy in Europe, which is where the work comes….

NYAB: How does [Tina Barney’s] point of view compare to somebody like Lee Friedlander’s?

Kraeutler: [Friedlander’s] one constant is his play on line; this is one of the earliest works that’s in the show is an image of a woman in a television and that was him playing with the concept of an image within an image. And that is something that he played with in the 60s and since moved from but the one theme that has stayed constant throughout his career is playing with line.

NYAB: and what do you think about Richard Avedon and all these people that sort of imitated him after?

Kraeutler: He’ll [Avedon will] always be the first, and I think fashion photographers today who are successful are really trying to do what Avedon did. He set the base and then they came up with their own formula. I think every important fashion photographer living today will always reference these earlier techniques and make a point of not doing the same thing.

NYAB: What about Stephen Klein, also a fashion photographer?

Kraeutler: He [Klein] has a very different approach for fashion photography. And what I like about having his work in the show, it was a collaboration. I think it was called “domestic bliss” for W Magazine in 2005….What I liked about it, it was obviously staged and not based in reality….Both subjects are actors. He wanted to play with that suggestion of story without stills.

NYAB: About Irving Penn, do you think anyone will ever take his place at Vogue as the photographer? from what I understand he is irreplaceable there.

Kraeutler: Yeah, it’s possible. Avedon, Penn, they’re legends; but at the same time quite different.

NYAB: Can you describe each of their processes?

Kraeutler: It’s a hard thing to comment on because so much changes with each shoot. I mean both are calculating perfectionists, you know, with every detail of lighting.

NYAB: What do you think about someone like Ryan McGinley, [a portrait photographer] who is not in this show, but–?

Kraeutler: It is certainly a unique route in photography and what sets it apart is how casual everything looks; almost the opposite of Irving Penn, where everything is a pristine and perfect. His [McGinley’s] work is more like snapshots, and it’s more about this young life that people are curious about.

NYAB: I didn’t review that one [McGinley’s last show], it was a little too crowded to me.

Kraeutler: [laughs]

NYAB: Oh you know, I was going to ask you about Irving Penn’s corner thing? Do you know anything about that? Something where he put everyone in a corner and Georgia O’Keeffe got mad?

Kraeutler: Right. I’m not sure, I’d have to do some research about how that came about.

NYAB: Was that typical of him [Penn] to have a theme like the corner, and go with it?

Kraeutler: well in a way that’s portrait photography. It’s something about having them [the subject] stand in a corner [where] there’s nothing other than the subject to kind of speak and having the same backdrop with different subjects forces the viewer to examine the subject more; rather than having various poses with various backgrounds.

NYAB: Most galleries these days have a lot of color photography. I see that you have mostly black and white here. Of course iconic black and whites, like the Penns, but I wonder….

Kraeutler: Most of these are black and white. As soon as color was an option, artists kind of got involved very quickly. It was a way of doing photography in a new way and not repeating what had been done in the past. But these are mostly classics.

NYAB: Do the classics sell more?

Kraeutler: In general we sell color more. It almost becomes a different clientele. There are certainly collectors that do only black and white, if there’s a taste for that, whereas with color there’s a lot of that overlap with contemporary collectors or people who are just more excited by the process.

NYAB: Robert Frank is definitely not a fan [of color photography]. He said something to the effect of, “Black and white are the colors of photography”, that “they symbolize hope and despair.” [note, the Frank quote is, “Black and white are the colors of photograph. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.”]

Kraeutler: He [Frank] did experiment with color though, with polaroids.

NYAB: So did Walker Evans. Looking at the prints here, can you always tell the camera?

Kraeutler: you can kind of tell by the grain. Like this Stephen Klein phoograph is quite grainy. That’s a 35mm. But he wanted it to be like that, it suggests age and a story. It’s that 1950s set up that he was going after.

NYAB: Do you anything about this guy? [pointing to William Eggleston’s Greenwood, Mississippi, (1972)]. This guy, the dentist? the nutty dentist?

Kraeutler: One of the things, well it was a dentist and very good friend of Eggleston’s. He actually, there’s actually on the Whitney site….When he [Eggleston] was interviewed for that exhibition last hear, he talks about this work. I don’t remember all of the details. It was a dentist and close friend of his who passed away and shortly after this photo was taken, and one of the more photo geeky type of things about that is that it is in dye transfer, which was one of the earliest color processes, one that held up better than any other. [Using dye transfer] Red is the hardest color to achieve and that room actually was painted red.[note, Eggleston’s Red Ceiling (1973) was taken in the same home, the dentist’s home, as Greenwood, Mississippi]

NYAB: How much does the publication affect how Avedon or Penn staged the photos?

Kraeutler: It depends what it was being used for….Newspapers tended to stay away from darker images; they reproduce horribly. But, Speaking of gifts, this was actually the print that was gifted from Avedon to John Kennedy.

NYAB: And, you have it!

Kraeutler: There are two prints out there–this one and the one that he gifted to Jackie, but this one was signed by Avedon and Jackie.

NYAB: So there’s definitely a POR on that.

Kraeutler: yah

NYAB: What about Joel Sternfeld? What was the drive behind getting this famous image [McLean, Virginia, December 4th, (1978)] on your walls?

Kraeutler: What I liked about that; it’s a rare print as a large dye tranfer. Also it’s, I liked how it appears that it were staged, when in fact it was more in the realm of street photography–the scene and what they’re doing is actually, the person who owned the house on fire purchased the house for development which never happened. So he sold the house to the fire department to practice so that was actually an intentional fire, which is why the subject buying pumpkins in the front is so nonchalant. In a way I kind of wish I didn’t know the story, but it does kind of tell a little more.

NYAB: People usually compare Tina Barney with Sally Mann because of subject matter, the sort of immediate family thing.

Kraeutler: I understand why they would, I don’t think I would. They [Barney and Mann] are totally different animals to me. And something like with Sally’s work, she’s one of the few photographers still working in black and white. She is…very much about the technique…and…process.

NYAB: Do you know the story behind this one [Lisette Model’s Fashion Show, Hotel Pierre, 1940-46]?

Kraeutler: The title gives away as much as I know. I mean she [Model] was working in Paris for a long time and most of her work was [based around] commercial gigs and then from those she would pick some images to use as her Fine Art. Photography back then [1940s] was so expensive. Few were able to support themselves as fine art.

NYAB: And to your point, the “Fine Art” aspect of photography was only beginning to emerge around that time.

Kraeutler: It’s still sort of in its infancy. Even today the record for photography at auction is about two-and-a-half million, which is a lot, but compared to painting it’s not even close.

NYAB: One thing I appreciate about your show, there’s nothing too colossal. I’m not feeling swallowed by a photograph.

Kraeutler: And the space is more geared towards larger pieces.

NYAB: Well, [larger pieces] do sell. Can you talk more about these photographers and their ‘commercial gigs’?

Kraeutler: Lee Friedlander got his start shooting jazz musicians for record covers. Most of these photographers, if not all of them, really relied on these [commercial gigs] as a source of …

NYAB: You have everything important!

Kraeutler: We intended it to be something special, we wanted it to be something between a museum exhibition and a gallery exhibition.

NYAB: So now what’s the future of photography? What’s going to happen to the industry in 100 years?

Kraeutler: I feel like photography in a way–traditional photography–is ending. I certainly hope it doesn’t, but it seems to be the direction that it’s going. In a way it becomes a different medium. What’s going on in Kertesz’s head in the ‘20s and what’s going on in Cindy Sherman’s head now are two different things.

NYAB: Does [Cindy Sherman] ever come out of her house?

Kraeutler: Yes. She’s as sweet as can be.

NYAB: I wonder about the archival aspects of photography, in the future.

Kraeutler: New processes are being invented all the time and the only thing that can really test them is time. A lot of companies like Kodak or Fuji have guaranteed that the images will hold up for 100 years.

NYAB: You have many editions of as little as two here; who has the negatives?

Kraeutler: Most of these are known enough that if the photographer’s not with us anymore there’s an estate and we collaborate when necessary. The Kertesz in the show, the estate has never seen the negative and it’s thought that this could be unique and the only print that’s directly related to the age. Even with Eggleston some of this earliest images from the dye transfer, the negatives were in his glove box of the Cadillac that he sold and so they’re gone.

NYAB: [With all the technology shifts]…photographers have almost been forced to constantly defend themselves against the amateur.

Kraeutler: Photography is the most subtle of all mediums. Everyone can take a photograph at a very basic camera but the difference between a good photo and a bad photo is in the subtleties.

Why love “ArtWeLove?”

I don’t consider myself a collector of art, but I see tons of it every week at New York galleries and museums. I also own a few small pieces, mostly gifted to me by artists themselves. Art is expensive, needless to say, but you don’t really need to have a giant budget to buy it. An extreme way to build a collection is like the famous working class Vogels by setting aside half of your monthly income and buying art from really young artists, whose works you really feel passionate about, build a collection that might just make it to the National Gallery. A great way to learn how the Vogels’ did is by watching the documentary about them, Herb and Dorothy.
Actually what’s more important than being able to afford art is having the space to show it. That 300 sq feet apartment/home office in Manhattan might not have enough wall for it, so be prepared to rotate your growing collection.
Another way to acquire affordable art is by buying prints. And I’m not talking about reproductions of famous works of art the neighbors bought at the Louvre on their first Europe trip; I’m talking about the prints that were made to be shown as such, limited editions printed with care by enthusiasts of the artists.
ArtWeLove‘s business is best described in their own words, “curated limited editions, by some of the best artists living today, irresistibly priced for every budget.” One of their artists is Brent Green, who is now showing at Andrew Edlin Gallery.

The way they share their love of art is in their weekly newsletter, which brings art news and first view of limited edition prints, which you can get on their website. There you’ll also find profiles of the artists whose prints you can purchase and short videos from studio visits.

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