civilized ku # 399 ~ see it if you can
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 09:56AM 
Me and a Meyerowitz picture ~ Edwynn Houk Gallery - NY, NY • click to embiggen
A hug and a conversation - Joel and Stephen ~ Edwynn Houk Gallery - NY, NY • click to embiggenAs mentioned previously, I made the trip to NYC, knowingly driving into a raging Nor-easter, with the expressed purposed of attending the opening reception for the exhibit, Pioneers of Color: Stephen Shore ~ Joel Meyerowitz ~ William Eggleston. I also stated that I was very happy that I had braved the elements and achieved my stated goal.
That said, let me add this footnote - I would definitely recommend seeing this exhibit if it is at all within your realm of possibility. While it is NOT a comprehensive museum-quality overview - as an example, of the (only) 47 pictures exhibited, just 7 were Eggleston pictures, it is nevertheless a very good look at the work of these pioneers of color. That's because only an illiterate imbecile , picture-viewing wise, could come away not being impressed by the ground-breaking, paradigm-busting influence these guys had on picture making.
In addition to being pioneers of color, which quite possibly is the lesser of their achievements, they challenged and redefined the notion of what was picture-worthy, subject / referent wise:
Just as important as the emergence of color photography as a technique was the arrival into the frame of the particular subject matter with which color photography scaled the bastions of high art. The photographers ... looked neither at the studied poses of the beautiful nor at the anguished expressions of those caught in poverty, but at the bland, the everyday, the normal, that which was around them everywhere. What came of age in the 1970s was as much the artificial environment that technology had created as it was the means by which that landscape was documented by some of the best photographers in the world. (my emphasis) At this time ... all the other bits and pieces of a mass culture had already started to trace the emergence of a plastic reality. It was color photography, however, that truly managed to capture the vibrancy of a material reality that most artists had ignored in favor of high art subjects or their deliberate opposites. Aaron Betsky ~ Director, Cincinnati Art Museum - from the Forward to Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980
As should be obvious to anyone who has been following my rantings and ravings here on The Landscapist, I agree, with all my mind / heart / & soul, with that statement.
FYI, print sizes and print media were all over the map. Prints ranged in size from under 8×10" up to 48×60". Print media ranged from good old fashioned C prints, to dye transfer prints, to pigmented-ink inkjet prints. Prices ranged from $10K-$40K.
The $40K picture was a 20×24" Meyerowitz picture - Camel Coats, 5th Avenue, New York City, 1975 (scroll down the linked page to see it). And while you're checking out the picture, be absolutely certain to listen to the Meyerowitz audio file at the bottom of that page - that could be me speaking, especially the part about ...
"... my M.O. is awe. That I walk around like a goof ... saying 'OMG, look at that'. I'm stunned by things all the time and frankly I'm happy to be stunned by things because otherwise I would be probably asleep or bored..."
And, the danger in that is that my brain might freeze up and I just might start making pretty pictures.
Reader Comments (3)
you are totally pixel peeping!
"In addition to being pioneers of color, which quite possibly is the lesser of their achievements, they challenged and redefined the notion of what was picture-worthy, subject / referent wise:...."
Did you ever hear of Eugene Atget? or Walker Evans? Not in color, obviously, butchallenging and redefining the notion, most assuredly.
Wonder if they'll get that 40K. It's an awful lot for a piece of paper with some pigment on. Sometimes I am amazed that folks just don't seem to be aware of what's going on around them until they're confronted with it in a gallery or picture book. I suppose this lack of awareness is what gives the artist a chance at selling his/her product.