PhotographyWhat's NEW in NYC Photo?By Carl GunhouseMonday, April 23, 2007Jen Bekman Gallery It seems there has been a resurgence of an early photographic conceptualism where photographers like Ed Rushca’s ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’, Stephen Shore’s 1971 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or Robert Adams’ ‘No Small Journey’ all made visually simple work by putting arbitrary restraints on what and how they were going to photograph. Fortunately of late, the images resulting from these ideas are becoming more and more enjoyable to look at. For example, in Benjamin Donaldson’s portraits of people who have been directed under hypnosis to see “the most beautiful landscape imaginable” feature arbitrary constraints that are peculiar and fascinating. Even if you are unaware of the image’s inner workings, the resulting pictures allow for a rather indulgent amount of staring that highlights small things like the way a red sweater brings out the pinkish hues in a pale face, the delicate way long hair flairs out on a shoulder or how much a slouch can imply about a person. If you indulge Donaldson and read the press release, the hypnotizing produces some nice little moments, like a t-shirt emblazoned with a tropical sunset or man dressed in blue with a single tear shooting down his face. Cohan And Leslie 138 10th Ave JH Engstorm, Leigh Ledare, and Ari Marcopolus Cohan and Leslie, with the curatorial aid of Arnd Seibert, have put together a nice three-way dance of JH Engstrom, Leigh Ledare, and Ari Marcopoulus. Engstrom makes hastily-crafted pictures that tend to focus on young people getting it on and random images surrounding such things. The one standout in the series is titled enigmatically ‘trying to dance’. It shows a tallish, naked woman with pale blue skin, staring down the camera. It seems that young photographers with a propensity to underexpose their images can’t help but be surrounded by a gaggle of young hip types willing to disrobe and stumble about for the camera. Marcopolus, at age fifty, no longer has age as a defense for his scattershot images of young people doing stuff. To his credit, the pictures have become quite formally rigorous. But he seems to be superimposing his snapshot esthetic onto his very controlled suburban life, and the resulting images seem forced. The most interesting work in the show is Leigh Ledare’s photographs of older women who seem desperate to hold to their youth, an age documented across the gallery in the work of Engstrom and Marcopulus. The women in the pictures tend to be reveling and their age with Through May 5th David Zwirner Preeetttyyy, oh, um, yeah, color Ray-o-Grams of flowers and a plant with a rainbow cast on it are purely decorative. It makes Adam Fuss and Uta Barth look complex. Through May 5th Max Protetch 511 W 22nd St. Btw. 10th & 11th Aves. Chen Qiulin I was recently at a dinner party where someone told me a story about a Japanese student who showed up to his photography class each week with a copy of Ulysses. Eventually he arrived to class with a Japanese translation of Ulysses. When asked why he was re-reading Ulysses in Japanese, the student responded, “In English it makes no sense.” When asked if it made more sense in Japanese, he responded “No, less sense.” I think the same can be said of photographs documenting Chinese performance art. Through May 5th Yancey Richardson 535 W 22nd St. 3rd Fl. Btw. 10th & 11th Aves. Lisa Kereszi, Cheap Thrills Lisa Kereszi is a very good photographer who has the very big misfortune of showing at Yancey Richardson. Sure, being there means people will see your work, critics might write on it and a print or two will probably be sold. But the gallery also plays into the weakness in Kereszi’s photographs. Kereszi skillfully turns garish interiors and details of interiors into compelling images. One might even go so far as to say that she is the best in the rather crowded field of photographers taking pictures of interiors and details of interiors. Yet her gallery continues to show selections of her work that removes the context from these details. A quick visit to Kereszi’s web site shows the interiors mixed in with the occasional picture of a stripper, haunted house manikin, even an exterior of a porn shop or aerial shot of a carnival. Each picture gives a clearer context to what it is Kereszi has photographed, the interiors stop being skilled, formalist explorations of color and form and become a micro-investigations of the little parts of spaces that define what they are used for and how they are inhabited. The work becomes alive, thrilling even a little dirty. But on the walls of Yancey Richardson the pictures become simply attractive and well made, the kind of work you might find over a black leather couch in a executive’s New York City crash pad. The show is salvaged only by an amazing photograph of cruise ship lighting up the night’s horizon. Sarah Schorr, Transformer In the back room at Yancey Richardson, Sarah Schorr suffers a similar fate. Her pictures of burlesque clubs and Nepal beauty salon are reduced to a collection of still lives that were part of a fuller body of work. Through May 5th Sonnabend Gallery 536 W 22nd St. Btw. 10th & 11th Aves. Elger Esser The reassuring thing about the Sonnabend Gallery is that no matter how much things in the art world change from month to month, Sonnabend will always be showing an artist whose work has not changed over their last five Sonnabend shows. This time Esser mixes in some washed out, aqua-toned pictures of French river beds to go along with the tried and true washed out, orange-toned pictures of French river beds. The progress is commendable. Charles Cowles Gallery Somewhere at this moment, there is a thirteen-year-old is sitting in the back of a Barnes and Noble having rather improper thoughts about Kuhn’s book. Or maybe the book is being picked up by one of the bored, middle-aged men often found hovering in the photography section flipping through a Richard Kern book. But for those who have made it through their teen years, Kuhn’s pictures hit like a highly-crafted clothing catalogue minus the clothes. Through April 28th Gagosian Gallery Well they certainly are big. Lutter is the Gursky of alternative processes. Marian Goodman Gallery Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times called the show “rapturous” and “magisterial” and said that it “culminates one of the memorable art projects of the last 20 years or so.” I guess after calling James Natchwey’s work “remarkable,” anything might seem “magisterial.” But the problem is that four years ago Kimmelman called Struth’s mid-career retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art “magisterial,” a show that included pictures from 20 years ago of people looking at art. The current pictures of people looking at art, are as dry and unoriginal as they were in the show at the Met. Even if you forgive the deadening repetition, the pictures highlight mundane facts, tourists look at art and that many fantastic pieces of art are displayed in alluring spaces, but these are things we already knew and Struth does little to add to the obvious. Through April 28th Mary Boone Gallery Man! Famous art types must really hate Pierre Bismuth’s pictures. Through April 28th Pace / MacGill Gallery Tod Papageorge can be an unpleasant, ornery curmudgeon, especially when talking about photography, as was detailed in the April 9th edition of New York magazine. In a critique, he once told me I “lacked human emotions” and “should never touch a 35mm camera again.” So I am not going to dispute the magazine’s claims, but I think for many who were in the eye of his wrath can attest that the anger and frustration comes from his complete dedication to the medium of photography and his belief that as a medium it is most apt at describing the world in a way that reaffirms one’s own wonderment. His current show of pictures of central park ranging from the 60’s to the 90’s, is the most compelling argument he has ever put forth for the power of photographing out in the world. The work makes us question whether we have been looking as closely at the world as maybe we should be and that we should definitely cut through the park more often. The park may at times have been as unkempt and foreboding as it appears in Papageorge’s pictures. But it’s hard to imagine that your average passerby took the time to notice the hard but wondrous tableaus that so often end up in his pictures. Couples grind on each other in tall, wavy grass, men with brief cases, stripped down to what just might be a loincloth, bask in the sun surrounded by budding weeds, or a young nubile woman in a bikini reaches into the shadows to touch the foot of wheelchair-bound old woman. Papageorge transforms the park into a stage of never-ending allegories. My only criticism, and I think after two years of loving abuse at Yale it is more than warranted, is that the landscapes from the 90’s, although adding to Papageorge’s Eden theme, have a softer, more poetic, even sweet feel that makes them look a tad out of place with many of the earlier, more biting pictures. Through May 12th Lesley Heller Gallery I just can’t wrap my mind around alternative processes. They are taught in undergraduate programs all over the place, and apparently even respectable types like Brian Wood feel the need to pursue such things. Wood collages photographs, one appears to be a monkey’s hand and another one that originally appeared in the ‘Silent Witness’ book are each layered over abstract drawings in ink that bring to mind a black and white versions of Philip Guston’s transitional period from abstract expressionism to a more representational style. I am not sure I understand why the pictures and the drawings need to interact or what the connection between them might be. I feel somehow the work is being made for specific audience, one that believes alternative processes, collage, and photo-shop filters are way to explore the artistic possibilities of photography. Through April 28th  
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