Disneyland Castle 1962 by Diane Arbus

In Chelsea before the big snowfall, I went to the Richard Misrach show (see post below), and across the street, to see new photographs by Williams Eggleston and older, unpeopled, photographs by Diane Arbus. This Arbus work, though less known, has much of the same foreboding, edgy quality as her portraits. In the adjacent gallery, Eggleston’s bright saturated prints seem almost blinding after the Arbus darkness.

Photograph by William Eggleston — © Brian Rose

The Eggleston images are the usual visual nonsequiturs–often fascinating, often forgettable–inspired randomness at its best. But what does one take away from all this sniffing around? Without the history, it’s hard to imagine this work getting a show. I’m not sure if that reflects poorly on Eggleston or on the current state of our visual acuity. Whatever the case, after looking at Eggleston pictures, I end up seeing Eggleston pictures everywhere I go.

Photograph by William Eggleston — © Brian Rose

W23rd Street — © Brian Rose

10th Avenue — © Brian Rose

After a year and a half of exposure to this virulently toxic presence, the question on the table is: In our lifetime, has there ever been a worse human being in American politics than Sarah Palin? For all the morons and criminals and bigots we’ve been subjected to, has there been anyone else who has combined all of the fetid qualities — the proud ignorance, the sadistic viciousness, the shameless hypocrisy, the arrogant laziness, the congenital dishonesty, the unctuous sanctimony, the bilious resentment, and whichever others I’m forgetting for the moment — that this morals-free harridan so relentlessly displays? (Not to mention that atonal bray with which she communicates it all.)

— Paul Slansky

As a landscape photographer working in color with a view camera I have always had enormous respect for Richard Misrach. I own several of his books, and regard him as a pioneer in the field. After years of sticking to a reliable, if predictable, way of working, Misrach has recently experimented with different points of view–the beach series–and now, has begun exploring digital photography, both with camera and print.

Photograph by Richard Misrach — from On the Beach

The current show at Pace Wildenstein presents a series of large scale photographs printed as negative images, that is, inverted in Photoshop. Going to the gallery I had trepidations about the work having seen a few small images on the Internet. My first reaction on seeing the actual prints, however, was that I found them seductively beautiful, especially at such a size. And I was not troubled by the trick of inverting the images.

Since leaving the gallery, I’ve been having second thoughts, and I’ve gone back and forth on my opinion of the validity of the “the trick.” It’s not that this kind of thing is unheard of in the history of the medium. On the contrary, such experimentation has long been a part of the development of photography from Man Ray to recent color enhanced views of the surface of Mars.

Richard Misrach show at Pace Wildenstein — © Brian Rose
Mouse over for effect, click through to larger image.

Looking at my snapshots of the exhibit I began thinking that the prints were essentially inverted versions of typical Misrach scenes of the American west, no more, no less. The inversion gave them an otherworldly appearance, but really, they were less strange once the initial disorientation wore off.

And then suddenly I thought, what if I flipped the images in Photoshop. What would they look like? First, I inverted whole snapshots, but then just the images within their frames. The startling result can be seen by mousing over the snapshots posted above and below.

Richard Misrach show at Pace Wildenstein — © Brian Rose
Mouse over for effect, click through to larger image.

I’ve decided, for the moment, that I prefer the more abstract images because they are less recognizable as landscapes, but I’m still wrestling with the whole thing. As gorgeous as the prints are, I’m more and more convinced that the negative effect is too much a Photoshop product, a passing infatuation with digital wizardry. Very simplistic wizardry at that. And I’m put off by the press release language: Misrach’s newest pictures – the majority of which are made entirely without film – mark a radical shift from his past work and herald a new era in photography’s history.

Entirely without film. Wow.

Richard Misrach show at Pace Wildenstein — © Brian Rose
Mouse over for effect, click through to larger image.

I still really love the image of stars in motion, the first picture one sees entering the gallery. The sky is white and the streaking stars are black. And I like the “Pollock” evocation above, which is disorienting without being inverted. It’s positively a positive.

Knox Hall, Columbia University — © Brian Rose

Assignment work photographing Knox Hall at Columbia University for the architects. Aside from shooting the lobby, classrooms, and various offices, I photographed the geothermal well system in the basement. The four wells are 1,800 feet deep and the system heats and air conditions the building reducing energy consumption by 50 or 60%. Here is a somewhat technical explanation of how it all works.

Leroy Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Plymouth Church, Brooklyn Heights (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

On a recent assignment, I photographed Plymouth Church for the magazine America’s Civil War. This was the church where Henry Ward Beecher, the famous abolitionist preacher, delivered his sermons. Beecher’s sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the best selling anti-slavery novel. Abraham Lincoln sat in one of the pews at right listening to Beecher the day before his Cooper Union speech, which helped propel him to the White House.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Abraham Lincoln by Matthew Brady

Lincoln was originally supposed to give his speech at Plymouth Church, but as I was told by the church historian, Brooklyn was deemed too difficult to get to for the invited dignitaries. The Brooklyn Bridge was not constructed until 1883. So, the location was changed to Cooper Union in Manhattan. On his way to Cooper, Lincoln stopped in Matthew Brady’s studio at Bleecker and Broadway and had his portrait taken. Brady later documented the Civil War, and his photographs remain some of the most powerful depictions of war ever made.

Hudson Street — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Leninplatz, Berlin, 1990– © Brian Rose

Spiegel Online International:

In a sign of how time is healing Berlin’s wounds, the city plans to dig up the giant Lenin monument it famously buried in 1991 and place it in a new museum for disgraced statues. The works will span the communist and Nazi eras and date far back into Prussian times.

Full article here.

One of the things I’ve noticed in my recent trips to Berlin is a greater acknowledgment that visitors come to Berlin to see and feel history, however painful much of it may be. For years, Nazi sites were mostly unidentified, hidden. Then the Wall was hastily removed, communist monuments ripped down. Now, there is a greater openness along with regrets about what was lost. There are serious attempts to present and interpret history such as the Topography of Terror as well as kitschy Trabi rentals and fake G.I.s posing for pictures at Checkpoint Charlie. I still haven’t made up my mind about Peter Eisenman’s Holocaust Memorial, but it is irrevocably planted–a vast field of stones–in the heart of the German capitol.

Houston Street — © Brian Rose

Winter light on Houston Street.

Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn — © Brian Rose

In the next couple of weeks I hope to photograph the Trenton Bath House, one of architect Louis Kahn’s earliest works in its current almost ruined state. This modest, but sublime structure, is about to be restored, and amazingly, considering its pedigree, will be returned to its use as changing rooms and showers for a community swimming pool.

Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn — © Brian Rose

I took these pictures while walking through the project with Michael Mills, partner of Farewell Mills Gatsch Architects (FMG), a Princeton firm that specializes in preservation. The history of the bath house and a description of the plans for restoring the building can be found here.

Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn — © Brian Rose

In an email to Michael Mills expressing what I feel is the importance of photographing the bath house before restoration takes place, I wrote this:

There is also something seductive about seeing the bath house now. Coming across it in its winter abandonment, it feels like the discovery of some ancient temple ruin. There is a solemnity about it–a poignancy–a silence full of the meaning that Kahn invested in this otherwise utilitarian recreational project. That authenticity will be partially, and inevitably lost, though the building will be reborn, and will again assume its original purpose. The restored project will express Kahn’s design undisturbed by later interventions and neglect, but the present moment is unique–a historical juncture–and I think that it deserves full and considered documentation.

A few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had the opportunity take a tour of Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower, an icon of early 20th century architecture located just outside Berlin in Potsdam. Most of those on the tour were East Germans who had signed up before the Wall had opened. I brought my view camera along, despite the inconvenience of lugging such equipment, hoping to get at least one good photograph. After a tedious hour-long slide talk about the solar observatory, we were led to the building, sitting forlornly, but miraculous–rundown like most structures in the east–but essentially frozen in time. I managed to get a half dozen pictures of the tower including an interior complete with original Mendelsohn furniture and cabinetwork, still in use. After the reunification of Germany, the Einstein Tower was beautifully restored, but there is something about the photographs I took that day in 1990 that can’t be captured in the present.

Such moments in time are worth documenting.

Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn — © Brian Rose

Trenton Bath House, Louis Kahn — © Brian Rose

Christopher and Hudson Streets — © Brian Rose

No walls. Buy clothes.

Bergen Street, Bedford-Stuyvesant — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Bergen Street, Bedford-Stuyvesant — © Brian Rose

Wythe Street, Williamsburg — © Brian Rose

Park Avenue, East Harlem — © Brian Rose

The Bowery — © Brian Rose

Without comment.

Meyerowitz exhibition at MCNY — © Brian Rose

Writing about Joel Meyerowitz is complicated for me. While a student at MICA in Baltimore in the mid ’70s, I saw his color street photography, and having just begun shooting color myself, I endeavored to go to New York and study with him at Cooper Union. My success at getting into Cooper was a critical event in my life, and the experiences I had there greatly influenced and shaped my later career.

Meyerowitz’s show at the Museum of the City of New York, Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, is particularly problematic for me to write about because I did my own survey of New York’s natural park areas back in the ’80s, 30 years before Meyerowitz came to the subject on his own. Go here to see that work.

Meyerowitz exhibition at MCNY — © Brian Rose

I really like this image, party balloons incongruously discovered in the depths of apparent wilderness, actually a fenced-off patch of Central Park.

Legacy, the exhibition, seems to me unsure about its focus and intention. It seeks to be at once a celebration of the richness of New York’s surprisingly spacious natural landscape, and a showcase of Joel Meyerowitz, “master photographer.” But because the images are grouped primarily by borough and park, other possible lines of continuity and inquiry are cut off. A different organization of photographs could have revealed deeper connections in content and method of working. There are any number of substantial images in the exhibit, but their cumulative power has been dispersed. What we’re presented with is a user-friendly Baedeker to New York’s natural parks.

Meyerowitz exhibition at MCNY — © Brian Rose

A fantasia of red and green, an unnaturally vibrant print, in my view.

Another factor cheapening the impact of many of the images is the overly saturated color–the blindingly phosphorescent greens and reds–nothing like the beautifully modulated color of Meyerowitz’s earlier analog prints. New York’s parks have been digitally enhanced.

Meyerowitz exhibition at MCNY — © Brian Rose

The opening wall-sized murals printed on loose, Tyvek paper are nothing less than cringe inducing–Meyerowitz photographs as shower curtains. Unfortunately, a few of the strongest images in the show–once you’re past the Bronx River adventure ride (seen above)–are printed in this way.

Photograph by Joel Meyerowitz

The naked armature of an immense tree in Brooklyn, thick branches almost defying gravity. An admirably straightforward image made without any need for visual contrivance.

Much of what went wrong with Legacy can be found here:

“Experiencing the print quality and longevity of HP Designjet photo printers was a key turning point in my own personal digital transformation,” said Joel Meyerowitz. “HP’s innovative printing technology has made it easy to express my work in new, creative ways and with this project, I was not only able to showcase exhibit-quality prints but also high-quality, immersive wall graphics that capture the essence of New York City’s parks.” Go here for the whole press release.

Enough said.

E103rd Street and Lexington Avenue — © Brian Rose

Manhattan, “island of many hills” from the Lenape language, seems mostly flat, but there are places where you are reminded of the original name. At 103rd Street on the east side, Spanish Harlem, there is a slope of near San Francisco pitch. To the south of 96th Street it is called Carnegie Hill, which is a tony Upper Side neighborhood.

E103rd Street — © Brian Rose

Cervin Robinson — © Brian Rose

Making my usual morning walk across town I came upon Cervin Robinson at Houston and Crosby Street. He was photographing the Bayard-Condict Building, Louis Sullivan’s only New York structure. Robinson has photographed this building before–and many other Sullivan buildings.

Here’s a screen capture of one his photographs of the same building made many years ago.

Photograph by Cervin Robinson

I didn’t linger to chat with Cervin because I could see that at that moment a shaft of low winter light was raking perfectly across the facade of the building at the top of Crosby Street.

Crosby Street — © Brian Rose

I was drawn into Crosby Street just off Houston by the ASPCA truck with a large cat face gazing slightly upward. It was parked in front of Happy Paws Daycare with a lot of happy dogs cavorting in the windows along the street.

Unhappily there were signs on each plate glass window stating “No Photos Allowed.” Never mind the fact that a private business can not legally prevent one from taking pictures on a public street in this city or any other in the United States. See first amendment for reference.

University Place — © Brian Rose

A few blocks away I found this storefront.