Severally Exceptionally Good Recently Acquired Pictures, is Fraenkel Gallery’s ninth annual compendium of recent acquisitions, new work by gallery artists, and oddball photos that don’t fit neatly into any category.
Virtually the entire history of photography is represented by the approximately seventy-five photographs on view. All works have been acquired by the gallery within the last year. Pictures range from Nadar’s 1864 woodburytype of Georges Sand to an unpublished Diane Arbus, South Bay Singles Club Couple on a Couch, 1970, to a recent Christopher Bucklow photogram from his series Guest.
An apparently unique print by Edward Steichen, View into 40th Street at Night, 1925, addresses the texture of light between two Manhattan skyscrapers at the end of the day. An anonymous nineteenth century photographer observes the oddity of enormous hail stones from “the great storm June 20, 1870.” And the forms and characteristics of gates, door and passageways is made evident by Eugene Atget in six recently acquired albumen prints, made in Paris in the first two decades of the century.
Among the quirkier photographs in the exhibition are several anonymous works: a picture of a placard announcing the rules to follow at Camp Razzle Dazzle, and the headless forms of menswear lined up in a tailor’s shop display.
Also featured are recent images by Larry Clark, Adam Fuss, Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson and Hiroshi Sugimoto, among many others.
