Artists

The “Other” Robert Frank

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Barbershop through screen door-McClellanville, South Carolina, from the Scalo edition of Robert Frank’s The Americans.

Almost every piece I read on Robert Frank begins the same way. Take the 14,999 word obituary The New York Times published after Mr. Frank passed away at 94 on September 9th, 2019 for example. The body of their piece begins-

“Robert Frank, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century…”

Stating succinctly what I’ve heard said about him most often. In the 3rd para it adds-

“He was best known for his groundbreaking book, The Americans…1”

A copy of the 50th Anniversary edition of The Americans, published by Steidl in 2008 in close collaboration with Robert Frank, and so this will remain the  definitive edition.

Again, summing what seems to be the consensus I’ve encountered as I’ve explored the world of Modern & Contemporary Photography (which for me, means the world post the publication of said The Americans in 1958, in France, and 1959 here). Yet lurking in that sentence is a problem.

Good days quiet, 2019, with its slip case above, Robert Frank’s final PhotoBook.

While he is indeed “best known” for The Americans, nowhere in the entire 14,999 word obit is there mention of any other PhotoBook by Robert Frank! That’s typical, too. It seems that for many people Mr. Frank’s exalted reputation rests on that one book. But, Robert Frank, didn’t stop working after publication of The Americans in 1959. He created and published Photobooks regularly over the following SIXTY YEARS! His last one, Good days quiet, was published in April, 2019, shortly before his passing. Yet, it seems to me that this single-book focus also monopolizes the conversation around Robert Frank’s work.

Want proof of that? Quick- name five other books by Robert Frank. [“Final Jeopardy!” Music plays…] Ok. Three.

It all began here. Robert Frank, Portfolio, Steidl facsimile edition. Containing a selection his early work, 1941-46, Mr. Frank presented the original to prospective clients after arriving in New York from Zurich in 1947.

The Americans singlehandedly created the genre of Contemporary Photography spawning countless thousand of books in its wake. Yet, given his reputation, it’s kind of amazing Robert Frank’s “other” books have received so little attention. Especially after you see them. It would be easy to account for that saying, “Well, there are more PhotoBooks published today than ever before.” Most PhotoBooks come and go  having only created a ripple in the vast world of human awareness. True, but, these are different. Full of poignancy, daring, surprising juxtapositions of the new and the old, they don’t hesitate to break rules. And, they are the work of Robert Frank, “one of the most influential….” oh, you know. Whereas The Americans, and his prior books, like London/Wales (another masterpiece in my view), contain work that looks at the world, his subsequent books largely look inward. In a number of the images a sense of loss is palpable.

Fourteen “other” Robert Frank books. The 7 on the bottom are his late Visual Diaries, discussed further below. Good days quiet is above them. Robert Frank: In America, not by Robert Frank per se,contains about 100 Photographs that are not in The Americans. And so it provides an excellent chance to study Robert Frank’s image selection, invaluable for anyone considering making a PhotoBook.

Without having familiarity with most, if not all, of Robert Frank’s PhotoBooks, it’s not possible to have an understanding of him or his accomplishment. Given his key position in Photography of the past 60 years, by extension, it’s pretty hard to be able to understand the accomplishment of anyone else working in this era. Realizing that I, too, was in this boat, seemingly adrift in the fog of ignorance, I decided to do something about it last year during the lock down. I began hunting down every OTHER Robert Frank book I could find. What I found was, frankly (sorry), astounding, but, I really shouldn’t have been surprised.

Robert Frank: Moving Out, 1995-6 Exhibition Guide.

In 1995 I saw the Robert Frank: Moving Out Retrospective at the “old” Whitney Museum. At that point, I had a copy of The Americans, but knew nothing more about his work. What I saw that day was indelible. The greatest (of the few) Photography shows I’d seen before 2005’s Diane Arbus: Revelations at The Met. It showed me that Mr. Frank never stopped creating or exploring his vision. Later in his career (as it was in 1995), he had taken to writing on is prints and I was stunned by them. They were “raw,” yes, but they were also revolutionary. I immediately ran out and bought the exhibition catalog, unheard of for this Painting guy at that point. The impact of those later Prints, and the retrospective as a whole has stayed alive with me ever since.

Robert Frank: Moving Out Exhibition Catalog. Ostensibly not “by” Robert Frank, is still a spectacular book, and the best overview of his work to 1995 there is with excellent, informative essays and gorgeous reproductions (it was printed by Steidl). Copies in Very Good, or better, condition trade quite reasonably as I write this.

But, I still hadn’t seen his other PhotoBooks, and as we all know, a PhotoBook is a unique way of presenting Photographs that has proven itself to be every bit as vital and effective as hanging them on a wall- even on the walls of the Whitney. Mr. Frank is, perhaps, the master of image selection, and laying out & sequencing a PhotoBook, skills that are apparently in short supply based in many of the books I see each year. If they have no other values (which they definitely do) they are portable “master classes” in the Art of making a PhotoBook. 

The Table of Contents for Steidl’s overview (shown 2 pictures down) turned into my checklist of books seen so far. Some of the uncheck entries are essays in the book.

To date, I still haven’t seen all of his books. I’m up to 22 of them. Luckily, almost all of Robert Frank’s books have been reprinted over the years and most remain in print, due to his relationship with the renowned Gerhard Steidl of Steidl, making the newer editions relatively affordable. After publishing the terrific Storylines in 2004, the pair began work on the 50th Anniversary Edition of The Americans, which is the version that will now remain Robert Frank’s final word on the classic.

Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans: Expanded Edition accompanied the show of the same name honoring The American’s 50th Anniversary I saw at The Met in 2009. And so, it is the final word on The Americans during Robert Frank’s lifetime and the ultimate reference on it. Another book not “by” Mr. Frank it is exceptionally thorough and the hardcover Expanded Edition seen here contains the 83 contact sheets the images in The Americans came from! (NOT included in the softcover edition.) It’s also enough of a “making of” book for students to study how The Americans came into being. Highly recommended.

Since those two volumes Messers Frank & Steidl have produced a steady stream of books.

Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl, 2020. The best place to start exploring Robert Frank’s “other” PhotoBooks.

In 2020, Steidl honored and revisited their collaborations with an overview of all the books titled Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl. Succinct and well-produced it is the best place to start exploring the PhotoBooks of Robert Frank and the best place to determine where to turn next in your own journey through them (with the Moving Out catalog the best place to explore his work: his Photography & Film to 1995). Each book is shown chronologically and gets a section of its own by Steidl publication date with thumbnails and historical & publishing info. Here, you can get a taste of each book before diving in.

Robert Frank: Storylines, 2004, the first Robert Frank/Steidl publication is auspicious given what followed, and remains the best retrospective of his work. Steidl is preparing to reprint it.

From what I’ve seen thus far, after The Americans, he turned his camera inward. His later work, renowned for its “rawness” as the NY Times obituary put it, often feature poignantly “raw” images of his life and feelings. This is seen best, perhaps, in his late 7 volume Photo Diary series. They are a truly unique body of PhotoBooks that at once look back (by including vintage Photographs- some familiar, some not), and more recent shots, brilliantly laid out, with each book not containing too many Photos. This gives each book an internal sense of space that allows the Photos room to breathe. The book design, by Messers Frank and Steidl, with assistance and input from Mrs. Frank, the under-appreciated Artist,  June Leaf, is simple and clean, but fresh and new at the same time, as  you’d expect from two master craftsman who each bring a lifetime’s experience to each book. Mr. Frank began with a book dummy and the feel and design of these has been pretty faithfully reproduced by Steidl. These are not luxury items. They are produced to be picked up and looked through in functional yet non-pretentious materials.

Little known is that Robert Frank was commissioned to shoot catalogs for Milan designer Albert Aspesi titled Aspesi Ideas. This is a copy of the 2nd of the 3 he did. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. After his arrival from Zurich, he did over 150 fashion shoots for Harper’s and Junior Bazar. Even great Artists have to pay the bills.

I’m not going to give a book by book breakdown here. It would take a book to do so. And now, there is a book that does just that, Steidl’s tribute/overview Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl, 2020,, traces the entire history and legacy of the German publisher’s work with Robert Frank, including both books it republished and brand new PhotoBooks. It’s the best place to start for anyone looking to get an overview, or to choose where to go next in exploring the published work of Robert Frank.

The seven volumes of Robert Frank’s Visual Diaries, 2010-17, six in a similar design- a softcover in a slipcase. The seventh is Household Inventory Record, 2013, designed to look like the original which was created in an actual Household Inventory Record book.

Highlights? For me, it’s very very hard to single any of them out. They are part of a continuum that spans and tells the story of one extraordinary Artist’s life. Luckily, as I write this, virtually all of them are still in print and available at or close to list price. Assuming you have The Americans, I would recommend starting with Steidl’s overview. Look through it, read the introductory summary about each book, look at its thumbnail images and see which one(s) speak to you. Storylines, which accompanied a 2004 European touring retrospective exhibition, is Robert Frank’s look at his own career in a book he obviously had (from the look at the making of it in Steidl’s overview book) a central role in designing as well as a close involvement with the underlying show (we’re told in the introduction). And so it remains the best place to see his career through his eyes. It also set the stage for what would follow from the Frank/Steidl collaboration. Also essential in my view is the early London/Wales, which Steidl reissued, and which sets the stage for The Americans. Of the books after Storylines, the “Visual Diaries,” were the big surprises for me. Tal uf Tal ab (2010), You Would (2012), Park / Sleep (2013), Household Inventory Record (2013), Partida (2014), Was haben wir gesehen/What we have seen (2016), and Leon of Juda (2017) strike me as being akin to as close to a “PhotoBook Autobiography” as we’re likely to get. A mix of new and old Photos, typically brilliantly sequenced, they break more rules than they follow. Six of the seven are identically sized and come in matching slipcases, as shown above, while Household Inventory Record is a reproduction of an original created in a standard Household Inventory book. It’s pretty hard for me to single one of these out, so I decided to start with the first volume,Tal Uf Tal Ab. They contain between 29 and 68 Photos each. Good days quiet, 2019, being his last book is also essential in my view. Not part of the Visual Diaries per se (it is the same size as the 6 Visual Diaries, though in a different format), it nonetheless carries some of the feeling and style. Intended as a “final” book, or not, it nonetheless is a moving work showing that Robert Frank had lost none of his considerable skills as a Photographer, editor or book creator.

From Storylines. Pieces like this seem to meld Film and Photography as Robert Frank continually stretched out the ability of Photographs to tell a story.

While a biography of Mr. Frank has already been published, the time is here for the critical studies of his entire body of work to begin. Given Moving Out was 26 years ago, and Storylines, which never traveled to the US, 17, the time is also here for a full scale retrospective. The Americans continues to receive the attention it’s earned. No PhotoBook or Art Book collection should be without it. Yes, no library of any kind of books should be without it. Robert Frank’s “other” PhotoBooks created in the following sixty years shows us a different, inner, landscape- its depths, its wonder, its beauty, poetry and tragedy are no less compelling. They complete the picture Robert Frank showed us, and the journey he took us on.

Robert Frank, from Good days quiet, 2019.

Meanwhile, his Art continued to grow and expand, in my view. It’s full of innovations that have largely flown under the radar compared to his early work. But those innovations are not lost on Artists & Photographers who have been creating along side, or since he created them.

Sick of Goodby’s, 1978, from Robert Frank: Moving Out.

In much of later Robert Frank I get the feeling that he was crossing the boundaries between Photography & Film, with his writing on his prints and especially his collages, which are daring and almost completely overlooked. While his early work already looks timeless to us, there is much else in his oeuvre that remains to be discussed, understood and appreciated. This is like the late work of a number of other Artists from Picasso to Rauschenberg. Luckily, much of this work is there to be seen by all of us right now in the books he created.

Having seen 22 so far, I look forward to seeing those I haven’t yet seen. And then, there are his Films…

Robert Frank, from Good days quiet, 2019, his final book.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Other End (of the Telescope)” Written and performed by Elvis Costello on All This Useless Beauty, 1996, performed in the UK that year here-

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  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead-americans-photography.html ↩

Gilles Peress’s Silent Movie

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Gilles Peress, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, with Annals of the North. Steidl Photo

Henri Cartier-Bresson in the newly liberated Nazi Concentration Camps…

Robert Capa in Paris during its Liberation…

Robert Franks- London & Wales…

Robert Franks- The Americans…

Larry Burrows- Vietnam…

Gilles Peress- Telex Iran…

These were some of the images and PhotoBooks that flashed through my mind while looking through a copy of the newly released two-volume Whatever You Say, Say Nothing by Gilles Peress published by Steidl. I don’t think this will be the last time it’s spoken about with those monuments of Photography. Even though the Photographs in it were taken 50 years ago next year, I believe Whatever You Say, Say Nothing will be included when the list of THE Books of this Decade is finalized.

Steidl Photo.

It comes in a strong tote bag (it better be- the set weighs almost 30 pounds!). The two PhotoBooks contain 1,960 14 3/4 by 10 inch pages with 1,295 images, including some amazing wide-angle shots that will look like panoramas to iPhone users. These are often shown on a 2 page spread that’s almost 30 inches wide! The first volume has “Whatever You Say” in silver letters on the spine, Volume II has “Say Nothing” on it. Each set is accompanied by the “text and image almanac,” The Annals of the North, itself 900 pages.

Steidl Photo.

Billed as “A Documentary Fiction” on the title page, the word “Fiction” allows me to bring it into the world of “Art,” though everything it shows us was actually witnessed by the Photographer in Northern Ireland. In 1972, at age 26, he witnessed the “Bloody Sunday Massacre,” then returned to continue shooting there over the next decade. Whatever You Say, Say Nothing marks the first time most of this work has been seen. 

Steidl Photo.

Per Steidl-
“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, a work of “documentary fiction,” organizes a decade of photographs across 22 fictional “days” to articulate the helicoidal structure of history during a conflict that seemed like it would never end—where each day became a repetition of every other day like that day: days of violence, of marching, of riots, of unemployment, of mourning, and also of “craic” where you try to forget your condition.
Held back for 30 years and now eagerly anticipated, this ambitious publication takes the language of documentary photography to its extremes, then challenges the reader to stop and resolve the puzzle of meaning for him or herself.”

Steidl Photo.

It’s fitting I’m seeing this on the heels of having seen and written about Francisco Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) at The Met, which left me pondering so-called “documentary” Photography and Goya’s possible influence on Artists & Photographers.

Steidl Photo.

Culling down a decade’s worth of work to 1,295 images must have been incredibly difficult, but there’s no evidence of that to be seen in the books where there are no “weak” images and those chosen are brilliantly sequenced in service to the “22 Day” concept. I particularly admire the image layout- not full bleed but with the slimmest of margin, maximizing the available real estate. It was too hard for me to think of a fictional narrative to accompany the images as they went by. I was too gripped by what’s depicted in the Photos themselves. Gilles Peress’s remarkable images have lost not one bit of their power in the intervening 3 decades since he took them. They are a part of history that has much to teach us now, and no doubt will in the future. But those are just two of the innumerable levels of this monumental work.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” by U-2 from War, 1980. After its release, I saw them at The Ritz, NYC, on their first US tour.

My thanks to Monika Condrea.

BookMarks-
Gilles Peress’ Whatever You Say, Say Nothing is about to be released in the US.

For a compelling look at events in Northern Ireland in 1981 check out the excellent Yan Morvan’s Bobby Sands, Belfast Mai 1981 (French Edition) from Andrew Frerer Editions. (Note- My copy is French & English. There is only one edition as far as I know.) Mr Morvan was also about 26 or 27 when he shot in Northern Ireland.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Francisco Goya: Modern Art & Photography Begin Here

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

The seemingly all-seeing eye. Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, Plate 1, 1799, Etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin. The wall card reads- “In the first plate from the Caprichos, Goya presents himself as a sardonic observer of contemporary society.” Exactly what we’ll see in the rest of The Met’s Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Francisco Goya’s Paintings are on the “must-see” lists of many museum goers, particularly the 200 or so portraits he did of royal, aristocratic or upper-class patrons over his 39 years as a court Painter1. Like this one-

Francisco Goya, Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792), 1787-8, Oil on canvas. One of the most charming Paintings in The Met for many. I can’t help but think it’s also more. An allegory about the end of  innocence? On the right, small birds in a protective cage. On the left, a magpie is eyed by cats. Any wonder this was the last Goya portrait commissioned by the child’s father, the Count of Altamira? Herein lies a hint of what lurks in Goya’s Graphic work. Its young subject died at age eight, 4 years after posing for it. A final touch- the magpie holds Goya’s card with his signature in his beak. Met Museum Photo of the work unframed.

But, to get the full picture of Goya’s Art, I believe his graphic work deserves every bit as much attention. Yet, chances to see his Drawings & Prints in depth are rare due to the fragility and light sensitivity of the originals. In 2015, a complete set of Goya’s timeless Print series Los Caprichos (the Caprichos) was shown at The National Arts Club in Gramercy Park, which I wrote about here. 2015 also saw the last large Goya Retrospective in the U.S., Goya: Order and Disorder, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which I actually made a day trip out of town to see and wrote about in the same piece. 

Goya after Velazquez, A False Bacchus Crowning Drunkards, 1778, Etching. Goya achieved, and demonstrated, his mastery of of the challenging medium of Etching copying the earlier Spanish master as in this remarkable Print done when Goya was about 32. And, he had the confidence to modify the composition of one of the greatest Painters of all time.

In the intervening 4 1/2 years, I’ve been preoccupied, if not obsessed, with exploring Photography & PhotoBooks, so when I finally got to see Goya’s Graphic Imagination at The Met in April with about 118 Drawings & Prints, I wondered if I might be able to spot Goya’s influence on Photographers and Photography, and on Modern Art in general for that matter.

“Both types of works on paper are closer to one another than they are to Goya’s painting. Paintings are a public expression. By contrast, an album of drawings is intimate and personal. These smaller-scale works served as a platform for Goya to think through his most private ideas.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Goya’s eye, which seems to look askance at us in the Self-Portrait that opens Los Caprichos, up top, apparently never rested. He recorded much of what he saw in his Sketchbooks, which have largely survived. Over time, his beliefs ran in and out of sync with those of the powers that be, so he became adept at keeping his opinions to himself. It is in the privacy of these Sketchbooks that he gave full reign to what he felt about all he saw around him while keeping his position at court. He eventually rose to the exalted position of First Chamber Painter in 1799.

Title page to the first edition of Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), 1863, 24 years after the invention of chemical Photography. Met Museum Photo. Due to the low lighting in the show I was unable to take satisfactory pictures of much of the show without a tripod, so in those cases, I am using The Met’s Photos. This page was not included in the show.

A number of his Drawings became the basis of his Prints, including  Los Caprichos and later, inspired by the Peninsular War, 1807-14 and the Madrid Famine, 1811-12, Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War). It was the 10 or so Prints from this series, equal parts “graphic” and revolutionary, on view in The Met’s show I looked forward to seeing most. Due to those ever-changing political winds, it wasn’t until 1863, thirty-five years after Goya’s death, that the world got to see his Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War with Bonaparte, and Other Emphatic Caprices, as he had originally titled a set of 85 Prints that he gave to an associate during his lifetime, when it was finally published under the title Los Desastres de la Guerra with 80 Prints2.

Plate 15 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘And there is nothing to be done.’ (Y no hai remedio.) Met Museum Photo.

“Every figure in Los Desastres de la Guerra plays a specific role, defined by gesture, expression and costume. Nothing is superfluous.” Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la guerra, P.17

The series shows things never before seen in Art to that time, including graphic depictions of the horror of war, imprisonment and famine. About two hundred thirty years earlier, circa 1633,  Jacques Callot published his Print series Les Grandes Miseres de la guerre or The Miseries and Misfortunes of War. Of them, the Art Gallery of NSW, Australia, which owns a set, says– “Callot’s series is less an indictment of war than a moral tale about the unhappy consequences that befall the undisciplined soldier.” Callot’s Prints are in a long landscape format, and show what they depict at a distance. It is thought Goya owned a set of them, and they may have been an inspiration for him. In his series, Goya puts the action full frame presaging the words of Robert Capa, famed for his 20th century war & conflict Photographs, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

Plate 1 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): Sad foreboding of what is going to happen (Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer), ca. 1815 (published 1863), Etching, burin, drypoint and burnisher. Met Museum Photo.

As powerful & profound as they are, there’s an element of them that is particularly puzzling. In more than one work, Goya’s caption gives the viewer the idea that what he’s showing are things he actually witnessed. DID Goya see the things he shows us?

DID he? Or, didn’t he actually see this happen? The title says he did. Plate 44 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘I saw it.’ (Yo lo vi.). Met Museum Photo.

There is some debate around this. Wikipedia says repeatedly that he went around and saw the battles of the Peninsular War- without quoting a source for these statements I have seen no where else. While it seems it would have been hard for him to miss the daily effects of the Madrid Famine going on around him, the Artist going to battle scenes is harder for me to imagine. He was in his 60s and had suffered a serious illness that left him completely deaf. If he didn’t actually go to them, he could have been inspired by news accounts or from the accounts those closer to the action.

Preperatory Drawing for Plate 64 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘Cartloads to the cemetery.’ (Carretadas al cementerio.) Prado, Madrid Photo.

Plate 64 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘Cartloads to the cemetery.’ (Carretadas al cementerio.). Here an extremely rare opportunity to compare the Drawing, above, with the final Print. Met Museum Photo.

At this point, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for certain how much of what we’re shown, if any of it, the Artist actually personally witnessed first hand. I’ve come to feel that thinking about this is a waste of time. Goya was an Artist- not a Photographer. He was working before the invention of chemical Photography and setting down his ideas by hand on paper, stone or canvas. With all due respect to the skill of Artists who Drew and Painted down through history, Drawing & Paintings done from life or memory are incapable of showing us the real world as it existed. Time is a key element in Drawing & Painting and in the time it takes to make one the world has changed. The people in it have moved. The light has changed. Things have happened and finished. In war, particularly, things happen way too fast to be captured accurately in a Drawing, let alone a Painting. They can give us a sense of what happened. What Goya is showing us is “something else” than the full reality of the moment- even if he did see it happen right in front of him. It’s his vision of things. If he tried to render it accurately to the scene in front of him, it’s still only an approximation. We’re seeing it through his eyes, and, as becomes apparent as you look at his Drawings & Prints, he does have a point of view.

The line for Goya extends further down the hall to the left than you can see here. April, 2021.

After seeing them in the show, it’s hard for me to think that these unprecedented images are not precursors of so-called war and conflict Photography. After the show I began to look to see if the Photographers, themselves, acknowledged this. In 2005, the renowned British Photographer Don McCullin, renowned for his coverage of the Vietnam War, among numerous other conflicts over his long & eventful career, told the BBC “When I took pictures in war I couldn’t help thinking of Goya.” Elsewhere he said, “…if what happened in front of my eyes was like a scene out of Goya. I wasn’t there to make icons. I had to bring back information that could possibly prevent other such miseries.” In those words I feel a simpatico with what Goya might have been trying to accomplish in Los Desastres de la Guerra .

Garroted Man, 1776-78, Etching. Done at about age 30, Goya’s second etching! A forerunner of Los Desastres, is also one of his most unforgettable images. According to Janis Tomlinson, Garroting “was considered one of the more humane forms of execution3.”

If a Drawing is incapable of showing us the complete “reality” of a scene, then it is what some might call today, “conceptual.” I was struck by some similarities of Goya’s Prints with so-called “conceptual” Photographers, who modify or create scenes from scratch that they then Photograph, like Duane Michals, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson or Deana Lawson. Goya, too, may have been creating a scene on paper to make it express what he saw in his mind’s eye (keyword= may).

Plate 30 from The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra). Proof, without caption. Without the titles makes them infinitely harder to decipher. According to the wall card, here, people fall to the ground after a building explodes.

Yet, no writing about these work exists in Goya’s hand besides the captions on the plates.

“It is important to emphasize that the inscriptions are not titles. They are captions that encourage a potential understanding. The captions do not explain the work for us. The meanings are often unclear, but this isn’t because Goya was being obtuse. He was thinking through drawings and prints for his personal purposes, and as such, there is no need for him to explain their significance to himself. His works on paper are so internal and layered that they would have sparked multiple associations, even for Goya.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

So, the captions add another layer of mystery to what we’re seeing! Duane Michals captions many of his Photographs right on the print itself. Robert Frank wrote directly on the image as his career went on, and so does Jim Goldberg, among others. Coincidences? Possibly.

Jim Goldberg, Ron E., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, 2014, Magnum Photos Print.

During the lockdown I read Believing is Seeing by Errol Morris. Among Photos taken from 1855 until very recently, Mr. Morris examines the work of the 1930s Farm Services Administration (F.S.A.) Photographers, including Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, and the evidence that they may have modified the scenes of some of their most iconic F.S.A. images from the 1930s. Modifying a scene to make it closer to what the Artist or Photographer is seeing in his or her mind’s eye would make them kin to what we see in Goya’s Drawings & Prints. So, it doesn’t really matter all that much if Goya was actually present when the events he shows us were happening. “The FSA collection (in the Library of Congress) therefore offers scholars an unparalleled opportunity to place masterworks, such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936), in the context of companion images taken on the same day. This visual evidence offers a much more reliable guide to the photographer’s original intent than the artist’s recollections recorded decades after the fact,” James Curtis, the author of Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered, said here. (The other images Dorothea Lange took that day in the archive may be seen here.) In my view, it doesn’t matter if the F.S.A. Photographers, “posed” subjects or modified scenes as Mr. Morris’ and Mr. Curits’ books suggest. Like it doesn’t matter if Goya saw “I saw it.” Even if, say Dorothea Lange, did modify the scene somehow4, she did not change the woman’s situation, which is the real and lasting point of the Photograph. At the end of the F.S.A. chapter in his book, Errol Morris concludes, “It is the idea that the photograph captures that endures 5.” It seems to me, regardless of their genesis, it’s exactly the same with Goya’s Prints & Drawings.

“The demise of Goya’s fortunes at Court has been attributed to his objections to the repressive nature of the restoration regime. Yet he had long survived within politically charged surroundings, and it seems likely he would have kept his political opinions to himself.” Janis A. Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.221

Goya, Self-Portrait, c.1796, Brush and point of brush, carbon black ink, on laid paper, seen at the show’s entrance.

After escaping trouble for his views after the Peninsular War, it finally caught up to him leading to his leaving Spain and becoming an exile in France near the end of his life, where he died at 82 in 1828. His remains were later exhumed and reburied in Madrid in 1919. As far as being the possible “Father of Modern Art” goes, I think a great case can be made for his nomination. Goya’s extremely wide range of subjects, from the royals to the incarcerated preshadowed the work of many Artists & Photographers of the past century. And he never minced the Drawn line, or words, when calling out those he felt were wrong. When I say “Modern Art & Photography Begins Here,” I’m not so much referring to the stylistic innovations though they are there for all to see, and his later Paintings were certainly ahead of their time, I’m referring to the content, and the depicting of what was not seen in Art to that point. Goya’s Drawings & Prints, and his Paintings, like the 2nd & 3rd of May, 1802, break away from the chains of Pontifical or Royal commissions. They show us a world that is all too familiar to us today. A world that has seen no end of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

In considering Goya’s candidacy as the “first modern,” it feels that he lived too long ago to be considered. Yet, it’s interesting to realize that Goya was born in 1746 and died in 1828. J.M.W. Turner, who’s work is often seen as “modern” lived from 1775 to 1851. Charles Dickens, who’s novels captured the “modern world” as soon as anyone else’s, lived from 1812-1870. Edouard Manet, often mentioned as one of the first moderns lived from 1832, only 4 years after Goya’s passing, to 1883.  James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 and Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, was born 25 years after Goya’s passing. Chemical Photography was introduced to the world in 1839- eleven years after Goya’s death. Goya seems perfectly situated chronologically.

The Custody of a Prisoner Does Not Call for Torture (La seguridad de un reo no exige tormento)
ca. 1815; published ca. 1859. While not a part of the posthumous La Guerre set, Goya included a number of Prints of prisoners in the set he gave a friend during his lifetime. I’m also including this as an example of the show’s low, protective, lighting. This may be seen with better lighting in a Met Museum Photo, here.

Between his Paintings, his Drawings and his Prints, taken as a whole, Goya shows the full range of people, from all layers of society, from those of privilege to prisoners without privilege. People living in the utmost splendor to people starving to death, extending on what Rembrandt had done. Some of it was timely, referring to people and events only known to specialists and historians now. Much of it is timeless since human nature hasn’t changed. Met Curator McDonald sums this up-

“Not much changes. The same idiocy, cruelty, and violence take new shapes, but Goya captured those universal anxieties. So much of what we are dealing with now can be identified in Goya’s art—there’s politics, conflict, bloodshed, and ignorance of the impact of our actions fueled by stupidity and bad choices—the same old problems.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Plate 79 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): Truth has died. (Muriola verdad). 1814–15, published 1863. The penultimate Print in the series. Met Museum Photo.

It was interesting to me that Goya’s Graphic Imagination. was on view a few hundred feet away from another major show of the work of another Artist who was focused on people: the famous and the already forgotten- Alice Neel: People Come First. It’s also interesting that both shows were up during the pandemic: our own 21st century horror show. As big a test of the resilience of New York as I hope to ever see.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Outside of Space & Time” by David Byrne & St. Vincent from their classic album Love This Giant.

BookMarks-
The Met’s catalog for Goya’s Graphic Imagination is exceptional. It features large, often full page plates of all the works on view on very nice stock and includes very insightful text from the show’s curators. These texts include numerous insights that weren’t included on the wall cards in the show. And so, it’s one of the better books on the subject of Goya’s Drawings & Prints and a very good place to start for those who want to know more about the show or the subject. Highly recommended.

The best overview of the work of Goya known to me is Janis A. Tomlinson’s Francisco Goya y Lucientes : 1746-1828 , published by Phaidon, which is my go-to book for all things Goya. In fact, I’ve relied so heavily on it that I am now on my second copy. Beware of nebulous listings on Amazon! This is a large book- in both hard & soft cover editions. There is apparently a subsequent smaller softcover edition I have not seen. For studying the Art, the large edition, which has over 250 images, is the one you want. Out of print, but quite inexpensive in Very Good condition, the hardcover is the way to go especially since it is really no more expensive than the softcover and its binding should last longer. 

The best overview on Goya’s Drawings is called simply that- Goya Drawings. Published by the Prado Museum, Madrid, who hold the world’s greatest collection of Goya’s work. It was one of my NoteWorthy Art Books of 2020. It also contains a few Prints but most of its 250 reproductions are of his Drawings, sectioned from all through his career with insightful text in English in a nice, smaller size.

Janis Tomlinson has also written two books about the prints.Graphic Evolutions The Print Series of Francisco Goya (Columbia Studies on Art) and Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la Guerra. Both are excellent and recommended, the latter the most comprehensive book on Los Desastres available. They are a bit harder to find in very good condition, but worth seeking out. Goya’s War contains reproductions of the all 80 published Prints in Los Desastres. It was only published in softcover. 

Photography Related-

Errol Morris’Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography is a fascinating deeper look at iconic Photographs starting with Roger Fenton’s Photographs of the Crimean War, 1855, to current events, causing the reader to question his or her beliefs about just what these images say and what they conceal. Extremely wide-ranging it’s an essential book for Photographers, Art lovers, Art writers and anyone who cares about images.

James Curtis’ Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: Fsa Photography Reconsidered (American Civilization) is lesser known and a ground-breaking look at the work of the Farm Services Administration Photographers, including Walker Evans, Russell Lee and Dorothea Lange. It puts their most famous images into the context of the Photographer’s work that day and analyzes them in a bigger picture way revealing much that is not apparent in the one, famous, Photograph that was widely circulated.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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  1.  Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.1 ↩
  2. Also, as Janis Tomlinson points out- “For if, as the artist himself admitted, only twenty-seven sets of Los Caprichos had sold in much better times, how could he hope to find buyers in a capital devastated by war for these images of brutality, sadistic indifference, and tragic resignation?” Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la guerra, P.17 ↩
  3. Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.44 ↩
  4. James Curtis interview with Errol Morrisin Morris’, Believing is Seeing, P.138 ↩
  5. Errol Morris, Believing Is Seeing, p.185 ↩

William Buchina’s Stream

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“What’s the matter with me
I don’t have much to say
Daylight sneakin’ through the window
And I’m still in this all-night café
Walkin’ to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin’ slow
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow”*

William Buchina, Low Information Settings #1. 48 x 72 inches. Redacted documents, things being dug up, cryptic symbols, protest signs, places that almost look familiar (Is that a WWII Berlin Flak Tower upper left?), welcome to just some of the mysterious recurring images in Mr. Buchina’s work. All works 2020, Acrylic on canvas, unless specified.

Roaming your eye over one of William Buchina’s pieces feels a bit like watching an image stream. There’s so much going on in any of them, as seen in William Buchina: Low Information Setting, at Hollis Taggart, on West 26th Street, Chelsea, it’s a daunting task to unpack it all. His ideas seem endless, and they look back as much as they seem to look at “now” (well, it sure feels like now), or a time undetermined. While you look, there’s also a stream of names that run through your mind as possible “influences” for such work. For me, they range from Max Ernst to Bruce Conner to R. Crumb and Neo Rauch. Then, the next time you look, all of that starts all over again.

Low Information Settings, #7, 24 x 36 inches. Deserted stores or malls are another recurring element. All too real-world right now.

I’ve only been looking, and looking again, for about 2 months so I’m not going to claim any special insight into what his work “means,” but I will say it certainly resonates with the moment. This led me to look at his prior work, and see if to see if he had found serendipity in 2020-21. His website shows work going back to 2012 and a fascinating evolution. I found similar intrigue, complexity and depth. A soft touch for an Artist who Draws well, judging from what he shows there, Drawing has been central to William Buchina’s Art for quite a long time. His older works, like Lust, Crime & Holiness #30, 2013, shown further below, are every bit as complex, if not even more so. The stream of images that populate his older pieces, too, has now become a river.

Installation view. Low Information Settings #10, 2021, 96 x 72 inches, center, features a composition that reminds me of the ground-breaking layouts of George Herriman, Charlotte Salomon and Chris Ware.

Detail of the lower two thirds of L.I.S. #10. Unlike the Artists just mentioned, Mr. Buchina’s horizontal sections seem to add more mystery to the work. Looking at this section, the death and mouring (and lack of mourning in some quarters) of Princess Diana came to mind.

At first glance, his pieces often seem to be a chaotic jumble of people, places & things, but order is miraculously achieved through a number of compositional devices, brilliantly handled, the horizontal layers in this composition being only one. In pieces this complex they become fascinating to spot. How they hold the work’s wildly disparate images and multiple sections together is something of a tour de force.

Low Information Settings #3, 2020, 75 x 48 inches.

Though his images are often fantastic, unique amalgamations, the unexpected melded to something seemingly mundane, their inspiration appears to be more surrealistic than the fantastic work from the drug saturated 1960s as seen in Robert Williams or the early R. Crumb of Zap Comics. Yet, among the Surrealists, Mr. Buchina is closer to the Max Ernst of La Femme 100 Tetes (The Hundred Headless Women) or Duchamp than to Dali or Miro. Behind the curtain, it turns out that Mr. Buchina keeps a trove of found Photographs and other images, some of which he displayed in a prior show, that serve as inspiration/jumping off points for the streams of images he shows us that have a habit of looking vaguely familiar but you just can’t quite place it, or he adds other, usually unexpected elements to it, making it his own. Regardless the source, the imagination is his. It’s stunning and it never lets up.

Mask up! Detail of Low Information Settings #5. Full work is 72 x 48 inches.

Heightening this, remarkably, the times have caught up with some of what he has shown us. Though masks are seen regularly in the Low Information Settings pieces, as in the detail from #5 from 2020, above, the viewer might take it for granted these are covid19 pandemic references, until you realize masks have appeared in his work for years as his archive shows.

Lust, Crime & Holiness #30, 2013 India ink on paper 72 x 108 inches (hexaptych) shows a wide variety of masks 7 years before covid, and is just one of his pieces that show them pre-2020. Photo from williambuchina.com

Going back in time to look at work like this, I was struck by how the new works (Low Information Settings & the Scenery series) seem to be set in large buildings, complexes, or malls, which serves to provide a setting and a unifying element. The earlier works are more “free form,” with sections often hanging in pictorial space. Low Information Settings strikes me as a real breakthrough for Mr. Buchina. Not better. Different.

As for echoes of the recent political and social past in his work? According to the show’s catalog, “Mr. Buchina never views his imagery as overtly political.” Words to bear in mind, particularly when looking at a work like this-

Low Information Setting #6, 2021, 72 x 96 inches.

Detail. According to the show’s catalog, this work was finished days before the Washington insurrection. When I look at this work, I wonder if the setting isn’t a museum given all the Art on view in the background and on the upper levels, as seen in the prior image. After all, 2019 was a year when museum boards came under intense scrutiny, and 2020 a year when the museums came under fire for inequality, predjudice and exclusion.

“People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow”*

It doesn’t end there. In William Buchina: Low Information Setting, unrest, protests (of an unspecified kind), deserted/abandoned stores & malls, and any number of other things that are to be seen on a walk through any city probably anywhere in the world in 2020-21, appear in almost all of the pieces on view. The only thing missing are ambulances rushing people to treatment centers.

Low Information Settings #8, 2021, 24 x 36 inches. While the colors are exaggerated to an almost Day-Glo extent, these three complementary colors (red-yellow-blue based)harmonize a number of other works and set an atmospheric tone for the series.

But, then it was the surreal colors, the reds, yellows and blues particularly, that stopped me. What if you didn’t take all of this literally?

Scenery in Blue #8, 2021, Ink on paper, 30 x 44 inches.

Who was it who first said that all Art is really Self-Portraiture? These could all be inner portraits. Could they be scenes from the inner life of the Artist as he navigates both his world and the world of Art & image history? Could these be portraits of an imagination that’s image based and has a gift for stringing together disparate snippets that somehow manage to not only hold together, but do something far more difficult in today’s image oversaturated world- hold the viewer’s attention, and hold it long enough to get them to think about what they’re seeing?

Low Information Settings #2, 2020, 44 x 44 inches.

Then, of course, they could all “mean” nothing. But where’s the fun in that? Personally, I doubt it. Perhaps William Buchina’s Art strikes the raw nerve of navigating and surviving a “new norm” that’s anything but “normal.” The world in 2021 feels surreal in so many ways. Even things we thought we knew well are different or changed (like waiting in lines to buy food). And, there are a lot of people fed up with that “old norm” that are demanding to be heard. It’s possible to read all kinds of things into these works, but 2 months in, it seems you might have to look long and hard for specific references. And that leaves me continuing to think about them.

The moment I discovered William Buchina. 7pm, March 6, 2021. I was walking up West 26th Street when I saw this in the almost dark (closed) Hollis Taggart Gallery through their window. That was all it took. Immediately intrigued, it would be a month before I could go back and actually see the show.

At Hollis-Taggart, the show was rapidly selling out by the time I finally got to see it after being vaccinated. That’s evidence that some images in the endless stream still have the power to stick for longer than the moment they take to flash by.

Detail of Low Information Settings #5. The full piece, seen above, is 72 x 48 inches.

“Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand
If I had wings and I could fly
I know where I would go
But right now I’ll just sit here so contentedly
And watch the river flow”*

*-Soundtrack for the Post is “Watching The River Flow” by Bob Dylan from Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
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NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

While PhotoBooks have been an all-encompassing passion of mine these past four+ years (though of course I had some earlier), Art Books have been a passion ever since I first saw one, or, for over half a century. Before I could go to a gallery or museum, here was a way to see all, or a selection of, the work of an Artist or a group of Artists- in one portable package. I was instantly fascinated by that, and I still am. Yes, physical books because Art, or Photo, eBooks are few and far between- still. The quality of the physically printed Photo, or Photo of a Painting, is still unsurpassed. In 2020, museums and galleries were closed for much of the year all over the world. For me, and perhaps innumerable others, Art Books were there, 24/7, to provide a means of exploring, seeing and studying Art. Fittingly, as they were for me before I was able to go to shows in person, this year, in my world entirely without any other people for 11 months, Art & PhotoBooks were my sole companions.

Having presented my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020, (as well as in 2019, and 2018), this year,  I’ve decided to also present my thoughts on the Art Books I’ve seen in 2020 that I most highly recommend for the first time. All of these books, I highly recommend, so I’m not picking one out of them as “most highly recommended.” Here they are-

NoteWorthy Art Books of the Year, 2020

Philip Guston Now, DAP/National Gallery of Art, and
Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting

After a gap of 15 years between retrospectives of his work, two excellent overviews of Philip Guston’s remarkable oeuvre are published in one year. Deciding which one to get is hard. Both have a lot going for them. For someone looking for one book with the most images in the largest size, along with one of the finest texts of Robert Storr’s career, Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting is the choice. For someone looking for the only place to see the most controversial show of 2020, now postponed to 2024, along with an equally excellent text, Philip Guston Now is an excellent choice. For the serious Guston aficionado, the only choice is to buy both. For someone already familiar with Philip Guston’s work who wants to learn more about his work, either book will provide countless fresh insights.

Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting may be the finest achievement in the long career of author Robert Storr. Yet, I give special credit to Philip Guston Now for being one of the most remarkable exhibition catalogs I’ve ever seen. Personally, I find its text by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin, to be nothing short of brilliant both in its content and how it flows seamlessly from period to period through the Artist’s long career, treating the whole in a fresh way. This, alone, would be enough for a high recommendation, but the book is taken to another level by the addition along the way of pieces by 10 Contemporary Artists- William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Most provide unique insights into specific works by Philip Guston and a number of them directly address the “hooded”/klan works, the focus of the controversy around the show the book was published to accompany.

Dana Schutz’ Essay in Philip Guston Now.

The show, also titled Philip Guston Now, was first postponed due to covid to July, 2021, then  controversially postponed, again, to 2024 by the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Tate Modern, London, where it is scheduled to be mounted. “We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted.1.” Like many others, I am at a loss to understand that statement. On the one hand, it denigrates the intelligence of visitors. On the other, what if 2024, isn’t that nebulous “time” the message speaks of under whatever unmentioned criteria they’re using to determine it? However, the show’s catalog did come out this year in anticipation of the originally scheduled opening. Its inclusion of the featured pieces by those 10 Contemporary Artists is exactly the kind of thing Art monographs need more of, in my view, as they struggle to remain relevant- given how many other books already exist on most Artists, and the large expense involved in creating them in what may be increasingly challenging times for museums who, largely, publish these books.

The reproductions of the Art in Philip Guston Now only adequate in terms of quality, in my opinion, are best used for reference to the points large and small being made throughout the text. Some of the Art is reproduced one image on a page with a copious border, others are 4 to a page. It does include new Photos taken in Philip Guston’s studio, which appears to be largely as he left it. The other big reason for getting this book is to see the works in, and to have a record of,  this important show, so you can prepare yourself to see it, IF it ever opens. Also important to note- many works will not appear in each of the four scheduled stops the show will make. So, the catalog is the only place to “see” the whole show.

The large 13.35 by 11.5 inch pages create an almost 27 inch spread making the images in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting the largest in any Guston book to date, and with over 850, the most images in any Guston book as well. This will make it a slam dunk choice for many, but take a look at both.

The illustrations are better and more numerous (850) in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting, whose 13 1/2 by 11 1/2 inch size is more accommodating close study. Get that book for the best current overview of the Art. As for its text, Robert Storr contributes one of his finest efforts, apparently the results of many years of work. As good as the text in Philip Guston Now is, Mr. Storr’s doesn’t take a back seat to any Guston book I’ve seen to date, which is why a recommendation for both books is the only one I can give at this point. They join Philip Guston: Retrospective, published by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2003, to accompany the last major retrospective of his work and now out of print, my go-to Guston book to this point, as standard references to the work of this enduringly contemporary Master.

Drawing for Conspirators, 1930, Graphite pencil, pen and ink, colored pencil, and wax crayon on paper, seen at the Whiney Museum in July, 2015, in America Is Hard To See, the most recent showing of this work. A number of the essays in Philip Guston Now reference this work.

Before continuing, I feel I must briefly address the controversy centered around the show’s inclusion of Philip Guston’s klan Paintings. I’ve been somewhat surprised that the attention seems to focus on his late klan pieces. I think it’s important to remember that they go back to when the Painter was about 18. In Philip Guston Retrospective, the backstory is relayed on pages 16 & 17. It begins by quoting Mr. Guston-

“I was working at a factory and became involved in a strike. The KKK helped in strike breaking so I did a whole series of paintings on the KKK. In fact I had a show of them in a bookshop in Hollywood, where I was working at that time. Some members of the klan walked in, took the paintings off the wall and slashed them. Two were mutilated. That was the beginning.”

(The text then continues) “The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the Invisible Empire, had a significant membership in California in the 1930s and 1940s, and Los Angeles County was its most active Klavern. Guston and several other of his friends also painted portable murals for the John Reed Club on the theme of ‘The American Negro.’ Guston’s submission was particularly volitile. Based on the Scottsboro case, in which nine black men were sentenced (many said on false and circumstantial evidence) to life in prison for raping a white girl. Guston’s mural depicted a group of hooded figures whipping a black man. The murals were eventually attacked and defaced by a band of ‘unidentified’ vandals. The experience of seeing the effect of art on life and life on art never left Guston, and the unsettling image of the hooded figure was branded into his visual imagination.”

In the 1930s, in addition to strike breaking, the klan also targeted Jews. Philip Guston, originally Philip Goldstein, was Jewish. Of course, their main target were Blacks.

Artists don’t live in the nebulous times those 4 museum directors speak of in their postponement statement. They live, work, and often respond to, the times of their lives. Philip Guston lived long enough to see that racism was deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, possibly even in his own life. I believe those are things that may have influenced his later hooded figure/klan works, though they are for each viewer to interpret for his or herself. If this ins’t the time for all of us to look inside at ourselves and see how we can be better, how do we know 2024 will be a better time to do so?

NoteWorthy Art Book of the Year, 2020

Noah Davis, David Zwirner Books. An early candidate for the most important new Art monograph of the new decade might be hard to top for that title in the next 9 years. Noah Davis passed away of cancer at the very young age of 32 on August 29, 2015. Still, the amount he accomplished and the work he created in such a short life will live on indefinitely. Editor Helen Molesworth was Mr. Davis’ personally chosen curator, and she curated the show that opened earlier this year in NYC, which  I wrote about before it moved to The Underground Museum, L.A.., which Noah Davis founded with his wife, the Artist Karon Davis. The text includes interviews with those who knew Mr. Davis, including legendary Painter Henry Taylor, Deana Lawson, Lindsay Charlwood, Dagny Corcoran, Daniel DeSure, Thomas Houseago, and Venus X by Ms. Molesworth. Only the second book on his work thus far, it will remain the standard reference for the time being, and a standard reference regardless of what else comes out on one of the most important Artists of  our time. It’s only too bad Mr. Davis didn’t live to see it. Noah Davis was not only an extraordinary Painter, he was one of the Artistic visionaries of our time. He showed it was possible to succeed as an Artist without gallery representation, and then he audaciously founded his own museum to serve audiences he felt were being left out by the existing museums. Generations to come will be influenced and inspired by his Art. Generations of Artists will be, also, influenced by his example. 

From 2020, let’s set the wayyyyy back machine back to the very first Art Book to captivate me when I was a kid was Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, published by Abrams in 1969. A large (13.5 by 11 inch), 348 page hardcover, with 612 illustrations including 109 hand-tipped color plates, it had these words on the front flap-

“There emerges, in this book, a Rembrandt who is human, fallible, majestic- a man who went through all the common vicissitudes of life and yet was determined to remain true to himself as an artist.”

I’d never seen anything like it. Here was an entire world, the entire life and work of an Artist that just exploded in front of me, singeing my mind as I turned each page, as Rembrandt’s wondrous turned painfully sad life went on, accompanied by the Artist turning his hand from Painting to Drawing to Prints, and back, each among the supreme works done in the medium by anyone, before or since. Most of all, it was the incredible humanity in his Art that has stayed with me to this day. He rendered everyone, from beggars to the exalted, babies and the very old, and foremost among them, he rendered himself, continually throughout his career, from early on, until near the end, creating a body of Self-Portraits, the like of which the world had never seen. Those words on the flap turned out to be the key! As the years went by, I began to understand where that unequalled humanity in Rembrandt’s work came from. Such is the power of a truly great Art Book.

Fast forward a half century to 2020 and the release of 3 great books on the Master, each one of my NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020…

The heavyweight champions. The Complete Paintings weighs in at 17.78 pounds, The Complete Drawings & Etchings at 14.99 pounds.

Rembrandt. The Complete Paintings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Complete Drawings & Etchings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Self-Portraits. Taschen XL Series. Nothing more needs to be said- These will remain THE standard visual reference books for Art lovers on the work of the foremost Painter of humanity in this house for the foreseeable future or until the experts change their minds, yet again, on what is, and what is not, from the hand of the Master and deserves to be included. And you know they will (though not the last WORD, for that Gary Schwartz’ amazing books on Rembrandt will retain their prominence in this household). Again. In the meantime, bliss out in peace. Even Mr. Schwartz approves in an Amazon review2. With all due respect to the esteemed authors, in my opinion, these books would be closer to “perfect” if they had his contributions. Photography, paper, binding, finish are first rate all around. 

After all these years, well into the age of the selfie, this first body of Self-Portraits still remain at the top of my list of favorite Art works.

It’s a bit bold of Taschen to publish these books given the still in-flux state of what exactly is a Rembrandt, and given that the esteemed publishers have not yet issued a revised version of any of the XXL books. My guess is they felt the completion of the Rembrandt Research Project’s work, published in a six volume set, the last in 2014, provided an opportunity for a collection. I’ve recently heard of at least one change to the accepted canon, but for better or worse, anyone wanting to see the most Rembrandt in a large size will be left with these three books as the best option for the foreseeable future.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Taschen XXL Series
As I just got through saying about the original Dutch Master, if you want to see as much of the work of the late New York Master, Jean-Michel Basquiat as possible in one volume, as LARGE as possible, Taschen’s XXL Jean-Michel Basquiat is the only book for you. Yes, another Taschen XXL on this list this year. Look at the $200. list price (for this and for each of the Rembrandt Paintings and Drawings books) this way- You’d have to spend a large fortune to travel to the world to see all the Art contained in one of these, IF the work happened to be on view. Even then, you won’t get to see it this close up in what is usually, very good to excellent Art Photography. And consider that much of the key work of Jean-Michel Basquiat is in private hands because the museums were slow to accept and buy his work. They missed the boat. Private collections rarely show or lend their work making the chances to see more than 5 Basquiat Paintings anywhere at any time extremely rare! That’s exactly why I spent so much time running around seeing the 5 Basquiat shows mounted here in NYC last year. My pieces on them are here. In all that effort, I still only saw about 130 or so pieces!

David Hockney: Drawing From Life, National Portrait Gallery, London
The incredibly prolific Mr. Hockney has had a life long obsession with Drawing. That alone makes him a man after my own heart. I’ve followed along with his Drawing evolution with empathy. He’s often spoken of the challenges of Drawing and man, could I relate to them, as I spent 3 days every week Drawing at The Met for about a decade. Sometimes, I’d look at his Drawings and I could see my own efforts. But, most times I looked, he was light years beyond me. His use of an incredibly wide range of Drawing tools and media is unprecedented among major Artists 0in Art History- everything from chalk to graphite to the iPhone and iPad. With each new tool he found his own way, and achieved remarkable results (like his huge, multi page iPad Yosemite Drawings) that are all the more remarkable for being instantly recognizable as David Hockneys. He’s also been proflic in the number of books published on his Art. Yet here is the first collection of part of his Drawing oeuvre this century (the David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, 1996, the last overview I can recall). It’s wonderfully done and ingeniously designed, with chapters following the Artist’s evolution of a single subject each, culminating in his Self-Portraits. Published to accompany the show of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery, London, it’s a remarkable book that due to its ingenious concept has an unexpectedly personal feel to it- as you turn the pages, you begin to feel you know each subject. It’s particularly recommended to Drawing students and lovers of the endangered Art of Drawing.

Francis Bacon or The Measure of Excess by Yves Peyre, a friend of Mr. Bacon’s, stands in front of the new monograph on Cecily Brown. Cecily’s father, David Sylvester, was also a long time friend of Bacon’s and gave us the enduring classic Interviews with Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess, Yves Peyre, ACC Art Books.
Slowly, steadily and continually, the late, great British Artist has now established himself in the upper echelon of Artists I am absolutely obsessed with. To the point that the LAST thing I need is ANOTHER Francis Bacon book. I’d never heard of Yves Peyre, though the cover says he “was a close friend of the artist.” He’s also a poet and has authored a book on Henri Michaux. Well, some of Mr. Bacon’s other friends have already given us books on Mr. Bacon, from David Sylvester (Cecily Brown’s dad, who’s Interviews with Francis Bacon remains most essential) and Michael Peppiatt, down, including another poet, Michel Leiris, and most of them are quite good and have held up for a few decades already. Some of them also offer quite good collections of reproductions of Mr. Bacon’s Art (something EVERY Francis Bacon books seems to need to give us). Yet, as a one volume overview of Francis Bacon’s career with excellent, full 11.73 by 9.83 inch page reproduction, Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess is my current recommendation and personal choice as a one volume visual reference. The texts of the earlier books remain important, and recommended, summing in a nutshell why it’s VERY hard to have only one Francis Bacon book. Even if you have other books, Mr. Peyre shines the new light of a fresh approach to Bacon, which is somewhat remarkable given how many others have chimed in on his work already, during his life and since his passing in 1992. Of course, if you want THE Francis Bacon publication, the 5 volume Catalog Raisonne is still in print at 1,000 British Pounds a copy, plus shipping. I’ve seen it, and it is exceptionally, even remarkably well done, with Martin Harrison, the foremost authority on Bacon today, astoundingly uncovering 100 previously unseen works (Oh! To find just ONE in a flea market…). The Bacon Estate says it will never be reprinted, and so likely will never be “cheaper.”

Sofonisba’s Lesson, Michael Cole, Princeton University.
Wait. What? Who? Sofonisba Anguissola, 1532-1635, was a female Painter & educator in the Renaissance. Believe it or not, a female Painter in the Renaissance. And a great one, in my view. To say her work has been in eclipse since would be an understatement. I, for one, was unfamiliar with her or her work until I saw this incredible, irresistible face staring out at me from the cover. I doubt I’m alone in that. The Met appears to have nothing by her. Neither does The Frick. Ah, but one person who immediately saw her talent was Il Divino himself, Michelangelo, who informally gave her advice! Nuff said. There is no possible higher recommendation in the Art world than that. Into the gap of knowledge for the rest of us mere mortals steps Michael Cole’s beautifully done, concise, monograph that goes a very long way towards putting her back on all of our maps, where she belongs to stay, in my view, henceforth, as the true Master Artist she was.

As you can see both of these Portraits are first rate, but look at the table covering, left, and the collars and cuffs on the right. For me, there are number of different techniques, even styles, on views in each work and that speaks volumes about the depth of her skill.

At 2.5 pounds, it’s not as big in size or as weighty as the Rembrandt or Basquiat XXLs on this list, yet I admire this book so much that if it weren’t for Noah Davis being released this year, it might well be my NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. A lesson for all those Artists struggling for recognition today- Sofonisba’s Lesson comes 12 years before the 500th Anniversary of her birth in Lombardy in 1532. Better late, than never.

Goya Drawings, Thames & Hudson/Prado Museum.
Back in the day before Photography with chemicals ruled the world, Drawing & Painting were the primary means by which events of the day were recorded or, along with those past, recreated. Primary among the great Artists who recorded the events of their day remains Francisco Goya. While his The 3rd of May, 1808, is perhaps, his most well-known such work, though we have no way of knowing if the Artist actually witnessed this scene personally. He also created a large body of Drawings the scope of which, and the humanity of which, only Rembrandt’s can equal in my mind. Like the original Dutch Master, Goya’s Drawings magically capture a pose or an expression in an almost impossible economy of line, while looking for all the world like they were done quickly, without second thought. Ahh…Drawing at its most sublime. 

2020 saw the release (or at least the availability in this country) of two excellent Goya Drawings monographs, both of which are published by no less than the Prado Museum, home of the world’s finest & most comprehensive Goya collection, one of which is a NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. Goya Drawings immediately becomes the choice resource for the lay reader, the Drawing or Painting student or Artist, and for the serious Goya student. A remarkable overview that does not scrimp on detail, insights, or the number of color images, in manages to stay concise and succinct. I picked it and didn’t know what to make of it from very generic front cover. “Goya Drawings”? That’s a huge subject for such a small book. Once I opened it I could not put it down. Sure enough, his Drawings over his entire career are covered, period by period in depth, and while not each and every one is covered, the overview is broad enough to convey the big picture  but can be dipped in to at any point for a closer study of any one work, which is written about on the page with its illustration- quite rare in a comprehensive book like this, and an indication of its superb design.

Finally, along with the other Goya Drawings book they published this year, Francisco de Goya: Cuaderno C (or Sketchbook C), which reproduces in facsimile one of his sketchbooks, both books are part of the Prado’s continued effort to make its Goya riches available to the public, online for free, and in these two modestly priced and superb books, Goya Drawings was released in honor of it’s 200th Anniversary in November, 2019. Bravo!

I Am Still Learning, c.1825-8, Lithographic crayon on grey laid paper,  on the next to final page. Goya was about 80 when he Drew this symbolic Self-Portrait. A fitting culmination to an immortal career, …and to this piece as words to live by.

Afterword/Forward to 2021

We’re not out of the pandemic woods yet. It might be a while before we are. I hope and pray not a long while. We shall see. Still, many smaller businesses have permanently left us. Many others are hanging on. I have been staying to myself this year, which means living in complete isolation for all of 2020. Yup. You read that right. I will only go into an enclosed space if I have to. Still, I have made very brief journeys into local bookstores, and peered in the window from the street of others, to see how busy they were. Frankly, what I’ve seen is very scary. Throughout the week, you could roll a bowling ball down the aisle of almost any bookstore here and hit no one. On the weekends, they’ve been closer to normal. Part of that is, no doubt, early holiday shopping. Still, the big takeaway for me is that the time is now- today and 2021, to support independent bookstores if you want them to survive. Many of the books and Artists I discover each year (and have my entire life) I’ve discovered browsing books in bookstores- including Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, shown earlier, 40 years ago. You can’t do that online. I’ve been waiting for eBooks to begin to replace physical Art & PhotoBooks for many years now. As 2020 closes, it doesn’t seem that we’re any closer to that than we were 5 or 10 years ago. A high quality eBook could replace most Art books published today- IF the image quality was comparable. They’re not. Screen image quality is nowhere near that of printed image quality. Then, there are Artist’s Books and PhotoBooks. Many of both are painstakingly crafted in every single detail, down to each material used, which no cyber experience can match. These books are often works of Art in themselves, and for many Artists & Photographers who don’t have gallery representation, they provide a primary focus for having their work seen on their terms, the way they intend it to be seen. Physical books in general have a charm and provide a tactile experience no eBook can match. If you value books, like I do, consider supporting your favorite local indie bookstore in person or online. While you can.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Better Days Ahead,” by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson from the album Secrets, 1978…

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  1. Here. ↩
  2. With a caveat on the Drawings volume, so he went ahead and created a concordance to ease referencing the new Schatborn reference numbers Taschen’s behemoth uses to refer to the work to the standard Benesch numbers, available here! ↩

December 8th, 1980-2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Tales from Isolation. Day #322

Two Days In My Life

After my early young adulthood as an Art lover, and before I focused on Art, again, I spent about 15 years in Music. Early on, I was on the road with a band, based out of Miami, Florida, for five years. Towards the end of 1980, things were getting really bad in South Florida, inspiring the TV show “Miami Vice,” which after having lived through the reality, I found hysterical. It got so bad, the word was that there so many murders the only cases that were being investigated were when a cop was killed.

My Axe. My blonde 1976 Fender Jazz Bass. The color darkened from 4 years of playing in smoke-filled clubs, rests on my way worn Gig Bag.

Around this time, we took a gig playing a party in Coconut Grove. Not something we ever did- before or after, but it was for a friend of a friend who loved the band, and we liked the idea. “Hey, I’m having a big party and it would be so great if you guys came and played” kind of thing. He made it worth our while to take our gear off the stage of the club we were house band at on Miracle Mile, so what the heck. It was an afternoon outdoor job, and we were up on a hill looking down over the large lawn on a road between us and a row of houses lining the water. Suddenly, a group of police cars descended on the scene across that road. It was a raid. A drug bust. Then the host/our boss for this gig, came over and said “Keep playing.” When trouble starts in a club or a bar, the boss ALWAYS comes over and says “Keep playing,” (like I imagine the boss did on the Titanic) while everyone else is falling all over themselves rushing to get to the exit. “Keep playing.” Like when a riot broke out in a biker bar we were playing in. But that’s a different story.

My blonde 1978 Fender Fretless Precision Bass. I went Fretless after I met the late, great Jaco Pastorius, the genius of the Bass, and a Fretless player, in 1977.

It’s funny how the guys from the union, the AF of M, are never around at those times- only when someone playing was not a member. We looked at each other, the girls dancing in bikinis in front of us, glanced at our cars parked behind us, and then at the unfolding drama going on across the street in front of us. Don Johnson’s got nothing on me. I’m living vice in Miami. 

If gunplay broke out, we might well be in the innocent line of fire, like too many others, before or since. 

Luckily, it proceeded without bullets, a line of cops escorting suspects emerged, and that was the final scene on a long and eventful road trip, full of  unexpected turns, on my journey into full adulthood. Time to go. It so happens that Paul, a friend in another band I had worked with, called to say he was leaving and moving to NYC. He offered to take my stuff with him if I wanted to get out.  

Hmmmm…After some thought, and discussion with my then girlfriend, a local, I decided to take him up on it and move back. Paul and his girlfriend, who went from being a waitress a few years earlier, to being a member of an internationally known band (not her boyfriend’s) a few years later, pulled up with a large trailer hooked to their car and the three of us loaded all of my belongings into it, and off they went. 

A few days later, I got into my Porsche 914 and drove it from Miami to Orlando and we both got on the AutoTrain. I had made the complete 27 hour nonstop Miami to NYC drive too many times to do it once more. The ride was pleasant enough, though I didn’t get much, if any, sleep, and woke early on Monday, December 8th, 1980. After detraining near Washington, DC, I drove the rest of the 5+ hours to NYC, where the rest of my life would begin.

Shortly after I arrived at my parent’s house I heard the news that John Lennon had just been shot and killed in Manhattan, outside his home at The Dakota. 

WHAT??????!

Bob Gruen, John Lennon- Statue of Liberty, 1974, Magnum Photos.

It was just unfathomable. It still is. Even for someone who lived through JFK’s assassination, and saw Oswald get killed, live, on television. Someone who had heard RFK’s assassination live on the radio. Someone who had lived through the assassination of Martin Luther King. Someone who remembers Malcolm X getting murdered. Murder is not something you ever “get used to.” Murder of such great men, each cut down in their prime, is a crime against humanity.

And murder was exactly why I left Miami!

So began the rest of my life…

December 8th, 2020

I took the C train uptown and got off at West 72nd Street to go The Dakota to pay my respects. Arriving, I was greeted on the platform by Yoko Ono’s transformative Sky mosaic mural. The north side of the station, ironically, is directly underneath The Dakota, where Yoko still lives, I believe1.

Yoko Ono, Detail from Sky, Tile mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

After admiring it and its “Imagine Peace” section, and thinking, “Gee, countless millennia of war hasn’t worked out so well, maybe it IS time to give peace a chance…?,” I headed up the stairs and was greeted by a sky that looked remarkably like the mural.

“…above us only sky…” Exiting the 72nd Street Station at Central Park West, with The Dakota looming on the left, December 8, 2020.

I turned the corner onto West 72nd Street and was greeted by no one. The sidewalk was empty. Down the block, in front of The Dakota, where it happened, stood two uniformed building employees, as usual. I stood for a few minutes on the sidewalk, taking in the scene, and thinking about what had happened 40 years ago today.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

It almost seemed like I was there on the wrong day. Then, I spotted one small bouquet left by a family.

Across Central Park West, looking into Central Park, I could see a long line of visitors waiting to enter the Strawberry Fields section of the Park, but no one else was here, allowing me a private moment in a place where many people live, but which has always reminded me of this day 40 years ago whenever I’ve passed it.

I walked down the street until I came to the spot. I stood there, briefly, alone with the 2 Dakota staff members.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

In NYC, particularly in Manhattan, everywhere you look and everywhere you walk, you’re walking on history. And the place is not nearly as old as any city in Europe or many other cities elsewhere. Here is one such spot. Passing it now, you’d have absolutely no idea something horrible and world changing happened right here, because it happened 40 years ago. 40 Years. John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, during the Nazi Blitz of Liverpool. He had just turned 40 when he died. He’s now been dead for almost as long as he was alive.

My thoughts turned to another fact, as what had happened in all that time raced through my mind. Each and every time something’s happened, like 9/11, and all the rest, sooner or later, I wondered- “What would John Lennon say right now?” In addition to everything else he was, Liverpool’s John Lennon was one of our most prominent, and proud, New Yorkers, and a citizen of the world.

Bob Gruen, John Lennon, NYC, 1974. Magnum Photos. NYC in 1974 is light years from the NYC of 2020. It speaks volumes to me that he was so proud to live here then. This t shirt has been on sale here to this day, probably because of this Photo.

On December 8th, 1980, we were all denied knowing

for the rest of time. 

Now, as I sit here after getting back from West 72nd Street, I’m left to wonder- How would the world have been different? 

If you think that’s a questionable question, consider this- There are some who believe that The Beatles played a roll, perhaps the KEY role, in the collapse of the USSR2, in spite of all the countless billions spent to do it by other means, as seen in the PBS Documentary, “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin,” from 2009. A grainy video of Part 1, is below (Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5)-

If that’s not helping “give peace a chance,”  I’m not sure we’ve seen much else that is. It’s something that needs to be more closely studied, I think. If it’s true, then we’ve VASTLY underestimated the achievement of the Beatles, already the most revolutionary cultural force of my lifetime. And, we’ve completely ignored the lesson.

Even still, there are hundreds of millions who would have been very interested in what John Lennon had to say on any topic had he lived. Like there would have been to hear what JFK, RFK, MLK or Malcolm X would have said had they lived. 

If all of them had lived, I think this world would be quite a different place today. Along with John’s loss, today I mourn that. Again. 

Yoko Ono, Another detail from Sky, Mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

December 8th, 1980 was a day my life, and the world, changed. Neither have been the same since. It’s up to those who remember those we’ve lost to keep their memory & their messages alive.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Imagine” by John Lennon.

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NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
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  1. I greatly admire Yoko Ono, for many reasons, not the least of which is the supreme grace with which she handled John’s passing publicly. As an Artist, I believe she is still under-appreciated. My pieces on her work to date are here and here. ↩
  2. Here, ↩

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

As it has been in all realms of life, 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year to be a book publisher, particularly a smaller one. Working with anyone- from your team, to the subject Artist, right through to the printers and binderies- all had to be done remotely for almost the whole year. Shipping between many countries has been off and on, and off again. (As I write this, shipping between Japan and the USA is still down.) Finally, bookstores around the world have been closed for much of the year. Somehow, a good number of books were published in 2020, though a good many previously announced titles have been pushed back. Under the best of circumstances, it’s not easy to get a PhotoBook published. So, I congratulate any and everyone who has published one this year. Bravo!

Antoine d’Agata, 17.03.2020 – 11.05.2020, page 158 from Virus, taken during the pandemic in Paris from March to May.

Since there’s no such thing as “best” in the Arts, I’ve opted to do a list of recommended “NoteWorthy” PhotoBooks the past 3 years. This year, due to the pandemic, I’ve seen fewer books than I had the past few years. Nonetheless, these books stood out for me among those I have seen, and I decided to do a list this year because I believe they would have been on it no matter how many more I had seen.

Josh Kern’s second PhotoBook, Love me, was released in 2020 and promptly sold out. In this spread from it the Photographer shows us his working notes. Along the top, it reads “There’s nothing that holds it together.” On the side, “Took a thousand pictures of this moment and not a single one is good.” This reminds me that as incredibly hard as it was to publish a book this year, the hardest parts of making a great PhotoBook happen long before it gets to be printed.

Most Photographers don’t have gallery representation, so, PhotoBooks are a primary means of reaching an audience for them. Without a dealer, they’ve taken on the job of building their own followings. Through diligence, a few of them even have upwards of 1 million followers on social media. For me, the accomplishments of these independent Artists is yet another indication that the gallery model is being bypassed by people who are not only creative Artistically. One example of how things are changing is young German Photographer Josh Kern, who I was among the very first in the US to discover last year. Josh did a Q&A with me as his first PhotoBook, Fuck me, was about to sell out of 1,100 copies. He has now sold out of 1,200 and 1,100 copies of his first two PhotoBooks respectively without help from Amazon, a gallery, or even a US book distributor. Remarkable for someone who was a 22 year old college student when he started, and another sign of where things are heading. 

As I’ve mentioned in the previous years I’ve done this list (2018 and 2019), reconciling publishing dates with the date books actually appear is a bit problematic. Some books published in 2019, even 2018, only reached stores here in 2020. I’ve seen a number of books listed as being scheduled to be published in 2020 that have not made an appearance in stores here yet. So, once again, I’m sticking to books I’ve actually seen become available in stores, or to purchase, this year.

NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020
The All-Magnum Photos Edition

That’s right. Coincidentally, each of these books was created by a Member of Magnum Photos, the legendary world’s leading Photographer’s co-operative. If I were to recommend one book this year of all the books I saw, I’d be torn between these two-

Paolo Pellegrin: Un’antologia, Silvana Editoriale. Ok. It says “2018” on the colophon, but how many people here have seen this? D.A.P. listed it as being available in the USA in Fall, 2019. I didn’t see it until late January, 2020. Un’antologia may be the most well-done retrospective I have ever seen. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be surprised. It was designed by a team headed by Yolanda Cuomo, who has designed countless wonderful books, including Diane Arbus, Revelations, the finest book on Ms. Arbus I have seen. Gorgeously produced and extremely thorough, this 6 1/4 pound, 742 page hardcover with over 1,000 illustrations accompanied the show of the same name at the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, from October, 2019 to March, 2020, and as a career Retrospective- so far (c. 1960 to date). Yes, it ran to March, 2020, so I’m also using that to qualify if for listing here. Page after page is nothing short of stunning to the point that it becomes necessary to remind yourself that you’re looking at the work of one man- and Mr. Pellegrin, 56, is still a relatively young man, with hopefully, decades of work ahead, not someone looking back on a career that’s winding down. Nonetheless, it makes an open and shut case for Mr. Pellegrin as one of the world’s most important Photographers, just in case you didn’t already know that, with a legacy that’s already monumental. There’s an English edition in 1,000 numbered copies, and an Italian edition also numbered to 1,000 copies. That’s all! Un’antologia is also a fitting testament to curator Germano Celant, who passed away this year. Early on, he said to Yolanda Cuomo, “This is not a book by Paolo. It is a book about Paolo,” Don’t wait much longer. 

Virus, rear cover.

Antoine d’Agata, Virus, Studio Vortex. I thought I was a bit prepared to see this from seeing a number of these images on Mr. d’Agata’s social media pages, but no. I was staggered when I first paged through this massive tome. Mr. d’Agata who lives with no fixed address, lived and worked out of the Magnum Paris offices while producing this work (while Paris was shutdown). He also spent “countless” days and nights staying over in treatment centers. Wait. HOW many people are going to accept an offer to go and watch a covid19 patient being treated? Umm. No, thanks. Antoine d’Agata, as you can see above, said “Yes.” “My object is to get photography back to requiring true commitment, to being a language that is unique by its potential subtlety and rawness,” he said1. “True commitment,” in spades. The work he created, which number 13,000 images in the two months, ranges from “normal” Photographs to many taken with a thermal camera, like the image above, which produces shots that reveal things a normal camera wouldn’t. The results are often “painterly,” but unlike any Paintings I have yet seen. Going in to 2020, Francis Bacon was the Painter Antoine d’Agata’s work most reminded me of. With Virus, he’s created his own world, a world we’ve all lived in, alone together. The only other PhotoBook that came to my mind when thinking about Virus is Aftermath, Joel Meyerowitz’ equally massive look at Ground Zero after 9/11. Both Photographers had unique access. Both have succeeded in creating the most remarkable, historic and valuable documents of these horrific events. In the midst of the horrors the world has seen and continues to see during the pandemic, if I may say this, Virus also strikes me as also being a work of Art. There are images of medical professionals treating patients that have no less than a Pieta like feel to them. Just unforgettable. I look forward to the day when I can look through Virus and focus on its Painterly aspects and its qualities as a work of Art, and hope I get to see it. Virus’ 825 pages includes text by Mathilde Girard I admire quite a bit. There are just 325 copies of the English edition. As my co-most highly recommended PhotoBook of 2020, Virus is a staggering accomplishment.

There are two other books by Magnum Photos Photographers that especially stood out for me this year-

Gregory Halpern, Let the Sun Beheaded Be, Aperture. Ho hum…another year, another terrific Gregory Halpern book on this list. Let the Sun joins Confederate Moons and Omaha Sketchbook on this list in the three years I’ve been making one. I find all of his books have remarkable staying power. Meaning that the images linger in my mind long after I’ve closed the cover. That’s every bit the case with Let the Sun, which has more layers to it than it has pages (120), meaning different things are going to jump out to you with each perusing. Then there’s the remarkably intimate Conversation between Mr. Halpern and Stanley Wolokau-Wanambwa. Any place outside of NYC is foreign to me, but Guadeloupe is exceedingly hard for me to imagine. Yet, the shared history with slavery makes Guadeloupe not all THAT foreign and its unique experience with it makes it even more haunting. Somewhat quietly, Mr. Halpern continues to build a remarkably strong body of portraits, more of which lie at the heart of Let the Sun Beheaded Be. Remarkable when you consider the Photographer is not fluent in French and he communicates with his subjects before Photographing them.

Yael Martinez, La Casa sue Sangra (The House that Bleeds), KWY Ediciones. A 2020 Magnum Nominee, his work looks like no one else’s. He seems to have a unique way of getting inside the skin of those he portrays, his Photographs are so intimate. Of La Casa, Mr. Martinez says, “‘A people without memory is condemned to repeat their mistakes.’ Guerrero is one of the Mexican States that have been most affected by organized crime; It is the second poorest and most violent state in the country. I am thus trying to depict the situation which many families in this region face, which they live through daily, and which is one of the causes of the unraveling of Mexico’s social fabric.” La Casa focuses on the forced absence of beloved family members, each image with an overriding darkness and use of color that are both intimate and epic. His Photos bring you right there, capturing moments that often border on the magical. A house that bleeds could be a family or a community, he has said. He began with his family, before eventually expanding the project to include other family around Guerrero. The classic work of the Farm Security Administration Photographers, including Dorothea Lange (see below), came to my mind as a possible influence (though Mr. Martinez shoots in color). Printed in an edition of 1,000 copies, and still in print as far as I can tell, I spent most of 2020 seeking a copy of La Casa. Another marvelously unique Artist and powerful voice for Magnum Photos.

I don’t know how they do it, but year after year Magnum continues to find extraordinary Photographers to add to a roster that makes me ask the impossible to answer question- Is this THE greatest Magnum Photos Roster ever? Until I ask the same question, again the very next year. 

Other NoteWorthy PhotoBooks of the Year, 2020

Gordon Parks: The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957, and Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali, both Steidl. Sadly, Gordon Parks left us in 2006, but his Foundation has been doing a strong job of keeping his legacy alive with shows (here in NYC at Jack Shainman Gallery), and a superb series of books published by Steidl. On the heels of the essential Gordon Parks Collected Works, (Steidl’s site says it’s Out of Print- you can still find it if you hurry), 2020 brought us The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957, and Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali. Atmosphere seemed to strike a nerve with buyers when it came out, and garnered more attention, while GP X Ali benefits to no end of the close connection the two shared.

Atmosphere includes the original LIFE articles, like this one from September 9, 1957, and images never before seen.

Atmosphere of Crime is a brilliant look at the true complex nature of crime flying in the face of the mainstream media’s stereotypes, showing completely other sides to the American public with frankness and empathy. Unlike the work of Weegee, or even most of Gordon Parks’ prior Photographs, these are in color, which adds another dimension to both the you-are-there realism and the Artfulness of his timeless work. Powerful, raw, cinematic, Atmosphere paints a remarkably broad picture of the realities of crime in 90 images over 120 pages. It’s gives me the feeling of seeing a 1950s film noire in color. Of course, Mr. Parks later directed the classic Shaft in 1971- only 15 years later. It’s revealing to compare the two. Not to be missed.

One of the most important historical, and creative, records of The Greatest of All Time, Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali, is centered around 2 assignments Mr. Parks was on to shoot The Champ in 1966 and 1970 for LIFE Magazine. The book is characterized by an intimacy that shows Ali in unguarded moments that are often incredibly poignant. While others, including Thomas Hoepker, have given us classic images of Muhammad Ali, Godon Parks’ stand out for me because they cut right to the heart of the man, which remains here, larger than life for all time.

Reproduction of the original opening spread of the 1966 LIFE article, with text also by Gordon Parks. The full articles are reproduced in both of these Gordon Parks books.

Gordon Parks Photographed The Champ at 2 key points in his life. First, in 1966, amid intense controversy over his becoming a Black Muslim, changing his name to Muhammad Ali, and being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. The resulting landmark LIFE Magazine article “The Redemption of the Champion,” also written by Gordon Parks, helped the public see the truth. I remember seeing it in a barbershop waiting for a haircut as a kid. The oversized magazine created a larger than life effect that cut right through all the noise. I believe the article helped start Muhammad Ali on the road to being the icon he remained for the rest of his life. 

Both are the multi-talented Gordon Parks near his considerable Photographic peak. Both speak for themself. Both will live on in your mind, indelibly. A show titled Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali is scheduled to open at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in 2021. In 2020, I found it impossible to choose one between Atmosphere of Crime and Gordon Parks X Muhammad Ali. Good luck if you try to.

Ernst Haas: New York In Color, 1952-62, Prestel. During my now 4 year deep dive into post-Robert Frank’s The Americans Photography and PhotoBooks, I focused on exploring the history of early color Photography. I soon discovered that William Eggleston was NOT the first Photographer to have a solo show at MoMA. It was Ernst Haas, who’s Ernst Haas: Color Photography opened August 21st, 1962. FOURTEEN YEARS before Photographs by William Eggleston opened there on May 24, 1976. Mr. Haas’ estate has worked with Prestel to publish the wonderful Ernst Haas: New York In Color, 1952-62, which now serves to put Mr. Haas’ work into the same discussion with another legend of earlier color Photography- Saul Leiter, who’s color work in NYC, in the same period, has been held in unique esteem. Mr. Haas’ admirers already treasure Steidl’s classic Ernst Haas: Color Correction, which is to be reprinted.

Ernst Haas, NYC, 1952(!) Move over, Saul Leiter, and tell William Eggleston and Stephen Shore the news…

With the release of Ernst Haas: New York In Color, 1952-62, Mr. Haas goes toe to toe with Mr. Leiter on his own turf, in his own time! Lovers of Photography are the winners. NYC is plenty big enough for both of them. I recommend this book to anyone who loves Mr. Leiter’s Early Color, which I consider an essential PhotoBook of this century, as much as I do.

John Gossage: The Nicknames of Citizens, Steidl. The latest in the renowned Photographer’s “loving yet critical, generous yet ironic vision of America,” to quote the publisher, it follows Jack Wilson’s Waltz, published in 11/2019, Should Nature Change, 8/2019, and precedes I Love You So Much!!!!!!!!, forthcoming, all from Steidl. Picking up any one of these books is like taking one from a box of chocolates. Once you sample the poetry of Mr. Gossage’s images, you’re more than likely going to want to devour the others in the series. I’ve been so focused on exploring the history of color Photography these past 3 years that I was slow on the intake of this series. Nicknames is the first one I’ve gotten and I was immediately captivated by Mr. Gossage’s vision, and as Magnum Photographer Martin Parr said about another John Gossage/Steidl book he witnessed being created, Looking up Ben James- A Fable, “I am amazed that the collective vision of this volume is so familiar, but entirely alien. It restores my faith in photography to know that a mature and original photographer like John Gossage can see the things I just did not notice.” As I perused these books, another series on America came to mind- that of English Magnum Photos Photographer Mark Power’s, Good Morning, America. Mr. Power’s is in color and doesn’t include portraits per se, but the two ongoing series are fascinating to look at together, given one thing they do share- they both look at America during a similar time frame.

 

Luigi Ghirri, Cardboard Landscapes (Paesagge di cartone), Museum of Modern Art. This book was a gift from Luigi Ghirri to legendary MoMA Director of Photography, John Szarkowski, in 1975. It languished forgotten in the MoMA collection for decades until being recently rediscovered. Now reproduced faithfully for book lovers, it makes a stunning impression. Here, we get the full range of Luigi Ghirri’s considerable gifts, along with his gift of sequencing. The result is a breath of fresh air. The first half of the book is quite humorous. We sense the Artist’s personality shining through. The rest retains a bit of the feel of his recently ended career as a surveyor. In the end, it’s a book that is a serious work of Art that doesn’t take itself oppressively seriously. Still, it’s hard for me to look through it and not see a bit of the roots of Artists as diverse as Maurizio Cattelan, Stephen Shore, Richard Prince and Erik Kessels. Such is the net effect that, even though the Ghirri bibliography has exploded the past few years with some fine titles, Cardboard Landscapes gives us yet another entirely different side of this remarkable Artist.

Dorothea Lange, Words & Pictures, Museum of Modern Art. “All photographs—not only those that are so called ‘documentary’…can be fortified by words2, Dorothea Lange said. Elsewhere she said, “Am working on the captions. This is not a simple clerical matter, but a process…They are connective tissue, and in explaining the function of the captions, as I am doing now, I believe we are extending our medium,” in a note that reveals the importance of captions (and words) in seeing her work. It’s so rare to gain major insights into major Artist who passed away 55 years ago, but that’s exactly what the show this book accompanied did. “Dorothea Lange, Words & Pictures, which opened barely a month before the NYC pandemic shutdown added a completely new dimension to our appreciation of the work of Dorothea Lange by focusing on the role her words play in their understanding. It lives on in this exceptional book that is a joy to look at as well as to read. In many shows where words play a part, they’re often hard to read due to glare on the glass and the numbers of other viewers.

Dorothea Lange, Words & Pictures, Installation view, MoMA Photo.

The open book seen in the lower center wall latrine above as reproduced in Words & Pictures.

Here, you can read them clearly without distraction, glare or others looking over your shoulder, while seeing Ms. Lange’s classic images in gorgeous reproductions printed on 150gsm Arctic Volume Ivory, which makes the book better, in some ways, than seeing the actual show! Also, among the essays is one by the legendary Sally Mann. Along with whatever other books you have on Dorothea Lange, like the excellent Dorothea Lange: The Politics of Seeing, this one is essential.

Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw, David Zwirner Books. Roy DeCarava has been in eclipse since his passing in 2009, just short of his 90th birthday. Due to his estate’s new relationship with Zwirner his work has returned to view in force, both in shows and in books. The classic The Sweet Flypaper of Life (with Langston Hughes) was finally reissued in 2018, and 2019 saw the rerelease of another out of print Roy DeCarava classic- the sound i saw, this time in a luxurious oversized edition which pairs his poetry with many classic images. Growing up studying Jazz through Lps, I wasn’t familiar with Mr. DeCarava’s work as I was with, say, Alfred Lion’s for Blue Note. The difference I see between Mr. DeCarava’s Jazz images and everyone else’s is that I can tell he knew his subjects personally. These images ooze personal connection, and that’s very rare in Jazz in this period. No. It’s uneqelled. I don’t know why more of his amazing images didn’t make it on to record covers, but here many of them are over 208 pages in this 5 pound collection, in addition to others that set the mood. If you love Music, and especially if you love Jazz, this is an essential book that features exceptional, intimate images of legends Mr. DeCarava well knew, including important images of John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday (seen smiling!), Ornette Coleman and Duke Ellington, among others. It is the finest book of Jazz Photography I have ever seen.

NoteWorthy PhotoBook Publisher of the Year, 2020

From Remember the South by Frank Frances, one of the first three auspicious releases on Kris Graves’ new Monolith Edition imprint.

Kris Graves Projects & Monolith Editions. I can’t imagine how hard it was, and is, to produce and sell books in 2020. In addition to the obstacles I listed near the beginning of this piece, once you get the physical books printed and in your hands, all the bookstores were closed for much of this year. And then customers, including this one, have been slow to return to indoor shopping. Yet, through the pandemic, the lockdowns and quarantines that are still going on around the world, book publishers have tried to maintain a sense of “business as usual.” For all of them- big and small, this must have been quite challenging. I’m sure we’ve lost a good many of them already. Yet, Artist-run, Kris Graves Projects has not only carried on, they’ve released a steady string of impressive titles, 18 in 2020, including the third set of LOST, with their usual high quality, and at popular prices. Kris Graves also debuted Monolith Editions this year, dedicated to publishing the work of BIPOC Artists, with three auspicious releases. I reached out to Mr. Graves trying to gain some insight on just how he’s done ALL of it during the hardest year of almost all of our lives. He said-

“This year allowed me to be home more than any other in recent memory, so I worked on making content and working with artists. I wanted to make less books this year but I guess I can’t stop myself. Only four of the books were ideas during the covid times, everything else was in the works. Also, with my photoshoot income diminished, I had to find ways to make some profit on books. I also had more time to let people know the books exist.”

From @themaniwasnt

18 books in 2020 would have been a large output for ANY PhotoBook publisher, but he didn’t stop there. Kris Graves, himself, has created an exceptional, and exceptionally powerful, body of work in 2020, the result of incessant travels around the country, going to sites of monuments and protests, putting himself at considerable risk. It’s a body of work that captures the moment and will, I believe, be historically important. Though not yet published in PhotoBook form, some of this work may be seen on his Instagram feed, @themaniwasnt, and in National Geographic, January & February, 2021. About it, he said-

“As far as my own work, I have done about 30 days of traveling on National Geographic’s watch and dime, so that helped me make a ton of personal work. Without those trips I would not have shown much new work this year. Although, I now have four seasons of Cape Cod imagery and that is becoming a project now. I think that artists need to keep shooting until some magic occurs. If this winter is mild, I will take a bunch of bike rides around Queens to make some new images here also.”
It speaks volumes that at a time when many are stuck, stopped, or done, Kris Graves has not only maintained, he has continued to move forward- on multiple fronts, and produce important work, himself, along the way. 

Finally, this year I’m also listing some NoteWorthy Art Books for the first time. Stay tuned.

Addendum-

Two books I saw late in 2020 were subsequently added to my list, per my Instagram account, @nighthawk_nyc-

Justine Kurland, Girl Pictures, Aperture. My text reads- “Two 2020 PhotoBooks I was late in seeing must be appended to my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks piece for the year. First, is the amazing Girl Pictures by @justine4good, Justine Kurland. Fresh, exciting, challenging, unique, and endlessly mysterious, particularly for this male outsider, it’s not to be missed, especially while it’s not yet sold out and out of print.
It’s kind of amazing it took 20 years for this work to be published as a body. But, here it is and it’s a classic that’s bound to influence generations to come.”

Tyler Mitchell, I Can Make You Feel Good, Prestel. My text reads- “The second of the two 2020 PhotoBooks I was late in seeing that must be appended to my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks piece for the year, Linked in Profile, is Tyler Mitchell’s I Can Make You Feel Good. That’s exactly what his first PhotoBook does. Filled with joy, it’s also filled with remarkable, fresh Photography that runs the gamut from fashion, to documentary, and portraits all serving his vision/dream of a “Black utopia,” aided by the book’s generous 9 1/2 by 12 1/2 inch size. It’s another book, like Girl Pictures just posted, that blurs the line between real and fiction, but isn’t that what dreams do?
An auspicious and important debut PhotoBook as is ANY book that can make us feel good in times like these.” (It should be noted that this is Mr. Tyler’s first PhotoBook for a major publisher. He previously self-published a book. )

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*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Every Day Is A Miracle” by David Byrne, from American Utopia now a terrific concert film directed by Spike Lee.

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  1. Magnum Photos profile ↩
  2. The full quote reads, “All photographs- not only those that are so-called ‘documentary’, and every photograph really is documentary and belongs in some place, has a place in history- can be fortified by words.” Dorothea Lange, Words & Pictures, p. 12. ↩

The Met Breuer: Hail, and Farewell

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Part Two of a series.

2,197 days.

I’m about to enter it for what would turn out to be the last time, on what would turn out to be its very last day. I’ll miss it.

That’s how long The Met Breuer (TMB) was open. March 8, 2016 (Member’s preview) through March 12, 2020, when it “temporarily closed” for the pandemic shutdown1. With the calendar turning to July, The Met’s time in the Breuer Building has ended, as I outlined in Part 1, making March 12th the final day it was open to the public. I was there on both its first and last day, and some in between. Though I regretfully missed some of TMB’s shows, I saw the major shows and a good many of the others. 

The Met Breuer, March 12, 2020.

My interest in The Met Breuer was born in curiosity. In May, 2011, they announced they would be taking over the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue.

“With this new space, we can expand the story that the Met tells, exploring modern and contemporary art in a global context that reflects the breadth of our encyclopedic collections. This will be an initiative that involves curators across the Museum, stressing historical connections between objects and looking at our holdings with a fresh eye and new perspective. This project does not mean that we are taking modern and contemporary art out of the Met’s main building, but it does open up the possibility of having space to exhibit these collections in the event that we decide to rebuild the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing where they are currently shown…” Met Director, Thomas P. Campbell, in The Met’s press release May 11, 2011. 

Going up. The elevator doors open onto Jack Whitten: Odyssey in October, 2018, one of the true blockbuster shows mounted at TMB.

After decades of being in denial about Modern & Contemporary Art’s worthiness of being in The Met, this marked a gigantic turn. Of course, it came 40 years too late to acquire most of the major works (or ANY of the major works) of some of the most important Artists of the past 40 years. Truth be told, I for one, was in agreement with The Museum about M&C Art from 1980 until about 2014, when I felt enough time had passed to begin to assess what had been done. A LOT of money had been invested in renovations to, and an 8 year lease on, the building Marcel Breuer had designed at 945 Madison Avenue at East 75th Street fo the Whitney Museum (see Part 1 for more on the history). The pressure was on. The Met, under then Director Thomas Campbell, had decided to make its mark in Modern & Contemporary Art, and brought Sheena Wagstaff on board from the Tate Modern, London, in January, 2012, as Chairman of the Department. What approach would Ms. Wagstaff (who’s shows at the Tate ranged from Edward Hopper to Jeff Wall), her staff and The Met take to M&C Art and how would it hold up against shows up at the Guggenheim, MoMA, The New Museum, The Whitney and the Brooklyn Museums?

Home is a Foreign Place, one of the 3 shows that closed TMB, drawn from recent additions to the Permanent Collection showed how far The Met’s collection of M&C has come.

Going into the opening, the press was all about how The Met was “hopelessly behind” NYC’s other Big Five museums, let alone those elsewhere in the country, in Contemporary Art. 2,197 days later, The Met Breuer has done the remarkable- It’s put The Met on that map. It did so by mounting a number of the most important shows of the past four years. From Nasreen Mohamedi and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, which opened TMB, to Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, which closed it. In between, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, will remain it’s peak moment in my mind, though there were others. And there were a surprising number of revelations along the way.

Sol LeWitt was an Artist I never paid much attention to until I saw this work, 13/3, 1981, Painted balsa wood, in the Breuer’s show, , in December, 2017. Ever since, his work continues to fascinate me

Originally scheduled to be open as TMB until July 5th, it still would have closed with the Gerhard Richter and Home Is A Foreign Place: Recent Acquisitions In Context and From Gericault To Rockburne: Selections From The Michael & Juliet Rubenstein Gift, the final three shows on its 2020 schedule. While the legacy is complete, in terms of the shows mounted, the influence was cut short as countless thousands more would have gotten to see these shows over the approximately four months longer they would have remained open. 

For now, I look back at some Highlights from The Met Breuer. The name of each show, listed in no particular order, is linked to the piece I wrote about it at the time-

Approaching this work, I thought “What is a piece of textile doing here?” “Untitled, 1970s, Graphite and ink on paper,” the wall card read. Wait. What? This is a DRAWING? Then, all of a sudden, a loud click when off in my mind, and Art was never the same for me again.

Nasreen Mohamedi Revelations. That might be the word that lingers with me with I think about TMB. They began on Day 1…The first show I saw that first day at TMB remains my personal favorite of all the shows I saw there. I had no idea who Nasreen Mohamedi was when I got off the elevator that day on 2. But Sheena Wagstaff sure did.

Incomparable is the word I now use to describe Nasreen Mohamedi, who lived in obscurity for 53 years and gave away her Art as gifts. Seen here in one of the handful of existing Photos of her, this one has lingered in my mind from the first moment I saw it, here in a slide show in the final gallery in March, 2016.

The show included Photos taken by Ms. Wagstaff of the area of Nasreen’s unmarked grave well off the beaten path in Kihim, Mumbai, India. THAT’S passion. THAT’S dedication. At that moment I saw them, I knew TMB would be one of NYCs most important cultural institutions. 

Unfinished, Member’s Preview. The first look at one of the most memorable shows to appear at The Met Breuer, March 8, 2016. Work by Titian, left.

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. In the hundreds of years Art shows have been mounted, someone must have mounted one around this concept, right? I haven’t heard of it. If there was one, I doubt it was mounted as incredibly well and included rarely seen works by Michelangelo, Leonardo (the twin Kings of the unfinished work in the Renaisaance), Jan van Eyck, JMW Turner, and countless others. TMB’s first major blockbuster, and the other inaugural show in March, 2016, along with Nasreen Mohamedi. It belied The Met’s stated “mission” with TMB as “an outpost for Modern & Contemporary Art,” filling two floors, while the Nasreen got one. Given all the riches included, I have yet to hear anyone complain. Overall, over time, TMB was what The Museum said it would be.

Diane Arbus: In The Beginning was a revelation, as well, as much for the work as for the amazing way the show was installed- each of the over 100 pieces got its own wall- another thing I’ve never seen before. It also included a portrait of a departed friend of mine, Stormé DeLarverie, who told me more than once that it was she whose scuffle with police had incited the Stonewall uprising (she disagreed with the use of the term “riot.”), and that she had posed for Diane Arbus in 1961. At the time, I took both claims with grains of salt. Now, the world knows that both are facts, and in her gorgeous portrait by Ms. Arbus, which I snuck a shot of and show in my piece, Stormé will forever live on in The Met. In In The Beginning, she, fittingly, got a wall to herself.

The beginning of Kerry James Marshall: Mastry.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. As great a Painting show as I’ve seen in years. Maybe decades. 

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed. A welcome reminder of the enduring accomplishment of this wonderful Artist who’s rarely seen in a show here. Between showed Mr. Munch is one of the very few Artists to successfully use techniques, styles and colors in realms that had only been used by Vincent van Gogh, who he was only 10 years younger than, and who he outlived by 54 years. 

Lichnos, 2008, at the entrance. 100 feet into this show my jaw was on the ground. It stayed there throughout.

Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017. Quick. Who’s the other Artist who is a Master of one medium, and who kept his mastery of another from public view his entire career? One stunning revelation after another that never let up. More remarkable for such a large show.

As I said in my piece on the show- “TWO whole museum floors of about 100 Paintings? My idea of heaven…” Having five floors at The Breuer added different dimensions to any number of shows, allowing a good number of shows to fill two whole floors- the kind of space that would be VERY hard to have at 1000 Fifth Avenue. The space between works at Gerhard Richter: Painting After All was one of its most memorable features and gave it an entirely different feel, allowing each work “space to breathe,” rare in big shows, and something I’ll miss very much.

Gerhard Richter: Painting After All. Exquisitely selected and hung, somehow managing to condense almost 6 decades of work into a selection that while not a “greatest hits” included enough of them, along with a good many surprises, and a chance to see the monumental Birkenau works. Unfortunately, it was open for all of NINE DAYS! It turns out that I saw it on its final day, at considerable risk. 

Along with other memorable shows-

Marsden Hartley’s Maine Marsden Hartley was unique and an Artist, though steeped in what the Europeans had and were doing, found his own ways. This was a show that served to open the mind, even in 2017, to the possibilities of Painting seen through a very free eye and mind in often daring fashion. A real breath of fresh air.

Marsden Hartley, Mont Sainte-Victoire, c.1927. Pretty daring to go to Aix-en-Provence and go toe-to-toe with the Master, Cezanne, in the land he made iconic. This work, in a show about Marsden Hartley’s work in Maine, this work set the stage for his bold brushwork and use of color in what would come.

Lygia Pape:A Multitude of Forms  No one medium could hold Lygia Pape’s vision, so the visitor to A Multitude of Forms was met with an ever-changing presentation that delighted the eye as much as it captured the mind.

Lygia Pape, Tetia 1, C, 1976-2004, Golden thread, nails, wood, lighting, a work that wonderfully characterized the ephemeral nature of Ms. Pape’s work in a show remembered for its endless variety and surprise. Seen at Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, her first major show in a US museum in June, 2017.

Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy-

Rachel Harrison, Snake in the Grass, 1997. A work inspired by the Artist’s trip to Dealey Plaza, sight of JFK’s Assassination. While I was captivated by it, NHNYC Researcher Kitty said this work reminded her of being in her father’s garage.

And shows consisting of work from The Met’s Permanent Collection including-

Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso From the Schofield Thayer Collection. With only 9 by Klimt and the majority by Shiele- no complaints here.

Provocations: Anselm Kiefer At The Met Breuer-

Anselm Kiefer, Iconoclastic Controversy, 1980, Gouache and ink on photograph, the wall card reads in part, “Rooted in the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images, the medieval debate involved the persecution of the artist-monks and the destruction of icons. Here he restaged the conflict in his studio with miniature versions of WWII tanks (one has destroyed a piece of clay in the shape of an artist’s palette)…The image links the iconoclastic battle to the Nazi’s attack on 
“degenerate art” in the late 1930s, which led to the destruction of hundreds of works of modern art.”

and Home Is A Foreign Place: Recent Acquisitions in Context. (Installation view of its lobby shown earlier)-

Mark Bradford, Crack Between the Floorboards, 2014. Can an Art writer have personal favorites? If he/she is a human being, it’s pretty hard not to. Mark Bradford is one of mine. So, I will long remember that this piece was the third to last work I saw on what turned out to be the closing day of The Met Breuer in the show Home Is A Foreign Place. The penultimate piece was Untitled, 1970, by Nasreen Mohamedi.

It’s fitting to end this piece with this show. Here, one could see just how far The Met’s Permanent Collection has come. Yes, there is a long way to go. Museums elsewhere in the US have built a lead in Contemporary Art that is, perhaps, insurmountable. But, The Met now has enough work in its own collection to mount fascinating shows like this. I was most impressed by the steps they’ve taken thus far as I looked at the acquisition dates on the items in Home Is A Foreign Place.

The very last work I saw at The Met Breuer is this piece from a series by Walid Raad, from 2014-5 in Home Is A Foreign Place. The wall card spoke about the Artist’s interest in the shadows these objects cast and how they enhance and expand the form. A bit like the shadow a museum visit casts…

And then, there were the shows I missed, like Vija Clemins. Phew…ALL of this in exactly 4 years! I think that’s a track record that can hang with what any of NYC’s other big museums- including The Met, 1000 Fifth Avenue.

Yes, there were a lot of very good, even great, shows at The Met Breuer during its four year run. You probably have your own list of favorites. Regardless of which show we’re talking about, the Breuer Building gave all of its shows the added dimension of space- often a whole floor, even two. There’s a lot to be said for that, and it will be very difficult to mount such shows at 1000 Fifth Avenue2. I’ll miss the place as The Met Breuer. I already cherish the days I got to spend there.

This is the Second part of my look back at The Met Breuer. Part 1 is here. Some thoughts on the “bigger picture” are coming.  

*- Soundtrack for this post is “Hail & Farewell” by Big Country. “Hail and farewell, Life begins again…”

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NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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  1. By my count. Subtract 10 days if you want to count from its official opening on March 18th. ↩
  2. The huge China: Through the Looking Glass Fashion show in 2015 was mounted in different parts of The Met, which probably remains the only way to do it. ↩

Hiroki Tsukuda: Drawings From Another World

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Drawing is the beating heart of Hiroki Tsukuda’s Art. Hear, hear.

Voice from the O 05 2020. All works are Charcoal, acrylic ink, and pencil on paper, wood panel, with silkscreen printed acrylic frame, and dated 2020, unless otherwise stated. This work is 24.09 x 30.39 1.54 inches.

Even better, what he does with his Drawing is what makes his Art NoteWorthy, in my view. As I wrote recently, I worry about the decline of Drawing in today’s world. I mentioned the paucity of Drawing shows by contemporary Artists as being one symptom. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into Petzel on West 19th Street on March 6th to see They Live, Hiroki Tsukuda’s second NYC show. Part inspired by the natural world, part seemingly by Architectural Drawing, part by visionary sci-fi, and the rest by his wide-ranging imagination, his work doesn’t stay in one place. Instead, each piece is a mixture of many parts that would seem to be at odds with each other until they came together in the Artist’s mind, and then under his hand.

Very few people got to see They Live, which was open publicly for nine days. I was able to see it twice.

So impressed was I by what I saw on March 6th, I returned on March 7th. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has now left over 23,000 people dead in the City alone!, the show, which opened on March 5th, was forced to close on March 14th. I have learned it will not reopen, a fate shared by innumerable shows around the world, a minor thing, in the scope of the incalculable loss suffered by so many.

Wasteland 01, 2020, Charcoal, acrylic ink, and pencil on paper, wood panel, with silkscreen printed acrylic frame.

They Live is nicely installed in the foyer + 3 room Petzel space, which is a somewhat unforgiving for some work, and smaller pieces have a tendency to be swallowed up by it. Mr. Tuskuda has come up with a wonderfully creative workaround for his smaller pieces, installing them in settings with natural objects including tree branches, small plants, and rocks, creating environments for the work that, often, echo the composition, with the work mounted on richly patterned wood walls and shelves that created an effect not unlike that of small “shrines.”

From Wasteland 02, 2020, The text elements along the bottom harken back to Architectural Drawings.

As you look, you may find yourself repeatedly reaching for the checklist. Next to each work therein, the description reads “Charcoal, acrylic ink, and pencil on paper, wood panel, with silkscreen printed acrylic frame,” and almost all are dated 2020, Yes, these are Drawings! They look like collaged elements printed out on sheets and mounted together. But, no. “I have drawings and different calligraphic elements that I’ve created over time, as well as pictures that I’ve personally taken and saved as well. I also collect images form the web. From there, I collage together different elements on the computer where 80% of the work is done. Then, it’s just drawing the work out,” the Artist said in 2016. Mounted in acrylic frames, a number of them have layers to them of varying transparency, adding to the pleasure of repeated looking.

Wasteland 02, 2020, left, Voice from the O 05, right.

The terrain his works encompasses is vast, and so he works in a few different styles. On first look, his pieces are often jarring, rendered in monochrome so the emphasis is on line and shape rather than color. Some, particularly his larger works, speak to the chaos of modern life, while others, mainly the smaller ones, seemed to me to have a foot in the natural world, echoed by their installation.

Neon Demon, 2019, Charcoal, ink and pencil on paper, wood panel, with acrylic frame 94.49 x 141.73 inches. The shape of the pieces adds yet a “false” perspective that marvelously makes it feel that this flat piece is falling away from you, or that you’re looking into a vast space, though perspective inside Mr. Tsukuda’s work is often “false.”

One of the most remarkable things about Hiroki Tsukuda’s work is his sense of composition. Each work, no matter how diverse its elements, somehow manages to come together in a unified whole. In the more abstract works…well, that’s one of the tricks to making “good” abstract Art, right? A composition that manages to hold together, something evident in the work of all of the masters of abstraction from Kandinsky through Pollock and Rothko to Jack Whitten and Mark Bradford. Mr. Tsukuda adds elements seen in some of the surrealists, like Miro and Dali, In the ostensibly more representational works, “objects” are treated as geometric elements in the whole composition, which frees the Artist to not be bound by their traditional meaning. Instead, he is now free to explore with them, and the viewer’s preconceptions.

When I reached the third and final gallery, things took a decided turn. I suddenly came face to face with a group of 4 pieces that screamed Hajime Sorayama’s “Gynoids,” works featuring beings that are part female, part robot, to me. Though Mr. Tsukuda’s are more “female,” and less robot, than Mr. Sorayama’s.

The legendary Hajime Sorayama stands in front of one of his newer works, seen at the opening to his last NYC show in October, 2016.

Sure enough, in researching him later, Mr. Tsukuda lists the famous Japanese Artist among his many influences. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sorayama in 2016, and since I owned one of his works at the time, we quickly bonded, though the language barrier was never in danger. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Mr. Sorayama has found an Artist who fully understands his “Gynoids” and has the facility and vision to take them in his own direction. Quite daring considering Mr. Sorayama is alive and working away. While they were a bit jarring with the “natural” feel of the first two rooms, (compared with the steel frame “cells” here) the Artist made it work, as characteristic traits of Mr. Tsukuda’s own style became familiar as one look further at them.

Vol. 31, left, with Vol. 13, Wasteland 03, right of center, and Your God, 2019, far right.

The show’s title, They Live, reverberates as you move through it. Among the installations, only the few plants included are actually “living.” Does ink on paper “live?” Not in the biological sense, but in the sense that Art continues to speak to people, it “lives” on in other ways. They Live, also, has a sci-fi ring to it (think of films like Them!), and in that sense serve to make us feel that Mr. Tsukuda’s creations, perhaps particularly the “enhanced females” seen in the third gallery, live. These are probably his “ultimate” manifestation of this combination of the natural and the technological fantastic.

Vol. 44, right, Vol. 91, Abyssal Grid, left of center, Your God, 2019, far left.

The “designs of nature” beautifully enhance, reinforce and dialogue with Mr. Tsukuda’s Drawing style, which borrows techniques seen in Abstract Expressionism and the rigor of Architectural Drawing, like those of Zaha Hadid, as displayed in her marvelous Guggenheim Retrospective in 2006, combining them in fresh and exciting ways.

Wasteland 02

The natural settings also reinforce Mr. Tsukuda’s upbringing “surrounded by abundant nature,” he told freundevonfreunden in 2013. This serves to ground his work, which quickly and effortlessly takes flight to…somewhere else. “You only start to appreciate its beauty once you’ve grown up and experienced city life. Always had a strong desire to travel to another realm outside of this world, even from a young age. It’s not that I hated reality and wanted to escape; it was more like I wanted to take a peek into the parallel universe that exists on the other side of this world. So hen seeing a landscape or buildings, I always imagined that there was a spacecraft launching pad in the mounters or was convinced that the building was actually a secret research lab.” I came across those words after getting that exact feeling seeing work like this-

In 2018, MoMA purchased Hiroki Tsukuda’s work Great Distortion, 2016, Ink and charcoal on paper, believe it, or not. 86 5/8 x 159 7/16 inches. MoMA Photo (not in this show).

While I may be new to Mr. Tsukuda’s work, his star has been rising on a number of fronts. In fact, Uniqlo is currently selling a T Shirt that features one of his Drawings, and in researching this piece, I discovered that in 2018, MoMA acquired one of his larger works, Great Distortion, 2016. While I have been harsh on MoMA’s acquisitions, here is an instance of the kind of vision that made MoMA the leader in Modern Art, a title NYC’s “big 4 museums” have relinquished to L.A., Chicago and elsewhere when it comes to collecting Contemporary Art1. It hasn’t been on view yet when I’ve been there (well, they’ve been closed for 10 months since 2018), so I look forward to seeing it in person.

 

Abyssal Grid

There are elements of the fantastic seen in Surrealism. the joy of patterns found in industrial design, like we’re lost in some fantastic industrial junk yard of the future. Ominous. Possibly threatening, without a clue as to how to get out, or how to “get” anywhere. Or even where we are. Here and there something looks vaguely familiar, but it’s promptly lost in a wash of other elements. I was left with only questions like these, and few answers. I find his Art fresh, very daring, and yes, spectacular. His work feels completely free and entirely unpredictable. They don’t look like the Drawings of many Artists I’ve seen.

Hiroki Tsukuda continues to expand the boundaries of what Drawing is and where it can take us. “Science fiction” is about giving us a vision of the future. Seeing They Live did that, too.

*-Soundtrack for this post is “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1” by The Flaming Lips from the 2002 album of the same name.

 

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

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  1. The fifth of Manhattan’s Big 5, the New Museum, has no permanent collection. ↩

Draw!

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

 For The Record #4.

Is Drawing becoming a lost skill in today’s world?

Michelangelo, Archers Shooting at a Herm, Red chalk, seen at The Met’s unforgettable Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer in 2018.

That would be tragic. For any number of reasons, perhaps the foremost being that I believe Drawing is an essential life skill. The cellphone camera seems to be replacing Drawing for many people, and I think this is shortsighted1. Drawing is a fundamental way that humans have communicated and expressed themselves for many tens of thousands of years. No doubt, even before the advent of writing and language. Its value to Art and Artists over the centuries can be seen in any museum. Beyond Art, Drawing is an important way of putting ideas down, or mapping out your thoughts. It’s an important means of thinking visually that nothing known to me can replace.

An Artist who Draws almost exclusively, Chris Ware’s fold-out cover for the hardcover edition of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth took Drawing in entirely new directions in 2000. It’s part map, part story, part Art, part mind map, yet somehow, it all holds together. And, it also gives one an idea of what the amazing 380 pages inside are like. Is it any wonder the book was seven years in the making?

When I first tried to paint, I immediately realized I needed to work on my drawing, first, to paint the way I wanted to paint (yes, small letters. No Art with a capital A in this case). I proceeded to draw, daily, for the next decade. I still haven’t gone back to painting. Drawing became an obsession for me, both doing it and studying it’s amazing history in Art.

Ingres, Portrait of a Lady, 1815-17, seen at The Met in 2012 in very low light to protect it. I spent the better part of a decade trying to figure out HOW Mr. Ingres created incredible Drawings like this. In Secret Knowledge, David Hockney surmises that he may have used a camera lucida to draw the head from life, then sketched the rest fairly quickly. Regardless, it borders on the miraculous.

As time has gone on, particularly over the past decade, though there have been some monumental museum Drawing shows of work by the masters, I’ve seen fewer and fewer Drawing shows by Contemporary Artists.

An exception. Raymond Pettibon, No Title (It sounds powerful…), Ink, acrylic and collage on paper, 60.5 x 101 inches, seen at Zwiner in 2017.

Along with really looking, and learning to see, Drawing is invaluable in developing an eye. Try drawing anything. It forces you to really see and to really be clear about what you see so you can render it. I spent a few years drawing Sculpture in The American Wing Courtyard in The Met three times a week. One of the great things about that space is that it is faced and covered with glass. The light constantly changes, and if you sat there long enough, which I did countless times, day changed to evening and then to night. This is a real challenge to anyone trying to render an object with a pencil, like it would be to someone Painting outdoors. It forced me to learn how to look hard and fast, before the light I was trying to render changed. Of course, I could have drawn from a Photograph, but I found I learned much more trying to draw a Sculpture on the spot. 

Vincent Van Gogh, Harvest in Provence, 1888, Reed pen, quill and ink over graphite on wove paper, from Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings. Vincent was one of the first Artists to fascinate me in my early teens when I discovered him in an early visit to MoMA. As time has gone on, I’m still amazed at how he saw the world, which you can really see in his incredible Drawings. Here, he almost Draws in shorthand. Look at the sky, and the way he renders most of the scene using lines and dots. There’s so much to look at, the figures almost disappear. The only thing he’s darkened is the cart in the center. Once you compare this with  the Painting he did of this scene, it might be apparent why.

When I’m first exploring an Artist, I want to see their Drawings. If they haven’t created any, I look into why not. Maybe they can’t Draw? Many Painters, like Richard Estes and Rod Penner, Draw their work directly on their canvases, creating an “Underdrawing,” as have countless Painters for centuries before them, and so don’t make standalone Drawings. If they have created Drawings, I want to see what role Drawing plays in their work, and I want to see what their Drawings reveal about it. Yes, there are Artists I admire who either don’t make separate Drawings or don’t Draw per se, but I’ve come to realize that they are in the minority. 

 

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Drawing of the Winslow House, 1893-7. The actual house may still be seen in Chicago. Drawing seen at MoMA in 2017.

Any number of Architects have made Drawings, often to present their ideas to their clients- Presentation Drawings, like the one above by Frank Lloyd Wright, that are now considered Art. Beyond their beauty, these Drawings serve any number of other purposes from showing an idea to a client, to helping engineers, landscape designers and urban planners understand the project.

Nasreen Mohamedi used Drawing both as the primary discipline of her Art and also for other reasons in other ways, as in her diary, two pages of which appear above, seen at The Met Breuer’s landmark, opening, show of her work in 2016. She, apparently, went back and colored out most of the lined pages but left words or sentences here and there legible. Did she do this for Artistic reasons? As a reminder of things left undone or to be remembered? Or…?

David Byrne, Tree Drawing, from Arboretum.

In 2003, the Musican & Artist David Byrne published his book of “tree drawings,” Arboretum. The fascinating Drawings inside show other ways in which Drawing can be used. He discussed them here. Three are shown here.

David Byrne, Drawing, from Arboretum.

Some border on graphs.

David Byrne, Music Tree, 2002, from Arboretum.

Others on maps.

Three iPad Drawings by David Hockney, seen at The Met’s David Hockney show in 2018.

On the positive side, Technology has brought new ways one can Draw into the world. David Hockney is among the many using the iPad to create museum level Art.

Nasreen Mohamedi Untitled, circa 1970, seen at The Met Breuer in 2016.

In some ways, it’s akin to her Drawings, her primary medium after her early work, and in other ways, it’s not. When I first saw “Untitled,” circa 1970, above, I thought it was a piece of fabric. I stood in front of it for almost 30 minutes in utter disbelief that it was a Drawing, and one of THE most amazing I’ve ever seen. I subsequently christened the late Ms. Mohamedi, “The Goddess of Line.” It was said that “She was one person who was always in tune- life, work, the way she dressed, how she talked, behaved- each always totally in tune with the other, one straight line2.” During her lifetime, she was largely unknown, and so she gave many of her pieces away as gifts. Eventually, a crippling illness robbed her of her ability to Draw, before tragically taking her life at just 53 in 1990.

Ms. Mohamedi taught, and those she came in contact with have continued to spread her name and influence. Thankfully, currently and in the recent past, there are other Artists, like Mr. Hockney, William Kentridge, Raymond Pettibon, Marcel Dzama, Kara Walker, Jean-Michel Basquiat, R. Crumb and Chris Ware for whom Drawing is central to their Art. My hope is they, and all the other Artists who Draw, inspire the next generations of Artists to continue Drawing, if schools continue to stop teaching it. The Met, MoMA and many other museums have Drawing workshops, but beyond Art, institutions in other realms, and businesses, benefit from Drawings to no end. They have a stake in this, too. It’s going to take many people and organizations from all walks of life who realize what’s at stake take action to reverse the direction things seem to be taking. Human creativity has always found ways to express itself. I’m hoping that continues to find popular expression in Drawings. The time is NOW! to make sure. Before it’s too late.

Today, there are infinitely more Drawing tools, and ways to Draw, available than ever before. So, pick up a pencil, or use whatever device you’re reading this on, express yourself, nurture your creativity and ideas, and Draw!

For The Record is a series of pieces that are about key/core subjects & beliefs that underly everything else I’ve written here. The first three parts are here. 

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. David Hockney, the legendary Artist who has Painted, Drawn and Photographed, has spoken at length about the shortcomings of the camera. Over the past three years, I’ve come to agree with him. ↩
  2. Here ↩