Review: Michael Wolf @ Galerie Particulière

Michael Wolf's recent semi-relocation to Paris has led to an exhibition, Metropolis, at the Marais' new Galerie Particulière. The show combines work from his Hong Kong series, Architecture of Density, and Transparent City, shot later in Chicago. Wolf's study of Hong Kong's trademark high-rise architecture is aptly-named. He refers to these as 'no-exit' photographs: by flattening perspective and cropping out any visual reference points (no sky or ground here), the eye is given no escape route and we are faced purely with the dense, barren surfaces of these human ant hills. The exteriors of these high-rises become abstractions, never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns, with only the odd piece of dangling laundry to remind us of the thousands of people within.

The dense, claustrophobic concrete of Hong Kong's high rises gives way to a sleeker, more statuesque Chicago. These later photographs extend Wolf's study of the skin of the city, but Chicago's glass skyscrapers reveal far more of the life beneath it. He begins to carve details out of these cityscapes, giving some of the work a certain voyeuristic edge, which he acknowledges with a dramatic image containing a clin d'oeil to Hitchcock's Rear Window. Wolf's compositions are always beautiful, and his extra-large prints beautifully made*, however these series are not eulogies to the modern city. Instead they convey a sense of isolation and of the oppression of this architecture over the lives of its inhabitants. If only Le Corbusier could have seen these images...

* Wolf has a great website, but see his prints if you can because this work really demands scale.

Rating: Recommended

Further reading: Interview by JM Colberg Audio interview by Jim Casper

Review: Araki @ Daniel Templon

Daniel Templon is currently exhibiting a recent series of Araki's bondage photographs, work which has been doing the rounds for some time now with shows in Tokyo, Berlin, Oslo and London. The Paris show includes 15 large-format (150 x 120cm) colour digital prints of images taken in the past couple of years.

For anyone who was at last year's edition of Paris Photo (Japan was the 'guest' country), this work will be familiar. Araki is one of the very few Japanese photographers to have succeeded in building himself a global reputation, and you will always come across a few of his prints at any major photography fair. However at Paris Photo it really felt like overkill to me: his large-format bondage images popped up on so many booths that I kept getting confused about where I was.

This Paris exhibition, Bondages, is trademark Araki: kimonos, plastic godzillas, bondage rope, flowers, the odd dildo, and as much female flesh as possible. The images are undeniably striking and, although this is far from new ground for Araki, the move to large-format colour may even succeed in accentuating their provocative impact. During my visit to the show a group of Parisian thirty-somethings fresh from the squash court giggled their way around the room, faces pressed up against these life-size sexual fantasies, while an elder couple of apparently regular collectors (she clearly unimpressed, he secretly enjoying himself) asked one of the staff for an explanation as to why on earth these images were even worth looking at.

However, I can't help wondering whether Araki is actually playing it a bit safe here. He is undoubtedly a diverse photographer, from his early Satchin and Mabo series to his photographs of Tokyo and, my personal favourite, the work that he did on his wife (Sentimental Journey and Winter Journey). But recently he has been in danger of becoming something of a one-trick pony. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing to continue returning to an idea, concept or even an aesthetic over a long period of time. The thing that bothers me is that it feels like Araki keeps coming back to bondage because that is what the market is asking him for. The intimacy of his early bondage photographs has gone and it is being replaced with something more akin to performance. The problem I have with many of these images is that they seem to be playing up to a Western fantasy of an exotic Japanese sexual sub-culture and, given how ubiquitous Araki has become, contributing to the myth that this is what all Japanese photography looks like. These images leave me feeling that, instead of being introduced to a strange private world, I am being duped.

Rating: Worth a look

Further reading: Vice magazine interview with Araki which is refreshingly unlike every other photographer interview you have ever read. (via mcvmcv)

Review: Henri Cartier-Bresson @ MAM

HCB would have been 100 in 2008. For some reason his centenary is still being celebrated with two exhibitions which recently opened in Paris at the Maison Européene de la Photographie and today at the Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM). I was reminded of the Robert Frank exhibitions that were recently held in honour of the 50th anniversary of his seminal book, The Americans. I didn't see the exhibition at the NGA in Washington, Looking In, but judging by the catalogue this was a really impressive show in which the curators used this anniversary to take a fresh look at Frank's work for this series, uncovering new material and contributing a meaningful new perspective on the place of that series in photographic history. The exhibition that I saw at the Jeu de Paume was the polar opposite: it was essentially the book hung, in order, on the wall. There seemed to be no attempt to use this opportunity to do something different with the series, to uncover new details, present it in a new light, even develop a new scenography. As I walked around on the opening weekend with the hundreds of other people, waiting 2 or 3 minutes to see each image, this felt very much like an attempt to get as many people through the door with as little effort as possible.

Unfortunately, the current Cartier-Bresson mini-retrospective at the MAM, L'imaginaire d'après nature, falls into the latter category. The exhibition contains 69 large-format prints made in the 1970s, and donated to the museum in 1982 following two exhibitions of his photographs and drawings. This exhibition brings these donated prints out of storage after 27 years and I was curious to see what they would add to our understanding of HCB. Apparently one of the reasons why this is not "just another HCB exhibition" is that this is a unique opportunity to see appreciate his prints in a large format (they are around 50 x 70 cm, dry-mounted on board and unframed), and to "interact with the print as object", not just to appreciate the quality of his imagery in a small format behind a pane of glass. However, HCB didn't make the prints himself and I find that the images are not suited to these large formats. So maybe the value of the exhibition is in the choice of images, perhaps focusing on some lesser-known aspect of his work? The genius of HCB is indisputable, and many of these images still manage to retain their impact despite being so well-known, but while there are a handful of rarities, 95% of what is on show here has been seen everywhere and by everyone.

Seeing this exhibition at a National Museum of Modern Art in 1982 would have been a revelation and a bold statement on the place of photography within art. Seeing it today, it feels precisely like "just another Cartier-Bresson exhibition", and one which is attempting to cash in cheaply on an anniversary.

Rating: Worth looking elsewhere

Review: Tania Mouraud @ Dominique Fiat

Just went to the Tania Mouraud opening at Dominque Fiat. Mouraud seems to have done some interesting installations in the past, but this show just seems ludicrous to me. A dozen (inevitably, predictably) large prints of 'landscapes' created by taking pictures of bales of hay wrapped in plastic. The invitation even has a picture of her taking these things standing in a field in her hiking boots. Not only is this not really an 'idea', let alone a 'concept' these feel like she took them all in one Sunday afternoon last time she went down to her country house with the kids. From the press release (my translation): "For her, the Borderland series is also based around the idea of using an ordinary, everyday agricultural tool and "Make Art" with that which escapes us." Bales of hay do not escape anyone. They are immobile. Please do not "Make Art" with them.

Rating: Worth looking elsewhere

Review: William Eggleston Paris @ Fondation Cartier

Three years ago Hervé Chandès, the director of the Fondation Cartier, suggested to William Eggleston over dinner that he shoot a series of photographs of Paris. Eggleston thought, "why not, since I am here?" and now the first group of work from this ongoing commission is being shown at the Fondation Cartier until 21 June.

I was curious to see how Eggleston would approach Paris, a city that seems a little too classically beautiful for his eye. The show begins in dramatic fashion with a sort of antechamber in Eggleston's honour, a waiting room before the art begins. A baby grand piano (Eggleston plays and composes) sits in the middle of the blood-red room, a clin d'oeil to his Red Ceiling. Quotes from an interview with Eggleston are printed on the wall, including one in which he claims that he did not change his style for Paris. Based on the first wall of prints, you have to agree.

The first images in the show are abstracts, flattened perspectives of the corner of a film poster or a graffitied wall. They are pure colour and form, and could have been taken in any big city. I was a little worried that Eggleston might have tried too hard to shut Paris out of these photographs, to ensure that its grandeur didn't disrupt his search for the beauty in the mundane. But as the show progresses, you get more of a sense of Paris seeping through the cracks. We even get treated to a couple of glimpses of the Haussmannian architecture, although they are the most commonplace views possible: graffiti on a rooftop, or a busy street corner in the rain lit by sickly green neon, the winter blues etched into the faces of the passers-by.

While Eggleston's style may not have changed for Paris, I think the principles have intensified over the years. Compared to his earlier work these images are more tightly focused on the visual details which catch his eye, cutting out any context almost completely. His 'democratic' approach is unchanged: classical marble scultpure gets gets the same treatment as a garish, hyper-colour merry-go-round. I think the greatest strength here is his mastery of colour, although the saturation of his early dye-transfer prints is replaced with more muted tones.

The prints are accompanied by a series of notebooks and small painting-drawings, abstractions in the brightest possible felt-tip and fluo pens, said to be inspired by Kandinsky. I don't think these would merit an exhibition on their own, and at first they made me think, "please stick to the day job." However, in the final room, they are juxtaposed with his prints, almost as if to say, "this is how you should been reading my photographs": colour and form are everything.

Apparently the work shown here is just the beginning of this commission on Paris. He has said that he hopes to be able to make this a major corpus and one which will be his "crowning achievement." Judging from the work on show here, he just might pull it off.

Rating: Highly recommended