EXHIBITION CLOSING

Max de Esteban: Heads Will Roll will be closing on Friday, October 30th at 6pm. If you have not visited the gallery to view the exhibition yet, we would urge you to do so. The photographs have been well received by the press and gallery visitors alike. 

The photographs are available for purchase as follows:

Edition: 5 + 1AP in each size

Size: 25” x 19” image on 28” x 22” sheet & 45” x 35” image on 49” x 39” sheet

Medium: Archival Pigment Print

Above: Defined By Catastrophe (detail on the right)

COLLECTOR DAILY REVIEW

Max de Esteban, Heads Will Roll (at) Klompching

Loring Knoblauch, October 21, 2015

(extract)

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 large scale color photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in the single room gallery space. All of the works are archival pigment prints, made in 2013. The prints come in two sizes: 49×39 (in editions of 5+1AP) and 28×22 (in editions of 5+1AP); there are 8 large prints and 1 small print on view, drawn from a total of 24 images in the series. A monograph of this body of work was published by Hatje Cantz in 2014 (here).

Comments/Context: Part of what de Esteban is doing here is unpacking the structural foundations of what a photograph has historically been and how it has functioned, and rebuilding those assumptions from the ground up with a different kind of digital existence in mind. Instead of photography being rooted in documentation, or inspiration, or some definition of “truth”, de Esteban is putting re-interpretation and re-translation at the forefront of the digital now, with a distinct and deliberate emphasis on the re-. What the source files meant in their original or archival context isn’t important – it’s how they have been reassembled to generate an evolved harmony (or dissonance) of new allusions, references, hints, and perceived memories.

While de Esteban’s chosen mood is full of ominous foreboding edging toward catastrophe (there’s even some last ditch sex as the bombs are falling from the sky), that personal cultural pessimism isn’t the important analytical vector here. What’s more telling is de Esteban’s crisp definitional argument about what digital photography is now, what tasks it employs and requires, and what outcomes it can generate. He’s staked out the ground for a different kind of photographer/artist – not one who uses a camera to see the world, but one who reinterprets digital imagery from a thousand sources and synthesizes it into a new kind of visual expression that resonates with our current image saturated existence. Others have done and continue to do this too of course, but de Esteban’s mind set seems particularly structured toward consciously breaking with the past.

Collector’s POV: The works in this show are priced as follows. The large 49×39 prints are $5500 each, while the smaller 28×22 prints are $2500 each. De Esteban’s work has little secondary market history at this point, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

Visit the complete Collector Daily review HERE

REPRESENTATION ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce the representation of Robert Moran.

Clients and visitors of the gallery may recall that Robert Moran was a Finalist in our FRESH2013 Summer Exhibition, through which we featured his work online. His work will feature in an upcoming two-person exhibition, which will be announced later this week. 

Robert Moran's photographic practice spans black & white vistas of icebergs, moody street scenes and memorizing portraits. His most recognizable work, and focus of the gallery, is the highly successful Relic series. Made between 2011-2014, the photographs that make up Relics, present artifacts from our recent past that are discarded, and for the most part, no longer used. The objects range from manual typewriters, earth globes, dial phones and lava lamps through to electric fans and pigskin footballs.

Each machine or object is centrally positioned upon a shelf, photographed front-on and lit brightly. The method of depicting the objects is reminiscent of an anthropological survey, presenting the viewer with the details to scrutinize. However, the simplicity of approach also enables us to view the subject matter with a touch of nostalgia, warmth and to ignite memories of an object's past use. 

"The relics helped people through dark nights and hot summers; offered medicinal and musical relief. In that way, they and all the objects we have used, loved, and discarded shape the character and spirit of our society".–Robert Moran

ROBERT MORAN (b. 1952) lives and works off the coast of Maine in the US. His photographs have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions across the US and internationally, including at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (Australia), The Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, US), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, US) and the Magenta Flash Forward Festival (Canada) among others. Photographs by Robert Moran are represented in the collections of Cleveland Clinic, the Magenta Foundation and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

View the Relics series on the gallery website HERE.

WALL STREET JOURNAL REVIEW

On Photography by William Meyers, October 16, 2015

A Technological Construct Of Totality (2013) © Max de Esteban

Max de Esteban, born in Barcelona in 1959 and educated at Stanford University, is a peculiarly protean artist: His first major body of work consisted of highly stylized portraits of disaffected European youths, his second of cyanotype-like X-rays of midcentury electronic appliances. And now we have "Heads Will Roll", his Photoshopped collages of apocalypse. Photoshop can be used to alter the digital files of individual images and to merge images in fanciful combinations. It is easy to do, but hard to do well; the trick is to create a collage with portents of meaning–and yet do it without being too literal, like a rebus. Using bits and pieces drawn mostly from pop culture–movies, the Internet, magazines and newspapers–Mr. de Esteban does this. The nine works at Klompching are dreamlike intimations of catastrophe. 

The largest element of "A Technological Construct of Totality" (2013) is a human body bound with heavy ropes and seemingly suspended. It is not clear if the body is that of a man or a woman, and it is rendered in a pale green. The background color is a brownish red; a woman's head stares out at us from the bottom of the image without apparently noticing the green figure, and other body parts in varying scales are also incorporated. 

The main element of "Defined by Catastrophe" (2013) is the silhouette of a car set at an impossible incline against a burst of yellow; the background is a pale blue figured with negative and positive portraits of someone in a Chairman Mao uniform.

Visit the Wall Street Journal article here.  

REPRESENTATION ANNOUNCEMENT

We are delighted to announce, that we are now representing Richard Tuschman. We have previously exhibited Tuschman's photographs in "About Face: The Portrait in Contemporary Photography" in Fall 2014.

Richard Tuschman is best known for his Hopper Meditations series, a lushly colorful body of work, inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. These meticulously constructed photographs are made from a combination of hand-built doll-house sized dioramas, and life-size models that have been digitally composited into the resulting scenes.

"I have always loved the way Hopper’s paintings, with an economy of means, are able to address the mysteries and complexities of the human condition. Placing one or two figures in humble, intimate settings, he created quiet scenes that are psychologically compelling with open-ended narratives. The characters’ emotional states can seem to waver paradoxically between reverie and alienation, or perhaps between longing and resignation. Dramatic lighting heightens the emotional overtones, but any final interpretation is left to the viewer".–Richard Tuschman

With Tuschman's photographs, we witness a more sombre mood than Hopper, lighting that is less harsh and artworks that point to other key inspirations of the artist, such as the chiaroscuro paintings of Rembrandt. Although the figures depicted in the Hopper Meditations are rooted in the mid-twentieth century, these intimate dramas evoke timeless and universal themes such as solitude, alienation and longing. The open narratives make these photographs wide-reaching in their appeal to a broad audience. 

Richard Tuschman (b. 1955) began experimenting with digital imaging in the early 1990’s, developing a style that synthesized his interests in photography, painting and assemblage. Tuschman holds a BFA (Michigan University) and has been exhibited widely, both in the US and internationally. Accolades and awards include Prix de la Photographie Paris (Gold Medal, People's Choice), Critical Mass Top 50, International Kontinent Awards (1st Place, Fine Art Projects) and Center Project Launch Juror's Award (chosen by Roger Watson, Fox Talbot Museum) among others. His photographs have been published on numerous online magazines/journals including Slate, LensCuluture, LensScratch and Huffington Post. Richard Tuschman lives and works in New York City.

View the Hopper Meditations on the gallery website HERE.