I was just in New York City for what seems like a minute, and therefore unusually restricted in what photography I had an opportunity to see. However, in merely two locations, I found a web of connections as seemingly immense as the grid of streets comprising this city that never sleeps. From the mind-bending “Hidden Likeness” exhibit dreamed up by Renaissance man, photographer Emmet Gowin at the Morgan Library, to the more circumscribed retrospectives of Parisian photographer Brassai’s work with writer Henry Miller and the surprisingly related, darkly affecting work of American street photographer Dave Heath at Howard Greenberg Gallery, I felt I was viewing alternative maps of mankind.
(Left) Emmet Gowin, Edith and Elijah, Danville, Virginia, 1968. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Emmet and Edith Gowin. © Emmet and Edith Gowin, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery. (Right) Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606–1669), Woman with a Child Descending a Staircase, ca. 1636. Pen and brown ink, brown wash. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909, The Morgan Library & Museum.
Just before it ended, I managed to slip into the revelatory splendor of Emmet Gowin’s exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum, wherein the prolific photographer paired a selection of his own highly diverse work over 50 years (e.g. aerials, insects and, famously, his wife Edith) with objects as varied as ancient Near Eastern seals, master drawings by Botticelli & Mondrian, and musical manuscripts, drawn from throughout the collections of the Morgan. “Hidden Likeness” is a free-flowing and richly expressed exploration of Gowin’s philosophy of life, revealing both the visual and cerebral connections they elicit. The similarities extend pleasingly to the human scale of both Gowin’s prints and works from the Morgan, lending an intimacy to the exhibit and facilitating the emergence of relationships. Through this encompassing, centuries-wide view, we gain a rarified perspective of the extraordinary schema of life.
(Left) Emmet Gowin, Copper Ore Tailing, Globe, Arizona, 1988. Toned gelatin silver print. Collection of Emmet and Edith Gowin. © Emmet and Edith Gowin, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery. (Right) William Blake (1757–1827), Behemoth and Leviathan (illustration for the Book of Job), ca. 1805–10. Pen and black and gray ink, gray wash, and watercolor, over faint indications in graphite. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909, The Morgan Library & Museum.
At Howard Greenberg Gallery, street photographer Dave Heath’s intense B&W photographs from the 1950’s and ‘60’s put a decidedly desperate spin on the human condition. Featuring photographs from his stint as a combat soldier in the Korean War and Beat Generation pictures from NY’s Greenwich Village, Heath focuses on subjects who are by turns distressed, pensive, alienated, and bereft. Shot in moody shadow and light and printed with poignant bleakness, Heath’s work is both visually and metaphorically dark. Although he and his images unequivocally state that “the pleasures and joys of life are fleeting, that life contains a larger measure of hurt and misery, suffering and despair”, Heath insists that “acceptance of life’s tragic aspects” gives rise to “love and concern for the human condition”. That is a hopeful interpretation of this work, and one I didn’t share. To me, Heath’s photographs appeared to be a catalog of grief, with each individual suffering some form of emotional abandonment. Viewing them is a test of endurance, rewarded in no small part by the compositional excellence, print quality and emotional honesty of the work.
“Washington Square, 1958” by Dave Heath (courtesy of the artist and Howard Greenburg Gallery, NYC).
Howard Greenberg is also showing the 27 photographs taken by Brassai in 1930’s Paris that were used to illustrate Henry Miller’s 1956 novella, “Quiet Days in Clichy”. This is an especially interesting pairing with the Dave Heath show in the next room; despite the fact that Heath’s shots were made in daytime and Brassai took all his images at night, Brassai’s work seems as light as Heath’s is dark. Brassai’s prints are made on a similarly small scale to Heath’s (8”x 10” or smaller) and also printed relatively darkly, compared to today’s norms. And even though Brassai sought out the sometimes seedy nightlife in Paris, the mood in his imagery veers to comraderie, love and sex, rather than alienation.
“Amoureux, 1930’s” by Brassai, as it appeared in Henry Miller’s novella “Quiet Days in Clichy”, published in 1956 (courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC).
Brassai’s compositions are clever, often exploiting camera angles, mirrors and lighting to accentuate drama and romance. The prints here are especially interesting in that the crop lines chosen by Brassai for Miller’s book appear on the prints, a precious window into the photographer’s creative process, somewhat akin to viewing contact sheets. Brassai and Heath were separated by an ocean and a generation, but they shared a drive to capture the essence of humanity on film. While some of Brassai’s work hints at decadence, his subjects seem empowered, where Heath’s seem pained. Emmet Gowin, Dave Heath and Brassai: three sets of eyes looking at the same world, very differently.
For more information about these exhibits, go to: http://www.themorgan.org/ and http://www.howardgreenberg.com/#home
Feature Image: Detail from “New York City, 1964” by Dave Heath (courtesy of the artist and Howard Greenburg Gallery, NYC).
“Rencontre, 1930’s” by Brassai, with crop lines for Henry Miller’s novella (courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC).
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