Essays & Criticism

Essays & Criticism

ART MARKET: SHOW ME THE ART — I MEAN THE MONEY

By Alan Behr NEW YORK, 22 OCTOBER 2012 — The artist who wants to make a living by his art who does not accept that he is running a small business is missing something as fundamental to his success as a sense of composition. For all his reported hard-partying prep-school ways (Southern gentleman’s edition), the photographer William Eggleston did not get his work bought for important collections and shown at major museums from the Albertina to the Whitney by neglecting his business. Eggleston is important to photography for several reasons, key among them being that he is largely responsible for making color photography respectable — which was no small matter. Respectability was an act of grace that had happened, and only just so, scant decades earlier for black-and-white photography. (So much do purists still consider black and white the higher form of the medium, however, the premium manufacturer Leica recently introduced

Read More »

COMMENT: ROLLING STONES 50 & COUNTING TOUR IT’S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL (BUT I MANAGED TO SCORE A TICKET)

By Alan Behr NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, 25 DECEMBER 2012 — If they are to endure, improvisations that arise from communal experiences will refine themselves into ritual.  So it was at the penultimate concert in The Rolling Stones’ tour celebrating the band’s first half century together. After extensive rehearsals, the 50 & Counting tour had started with two surprise performances in Paris, the first was before 600 clubgoers at Le Trabendo; a few days later came a second show at the Théâtre Mogado, which holds 1,800 (for a Stones concert, still a small house). The mini-tour moved on to two nights in The 02 arena in London and would end with three arena performances in the New York area, with a two-song set at a benefit concert Madison Square Garden squeezed in last minute. When The Rolling Stones perform and do so in such a limited and selective way, ordinary expectations of

Read More »

GALA GLITTERS AS WALL STREET SHATTERS

By Alan Behr NEW YORK, 25 SEPTEMBER 2008 – Investment banks were either imploding, restructuring or surrendering their independence, stocks were falling and Congress was debating an emergency bailout package for newly penitent financiers, but the night had come for the opera season to open, so good fortune or bad, everyone put on his party clothes and got to Lincoln Center by 6:30. The last time I’d done that, I’d hired a car service, but in light of the current situation, I took the Shuttle to Times Square and connected with the No.1 train to West 66th Street. Travel Tip: if you’re running toward a crowded New York City subway train as the doors are closing, but you’re wearing a tuxedo, people will let you in. Maybe it was the financial climate or just the fact that much of the plaza at Lincoln Center was closed off, being again under

Read More »

IN HIS OWN IMAGE: SHEPARD FAIREY FIGHTS TO REDEFINE COPYRIGHT LAW

By Alan Behr NEW YORK, 3 MARCH 2009 I. Don’t Fight the Law. It May Simply Change its Mind. Even a few years ago, street artists such as Shepard Fairey had to rely on shameless self-promotion, print media and luck to make their presence felt. Now they have only to rely on shameless self-promotion and the Internet; if the latter makes things go viral, there isn’t much more to do than to kick back and get famous – unless The Associated Press, one of the last great powers of the print age, threatens to sue. That was the situation faced by Fairey when, a day before the expiration of the AP’s deadline for him to accept a license and pay damages for the unauthorized use of a news photograph, the artist launched a preemptive strike by suing the AP in federal court in New York City. Fairey made a number

Read More »

LISTENING TO THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF RALPH GIBSON

By Alan Behr PARIS, 1 MAY 2018 — When you have what, in photography, could be called celebrity status and have held that honor for close to half a century, staying fresh, to say nothing of hoping to best yourself, can surely be a challenge. One of the interesting things about Ralph Gibson (and there are too many of those to cover here) is that he has, during that time, maintained a consistency of vision and execution, mostly in black and white but also in color, and he has managed to create a body of work that has appeared au courant during every phase along the way. Gibson has accomplished that by listening to his own muse, which guided him, in 1970, to self-publish his first book, The Somnambulist. Two years later came Déjà-Vu and, one year after that, Days at Sea. Together, they create a body of work known

Read More »