Who To Buy Now: An Atlanta Perspective

I asked several  Atlanta collectors to recommend one or two artists that they would recommend as a smart buy. Here is what they had to say:

Collector Rob Stone recommends Xing Danwen (Kiang Gallery $2,500 - $10K, depending on format and edition). Stone “fell in love with Xing Danwen's work at the Sydney Biennale, overwhelmed by her massive prints of technological rubbish--visually lush while eliciting a deeply unsettling awareness of what lies beneath our typically unquestioning relationship with technology, and how that relationship is predicated on uneasy geopolitical dynamics. As an Atlanta resident, I was delighted to discover that Xing Danwen has local representation at Kiang Gallery, giving us a great opportunity to engage with the work of a rising contemporary Chinese photographer.” 

Collector Jeffrey Cohen picks work by Californian Larry Sultan from his “Pictures from Home” and “The Valley” series. (Wirtz Gallery & Janet Borden $2K- $5K) and says “His work has yet to be universally recognized even though he has had a solo exhibitions at SFMOMA, the Corcoran and the Brooklyn  Museum of Art. Sultan has developed a "voice" that makes his work recognizable and has a huge breadth of work. He is an established artist whose prices have lagged behind the darlings of the art world for no apparent reason.” 

Collector Eric Fishman has a number of picks including Tom Hunter (White Cube $3K-$6K) and comments that his “Vermeer-esque portraits are beautiful, moving and full of emotion”. Also on Fishman’s list is Valerie Belin (Brent Sikkema $5K - $10K). Fishman recently acquired a black and white mannequin photo and finds it “absolutely stunning - one of the most powerful portraits I’ve ever seen”. Belin has a show up now at Sikkema. Fishman also likes Larry Sultan (as do I) for a great value purchase and picks Hiroshi Sugimoto (Sonnabend $15K - $80K) as his big bucks blue chip pick. Says Fishman: “His work is not cheap by any means, but it's also not terribly expensive either for its quality; good drive-in theaters can still be had in the $15-25K range and seascapes in the $20-40K range.” Fishman believes that a Sugimoto is an easy sell if necessary even in a slow market. 

Artist and collector Scott Ingram is focused more on tomorrow’s stars and lists William Cordova (Saltworks Gallery, Richard Heller Gallery $1K-$50K) and Iona Rozeal Brown (Caren Golden Fine Art, $2K-$15K; Brown will also have a solo show at Saltworks Gallery this fall) Ingram finds Cordova’s work “fresh and full of energy” but warns that his work is in high demand since Cordova limits its availability. Brown’s work is also in high demand. Ingram comments: “The work is fresh, humorous, hip, and as beautifully composed and arranged as the hip hop it represents. She has been everywhere, LA, NYC, DC, Atlanta, Japan…you name it. She is doing it. If you can get one you better do it now, when the next Iona world tour starts you'll be waiting in line.” 

Collector, writer and curator Rebecca Dimling-Cochran picks Adam Pendleton. (Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Yvon Lambert Gallery $3K-$6K).  Dimling Cochran comments: “Pendleton's works are very conceptual: text written on canvas. There is nothing painterly about them. He silk-screens the surface, creating flat planes of color. The sayings are the meat of the work. Pendleton breaks his sentences in unusual places, as if someone were adding emphasis to something or breathing between the words. Thus the type also becomes a compositional element that creates void areas that play with the idea of figure and ground.  The text itself talks about human relationships, but there is a musical aesthetic to them- some seem to be inspired by the blues, others by rap. They're poetic, and definitely come from an African American experience. Incorrect English is pushed to extremes at points, as if to emphasize the source of its inspiration.” Pendelton has a show up now at Rhona Hoffman and will have an upcoming show at Yvon Lambert’s NYC branch.

Collector Lawrence Nathan selects Bill Owens (Robert Koch Gallery and directly from Owens via his website…modern prints $1,200-$3K; vintage prints $4K-$15K) Per Nathan: “Owens is well known, has three books, just had a solo at ICP, 70s photography is getting a lot of press, his prices are very reasonable and according to his agent they are about to increase”. Along the same lines as Fishman’s blue chip Sugimoto choice, Nathan also likes Irving Penn (Fraenkel Gallery $5K - $100K) and William Eggleston (Cheim & Read  $10K - $250K). 

Yours truly (Erik Schneider, collector and writer of this blog) picks Wardell Milan (Samson Projects $1,800-$2,000). Milan is a recent Yale MFA grad and is starting to garner considerable attention for his work in the Big Apple. Wardell builds and then photographs tableaux vivants that immediately remind me of the collages of Richard Hamilton filtered through post modernist photographic theory. I particularly like the fact that  Milan photographs himself, cuts out the images for use in his assemblages and then re-photographs the results. It’s a little Cindy Sherman mixed with a bit of Richard Prince and tossed into a James Casebere set-up photo. Despite all these references,  Milan’s photos are like none I’ve ever seen.  Samson Projects will be bringing Milan to the Scope Fair in New York next month.

 

 

 

P.S.: 1 thing I’m sure of is that Milan is bound for greater things in New York during the upcoming months.

Comments

[Tyler Green]

According to Bill Owens' agent his prices are going to increase? That's like me telling an editor that they'd better sign me up before Thursday because that's when I'll start demanding $3/word! ;-)