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The photographs
of Bryn Mawr photographer and art dealer D.W. Mellor are now on
view at the Peng Gallery in Old City from March 3rd to April 1st.
The Peng Gallery's speciality is contemporary art and this is
their first venture into contemporary photography. Mellor comes
to Peng after a major exhibition in NYC at the prestigious Yancey
Richardson Gallery entitled "In Situ". Recently hešs had beautiful
pictorial spreads in notable art publications such as ZOOM Magazine
and favorable expository reviews in the New York Times. Also favorable
notices in Works on Paper Magazine for the Philadelphia Photo
Review.
The works presented were traditional black and white (gelatin
silver) photographic prints skillfully, but very traditionally
printed on a warm tone glossy photo paper. The subject matter
of the photographs are studio still lives taken "in situ" in different
cities around Europe as well as in Bryn Mawr. The "in situ" still
lives are of vessels, glasses, fruit, and old looking paraphernalia.
Oddly enough, I could not notice any major difference in sensibility
or style from the work made in foreign cities to those made in
the Bryn Mawr studio. Another concerning quality was how derivative
these photographs were of 19th Century Dutch Still Life Painting.
Another wall of still life's featured
geometric objects and shells, which seemed to be black and white
warm toned hybrids of Paul Otterbridges from the 1940's. There
were also some nudes in compositions that were reenactments of
the work of the famous Czech photographer Drtikol. One might think
that this journey leaping from Dutch Still Life to Modernist photography
was an intentional conceptual ploy. I fear not.
Concurrent with the exhibit of
these photographs was a lecture by Rick Wester (the Director of
Photography at Christie's Auction House in NYC) on the topic "Collecting
Fine Art Photography: Market and Connoisseur Issues". The lecture
centered on three major issues that have driven the market forward:
rarity, condition, authorship and in contemporary photography,
edition size. Being an old stamp and coin collector I see nothing
new here except that connoisseurs speak slower and to a select
few; and that today they are being courted by the art market as
opposed to the flea markets of just twenty-five years ago.
The real issues of art: truth,
imagination, feeling, experience and beauty, etc. were not addressed.
This market system stuff is very much what D.W.Mellor's photographic
artwork is about. How does an art photography dealer make art
without carrying the debris of his business into his work? Everything
seemed borrowed from history and packaged as contemporary photographic
art. From the printing, framing, exhibiting, and marketing of
this work there was a feeling of a forced formulaic approach which
I painfully experienced as manipulation of the photographic medium.
Since I had read such unanimous
glowing reviews of this work, I thought my impressions could have
been way off the mark. I consulted other art photographers and
connoisseurs (who would only speak off the record) and they concurred.
My impressions were accurate. What is this conspiracy of silence
by the experts? Why misinform the general public? The New York
Times is there to make a profit, but the Philadelphia Photo Review,
and its sister publication The Photo Collector, are nonprofit
vehicles that should be more honest. This market manipulation
not only hurts the art work, the artist, exhibiting galleries,
and other cultural institutions by perpetuating misinformation
but will eventually break down trust between the art world and
the uniformed buyers.
- Roamer |
