After Pulse, DC left us and LM and I continued to our next stop, our second apartment gallery of the day, Catherine Clark Gallery. Catherine Clark will have a storefront opening in San Francisco in July and has this apartment gallery in New York: I guess this is a bi-coastal gallery. LM had been invited to this show, and when he got there, he knew a lot of people. Much more than DC or I, LM is plugged into the art world. I hate it when the person I'm with knows a ton of people and I don't know anyone. Actually, I sort of knew a couple of people--the first Houston people I had seen all weekend, Lea Weingarten and Richard Herskowitz. The show was a small group of photos of books by Nina Katchadourian, celebrating her new book, Sorted Books
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Nina Katchadourian, Kinds of Love, 2002, C-prints, each 12.5 x 19 inches
I had seen examples of these photos (such Kinds of Love above) where Katchadourian would take several books, arrange their spines facing the camera so that the titled were lined up, picking titles that told a little story or formed a sentence or an idea. Some of them were pretty clever, but as art it felt gimmicky. This seems to be work that has really caught on, though.
Nina Katchadourian, Self-Portrait as Sir Ernest Shackleton, 2002 , C-print, 6.5 x 4.5 inches
Looking at her website, I actually find some of her other work more appealing. These is current of humor that runs through all her work, but I enjoyed her series of Uninvited collaborations with nature better than the Sorted Book series. For instance, the serious quality of Self-Portrait as Sir Ernest Shackleton is completely undermined when you realize that her mustache is actually two caterpillars. But maybe using caterpillars this way is wrong. Hence Quit Using Us.
Nina Katchadourian, Quit Using Us, 2002, C-print mounted to aluminum, 18 x 96 inches
Most of the photos on display were a variation on Sorted Books idea. Instead of showing the spines of fairly recent books, as had been previously done, these photos each showed the covers of three or four quite old books. Once again these covers told a little story or joke using the titles of the books. This series is called Once Upon a Time in Delaware/In Search of the Perfect Book.
Nina Katchadourian, from the series Once Upon a Time in Delaware/In Search of the Perfect Book
Nina Katchadourian, from the series Once Upon a Time in Delaware/In Search of the Perfect Book
Nina Katchadourian, from the series Once Upon a Time in Delaware/In Search of the Perfect Book
Nina Katchadourian, from the series Once Upon a Time in Delaware/In Search of the Perfect Book
Katchadourian was interviewed by curator Veronica Roberts about Sorted Books. Needless to say, there is more to the project than mere clever juxtaposition of book titles. Any given grouping of books comes from the library of a particular person. Presumably it is the library of someone with a substantial number of books. Katchadourian is then given free reign to pick and choose any of the books in the library to photograph. Now if you believe that a personal library is a reflection of its owner (I do, and if I am in someone's home, I find myself examining what's on the shelves for insight into their owner), then you could see these selections as snapshots of the books' owner. Maybe. I don't know what Kinds of Love tells us about Linda Pace, whose library was used for that photo.
From left to right: Entertained adult, bored child, Veronica Roberts, Nina Katchadourian
The adults were perfectly entertained by this question and answer session, but the kids in the room were pretty bored. As soon as it was over, they ran outside and started playing on the stairs. They were still playing there when I left. LM and I discussed possibly meeting up for more art-viewing in Miami in December and then I said my goodbyes. I wish I could have found a cab, but that can be a challenge on a Friday night--I ended up walking back to the Lower East Side, and went to sleep exhausted.
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