Toastkitten

Saw a few nice shows in Santa Monica yesterday. The highlights were Catherine Wagner at Gallery Luisotti - austere and beautiful views of the Moscone Center as it was being built in the late 1970s and an old favorite, Kertesz, at Fetterman. Funny thing about Fetterman's space, I actually don't like it. The funky railroad flat layout always unsettles me. You seem to enter into the middle of a cramp apt, standing in the central room which is too narrow, with large living room-style space to your left and cubbyhole office to your right - it's not a great design for looking at photos. I always feel like I'm intruding when I go into the other rooms but I also always come out of there feeling glad I went. Kertesz's overhead views of Paris and New York were some of the first images I fell in love with when I started studying photography. All those quiet pictures of small moments in the middle of large cities and pitch perfect interiors... These pictures can cure any cynic. Thank you, Andre!

Lowlights included Graciela Iturbide at Rose Gallery - her people less landscapes were kind of disappointing but I do appreciate that she's not just recycling her old themes. Also available to disappoint were porn star portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. These are huge frontal and rather static color portraits. They show quite a bit of detail (I mean, like, peach fuzz and lots of pores on the faces, I was looking at the faces!). Actually, the whole porn star photo trend is kind of boring and just not my thing. I think good photographers like Larry Sultan and even pop portraitists like Saunders should just move on.

Oh, almost forgot the credits! Top, Catherine Wagner,Rooftop Construction with Tar, 1981 (from her series on the Moscone construction site in San Francisco), Below, Stairs of Montmarte, Paris, 1925, and Carrefour, Bois, 1930 by our man in France, Andre Kertesz.