Pace Gallery Review

Upon entering the “On Assignment” gallery by Irving Penn, I was mislead. The first images that I saw were hands shot in lack and white. His photographs were shot in high contrast. While continuing my tour it became versatile, there were fashion photographs, magazine spreads also images of women draped in cloths and still objects. My favorite image was his famous fashion photograph that was featured in Vogue. The symmetry in the models pose creates an interesting composition, along with the balance between black and white.

Nick Brandt’s photographs were among my favorites, he photographed very personal images within wild life. From his photographs I felt that he was very daring and bold to interact so closely with wild life. The lighting in some of his photographs have a very soft appearance. My favorite image was of the lion (he has a side profile, and his mane is blowing in the breeze). I believe that Brandt slowed down the shutter speed on his camera to give the lion’s mane a very soft appearance. Also this image has shallow depth of field.

The Mary Boone Gallery was my favorite of all. I loved the theme of Versailles, I felt that Robert Polidori executed the concept well. The gallery had open spacing, which allowed the viewer to focus on a photograph and analyze the composition. My favorite images were the fabric prints, and wall embedment(s) the patterns in the images created rhythm. The details were very neat and precise.

Susan Danziger’s photographs were quite interesting, while analyzing the photographs they automatically reminded me of stained glass. The hues were very mellow and created a peaceful theme. The silhouettes of her images worked well and were placed well in her composition. They were mainly centered in a circle around the center of her images. The most intricate detailing was in the water droplets, some were very subtle and created a definition between the foreground and background. I feel that her best image was “Starfirld Bridge”, it appears that the sky and water are both the foreground and background.

I did not enjoy Olivo Barbieri’s photographs, the images were edited through Photoshop and created into vector images. This was not appealing to my eye. I felt that the white walls had too much contrast (which hurt my eyes). The images appeared brighter than usual. The white walls made it appear as if it was snowing inside, in my opinion.

Lastly Philip Lorca DiCorsia’s gallery was the most intimate and personal in my opinion.  He photographed “hustlers” and their daily struggles with personal life such as; food money and work.  I feel that his photograph named “Marilyn” was powerful. Considering that the female ironically looks like the complete opposite of Marilyn, and is somewhat imitating her iconic pose. However she is the focal point in the image. The use of shallow depth of field and lighting adds great emphasis to her.