Simen Johan is among the many internationally recognized artists whose work will be auctioned on May 13 in the Cepa Auction.

The collection of works up for auction at CEPA Gallery’s Eighth Biennial Photography Art Auction on Saturday, May 13, 2006 are all about the light-catching medium. The galleries are filled with representations of reflected, filtered, illuminating, silhouetting and captured light—the stuff of photographs, what photographers die for. This year’s collection of 88 works is an inspiring mix of fine craft and artistry, and hopefully this mix will turn into some nice profits for the only gallery devoted to photography in Western New York.

CEPA’s auctions always make art collectors giddy. They are opportunities to purchase truly outstanding works of art, often at very reduced prices. The values of the artwork on auction range from $100 to $8,500, so there is something for everyone. See, there isn’t as much competition in Buffalo as there is at an art auction at Sotheby’s in Manhattan. Fortunately, though, there is some true sophistication on the part of CEPA staff, board and auction committee who gathered this collection for the fundraising event. International as well as local artists are included.

New to the auction this year is Spencer Tunick, the internationally infamous art happening and photography artist. Tunick donated one of the photographs he took in Buffalo’s Central Terminal in August 2004 with the assistance thousands of people from the area and as far off as Cleveland and Toronto, who were willing to take their clothes off. Buffalo 5 incorporates a cross-section of the crowd, lying on their backs on the floor over the ticket booths, capturing the warm light underneath one of the terminal’s arching and broken windows.

Also new this year is Barbara Ess, who gave a large (60 inches across) untitled photograph which captures a small girl and doll in white in the landscape. The photograph must have been taken with a slow exposure, as everything seems in motion or slightly blurry, like a faint memory. Artforum and Art in America have featured Ess in and in cover stories and she has exhibitions around the world. This piece is valued at $6,500-$8,500.

Also new to the auction this year is local artist Julian Montague, who has donated a piece, BU 3506, from The Stray Shopping Cart Project. Montague just published a book on this project with Abrams Image. He has exhibited internationally and is represented by Black and White Gallery in New York. This piece is valued at $1,100-$1,500.

Stephen Perloff, founder and editor of The Photo Review and editor of The Photograph Collector, the leading source of information on the photography art market, will conduct the auction. Tickets for the event are $50 and include an auction catalog, auction paddle, hors d’oeuvres and open bar. Reservations or absentee bids may be purchased through the CEPA website: www.cepagallery.com or by phone at 856-2717.

Julian Montague is exhibiting at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center and donated a piece to be auctioned in the CEPA Gallery Eighth Biennial Photography Art Auction.

Shopping Carts and Rock Stars

Julian Montague and Louis Decarlo are exhibiting at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center through May 10. The two have solo exhibits side by side that are nearly opposites. Both are showing photography, but Decarlo captures musicians and Montague shopping carts. Musicians—the subject of idolization—and stray shopping carts discovered in the slimy Scajaquada River.

Decarlo’s photographs are generally not over-glamorized, but stunning and personal portraits of his often famous subjects, both locally and nationally. The prints at the Burchfield are large in size and quite beautiful to look at.

Montague’s prints are part of a four-year project, cataloging the whereabouts of stray shopping carts in Western New York as well as further abroad. Part of this project is an elaborate system for characterizing the carts, though this is not a part of the current exhibit. Rather, the images may be found in his new publication, The Stray Shopping Cart of Northeastern America, published by Abrams Image in February. This colorful and beautiful publication is created in the fashion of a field guide—like those that catalog plants or birds. The project has to make you giggle, but the images are always interesting, and the unending loss and accumulation of this icon of consumerism is ripe with content, no matter how you look at it.

The Stray Shopping Cart of Northeastern America is available at Talking Leaves as well as Borders, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. The two solo exhibits are up through May 10 at the Burchfield-Penney on the Buffalo State College campus.

About the Falls

The Castellani Art Museum is currently showing a collection of paintings and drawings of Niagara Falls created by Wolf Kahn, one of the most highly thought of landscape painters in America today. Kahn visited Niagara Falls to sketch on site before returning to his studio to paint. With this body of work, he continues a long tradition of painters creating images of the world wonder, especially throughout the 19th century.

The subject seems made for Kahn, who layers colors in his landscape paintings in order to create the movement and flickering sense of light. The pastels he made on site show the variety of colors through the water as well as the explosion of mist. Many of his drawings and paintings capture the American Falls from above, showing the flat plane of the Niagara River, with the mysterious openness beyond the precipice.

The catalog for the exhibition includes rich, full-color images of the artist’s pastels and oil paintings as well as an interview with the artist and notes from his journal. He comments on “the immense accumulation of extraordinary, extreme light. In art that can only be white, so let’s start with the real dark.” The pastels have deep phthalo blues and umbers, which contrast with the white, allowing it to be that much brighter.

Nina Freudenheim is showing a collection of Kahn’s landscapes simultaneously. These works are representative of Kahn’s ongoing efforts that pair unusual colors such as orange and pink to describe the act of looking through trees to a sunny field. His colors are often surprising in their fauve-like brilliance, yet the description of the light and movement of foliage and brush is clear. The recent works in this exhibit reveal his fondness for the late works of Claude Monet. White Light is the best example of this. A large canvas, about four feet in height, is all yellows, white and green, and turns a field of grass into a field of light.

“Wolf Kahn: About the Falls” continues through November 12 at the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University. “Wolf Kahn: New Work” continues at Nina Freudenheim Gallery through May 17.

Beyond/In

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery with Hallwalls, CEPA, Big Orbit, El Museo, Buffalo Arts Studio and seven other institutions are starting to gather submissions for the 2007 Beyond/In Western New York international biennial exhibition that features the work of artists in the extended region. The deadline for submission of materials for review is June 1, 2006. Submission guidelines and the review process may be found at www.albrightknox.org.