Contributing Dealer and Art Consultant Damon Brandt

“The Refco Collection began with the essential notion, on the part of its instigator, Frances Dittmer, that the art on the walls of a corporate office could be challenging and reflective of the time and ideas in which they are situated.”*

The Refco Collection of Photography was a critical and significant extension of this original philosophy. As a private dealer, Damon Brandt was directly responsible for the identification and the sourcing of a considerable number of signature works of art from this distinguished collection, a selection of which are shown adjacently. The entire collection was later sold in 2006 as a single owner sale with great success by Christie’s in New York.

*Adam Brooks, Refco on-site curator

Subjective Realities: The Refco Collection of Contemporary Photography Catalogue

An Exhibition of Figurative and Abstract Art from Africa and the Pacific

Curated by Damon Brandt and Tim Hunt

Hunt Fine Arts, New York

2015

The chance to join forces with Tim Hunt, a veteran of Christie’s, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and now a private dealer, appealed to me as a perfect fit for my nomadic approach to curatorial collaboration.  We both share a keen interest in the vocabulary of cross-cultural aesthetics and have an extended and deeply committed involvement in both the fields of contemporary and tribal art. Housed in an apartment on the third floor of a discreet townhouse off Fifth Avenue, Tim’s gallery is a throwback to a more intimate time in the art world. He is a scholar of the ephemeral, a great story teller, and a connoisseur of the arts. 

The gallery - typically open only by appointment - scheduled public hours and held salon style evenings fueled by ample supplies of good rosé wine.  The exhibition had a wide range of 19th and 20th century woven textiles, featuring tapa cloth, a celebrated ancient tribal tradition of painting and drawing on beaten bark. There were extraordinary examples from the Lake Sentani and Baining cultures located in New Guinea, a highly refined man’s kilt from Fortuna Island, and a group of Mbuti Pygmy skirts from Central Africa, amongst other notable works of art.

Interview with Tim Hunt

Booth Concept & Design by Damon Brandt, Jennifer Tripp, and Leslie Simitch

The Armory Show booth was a public launch and branding opportunity to introduce The Magnum Foundation to the art community. The back wall of the installation highlighted iconic and classic imagery framed and installed salon style which provided an immediate recognition of weight and history of The Magnum Foundation.

The two side walls, each installed with a thin layer of cork to mimic a bulletin board were regarded as “Project Walls”. These project walls were changed each day to create a dynamic pairing of two projects by two different photographers with an eye for pairing a narrative series that had achieved significant historical attention with a more contemporary but equally distinctive body of work by a photographer that had a high recognition factor within the contemporary art world.

Curated by Damon Brandt
Presented by Third Streaming
Published by Christophe Daviet-Thery Éditions

In 2008, John Bock was approached by editor Christophe Daviet-Thery with the idea of creating an artist’s book. Bock was initially inspired by a Japanese children’s book shaped like an insect, which morphed into his first idea of creating a book in the form of his own silhouette, featuring a classic studio portrait on the cover. He later rejected this idea as too confining, and arrived at a subsequent meeting with Christophe Daviet-Thery in Berlin with a doll-like figure tucked in the child’s seat of his bicycle. From that point on, Bock’s book project evolved into a collection of standing figures or ‘puppets’—each stylized and patterned individually by the artist and his personal tailor, adorned with unique and colorful headgear, and equipped with hand-embroidered cloth ‘books’ inspired by Japanese scrolls.

With Howdy Bamington, John Bock has produced a project where the impulse to design a more traditional book eventually developed into the complex fabrication of a self-portrait of the artist as a ‘puppet’—a figure of uncommon humor, innocence, and personal style. Bock’s ‘puppets’ were conceptually connected to the notions of performance, provocation, and manipulation—all central to his practice.

Christophe Daviet-Thery of CDT Éditions is most content when challenging the definition of a book. Through a collaborative process, CDT Éditions encourages artists to push the boundaries of what a book can be by offering them the opportunity to experiment with this medium. The complete edition of 30 ‘puppets’ were presented at Third Streaming in collaboration with Christophe Daviet-Thery Éditions and Damon Brandt.

Follow the link for a discussion with the artist lead by the Berlinische Galerie: John Bock. Im Moloch der Wesenspräsenz

Studio Visit

Photography by Damon Brandt

The studio visit is an opportunity for intimacy and understanding that is uniquely helpful in the pursuit of decoding the complexity of artistic intent. This is part of an ongoing series of Salt Mine Projects which attempts to record a less public facet of the artistic process. Sincere thanks in advance to every artist who opens their door and allows for a photo narrative of the experience.

Not Vital is an artist living in the Engadin, Switzerland. A link to detailed biographical and visual information is available on this site.

Damon Brandt and Andrew Zuckerman

Chamber, New York

Andrew Zuckerman is one of the most diversely talented and accomplished people I know.  In the late Spring of 2015,  he was approached by Chamber, a design driven gallery located in Chelsea, New York to work on a year long exhibition titled Chamber Collection #2. Studio Job had been in a comparable position the year before,  supervising the dynamic and well publicized Collection #1. 

“As an artist, I’ve been deeply invested in an exploration of the natural world. So when I was approached about assembling Collection #2 for Chamber, it felt right to delve into the conversation between design and nature and its function in our living spaces. The show encompasses a collection of objects that reflect a meeting point between man and the environment”  - Andrew Zuckerman

The exhibition is appropriately titled Human/Nature. Salt Mine Projects acted as Andrew's advisor on how to integrate ancient art and authentic artifacts from tribal cultures into his concept. However, our open ended dialogue more often extends well past the specific and into the more playful and mind bending realm of the conceptual. It is in within this framework of connecting as kindred spirits and intellectual climbing partners that I am proud to be a part of the resulting exhibition that successfully launched in early October 2015 with 46 pieces from all over the world.

18th & 19th Century Japanese Erotic Prints and the Echo in Modern and Contemporary Art

Curated by Damon Brandt and Andrew Freiser

Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, New York

What began as a dialogue regarding the undeniable aesthetic connections between John Wesley and the tradition of the Japanese erotic prints, morphed into the concept for an exhibition that ultimately included a wide range of modern and contemporary artists as catalysts and/or touchstones for the very comparisons and contradictions that were under initial discussion. This exhibition did not pretend to be an academic exercise, but rather it presented the curators with an opportunity to experiment with these references, relationships and at times, amusing associations.

New York Times Review
 

Curated by Damon Brandt & Steven Kasher
Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

The grid has been used as a graphic, photographic, architectural, sociological, and conceptual means of investigating the connections and frictions between similar — and seemingly similar — images. It can be found in the aesthetic rigors of the factory facades photographed by Bernd and Hilla Becher or in the less-self-conscious collection of suspects on the bulletin board of a local police station.

This exhibition looked at various ways the grid as installation can be used to disrupt and illuminate social categories. It featured grids of work by Mapplethorpe, Emory Douglas, the Bechers, Walker Evans, Mike Disfarmer, the Minneapolis Police Department, the Associated Press, the lRT Corporation, Warhol and others. The exhibition intended to underscore and undermine the implicit power in the language of repetition and association. It exhibited a grid of themes, including: the portrait as incarceration, the bureaucratic gaze returned, and the repetitions of repressive choreography. It featured solemn studio portraits of male “friends,” the obsessive documentation of a country mourning an assassination, and Mapplethorpe’s 1979 portraits of the Soho art dealers.

Without specific design, I found early on in my career as a gallerist that site specific installation and architectural intervention was a pre-occupation of mine. This was evident in my choice of artists to represent and the exhibition programs that followed. Amongst the many artists that I worked with during that period, David Ireland was certainly amongst the most personal and rewarding of relationships that I experienced. He was older and much wiser and instinctively deepened the keel of our venture. Both my staff and I benefited greatly from our association with his gentle character and brilliant approach to what he saw and how he could change the experience of looking with a diverse vocabulary of physical gesture. The evenings spent at 500 Capp Street with David, copper colored reflections on the floor as the sun set in the San Francisco light, meals taken later in a darkened object filled dining room, made sense of it all. An artist living and creating in an environment as unique as the mind that lived under that crown of white hair. RIP.

500 Capp Street Foundation for David Ireland

Primal Redux is an ongoing curatorial collaboration between Damon Brandt, Subi Liang and Pang Cheung.

Pang Cheung is a prolific film director, photographer, and writer. He has published over 30 works, winning the Pusan PPP Award as well as the Taiwan Times Literary Award. Since 2001 he has directed thirteen films, winning Best Screenplay at the 7th Hong Kong Golden Bauhinia Awards, and Best Debut Director at the HKsar 10th Anniversary Film Awards. In 2006, Isabella attracted international recognition at the 56th Berlin Film Festival, winning the Silver Bear award. 

In 2008, Polaroid announced that it would stop manufacturing instant film. In response, Pang stockpiled a large cache of it.  It was to be the perfect medium for a project that he initiated soon after, which he titled Primal Redux.  He solicited couples, whom he found through the internet, and requested and received permission to photograph their sexual encounters, intimate behavior, and clandestine meetings. Much to his surprise, the majority of responses came from young couples living in mainland China. The resulting narrative is a rare, compositionally authoritative, compassionate, and remarkably revealing documentation of Chinese youth culture at play.

Over a two year period, Pang shot 3,000 polaroids of 36 couples for Primal Redux. Because of the chemical instability of the expired film, often the images would become obscured or altered by the fluid and chromatic intrusions. Pang embraced these ‘mistakes,’ and deftly incorporated them into the provocative series.

There is a long and storied legacy of the synergetic mixing of modern art and tribal sculpture in the context of collecting art. Gertrude Stein, Pierre Matisse, William Rubin and Dominique de Menil are amongst a legion of highly esteemed curators and collectors that understood the complimentary nature of exhibiting ancient works of art with contemporary aesthetics. It has been a specific strength and expertise of Damon Brandt Arts to work with individuals interested in pursuing a multi-cultural approach to collecting. The vibrant beauty and resonance of this private home in Aspen is a living testament to this inspirational brand of connoisseurship.

The Collection of Frances R. Dittmer

Photography by Damon Brandt
Book Design by Linseed Projects

Read a complete digital copy of the book here 

Read the Spanish digital copy of the book here 

Hospice is a self-published book that records, through a narrative sequence of photographs, the final days of a man’s life in a room at the Cabrini Hospice. It is at once deeply personal and universalizing, wrenching and soothing. Alone at times, but more often with family and friends, or the staff of this precious organization, it is a complete portrait of the last stage. We are witness to his passing, surrounded by the apparent compassion and concern of those who care and love him.

The book was designed by Damon Brandt and Shanan Kurtz, of Linseed Projects, a graphic designer living in Toronto. It features a narrative series of 23 photographs and a moving preface written by Forrest Church, Minister of Public Theology at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City.

The photographs were taken by Damon Brandt over a ten day period at the Cabrini Hospice, New York in 2002.

Project Designer: Damon Brandt
UNICEF Office, New York City

When the United States Committee for UNICEF moved into their brand new architecturally distinguished offices in the heart of New York City’s financial district they hired us to design a series of compelling displays that would engage the viewer through a narrative of objects and photographs. With a storied history of ground breaking and life saving initiatives around the world, each case and/or architectural environment highlighted the past and current activities and accomplishments of this unique organization. The success of this work subsequently led to another exhibition design request by Jeremy Hartley, Chief Communication Officer for UNICEF which was installed at the United Nation’s Danny Kaye Visitor’s Centre in New York City in celebration of the international gathering of all the heads of the National Committees for UNICEF.

A group show featuring Andre Kertesz’s seminal Distortions series

Curated by Damon Brandt in collaboration with Liam Derik Van Loenen and Bruce Silverstein

Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

2018

Working with the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, with its legacy of handling historically and aesthetically significant material, was a welcomed opportunity. Bruce consistently finds untapped resources of under-recognized aesthetic and financial value within the wide visual bandwidth of photography. Kertesz’s Distortions is a case in point. In close collaboration with the gallery’s director, Liam Derik Van Loenen (who brought to the table a creative and courageous instinct for casting a much wider net than Hilton Kramer imagined when he wrote his laudatory introduction to Distortions  [Knopf, 1976] ), we assembled a provocative and inspired exhibition. The checklist included artists as diverse as Ana Mendieta, John Coplans, David Smith and Sarah Lucas. On opening night,  the assembled works created a powerful confluence of diverse intent creating a sum larger than its separate parts.

The following was written by Joshua Baer, a Santa Fe art dealer with a storied reputation. Joshua Baer writes a monthly column about wine called “One Bottle.” You can read his columns here.

Twenty years ago, when I first started buying and selling art, I asked myself what it meant to be an art dealer. How did an art dealer act? What kind of art did an art dealer like? How did he make decisions? What did he say? How did he cultivate his clients? How did he cultivate himself? Twenty years later, I’m still asking myself those questions. Every once in a while, I make a sale and think I know the answers. Then I make a mistake and remind myself that I don’t. One of the lessons being an art dealer has taught me is that buying and selling art is as much about asking questions as it is about knowing answers.

One of the questions collectors always ask is, “How do you know it’s not a fake?” They never ask, “How do you know it’s real?” Which strikes me as odd, because the two questions are the same question. If you know what’s real, you know what’s fake, and vice versa. Collectors spend a lot of time worrying about buying fake works of art, but you never hear a collector complain about fake art dealers. Which is also odd, because you can lose a lot more money buying real art from a fake art dealer than buying fake art from a real dealer. If you buy a fake from a real dealer, you take back the fake and the real art dealer refunds your money. Only a fake art dealer would refuse to refund your money if he got caught selling you a fake.

On the other hand, if you take a real work of art to a fake art dealer and say, “I need to raise some money,” the fake art dealer will spend twenty minutes explaining why he can’t sell your work of art. The market is slow. He has nobody for it. You paid too much. He just bought a masterpiece. He’s about to leave for Europe. These are the kinds of excuses fake art dealers make. The common denominator is that a fake art dealer won’t stand behind the art he sells. In that sense, a fake art dealer takes wine and turns it into water – the kind of water nobody wants to drink. I want four things from life. I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good father. I want to learn about life from the art I buy and sell. And, last but not least, I want to be a real art dealer. I don’t want to fool my clients, my friends, my enemies, or myself. No matter how rich you are or what kind of taste you have, genuine art keeps you honest. I have learned this the hard way.