From Our Archives: Michael Hoeh
Letha Wilson, Painted Hills Concrete Bend (Red White Blue) 2017. Courtesy Letha Wilon & GRIMM.
This interview was originally featured in Issue No. 17 — Enigma.
ANDREA BLANCH: What is the difference between a photographer being in an art gallery and a photo gallery?
MICHAEL: Photographers who are in contemporary art galleries tend to have more focus on artistic concept and message. They tend to be artists that use photography as a tool to make their art. They generally make small editions, or frequently, one of a kind works. There’s only one size because they value the relevance of size to the image. Frequently, I feel photographers represented by photo dealers are more in the printing business; they make large numbers of prints in each edition, with several different editions in “any size you want.” It’s more about numbers and sales than art concepts. Ryan McGinley, for example, doesn’t show at a photo dealer, his work is only available in one specific size for each image because it’s relevant to that image. Currently, I won’t collect new work that’s available in multiple sizes, or in editions over ten. It just raises the question, ‘Why is the artist doing this? Isn’t the size important?’ Artists like Paul Graham have done entire bodies of work about this issue, where there’s a sense of punctuation using image size. Images are in certain sizes and in a specific order because it’s important to what Graham is saying, as an artist with photography.
ANDREA: So what is your criteria for collecting?
MICHAEL: It has to be something original and special. In this mass photography world where anybody with a digital camera can take a nice sharp picture, and you can push a button to print it perfectly twenty times, you see a lot of common, banal work. It’s difficult for a photographer to do something new, to have a signature look and feel an original concept behind their work. I also have to be attracted to the physical object. It has to be something worth looking at every day. With great photography, the longer you look, over months or even years, you see different things. Your relationship to that special object will improve overtime.
Nan Goldin, The Hug, NYC, 1980 © Nan Goldin. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.
ANDREA: How long have you been collecting? How have you managed to broaden your horizon with everything that has changed over the years?
MICHAEL: I’ve been collecting for over twenty five years. The medium is changing so rapidly, that’s one of the reasons I started collecting photography. This is the medium of our lifetime. It’s wild to live in the era of this photographic revolution. For example, art history was hard to study without color photography. If you ask any- one today if they know the Mona Lisa, most people will say yes. But they’ve probably never stood in front of the actual painting. The study of art history has changed, the moving image and the computer/internet image— that’s all changed. I’m not even 50 years old, and so much has changed within my lifetime. So when I first started collecting, I was only collecting black and white, mostly New York street photography. It was a starting point, and color photography has clearly come into its own since the seventies. I started with Stephen Shore, and Joel Meyerowitz. It’s really incredible that you can still meet the legends of color photography and hear them talk about their work first hand. That was one of the main reasons for collecting photography, and like you said, the medium has changed, and because the medium has changed my collection has broadened out to include painting, video and sculpture, but it is still almost one hundred percent connected to American photography.
ANDREA: For you, what is the criteria between an artist who has lasting power and an artist of the moment?
MICHAEL: That’s hard to say because we’re in an era where artists are constantly being rediscovered. An artist of the moment is someone making lots of sales. A friend of mine is an abstract American painter, and he took me to a restaurant where there were several Bernard Buffet paintings. My friend immediately told me he thought they were tacky. I said yes, but they are also worth $100,000 each. We ate dinner and then the next morning I researched auction history, and found out I was totally wrong. The Buffet paintings were worth closer to half a million each. I was reading through a press release and there was a line that said, “at one point in history these were viewed as the apex of bad taste.” That’s how horrible people regarded theses paintings — these were the tackiest things to ever be produced. But as time goes by, art impressions clearly change. While I’m not a fan, I don’t look at Buffet paintings as being completely terrible. Things come back in style. As history moves we find new ways to see. Some artist’s careers only survived a blink of an eye, but they can be rediscovered at any point.
Catherine Opie, Trash, 1994. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
ANDREA: The art world is sometimes referred to as a cathedral. How does one enter?
MICHAEL: Just like churches, the art world is open to everyone, but just like religion it takes study, time, self-reflection and devotion. Your opinions are just as worthy as anyone’s. As a collector you are buying work that ultimately reflects you and your beliefs. So, you are buying yourself over and over again. It’s similar to religion, where everyone has their own take on it. As we grow, our beliefs on religion can change, similar to our opinions on the art we see and buy.
ANDREA: Have you ever had a bidding war?
MICHAEL: Definitely.
ANDREA: Which piece comes to mind?
MICHAEL: It happens in painting more often. I remember I was trying to buy a Pat Steir painting and it just got way out of my price range. When the Seagram’s Photography collection went up for auction, they had a very extensive collection put together by John Szarkowski. My appreciation for photography largely stems from him. At Dreyfus, we had great photo work all over the office. We had Robert Frank, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and many others. I was living with these photos everyday and I got to know John Szarkowski a little bit. I started to understand the corporate collection. To think he was helping with the Seagram’s collection at the same time. The new owners of Seagram’s didn’t want it and put it all up for auction at Phillips. I remember going to this auction when I was still pretty new at collecting and trying to buy some of Robert Frank’s American pieces and putting bids on everything. Of course I regret not taking the risk because now those pieces are worth so much more.
Daniel Gordon, Portrait with a Yellow Shoulder. Courtesy the artist and M+B Gallery, Los Angeles.
ANDREA: What other interests do you have besides art and photography?
MICHAEL: I love modern furniture. That chair is by Hans Wegner, the tables by Paul Evans. I love the sculptural aspects of it. My partner and I spend a lot of time looking into mid-century design. We went to the George Na- kashima studio in New Hope, PA the other day. George Nakashima died in 1990, but his daughter Mira is keeping the studio running.
ANDREA: What do you read?
MICHAEL: I sadly have so little time for fiction. As a trustee, I try to read all the new Aperture Foundation photobooks. I just finished Gordon Matta-Clark: Experience Becomes the Object, last weekend, he was a fascinating artist.
To view the full interview, visit Issue No. 17 — Enigma.
