Fama & Fortune Bulletin Christoffer Wool

This issue of the Fama & Fortune Bulletin presents a haunting photographic series by Christopher Wool, created in response to a fire that destroyed his studio on 9th Street in New York in 1996.

Comprising 13 black-and-white gelatin silver prints, the publication takes the form of a stark, almost forensic visual report. The photographs show scorched interiors and collapsed structures—void of human presence and stripped of sentiment—marking a quiet but potent reflection on loss and material transformation.
The publication is closely related to Wool’s limited edition portfolio Incident on 9th Street (1997), consisting of 13 signed silver prints in an edition of 12. This portfolio is held in major museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art (Acc. no. P.2011.489a–m), and has appeared at international auctions (Phillips, Sotheby’s) with prices ranging from £30,000 to £40,000.
Incident on 9th Street aligns with Wool’s broader photographic practice, seen in works such as Absent Without Leave (1993) and East Broadway Breakdown (2003). Across these bodies of work, Wool approaches urban environments with a painter’s sensitivity to pattern, rhythm, and surface tension.
This artist publication is also included in major monographs and catalogues:
• Christopher Wool, edited by Hans Werner Holzwarth (Köln, 2012), p. 25
• Christopher Wool, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1998), pp. 129, 131, 192, 226, 263