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Biernoff often plays with doubling, finding connections inside the frame and out. Strike, 2021, the work that lends the show its title, depicts a splintered tree trunk and house with a mangled porch. In looping blue cursive on the verso, also carefully painted by Biernoff, a note describes the scene: “Smashed up house after the storm, July 1970.” Like the house, the photograph itself shows signs of damage—a column of yellow and pink discoloration disturbs the right side of the image, perhaps caused by water. 

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In other works, mirrors highlight the limits of what the camera could record—a reflected flash becomes a white haze, obscuring the picture-taker in Gathering, 2022. In Likeness, 2022, a man’s face is framed in a mirror on a crowded dresser, surrounded by snapshots and mementos. Installed on a small mirrored shelf, the reflections in the piece pile up, “creating a display that integrates with the painting rather than receding,” Biernoff writes.

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The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring all 12 paintings the artist has completed since mid-2021. Many of the works are reproduced to exact scale and, consistent with the previous publications, all paintings are reproduced recto and verso. 

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Elisheva Biernoff: Smashed Up House After the Storm

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The post Smashed Up House After the Storm appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

In recent work, Biernoff has remade postcards and posters and extended her practice to include faux fragments of the walls on which images are hung, using paint, wood, and other materials to recreate a range of surfaces and objects. We take a closer look, exploring the nuanced references and sources she draws from, and examining the infinitesimal details she records.

Beyond Our, one of Biernoff’s largest works to date, is an assemblage of three finely detailed paintings depicting a photograph, a poster, and a recreation of the wood-paneled wall on which they hang.

The hand-painted, asymmetrically shaped background resembles interior wood paneling from the 1970s. As Biernoff explains, “I was imagining the background as a section from a time capsule home, excised and brought into [the gallery], so it borrows an irregular trapezoidal shape from that era.”

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Elisheva BiernoffBeyond Our

2023

three acrylic paintings on wood, one painted both sides; pine frame, pushpins, 63-1/4 x 46-1/4 x 4-1/2 inches (overall) [160.7 x 117.5 x 11.4 cm]

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Beyond Our takes its title from a partially obscured bulletin board in the painted photograph, reading “God is -er beyond our.” In the image, a man stands in front of a dark, obscured hallway, with his hands covering his face, in a gesture of “despair or exhaustion or of being overwhelmed,” Biernoff writes. She links the gesture to a Judaic tradition of covering the eyes when saying certain prayers, a protection against “something [that] is too profound to see,” she notes. 

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Elisheva BiernoffBeyond Our

2023 (detail)

acrylic on wood, painted both sides, 5-7/8 x 4 inches [14.9 x 10.2 cm]

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Elisheva BiernoffBeyond Our

2023 (verso of detail)

acrylic on wood, painted both sides, 5-7/8 x 4 inches [14.9 x 10.2 cm]

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Biernoff also connects the pose to the Bible verse Luke 24, which is referenced in tiny letters on the bulletin board. Biernoff writes, “The passage is about the resurrection, and in it the apostles fail to recognize Jesus, and hide their faces from two angels. However one interprets the Bible, the idea of standing baffled before something incomprehensible is easy to relate to.”

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Elisheva BiernoffBeyond Our

2023 (detail)

acrylic painting on wood, pine frame, pushpins, 19-7/8 x 13-3/4 (large) [50.5 x 34.9 cm]

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Biernoff pairs the snapshot with a poster showing the “blue marble” photograph of earth, taken in 1972 by an astronaut on Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon. For Biernoff, the image represents the uneasy optimism that characterized American culture in the 1970s.

Biernoff presents the painted photograph and poster as two lone subjects floating in a darkened space, both touching on the mysteries of their respective solitude and reflecting the unsure nature of memory and belief.

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Fragment captures a black and white postcard of a sculpture pinned to a wood-paneled wall with a single pushpin, each element painted according to Biernoff’s meticulous style. The artist renders the postcard recto and verso, picturing on the front a twelfth-century stone relief by the French Romanesque sculptor Gislebertus originally installed in the north portal of the Cathedral of Saint Lazarus at Autun. As seen here, Eve moves through the Garden of Eden, one hand resting against her cheek in an ambiguous gesture and reaching with the other for the forbidden fruit.

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On the back of the postcard, Biernoff has invented lines from a fictionalized correspondence, painting a note “written” on the postcard’s verso. Told in the first person from the perspective of Eve, Biernoff’s text traces the unusual provenance of the sculpture throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Addressed to Nobel-prize winning Polish poet and essayist Wisława Szymborska, Biernoff invokes their shared fondness for fragmentation, asking “Do you call that resurrection or exile?”

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Brief history of the north portal lintel,
church of Saint-Lazare, Autun.
c. 1130 – 1766
Suspended, I watched pilgrims pass.

1766 – 1856
Tastes changed. Knocked down,
earthbound, I held up a house
(12 Rue de la Place du Champ de Mars).
Adam got lost.

1856 – the present
The house was demolished.
By a wonder, I was salvaged, then sold,
scrubbed and spotlit. Do you call that
resurrection or exile?

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The idea of displacement echoes throughout the piece. It is a feature of the story of the biblical Eve, banished from Eden for plucking fruit from the tree of knowledge. The lintel fragment has also been displaced—it was removed from the church doorway for which it was created and used in the foundation of a nearby house. “Even the background registers absence and removal,” Biernoff writes, noting the rectangular marks on the painted wood where pictures were removed. A single thumbtack, formed by the artist in fired clay, secures the postcard in place, secreting the note and attendant sun spot resting beneath. As Biernoff notes, Fragment is “a record of loss, but also of rediscovery, and of traces and ruins that persist.”

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Biernoff’s extension of the picture plane marks a shift in her practice, but wood paneling has been a motif in her work for many years. The artist’s attention has often been drawn to photographs of domestic spaces with warm-toned wooden walls, which date the pictures to a hard-to-pinpoint but not-so-distant past. In a 2015 painting of a Polaroid, the knotty pine background suggests the privacy of a basement or den, while the rings in the wood recall the swirl of galaxies in a night sky.

In contrast to the sense of communion evoked by many of the postcards and family photographs that serve as Biernoff’s sources, the artist is also drawn to curious moments of interiority. Biernoff’s meditative process seeks to glean the inner thoughts of her solitary subjects, all the while redirecting viewers’ attention to larger themes about human isolation and connection.

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In Solitaire, also featured in Smashed Up House After the Storm, Biernoff recreates a photograph of a woman in an interior space with round windows that suggest portals of a ship. The warm tones of a wooden section of her cabin wall are mirrored in the orange and red hues of the bed and chair, and curtains frame the windows. Despite the domestic elements of the scene—or perhaps because of them—the woman appears deeply alone, playing solitaire at sea. The ship’s homey interior only emphasizes the actual distance from home, in the same way the proximity of the photographer seems to underscore the subject’s solitude.

The post Elisheva Biernoff appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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Richard MisrachNancy Holt, Sun Tunnels #26

1988

pigment print, 61 x 76-3/4 inches (framed) [151.1 x 190.5 cm], edition of 3

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Richard Misrach’s series Desert Canto XL – Art in the West examines the way artists work in the American desert. His subjects included Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, the 1973-1976 Land Art project she created in Utah’s Great Basin. Misrach’s photographs of the piece were featured in Blind Spot Folios 001: Nancy Holt & Richard Misrach, a book pairing Misrach’s photographs from the site with material from Holt’s archive, including photo studies and a self-interview. ⁠

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Robert AdamsColorado Springs, Colorado

1968-71

gelatin silver print, 13 x 11 inches (mount) [33 x 27.9 cm]

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Roberts Adams’s​ view of a Colorado Springs gas station ​compares the glow of the evening sky with the electric light illuminating the gas pump. In the recent monograph American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams, Sarah Greenough ​writes about such juxtapositions​ in Adams’s work. 

“​Drawing on insights Hopper had given him into the ‘poignancy of light,’ [Adams] also began to savor the cool light of dusk​… Probing the liaison between the natural and the artificial, he explored the contrast between this evocative, tender light of dusk with its fleeting radiance and the harsh but still haunting glow of neon signs and streetlights that punctuated the darkness for hours on end​,”​ Greenough​ notes.

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Hiroshi SugimotoBrush Impression 0883 (Fire)

2023

gelatin silver print, 48-3/8 x 41 inches (framed) [122.9 x 104.1 cm], unique

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To create the one-of-a-kind calligraphic photographs in his Brush Impression series, Hiroshi Sugimoto paints Japanese characters onto light sensitive paper using photographic chemicals. Each unique piece records the movement of his brush across the surface of the paper, producing gestural shapes as well as splashes, bubbles, and traces of bristles. The kanji characters he selects often represent words for elemental forces—here he paints the character for fire. The meaning of each word is heightened and reinforced by the expressive qualities of each piece.

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Diane Arbus42nd Street movie theater audience, N.Y.C. 1958

gelatin silver print / printed by Diane Arbus, 11 x 13-3/4 inches (mount) [27.9 x 34.9 cm]

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As a lifelong moviegoer, Diane Arbus was attuned to the divergent ways a viewer responded to a photograph and a film. By turning her camera to the spectators of New York’s movie houses, marquee movie posters, and screened dramas, Arbus captured moments where people were able to escape reality, engaging with the grander fantasies presented to them on screen.

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Elisheva BiernoffBeyond Our

2023

three acrylic paintings on wood, one painted both sides; pine frame, pushpins, 63-1/4 x 46-1/4 x 4-1/2 inches (overall) [160.7 x 117.5 x 11.4 cm]

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Elisheva Biernoff’s meticulously painted reproductions of found photographs are often small enough to fit into the palm of a hand. In Beyond Our, her recreation expands to encompass a photograph and a larger poster, as well as the wood-paneled wall on which they are displayed, all rendered in highly detailed acrylic. Together, the objects suggest questions about the mysteries that lie beyond the frame.

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Sophie CallePortrait de Marie-Thérèse

2022

pigment print, 57-1/2 x 57-1/2 inches (framed) [146 x 146 cm], edition of 2

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Sophie CalleBaigneuse ouvrant une cabine

2022

pigment print, 47-1/4 x 38-1/4 inches (framed) [120 x 97.2 cm], edition of 2

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Sophie CallePortrait de Jacques Prévert

2022

pigment print, 38-3/4 x 26-1/4 inches (framed) [98.4 x 66.7 cm], edition of 2

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As part of a 2023 exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris commemorating the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death, Sophie Calle presented photographs of Picasso’s paintings kept covered by paper and linens during lockdown. Shown in tandem with Calle’s own work and possessions, which filled three floors of the museum, her photographs reckon with Picasso’s legacy and memory.

In The Simpson Verdict, Kota Ezawa animates original footage of the legal proceedings of the O.J. Simpson trial, reconstructing frames of the video to recreate the subtle motions and gestures of the participants. By simplifying the images, Ezawa forces the viewer to look more closely at nuances of expression and the issues of race and celebrity that the case evoked.

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Hiroshi SugimotoBay of Sagami, Enoura

2022

gelatin silver print, 60 x 71-3/4 inches (framed) [152.4 x 182.2 cm], edition of 5

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For decades, Hiroshi Sugimoto has photographed bodies of water around the world, creating the breathtaking Seascapes series. Bay of Sagami, Enoura is the first seascape made at Enoura Observatory, the headquarters of the Odawara Art Foundation, the organization founded by the artist. “Every time I view the sea,” Sugimoto writes, “I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.”

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Peter HujarRobert Bending (I)

1977

gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

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Peter Hujar often photographed his friends and fellow artists, emphasizing physicality and creating striking images of the body. These pictures encapsulated the relationships, music, and art that came to define the 1970s avant-garde scene in New York—as Hujar put it, he “liked people who dare.” Robert Levithan, a writer and one of Hujar’s lovers, was the subject of a series of nudes taken in the artist’s loft apartment turned studio.

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Wardell MilanNoelle lying in liberation

2022

silver leaf, acrylic, charcoal, graphite, china marker and color pencil on panel, 25-1/4 x 37-1/4 inches (framed) [64.1 x 94.6 cm]

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Wardell Milan has often depicted figures, especially marginalized bodies, in safe spaces—a distinction he sometimes conveys with color. “I try to embody love using color,” Milan noted recently. Often, the color he turns to is blue. “The many different tones of this color have come to represent affirmation, love, resilience and advocacy.” Using it, “I’m signaling to the viewer that this person or group of people, are to be championed, validated, and loved.”

Christian Marclay’s single-channel video incorporates thousands of images taken during his daily walks through London, animating them into a frenetic, flickering sequence​. The piece recalls flip-books, early cinema, and animation devices of the late nineteenth century, such as the zoetrope used by Eadweard Muybridge.

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Richard MisrachDiving Board, Salton Sea

1983

pigment print, 60-3/4 x 75-3/4 inches (framed) [154.3 x 192.4 cm], edition of 10

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An image from Desert Canto III: The Flood, one of the chapters from Richard Misrach’s long-running series focused on the American Southwest. The Flood depicts the Salton Sea, an artificial desert lake created in the 1900s, which grew into resort destination starting in the 1950s. Suffering from rising salinity and contamination from runoff, the lake became toxic, and by the 1980s many of the communities along its edges had been largely abandoned, leaving behind a surreal landscape.

The post Art Basel appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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Aptly beginning with a work titled Wrong 1966, Biernoff’s new paintings depict photographs that may be considered to have failed in a variety of ways. These “failures” include various forms of fading, sun flares, and color shifts, with elements that appear to be damaged or missing. In Him, 2018, a man in a suit is obscured by sunlight coming from behind, rendering him anonymous, and breaking photography’s classic taboo against placing a subject in front of bright light. A mysterious Polaroid verges on jarring abstraction in Instant, 2021, as dark grey patches of “damaged” emulsion appear to rend a light-dappled oceanscape.

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Biernoff’s double-sided paintings are displayed on stands that allow them to be viewed from multiple perspectives. Ripple, 2020, features figures on a sandy expanse with scribbled handwriting on the verso that references the odd look of the print: “Can’t figure out why the waves unless it’s the heat? Do you have any idea?”

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To accompany the painted works, Biernoff has created a set of 50 “mistake” postcards based on her own photographs, some with photographic errors, others altered to appear misprinted. Gallery visitors will be invited to select a card to take home.

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The post Starting from Wrong appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by Mishka Henner’s 2015 video I’m Not the Only One, in which Henner digitally combines 18 videos sourced from YouTube. Henner combined individual videos of people, alone in their bedrooms and makeshift studios, performing Sam Smith’s hit song of the same title. Stitched together, these solo performances transform the song’s lonely angst into a powerful yet immaterial chorus of solidarity and connection. Ironically, the current Covid-19 climate has treated us to a myriad of similar choirs from around the world, intentionally singing alone together.

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Katy GrannanSchatzi, Gerlach, Nevada

2018

pigment print, 29 x 39 inches (image, sheet & mount) [73.7 x 99.1 cm]

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In the second gallery, Nan Goldin’s French Chris on the convertible, NYC, 1979, presents a figure lost in his own swoon, suggesting an ecstatic kind of solitude. Also on view are images that alternately highlight the physical and emotional space between subjects. In Richard Misrach’s Boy Scouts, Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, Nevada, 1991, children stand in waist-deep water, dispersed in an arrangement that suggests the complexity of adolescent friendships. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s interactive piece was inspired by a time when the couple was apart, and often talked by phone. In it, a vintage telephone has been installed in the gallery. Picking up the receiver, a woman’s voice recounts her disjointed dream.

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Christian MarclayTelephones

1995

single-channel video with sound, 7 minutes, 30 seconds

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Christian Marclay’s seminal 1995 video Telephones is the gravitational force in the final room of the exhibition. This skillfully edited arrangement of clips from movies shows people using telephones the way they were originally intended to be used: dialing, ringing, greeting, and listening. The carefully sequenced fragments coalesce into a conversation between speakers who never seem to connect. In the same room, Johnnie Chatman’s series I Forgot Where We Were… depicts the artist alone in the grand vistas of the West. Set in the romantic and expansive American landscape, Chatman’s silhouette presents a stark image of individuality and isolation.

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There is a Portuguese word, saudade [pron:saa·deidz], that does not exist in English. More nuanced than melancholy or bittersweet, saudade is a subtle yet enduring desire for something other than the present. Deep inside this word is the sense that the thing for which one longs may never be had again, while acknowledging that longing for the past would detract from the anticipation for the future. Saudade is likely what most of us are feeling right about now.

-Frish Brandt

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Alec SothFacebook, Menlo Park, California

2013

pigment print, 44 x 57 inches (framed) [112 x 145 cm]

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Katy GrannanAlexa

2018

pigment print, 58-1/4 x 44-1/4 inches (framed) [148 x 112.4 cm]

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Hiroshi SugimotoMK2 Biblothéque, Paris

2005

gelatin silver print, 18-7/8 x 22-3/4 inches (sheet) [47.9 x 57.8 cm]

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Diane ArbusLady in a Roominghouse Parlor, Albion, N.Y.

1963

gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

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Alec SothWilliam Eggleston, Memphis, TN, 2000

2018

chromogenic print, 33 x 41 inches (framed) [83.8 x 104.1 cm]

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Richard LearoydFemale nude with mirror

2016

unique Ilfochrome photograph, 80-3/8 x 59-7/8 inches (framed) [204.2 x 152.1 cm]

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Alec SothPark Hyatt Hotel, Tokyo (Mirror)

2015

pigment print, 42 x 32 (framed) [107 x 82 cm]

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Diane ArbusKiss from “Baby Doll,” N.Y.C. 1956

gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]

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Lee FriedlanderGalax, Virginia

1962

gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]

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Lee FriedlanderNew York City, 1963

gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]

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Johnnie ChatmanSelf Portrait, John Ford Point, 2018

2019

pigment print, 37 x 53 inches (framed) [94 x 135 cm]

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Sophie CallePatrick X, Sixteenth Sleeper

1979

8 gelatin silver prints & 1 text panel, 19 x 24-3/4 inches (overall, approximately) [48.3 x 62.9 cm]

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Peter HujarChuck Gretsch (with Cigar)

1981

gelatin-silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

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Peter HujarDavid Wojnarowicz

1981 / printed later

pigment print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

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Wardell MilanEdward

2019

cut and pasted printed paper, 14-3/4 x 12-3/4 inches (framed) [37.5 x 32.4 cm]

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Nan GoldinFrench Chris on the convertible, NYC

1979

pigment print, 31-3/4 x 46-7/8 inches (framed) [80.7 x 119.1 cm]

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Ralph Eugene MeatyardUntitled

1963

gelatin silver print, 8 x 10 inches (sheet) [20.3 x 25.4 cm]

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Janet Cardiff & George Bures MillerI Can’t Remember (World Turning)

2010

telephone, solid state playback device, 6 x 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches [15.24 x 22.23 x 13.97 cm]

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Richard MisrachBoy Scouts and Fremont’s Pyramid, Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, Nevada

1991

pigment print, 61 x 77 inches (framed) [155 x 195.6 cm]

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“To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweet as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know anything so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing — the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries.”

—Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

The post I’m Not the Only One appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

As Jeffrey Fraenkel explains, “Long Story Short is essentially a sliver of photography’s tasty pie, a tight group of objects that includes works by established masters as well as flea-market finds. Viewers may recognize many of the names, but most of the images will be surprises—and quite a few are anonymous images about which we know almost nothing. Here, in the thick of our digital era, we still believe that the physical presence of artworks can affect a person in the deepest ways.”

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Man RayUntitled [Banjo]

1923

gelatin silver print, 19-3/4 x 15-3/8 inches (image & sheet) [50.2 x 40 cm]

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Long Story Short begins with an anonymous daguerreotype, circa 1849, of a young woman holding a daguerreotype in her lap and continues with pivotal photographs by Charles Aubry, Carleton Watkins, Eugene Atget, and E.J. Bellocq. The story develops with photographs by Berenice Abbott, Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, and lesser-known 20th-century works by Helen Levitt, Romare Bearden, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston. The evaporation of walls separating photography and other media is reflected in more recent works by Sophie Calle, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Mel Bochner, Wardell Milan, Elisheva Biernoff, and Liz Deschenes—artists whose work is not strictly, or not at all, photography.

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Photographer UnknownUntitled [Dinosaur Balloon]

November 25, 1969

gelatin silver print, 8 x 9-5/8 inches (sheet) [20.3 x 24.5 cm]

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Long Story Short offers a deliberate alternative to the onslaught of disposable imagery now part of everyday experience, and was conceived to reward sustained engagement. Both the exhibition and the book lead the viewer through an abbreviated tour of photography’s 180-year evolution. Fraenkel Gallery president Frish Brandt noted, “The range of artists and images provides for a vibrant first-person experience, whether seen in the gallery or in the book.”

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Elisheva Biernoff’s hypnotically detailed works are based on found, anonymous photographs which are painted to exact scale as faithfully as possible. The paintings are made on thin sheets of sanded wood measuring approximately 3-1/2 inches in height or width.

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The subjects of Biernoff’s paintings are typically strangers and landscapes that evince an atmosphere of uncertainty and melancholy. The images frequently depict figures in enigmatic settings, and the relations among the people are likewise ambiguous. An example is Exposure (2017), a faded portrait of an American soldier posing in a jungle; inscribed on the verso are the words “Me. Wish I was Home.”

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Her paintings are displayed on small, handmade stands that allow the viewer to glimpse the reverse sides, which are painted with equal detail and finesse. The backs of the photographs often carry industrial markings (for example, “THIS PAPER MANUFACTURED BY KODAK”) or personal inscriptions such as “Gary + Paul 1951,” all rendered by the artist in paint.

On occasion of the exhibition Fraenkel Gallery has published Elisheva Biernoff, the first monograph devoted to the artist’s work. The book has 45 illustrations reproducing fourteen of the artist’s paintings—front and back—at actual scale and in extraordinary detail. More information about the catalogue is available here.

The post Paintings appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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Alec SothRiverview Motel

2005

pigment print, 49-1/8 x 41-1/8 inches (framed) [124.8 x 104.5 cm]

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How I Learned to See is organized by six sections or “chapters” on the subjects of loneliness, love, aging, solitude, beauty, and discovery. Yanagihara has selected an idiosyncratic mix, with iconic and less familiar works by 12 artists: Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Elisheva Biernoff, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Peter Hujar, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Richard Misrach, Nicholas Nixon, Alec Soth, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

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Robert AdamsColorado Springs, Colorado

1968

gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [36.5 x 27.9 cm]

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As a preface, the exhibition begins with an early work by Peter Hujar, Girl Throwing Ball, Southbury (I), 1957, which depicts a girl playing in a field at a state facility for adults with intellectual disabilities.

The first chapter, on loneliness, features The Backwards Man in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1961 by Diane Arbus; a photograph of a desolate motel at night by Alec Soth; Robert Adams’s picture of a solitary figure in a suburban home; a Nicholas Nixon photograph of an AIDS patient; and an affecting recent portrait by Katy Grannan.

The second section of How I Learned to See explores love, including couples by Arbus; erotic works by Nan Goldin; Elisheva Biernoff’s painting based on a found photograph; and two pictures from Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s Lucybelle Crater series (1970-72), showing pairs posing contentedly in humorous and disfiguring masks.

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Nan GoldinClemens and Jens embracing in my hall, Paris

2001

Cibachrome print, 28-1/2 x 41 inches (framed) [72.4 x 104.1 cm]

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Chapter 3, on aging, begins with a photograph by Arbus of a former beauty, heavily made up while smoking in bed (Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, 1938 Debutante of the Year, at home, Boston, Mass. 1966). Another highlight of this section is a group of eight works from Nixon’s series The Brown Sisters, for which he has photographed his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters annually over the course of 41 years.

The following section explores solitude through works by Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, and Arbus, as well as Adams’ celebrated photograph of an illuminated gas station at night (Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, 1969).

Beauty is the theme of the Chapter 5, for which the curator has selected two seldom seen portraits by Hujar from the late 1950s; Callahan’s iconic portrait of his wife in the water, with her eyes closed and hair floating on the surface (Eleanor, Chicago, 1949); and a luminous work by Goldin (Pawel on the beach laughing, Positano, 1996).

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Richard MisrachUntitled (Hawaii XV)

1978

pigment print, 56-1/2 x 69-1/2 inches (framed) [143.5 x 176.5 cm]

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The final chapter features work that suggests the position of an outsider coming upon an unfamiliar subject and milieu, including Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Mandrill, 1980, from his Diorama series; Soth’s photograph of a single light bulb hanging above a mysterious clearing in the trees; as well as a pair of pictures by Richard Misrach, shot in Hawaii at night, in which a harsh flash captures the odd tangle of vegetation against the shadowy background of a dense tropical forest.

The post How I Learned to See: An (Ongoing) Education in Pictures, Curated by Hanya Yanagihara appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.