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Carrie Mae WeemsThe North Star

2022

seven archival pigment prints framed with convex glass, 116-1/2 x 37 inches (overall installed) [295.9 x 93.9 cm]

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In Carrie Mae Weems’s The North Star, 2022, the artist explores a painful family story in which her grandfather, Frank Weems, a tenant farmer and union activist, disappeared after being attacked by a white mob in Earle, Arkansas, in 1936. Though he was presumed dead, he narrowly escaped and made his way to Chicago on foot by following the North Star, but was never able to reunite with his family. The work makes an apt metaphor for Frank Weems’s life and the longer history of the bright star, Polaris, which helped guide those escaping slavery. Extended across a long, horizontal plane, the photographs make up an alternative starry night sky, while highlighting the central image, around which the others extend like the branches of a family tree. 

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Hiroshi SugimotoEiffel Tower

1998

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

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The Eiffel Tower remains an iconic element of Parisian architecture, visible even from within the walls of the Grand Palais Éphémère, where this year’s Paris Photo again takes place. In Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographic reinterpretation, the artist pictures the 1889 monument slightly out of focus and isolated from its urban context. Thus, the details of the iron framework fall away, leaving only the contours of its recognizable shape. The photograph becomes a testament to the timelessness of the tower and the ongoing aims of science, industry, and innovation. 

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Hiroshi SugimotoBrush Impression 0859 (Fire)

2023

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

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In Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Brush Impression, the artist draws upon his study of Japanese calligraphy to record the movement of his brush across the surface of the paper, producing gestural shapes as well as splashes, bubbles, and traces of bristles. Rather than using ink, however, Sugimoto paints with darkroom chemicals on gelatin silver paper to produce striking black and white compositions. Here, the fluidity of the brushstrokes mirrors the kanji character for the elemental expression of water.

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An 1880 photograph of a Siamese theater troupe pictures the stage from across the room, widening its view to encompass also the audience at far left. The slightly long exposure captures the movements of the central figures, along with their delicate gestures of touch, like a foot resting on another’s knee, and a hand pressing against a back.

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Wardell MilanThe Engineer

2022

graphite, oil paste, cut-and-pasted paper on yupo paper, 11-5/8 x 9-3/8 inches (framed) [29.53 x 23.8 cm]

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Wardell Milan’s character study, The Engineer, combines collaged photographs, colored pencil, graphite, and paint to construct an “exquisite corpse” of multiple body parts and their shifting perspectival views. A bit of an engineer himself, the artist playfully combines the pieces of his multi-media works to explore the duality between marginalization and the freedom of expression.

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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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To compose this photograph of friend Chuck Gretsch, Peter Hujar stooped to his level, positioning his camera intimately close to the supine figure. Imbuing his photographs with the intimacy that so often determined his relationships with subjects, Hujar pairs the introspective gaze of his sitter with a column of curling smoke, rising ever so lightly from the cigar gripped between his lips.

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Diane ArbusChrist in a lobby, N.Y.C. 1964

gelatin silver print / printed by Neil Selkirk, 10-7/8 x 10 inches (sheet) [27.6 x 25.4 cm], edition of 75

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This curious photograph of an illuminated portrait of Christ in a New York lobby exhibits the kind of strange dualities that interested Diane Arbus throughout her career. The reflection of the portrait in the marbled surface of the adjoining wall not only duplicates the image in reverse, but projects a ghostly likeness of the holy figure, like the stained record that is the Veil of Veronica.

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Eadweard MuybridgeA: Ascending incline. B: Ascending incline with a 50-lb. dumbbell. C: Descending incline. D: Descending incline with a 50-lb. dumbbell

1887

collotype, 19 x 24 inches (sheet) [48.3 x 61 cm]

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From 1884 to 1887, Eadweard Muybridge amassed an impressive compendium of photographic studies on human and animal locomotion. Developed as tools for artists and scientists, Muybridge’s photographs documented anonymous figures, clothed or naked, in a variety of movements. Though the title does not suggest it, the figure pictured is Muybridge himself.

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Carleton E. WatkinsNevada Fall, 700 ft., Yosemite

1861

mammoth-plate albumen print, 32 x 36-1/2 inches (framed) [82 x 93 cm]

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From Carleton Watkins’s first Yosemite trip in 1861, this mammoth-plate photograph frames Nevada Falls within a long-exposure look at the Merced River below. This work is signed on the recto by the artist himself and was exhibited in the pivotal Watkins retrospective which took place at the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is being offered for the first time.

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Hiroshi SugimotoPinon Juniper Forest

2012

gelatin silver print, 60 x 80-1/2 inches (framed) [152.4 x 204.5 cm], edition of 5

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The dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History—which transport viewers to far-flung corners of the globe at various moments in history—have long fascinated Hiroshi Sugimoto. During a 2012 visit to the museum, the artist positioned his camera at a particular vantage point before the artificial scene from where the viewer’s illusion of total immersion within the landscape could be achieved.

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Richard MisrachSubmerged Gas Pumps, 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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The third chapter of Richard Misrach’s series, Desert Cantos, “The Flood,” focuses on the Salton Sea of Southern California, a lake created by an engineering mistake at the beginning of the twentieth century. A popular tourist destination throughout the 1950s and 60s, excessive irrigation flooded the area further, leaving infrastructure like these gas pumps eerily submerged and the water at risk of contamination. The fraught history of the desert landscape, and its political turmoil, remains subtly coded within Misrach’s picturesque depiction.

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Robert AdamsShopping center. Wheat Ridge, Colorado

1968-71

gelatin silver print, 13 x 11 inches (mount) [33.0 x 27.9 cm]

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Apart from the expansive views of Colorado’s Front Range, Robert Adams’s photographic studies of the mid-century suburban expansion outside of Denver captured more intimate scenes of everyday life, like this parking lot outside the local grocery store. A line of cars obfuscates the natural horizon beyond, yet a resilient tree rises into frame alongside the shop signs reflecting America’s car-centric culture.

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Harry DutchyshynMPRTC 8801-1 TSU, Camp Gordon, Georgia, Company C

1953

gelatin silver print, 19-3/4 x 12 inches (sheet) [50.2 x 30.5 cm]

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American military photographer Harry Dutchyshyn emigrated in 1926 from Austria to the U.S., where he worked as the post photographer at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey before transferring to Camp Gordon in Georgia after the Second World War. Dutchyshyn’s 1953 portrait of the 229 soldiers of the camp’s Company C was taken weeks after the end of the Korean War, and just five years after President Harry Truman’s executive order desegregating the United States Military. The changing racial makeup of the armed services in the aftermath of an intense period of global conflict is reflected in the class portrait, which includes the last names and hometowns of the individuals pictured.

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Bernd & Hilla BecherGrain Elevator [Getreideheber], Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.

1982

gelatin silver print, 20-5/8 x 24 inches (sheet) [52.4 x 61 cm], edition of 5

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Grain elevators, which afforded agricultural production the privilege of industrial scale, were a longtime subject for Bernd and Hilla Becher. Approaching this example near Buffalo, New York, the husband and wife duo photographed their subject according to the “impersonal” and “uninflected” style consistent throughout their career. Yet the lettering adorning its surface, as well as the line of railroad tracks and surrounding buildings, imbue the site with a sense for its unique character.

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When Dadaist and Surrealist Man Ray began his renowned series of photograms (i.e., Rayographs) shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1921, he layered atop photosensitive paper everyday objects such as thumbtacks, coils, combs, and more. Here, Kota Ezawa’s reinterpretation further symbolizes the rudimentary forms that have become canonical in the history of photography. Installed as a lightbox, Ezawa’s “remix” re-animates the dreamlike image hovering somewhere between abstraction and representation.

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Carrie Mae WeemsPyramids of Rome – Ancient Rome

2006

digital chromogenic print, 73-1/2 x 61-1/2 inches (framed) [186.7 x 156.2 cm], edition of 5

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In the 2006 series of self-portraits, Carrie Mae Weems situates herself within monumental landscapes and sweeping vistas in and around Rome. Dressed in a long black dress with her back turned toward the camera, Weems confronts iconic architectural sites dotting the city and, in turn, the structures of power they symbolize. As Weems states, “You are always aware that you are sort of a minion in relationship to this enormous edifice—the edifice of power.”

The post Paris Photo appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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Nan GoldinSelf-portrait on the train, Boston – New Haven

1997

pigment print, 32 x 32 inches (framed) [82 x 82 cm], edition of 15

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Nan Goldin is the subject of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the award-winning 2022 film directed by Laura Poitras, which follows the artist’s life and her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the U.S. opioid crisis. The artist has often pictured herself, documenting her journey with all its pleasure and pain.

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Robert AdamsLongmont, Colorado

ca. 1980

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

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Robert Adams’s celebrated nocturnal landscapes record the newly developed suburbs near his former home along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Made using only the light he encountered on his walks, the images are quiet and dreamy.

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William EgglestonMemphis, Tennessee

1971-1973

dye-transfer print, 15-7/8 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.3 x 50.8 cm]

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Memphis, where William Eggleston was born, is a central subject for the photographer. Writing in William Eggleston’s Guide, John Szarkowski described his images of the city as “sharply incised, formally clear, fictive, and mysteriously purposeful.” His photographs, Szarkowski wrote, endowed the “least pretentious of raw materials with ineffable dramatic possibilities.”

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Lee FriedlanderMontana

1977

gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.5 cm]

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Lee Friedlander has photographed his own shadow throughout his career. Imposed over another person or playfully projected onto natural elements, he inserts himself into the scene his camera records—the photographer’s version of breaking the fourth wall.

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Wardell MilanIn a land of great sunshine, No.1

2022

acrylic, aerosol paint, marker, oil pastel, cut-and-paste paper, metalized polyethylene on board, 48-3/4 x 81-3/4 inches (framed) [123.8 x 207.6 cm]

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When Wardell Milan began purchasing emergency blankets, he was initially attracted to their reflective surface. “After the height of the pandemic and the mass Black Lives Matter movements—as well as the on-going migrant crisis,” he writes, “my thoughts around the idea of refuge, liberation, and shelter were (and continue to be), amplified.” The series coalesces around the idea of creating “safe landscapes/safe spaces,” paintings where “anyone in need can find escape and solace.” In the silvery surfaces of the works, the viewer’s own reflection becomes part of the environment. 

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Richard LearoydLargest poppies

2022

unique Ilfochrome photograph, 52-1/8 x 50-7/8 inches (framed) [132.4 x 129.2 cm]

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Richard MisrachSubmerged Clothesline, Salton Sea

1983

pigment print, 20 x 24 inches (sheet & mount) [50.8 x 61 cm], edition of 25

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Richard Misrach began his ongoing Desert Cantos series in 1979, exploring the southwest American desert landscape as a wild and primordial place while recording the impact of our human presence on it. As the artist explains, “You look at landscape, but it’s not really landscape, it’s a symbol for our country, it’s a metaphor for our country.”

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Eadweard MuybridgeWrestling, Graeco-Roman

1887

collotype, 19 x 24 inches (sheet) [48.3 x 61 cm]

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This sequence of images is part of Animal Locomotion, Eadweard Muybridge’s ambitious photographic project that aimed to represent human and animal motion rendered across time. The series has influenced generations of artists, and inspired scientific and photographic innovation, including motion picture technology.

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Hiroshi SugimotoMathematical Model 004: Dini’s surface: A Surface of Constant Negative Curvature Obtained by Twisting A Pseudosphere

2006

aluminum, iron, 119 x 9 x 9 inches (overall, approx.) [302.3 x 22.9 x 22.9 cm], unique

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Hiroshi Sugimoto works in metal to produce mathematical models, following the tradition of forms envisioned by mathematicians to give substance to geometric ideas. “I have attempted to transform mathematical equations into tangible objects,” he has written about the works, which are created using a computer and advanced machining tools to sculpt each form.

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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 232

2009

gelatin silver print, 71-3/4 x 60 inches (framed) [182.3 x 152.4 cm], edition of 5

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Sugimoto’s Lightning Fields draw from both Benjamin Franklin’s and Michael Faraday’s pioneering electricity research and William Fox Talbot’s discovery of calotype photography, applying an electrical charge directly to film to create powerful, elemental images.

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Carrie Mae WeemsMissing Link (Justice), from The Louisiana Project

2003

pigment print, 40 x 29 inches (framed) [101.6 x 73.6 cm], edition of 6

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In Carrie Mae Weems’s Missing Link series, the artist delves into the racist histories of New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions. Dressed in a black suit, white gloves, and an animal mask, the artist alludes to a collection of costume design drawings for the 1873 Comus Mardi Gras Parade, originally titled The Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of Species.

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Richard T. Walkerafter thought #1

2022

pigment print in artist’s frame, modified rock, 24 x 36 inches (overall) [61 x 91.4 cm], edition of 2

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Working in vast, dramatic landscapes or in the studio, Richard T. Walker explores human connections to the natural world. By joining his photograph of the sky with a cut stone culled from the mountainous landscape beneath, Walker reorders the elements of his environment. The result is a playful engagement with the conventions of landscape photography, questioning our emotional attachments to its rocky peaks and endless horizons.

The post FOG Design+Art appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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The earliest work in the exhibition is Charles Clifford’s moody study of the Alhambra, circa 1858; the most recent is Lee Friedlander’s bullet-riddled “NO SHOOTING” sign, made in June 2014. Photographic objects by Sol LeWitt, Jess, Christian Marclay, and Bernd & Hilla Becher find affinities with Charles Sheeler, Helen Levitt, Thomas Eakins, and William Eggleston. A found snapshot of an all-female wedding, dated 1930, appears near Nan Goldin’s 1978 self-portrait as a dominatrix and an 1860 daguerreotype of two girls holding an image of their deceased mother.

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Eadweard Muybridge and Diane Arbus—two very different artists whose work contains seemingly inexhaustible achievements—are among the photographers who make repeat appearances throughout The Plot Thickens. Other artists included are: Mel Bochner, Katy Grannan, Alfred Stieglitz, Kota Ezawa, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, the Louisville optician who left behind an unforgettable body of work at his death in 1972, at the age of 46.

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Fraenkel Gallery opened in San Francisco in September 1979 with an exhibition of recently discovered albumen prints by the nineteenth-century photographer Carleton Watkins. Since then, the gallery has presented more than 300 exhibitions exploring photography and its connections to the other arts, and published 55 books on subjects ranging from Edward Hopper’s influence on photography to the sculptor David Smith’s multi-decade involvement with photographs, as well as the complete library of Diane Arbus and nine monographs by Lee Friedlander.

The post The Plot Thickens appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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This year’s highlights include a surprising and intimate portrait of his son by the photographer August Sander, entitled Eye of an Eighteen-Year-Old Man (1925); a twelve-part photo work by the British artists Gilbert & George from their 1997 series New Testamental Pictures; a group of motion studies of men wrestling and playing baseball by Eadweard Muybridge dating from 1877; and an ambitious four-part palladium print by Irving Penn from his 1972 series of cigarette still-lifes.  The span of time represented in this year’s S.E.G.R.A.P. ranges from 1858, the year Francis Frith produced his exquisite image, The Pyramids of Dahshoor, from the South to the immediate present as represented by Sol LeWitt’s recent series of work, aerial photographs of Manhattan drawn over with straight and not-straight lines.

This year’s S.E.G.R.A.P. can be seen concurrently with the exhibition, BERND AND HILLA BECHER: Industrial Landscapes.  

The post Several Exceptionally Good Recently Acquired Pictures XVI appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

This year’s highlights include new work by Adam Fuss, Richard Misrach, Nicholas Nixon, Irving Penn, Catherine Wagner, William Wegman and Henry Wessel; rare and classic images such as Joel-Peter Witkin’s Studio of the Painter (Courbet), Paris, Robert Frank’s 1950s print of teenagers waiting in line outside of a television studio in Hollywood, a vintage print of Paul Outerbridge’s 1923 image Ethiopian Form and Ken Moody with his Eyes Closed by Robert Mapplethorpe; unlikely surprises such as Felice Beato’s Review of Fire Brigades (1860), Edouart & Cobb’s San Francisco Fusiliers, San Francisco (1878), Helen Levitt’s portrait of Walker Evans with a drape on his head and Diane Arbus’ Woman with a Floppy Hat. Some of the quirkiest images are by anonymous photographers such as a large-scale hand-colored family portrait from the 19th century and a picture of two tiny ants in the snow.

Also exhibited will be work of Diane Arbus, E.J. Bellocq, Christopher Bucklow, Harry Callahan, Sophie Calle, Gary Fabian-Miller, Nan Goldin, Lewis Hine, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Nadar, Eadweard Muybridge, August Sander, Charles Sheeler, David Smith, Alfred Steiglitz, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Garry Winogrand.

The post Several Exceptionally Good Recently Acquired Pictures XII appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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The post Seeing Things: 15th Anniversary Exhibition appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

A revolution occurred in American photography in the late 1850’s, after the invention and widespread use of wet-collodion plates. This technological advance – one of many to emerge from a scientific renaissance at mid-century – coincided with an intense public interest in nature and an enormous production of art and literature dealing with natural themes. Photographers joined the movement towards nature and made photographs of landscapes with more seriousness and success than ever before.

The government surveys of the western territories were organized immediately before and after the first transcontinental railroad penetrated the West in 1869, and photographers were present as important adjuncts to the exploration and construction parties. The photographs they made have long been seen as mere social and scientific documents but are now understood as images that broadened the boundaries of the photographic art.

Included in the exhibition are works by Carleton E. Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan, Eadward Muybridge, William Rau, George N. Barnard, Andrew Joseph Russell, and William Henry Jackson among others.

All of the views are albumen prints made from glass plate negatives, some as large as eighteen by twenty-two inch “mammoth plates”. Early practitioners photographing in remote areas traveled with costly and cumbersome supplies, including a portable darkroom. The glass plates required on the site sensitizing, and the image had to be exposed and processed before the plate could dry. A practical dry plate process was developed in the mid 1870’s which made the process less difficult, but nonetheless an arduous procedure in comparison to our present day roll film and hand-held cameras.

This exhibition will run concurrently with “Carleton E. Watkins: Photographer of the American West” at the Oakland Museum from December 16 – February 19, 1984.

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