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Richard LearoydLast Light

2023

chromogenic contact print, 59-1/2 x 86 inches (framed) [151.1 x 218.4 cm], edition of 7 + 2 APs

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CW: You’ve chosen a popular spot—Navajo Point—from which to photograph the Grand Canyon. What first attracted you to this location, and what motivated you to make the trip?

RL: I first visited the Grand Canyon 30 or so years ago, with a good friend who had been given a Scottish Art Council Grant to photograph on the West Coast of the United States. The friend I traveled with back in the mists of time or the late 80s to be precise, died unexpectedly last year, maybe this had something to do with my desire to return to see the Grand Canyon. When I first arrived there, on the second visit, I was very unsure as to whether I had completely wasted my time, the Grand Canyon is of such a monumental scale it defies framing or pictorial selection.

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CW: How, then, did you decide on these two views?

RL: I guess like most photographers the best thing to do when you are unsure of what to photograph is to drive. So we drove and looked and drove and looked, listening to music, talking nonsense. There are only two photographs that can be made from the South rim of the Grand Canyon, and I made both of them.

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CW: Being in an enclosed studio offers you some sense of control with your subjects, whether still lifes or portraits. Yet, when photographing outdoors you must confront the unruly natural elements. Were there any unexpected events in the production of these works? How did you adapt?

RL: When you are using a camera that takes hours to set up and costs thousands of dollars to make an exposure, certainty and commitment is necessary. I was very surprised how difficult it was to photograph there, I guess I thought by looking at other photographers’ work it would be like shooting fish in a barrel; instead it became risky and exciting. I was having to dare myself into very choppy photographic waters. Photographing into the sun is always a problem, but in this case, a solution.

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Richard LearoydLast light, Navajo Point

2023

chromogenic contact print, 59-1/2 x 88 inches (framed) [151.1 x 223.5 cm]

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CW: You’ve named Francis Bacon as a source of inspiration during this trip. How do you see his style incorporated into yours?

RL: When standing on the edge looking towards the sun, the glinting river seemed like a dash of serendipitous white paint, this reminded me of the bright white slithers on some of Bacon’s paintings—where the paint seemed to be thrown or oozed out of the tube. The translation afforded by lens and film then seemed appropriate to the subject matter.

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Richard LearoydLast light, Navajo Point

2023

gelatin silver contact print, 47-1/4 x 76-1/4 inches (image, sheet & mount) [120 x 193.7 cm], edition of 5

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Kota EzawaHand Vote

2024

acrylic pigment print on wood, 96 x 120 x 48 inches (overall installed) [243.8 x 304.8 x 121.9 cm], edition of 2

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Hand Vote pictures more than a dozen men and women with their hands raised in an act of civic involvement. The piece has existed in several iterations since Ezawa created the earliest 11-inch tall version of the sculpture in 2008, in the runup to that year’s historic presidential election. Produced over the course of more than 15 years, each version of the piece has come with its own associations, inevitably influenced by the time and place it was shown.

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Created in a new scale for the Fraenkel Gallery exhibition, the piece is presented as part of an exhibition that opens days before another historic presidential election, in which the act of voting has itself become a contentious political issue. To the artist, at its core, the work depicts the machinations of democracy. A further significance of the piece may emerge after the election—as Ezawa has noted, “The meaning always comes afterwards.”

In the new digital animation I’ll repeat the question, 2024, Ezawa spotlights an exchange from 2018 in which then-Senator Kamala Harris asks Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh if he knows of any laws that govern the male body. Ezawa renders the C-SPAN video into flattened, simplified shapes, giving the subjects a mask-like appearance emphasizing the theatrical quality of the event. The significance of the moment has shifted over time, as Kavanaugh went on to help overturn Roe v. Wade. Ezawa began the work shortly before President Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, and the impact of the exchange continues to evolve after Harris lost the election for the presidency.

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Kota EzawaKavanaugh Hearings

2024

acrylic pigment print on wood, 39-3/4 x 59-7/8 x 1 inches (overall) [101 x 152.1 x 2.5 cm], edition of 3

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In addition to animation, Ezawa renders Kavanaugh Hearings as an acrylic pigment print on plywood. Ezawa is interested in events that stir strong emotions, enabling him to meditate on the chosen imagery and center the same subject across different modes of presentation, including paper collages and lightboxes. On working with varied techniques, Ezawa states “Whenever you use a new material, everything can go wrong, but you have to open yourself up.”

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Kota EzawaGrand Princess

2024 (detail)

transparency in lightbox, 40 x 60 inches (overall) [101.6 x 152.4 cm], edition of 5

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Kota EzawaGrand Princess

2024

transparency in lightbox, 40 x 60 inches (overall) [101.6 x 152.4 cm], edition of 5

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Kota EzawaGrand Princess

2023

transparency in lightbox, 40 x 60 inches (overall) [101.6 x 152.4 cm], edition of 5

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In the other lightbox, the huge ship attracts a small crowd, who watch as it enters the Bay. Causing a traffic jam on the Bay Bridge as people stopped to take its picture, the Grand Princess became, as Ezawa puts it, “an icon for the virus, which was invisible.” Images of the ship were viewed around the world, circulating through the media as news of the pandemic spread.

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Kota EzawaKavanaugh Hearings

2024

acrylic pigment print on wood, 39-3/4 x 59-7/8 x 1 inches (overall) [101 x 152.1 x 2.5 cm], edition of 3

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At the heart of the exhibition are two new works: a digital animation and related print on wood that depict then-California Senator Kamala Harris questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Other highlights include Hand Vote, an 8-foot sculpture celebrating the practice of democracy, and two recent lightboxes portraying the arrival of a cruise ship under the Golden Gate Bridge in 2020, carrying some of the first known cases of COVID-19 into the United States.

In his new animation Ezawa focuses on an exchange from 2018 in which Harris asks Kavanaugh if he knows of any laws that govern the male body. Ezawa renders the C-SPAN video into flattened, simplified shapes, giving the subjects a mask-like appearance emphasizing the theatrical quality of the event. The significance of the moment has shifted over time, as Kavanaugh went on to help overturn Roe v. Wade. Ezawa began the works shortly before President Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, and the impact of the exchange continues to evolve.

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Kota EzawaHand Vote

2024 (installation view)

acrylic pigment print on wood, 96 x 120 x 48 inches (overall installed) [243.8 x 304.8 x 121.9 cm], edition of 2

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Anchoring the show with its oversize presence, Hand Vote pictures more than a dozen men and women with their hands raised in an act of civic involvement. The original tabletop-sized sculpture was created in 2008, in the runup to an earlier presidential election. Since then, larger versions of the piece have been featured in outdoor public art installations in Vancouver and Washington D.C. For the Fraenkel Gallery exhibition, Ezawa has created a version in a new scale.

Two lightboxes depict the arrival of the Grand Princess cruise ship into the picturesque landscape of the San Francisco Bay in March 2020. They evoke the anxiety and alienation that marked the coming of a global pandemic. In one, the huge ship attracts a small crowd, who watch as it enters the Bay; in the other, on view for the first time, the ship’s passengers wave from their balconies. Images of the ship were viewed around the world, circulating through the media as the virus spread.

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Kota EzawaGrand Princess

2023

transparency in lightbox, 40 x 60 inches (overall) [101.6 x 152.4 cm], edition of 5

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The Estate of Peter Hujar is jointly represented by Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco and Pace Gallery in New York, together with Mai 36 Galerie in Zürich and Maureen Paley in London.

The post Portraits in Life and Death appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

In Past Presence, Sugimoto interprets masterpieces of Modernist sculpture, creating blurred photographs that suggest dreamlike versions of the iconic originals. The recent exhibition Giacometti/Sugimoto: Staged at the Institut Giacometti in Paris paired Sugimoto’s photographs with Giacometti’s sculpture and ancient Noh masks from the artist’s collection.

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Hiroshi SugimotoKasuga Grand Shrine at Dawn

2022

pigment print on Japanese washi paper, mounted to folding screen, 79-3/8 x 213-5/8 inches (overall) [201.5 x 542.5 cm], edition of 3

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Kasuga Grand Shrine at Dawn is part of Sugimoto’s recent series of immense folding screens featuring photographs of Japanese landmarks of sacred significance. It depicts the 800-year-old chumon, or middle gate, of Kasuga-Taisha Shinto shrine in the ancient city of Nara. Drawing from a rich history of Japanese art and culture, Sugimoto renders the ancient site using modern photographic techniques in concert with traditional materials. Printed on washi—a historically handmade paper revered since antiquity—the screen evokes the quiet power and enduring presence of traditional Japanese ink paintings.

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Hiroshi SugimotoRadio City Music Hall, New York

1978

gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 inches (mount) [50.8 x 61 cm], edition of 25

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One of the earliest images from Sugimoto’s iconic series of Theaters, Radio City Music Hall, New York is newly available for the first time. Rather than capturing an extended film projection, the long exposure records the luminous performance of an Easter parade, accompanied by an orchestra. The ghost-like apparitions of the marching figures gather into an altar of light crowned by the Art Deco theater nicknamed the “Showplace of the Nation.”

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Hiroshi SugimotoSea of Buddha

1994

gelatin silver print, 60 x 71-1/4 inches (framed) [152.4 x 180.98 cm], edition of 5

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Sea of Buddha features sculptures from Sanjūsangendō, a 13th century Buddhist shrine located in Kyoto. Sugimoto removed all modern embellishments and contemporary lighting while photographing the temple, presenting the ancient sculptures as they would have been experienced by viewers more than 800 years ago.

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Hiroshi SugimotoFive Elements (Caribbean Sea, Yucatan, 1990)

2012

optical glass encasing black & white film, 6 x 3 x 3 inches (pagoda) [15.2 x 7.6 x 7.6 cm], edition of 1

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Hiroshi Sugimoto has photographed seas and oceans for over forty years, creating the vast Seascapes series. Five Elements is the marriage of these seascapes with Sugimoto’s exploration of mathematical forms and concepts. As he writes, “Whenever I stand on a cliff looking at the sea, I envision an infinite beyond.”

Sugimoto’s exquisite pagodas call back to ancient Buddhist relic towers. The pagoda’s form has evolved in unique sculptural directions, eventually becoming a five-ring structure called gorinto, which utilizes geometry to symbolize the elements. Earth as a cube emphasizes materiality, water is a sphere of clarity, fire is a pyramid imitating pointed flames, and wind is a hemisphere, expressing its power to cut through matter. Finally, the element of emptiness takes the shape of a Japanese hoju, or mystic gem, which disappears into a perfect globe.

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Hiroshi SugimotoBrush Impression 0923 (Moon)

2023

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

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Drawn by the allure of the traditional silver-based materials and his interest in the science of photography, in Brush Impression Sugimoto uses a calligraphy brush to paint fixer onto photographic paper, creating one-of-a-kind prints that proudly display the processes of his craft. Each work features kanji symbols, the form of Japanese language based on Chinese pictograms, or hiragana, the phonetic characters used in Japanese. While painting, Sugimoto draws on his study of calligraphy and focuses on the characters and their definitions, bringing traces of the meaning of each word to the qualities of his markings.

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Hiroshi SugimotoTasman Sea, Table Cape

2016

gelatin silver print, 20 x 24 inches (mount) [50.8 x 61 cm], edition of 25

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The subtle tones of Sugimoto’s gelatin silver printing here register as a seascape enveloped in a mystical light, taken from the shores of the Tasman Sea. Photographed in 2016, the image could be mistaken for a view onto the beginning of time. About his relationship with the ocean, Sugimoto writes, “The sea reminds me that within my blood remain traces of human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years.”

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Hiroshi SugimotoOpticks 592

2023

chromogenic print, 60 x 60 inches (framed) [152.4 x 152.4 cm], edition of 1 + 1 AP

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The post Distillé 1976–2024 appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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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

$40.00

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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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John WatersReconstructed Lassie

2012

chromogenic print, 30 x 20 inches (image) [76.2 x 50.8 cm], edition of 5

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The monster we’ve come to know as Frankenstein was a vegetarian. He is also nameless, though his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, refers to him as “being,” “fiend,” and “daemon.” Over the course of two centuries—the book was first published anonymously in 1818—and in the public imagination, the patient has taken the doctor’s name, and the word “Frankenstein” has been fashioned into a noun, verb, and adjective to signal a uniquely grotesque form of cobbled-togetherness.

The book—its story, subjects, and all around “It’s Alive!” flavor (a line taken from the 1931 Boris Karloff film, not the book)—is often read as a parable about the dangers of unchecked ambition, invention, and so-called progress, and its warning has been applied to the atomic age, climate change, the any-day-now takeover of artificial intelligence, and much more. It’s also a story about fear—a fear of the unknown, and a fear of the real and perceived monsters among and within us. In 2024, the book and its themes remain freakishly relevant, legible through countless lenses and applicable to enumerable blood-curdling prospects.

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Danny McDonaldThe Viewing

2022

Fraenkenstein action figures (plastic, cloth, paint), pedestal, 52-1/4 x 33 x 18-1/2 (overall) [132.7 x 83.8 x 47 cm]

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A proper exhibition tackling the book and the ways in which “Frankenstein” moves through popular culture would require a museum with the staff and resources of the Louvre. This project should therefore be considered entirely improper and radically incomplete, populated by artworks that speak in varied ways to the book’s varied concerns. The initial concept for Fraenkenstein was proposed by Stein to Fraenkel in the spring of 2023. Fraenkel said yes on the spot, and Fraenkenstein is the malfunctioning birthchild of their curiously overlapping sensibilities.

The exhibition features works by Diane Arbus, Hans Bellmer, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Bruce Conner, Kota Ezawa, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Brett Goodroad, Katy Grannan, Martine Gutierrez, Whitney Hubbs, Peter Hujar, George Kuchar, Justine Kurland, Christian Marclay, Danny McDonald, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Wardell Milan, Richard Misrach, BJ Newton, B. Ingrid Olson, Woody De Othello, Hiroshi Sugimoto, John Waters, Lindsey White, and others.

The post Fraenkenstein appeared first on Fraenkel Gallery.

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Peter HujarThek Working on the Tomb Figure

1967

pigment print by Gary Schneider, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.6 x 50.8 cm], edition of 10

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Jeffrey Fraenkel: I would say this project felt fully born from the moment Jordan first proposed it. We both knew the exhibition would be wide ranging and would encompass work in a variety of media. And of course there were two scientists working on this project instead of the single Dr. Frankenstein in the book – the perfect vehicle to meld our sensibilities. 

Jordan Stein: And to echo the nature of Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, it was intuitive to assemble the show from disparate and available parts. The doctor is single-minded in his quest, and it’s clear that he will find a way to animate life. We knew it would come alive. There were certain images and artists that we sent back and forth, and it eventually reached a kind of perfectly manic equilibrium.

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Diane Arbus“Frankenstein’s Daughter” [close up with shoulders] 1958

gelatin silver print / printed by Diane Arbus, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]

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JF: My early tagline for the exhibition was “art that’ll scare the shit out of you,” but that evolved over time. Now fear is only one aspect of the show.

The first image I sent you was a Diane Arbus photograph made inside a movie theater in 1958. The theater was screening Frankenstein’s Daughter, and Arbus is, I think, recognizing the film’s tawdry scariness that is not really scary. Well, maybe it’s a little scary, but she pokes a hole through that with the photograph.

JS: The scariest stuff in our culture becomes a Halloween costume; Frankenstein is popular on October 31st in every neighborhood in this country. Danny McDonald’s piece, which includes more than a dozen different Frankenstein dolls and action figures, is called The Viewing; the largest one is dead and all the other Frankensteins are mourning its loss. Frankenstein is dead! Long live Frankenstein! There’s something funny and inexhaustible about Mary Shelley’s creation. Arbus certainly picked up on that.

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Danny McDonaldThe Viewing

2022

Fraenkenstein action figures (plastic, cloth, paint), pedestal, 52-1/4 x 33 x 18-1/2 (overall) [132.7 x 83.8 x 47 cm]

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JF: I had forgotten how meta the novel is. It is a story within a story, which is all the more astonishing when you realize Mary Shelley was only 19 when she wrote Frankenstein. The diversity of works selected for the show really do address a wide range of the book’s themes.

JS: Right. And it makes good sense to host the show at Fraenkel as the novel was written right alongside the invention of photography – they emerged just a few years apart. The fact that Dr. Frankenstein sets out to understand the otherwise invisible laws of nature is of a piece with the origins of photographic technology.

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Bruce ConnerTHE LATE NIGHT MOVIE ON TV: JUNE 10, 1978 @1:20-1:27 A.M.: STERNS MOTEL IN VENICE, CA, NEG.#10A

1978

gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm], edition of 3

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Bruce ConnerTHE LATE NIGHT MOVIE ON TV: JUNE 10, 1978 @1:20-1:27 A.M.: STERNS MOTEL IN VENICE, CA, NEG.#11A

1978

gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm], edition of 3

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JF: For me, maybe the central piece in the show is John Waters’s altered portrait of Lassie after cosmetic surgery, to make her appear younger. I mean, it’s hard for an old broad of a collie to get work in Hollywood these days, right? John’s piece strikes me as the ultimate Hollywood horror story about the fear of aging, told in the darkly comic voice that’s uniquely his.

JS: The Hiroshi Sugimoto is a perfect fit because the doctor talks about how his studies of electricity led to the creation of his monster. And the monster, of course, has a mind of its own – there it is looking back at you in these amazing Bruce Conner pictures. You know, you’re just trying to watch a little TV before nodding off, and BOOM – it’s got eyes on you. Similarly in Richard Misrach’s image of the shot-up Andy Warhol ad, there’s the Terminator-esque intersection of the human and the post-human. All in the name of hair spray!

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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 222

2009

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

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Richard MisrachPlayboy #038 (Andy Warhol)

1990

pigment print, 29 x 25 inches (framed) [73.7 x 63.5 cm]

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JF: The Misrach is an unexpected image from a body of work made almost 35 years ago. It’s a straightforward photograph of a copy of Playboy magazine Richard found in the desert, a copy that had been used for target practice. As Richard looked through the magazine, he was horrified by the meanings that had been created by the bullet holes. The shot-through Playboy had become a new type of Duchampian found object.

JS: An art studio is in some ways like a laboratory, and there’s a relationship between artistic production and the activation of inanimate materials. In the Peter Hujar and Whitney Hubbs works, an art studio is clearly a place where unpredictable experiments are sanctioned and protected. In both works, the artist becomes the subject–similarly with Martine Gutierrez’s work. It’s hard to tell where the artist and subject stop and start, and it addresses the extraordinary alchemy that can happen in the studio and in an artist’s imagination.

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Whitney HubbsFunny Ha Ha #4

2022

chromogenic prints & archival clear tape on glass mirror, 36 x 60 inches (overall) [91.4 x 152.4 cm]

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Martine GutierrezPlastics, Brigitte

2020

chromogenic print, 24 × 17 inches (framed) [61 × 43.2 cm], edition of 8

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JS: Dr. Frankenstein retreats from his family and from the broader world in an effort to make sense of his secret passion. I know a lot of artists like that. The doctor’s beating a path to do things that have never been done and to materialize visions that have never been seen. BJ Newton was a California artist who was in and out of correctional facilities, painting unearthly visions he conjured from the confines of a prison cell. There’s a play between portraiture, self-portraiture, landscape, and religious iconography that explores a world that is both here and beyond.

JF: Newton’s painting in the show seems end-of-the worldish, fiery, apocalyptic.

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B.J. NewtonOne Sow, One Reap

1969

oil on canvas, 21-1/4 x 34 inches (framed) [53.97 x 86.36 cm]

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JS: The doctor sets out to animate life, but some bits of human creation are too micro for him to construct. So he makes an oversized version of a person: it’s like the opposite of making a model. It gets bigger, like the kind of enormous animal foot in Brett Goodroad’s painting The Club.

JF: In the Goodroad, the very way it’s painted feels like a roiling of all the energies coming together in Dr. Frankenstein’s studio. If they could be depicted, they would look like this.

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Brett GoodroadThe Club

2015

watercolor on paper stretched over canvas, 24-1-2 x 35-1/2 inches [62.2 x 90.2 cm]

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JS: There are serious warnings in this book. I wrote down artificial intelligence a dozen times as I was reading this thing.

JF: Yeah. It feels as if Mary Shelley directly anticipated the potential consequences of artificial intelligence. What we created may soon be out to destroy us.

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Janet Cardiff & George Bures MillerGenie

2023

mixed media with electronics, magnet, 11 x 10 x 5 inches (overall) [27.9 x 25.4 x 12.7 cm]

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JS: It’s pretty uncanny. The monster finds a stack of books outside his hovel, and he begins to understand the complexity of the world by reading them. He’s learning through the construction of a data set.

JF: In a way, Christian Marclay’s works feel as if they are screaming with a warning to wake up, pay attention and save ourselves before it’s too late. Christian’s works were all made during the shutdown and convey that existential undercurrent of anxiety we felt then and continue to feel now.

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Christian MarclayUntitled (Cut Throat)

2020

comic book and magazine cutouts on paper, 19 x 18-1/2 inches (framed) [48.3 x 47 cm]

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JS: There’s an annotated version of Frankenstein for engineers and scientists published by MIT, but there’s no annotated Frankenstein for artists. It’d be my hope that maybe this exhibition kicks up some ideas around just how powerful and compelling artists’ visions have been, and will continue to be.

JF: One thing is for sure, if Mary Shelley came to see this show, she would love it.

JS: Mm-Hmm. It might even scare the shit out of her.

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Kota EzawaThe Scream

2016

transparency in lightbox, 33-3/4 X 26-3/4 inches (overall) [83.8 x 67.9 cm], edition of 5

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Tickets for the Fraenkel Film Festival are available through the Roxie.

Fraenkel Gallery has long believed in the importance of seeing art in person in a shared space, where connections between people thrive. We believe those values extend to film as well. With many films projected in their original 35mm formats, the festival offers a way to see films on a large screen in a theater, experienced with other people—an increasingly rare opportunity. The idea for the festival grew from a seed planted by Rich Silverstein, of the legendary San Francisco advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Silverstein suggested a version of the event as a way to celebrate and support art and culture in San Francisco, while embracing and expanding our community and offering a new perspective on the gallery’s artists.

The festival begins with a special opening-night screening of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2000 comedy- drama by the Coen Brothers loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey. Other special events include a conversation with director Phil Kaufman and photographer Richard Misrach at a screening of Kaufman’s 1983 film The Right Stuff, which Misrach paired with Peter Weir’s The Truman Show.

The films are not necessarily the favorites of each artist, or their vote for the greatest of all time—rather these are films with special meaning for each artist, and films they wanted to share. Christian Marclay was the first to respond to Jeffrey Fraenkel’s invitation to participate. He chose Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt and Antonioni’s Blow-Up, which he calls “a classic for me.” As he notes, “It’s a film about looking, a film about making images, a film about films.” Lee Friedlander describes picking his selections, The African Queen and Casablanca, because his enjoyment of them is ongoing. “I chose them because I like them and I like them over and over again,” he writes. Martine Gutierrez chose Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner, naming them as formative influences. She writes about Blade Runner, “The film has become notorious for its visual aesthetic, fashion and character design, impacting pop culture’s depiction of futurism, as well as my own.”

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An intermittently active volcano, Mt. Fuji’s appearance has changed over time, a fact that has fascinated Sugimoto. “I would like to trace the evolution of the mountain’s appearance,” he has written. In the photographic view he created for the screen, Sugimoto pictures the distant mountain from a significant elevation, perhaps suggesting the presence of Mt. Hakone, a nearby volcano that erupted and collapsed close to 200,000 years ago. Sugimoto once wrote about an imagined ancient view of both peaks: “Two rivals in height—what a magnificent sight that must have been!” In his dark and mist-filled rendering, Sugimoto’s photograph could be mistaken for a view from the dawn of time.

The panoramic landscape also belongs to a long line of art historical depictions of Mt. Fuji, the country’s tallest peak. The mountain has served as a national symbol of Japan, and its image has been incorporated into a range of Buddhist and Shinto artworks.

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Mt. Fuji appears in Japanese pilgrimage mandalas, or sankei mandara—stylized scroll paintings that depict the landscapes surrounding shrines and temples. The paintings portray the historical and mythical events that took place in these locations, conveying the spiritual importance of the sites while also serving as travel guides for pilgrims. A 16th century example from Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, a Shintō shrine in the city of Fujinomiya, shows Mt. Fuji rising between the sun and the moon. 

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Perhaps the most famous images are the ukiyo-e artist Hokusai’s 19th century woodblock print series, 36 views of Mount Fuji, depicting the mountain from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. Like Sugimoto’s Mt. Fuji, Hokusai’s South Wind, Clear Sky, also known as Red Fuji, captures the red glow of dawn and the spread of pine forests. 

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A repeating pattern stamped on the screen’s verso features a stylized image of Mt. Fuji, echoing Hokusai’s Red Fuji. Sugimoto worked with a woodblock printer in Tokyo to create and execute the prints on the verso ​of the screens, using a custom pattern for each. In its simplified circular shape, the Mt. Fuji pattern recalls kamon, or mon, the Japanese heraldic designs that serve as symbols for family lines or institutions. Like the materials of the screen itself, the designs draw from a rich history of Japanese artistic production.

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Hiroshi SugimotoMt. Fuji

2022 (verso)

pigment prints on Japanese washi paper, mounted to two folding screens, 71-5/8 x 299-1/4 x 11-3/4 inches (overall, installed) [182 x 760 x 30 cm], edition of 3

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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.

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