Exhibitions | 2021 | Fraenkel Gallery San Francisco Photography Gallery Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:58:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 56972082 Half-Breed https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/martine-gutierrez Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:04:00 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=74000 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to announce Martine Gutierrez: Half-Breed, a new exhibition of photographs. Acting as both subject and producer, Gutierrez explores the multiplicity and complexity of identity in a series of pop-influenced narrative scenes. The exhibition, which takes its name from Cher’s 1973 album, will include selections from three recent series, Body En Thrall, […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to announce Martine Gutierrez: Half-Breed, a new exhibition of photographs. Acting as both subject and producer, Gutierrez explores the multiplicity and complexity of identity in a series of pop-influenced narrative scenes. The exhibition, which takes its name from Cher’s 1973 album, will include selections from three recent series, Body En Thrall, Plastics, and Indigenous Woman, the 124-page magazine for which Gutierrez acted as muse, model, photographer, and art director, creating every element from fashion spreads and ads to an editor’s letter. A Berkeley native now based in Brooklyn, this will be the artist’s inaugural show with Fraenkel Gallery.

explore the exhibition
Framed color photograph of a woman standing against a blank background
Neo-Indeo, Kekchí Butch, p24 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [139.4 x 93.7 cm]

Indigenous Woman presents images in the glossy, seductive style of fashion and advertising photography, reimagining the tropes of those genres with wit and nuance. In the project, which was shown at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Gutierrez carves out a place for herself, trying on fluid identities that touch on race, class, gender, and sexuality. As she has noted, “No one was going to put me on the cover of a Paris fashion magazine, so I thought, I’m gonna make my own.” The exhibition includes selections from Neo-Indeo, a fashion editorial in which Gutierrez wears Indigenous textiles, some of which belonged to her Mayan grandparents, paired with vintage and designer items in a personal, multicultural version of high fashion. In a 1960s-inspired ad, Identity Boots, Gutierrez poses nude except for shiny white go-go boots and brightly colored gender symbols and glyphs, crudely taped to her skin. In a series of portraits titled Demons, Gutierrez transforms herself into mythical women from ancient and indigenous cultures, adorned with sculptural hairstyles and extravagant jewelry. Together, the pages of Indigenous Woman present what Gutierrez has called a celebration of “ever-evolving self-image.”

Framed black and white photograph of a woman standing under a tree next to two mannequins
Body En Thrall, Blonde Daisy, 2020
chromogenic print, 48-7/8 x 32-7/8 inches (framed) [124.1 x 83.5 cm]

In the series Body En Thrall, begun as an editorial for Indigenous Woman, the artist stages photographs using herself as a model, posing with mannequins in charged scenarios. In the selection on view, Gutierrez appears in the guise of a blonde persona she has referred to as “the bombshell,” and pictures provocative scenes that navigate questions about power, desire, and self-objectification.

Framed color photograph of a woman's fave wrapped tightly in clear plastic wrap
Plastics, Izabel, 2020
chromogenic print, 24-5/8 x 17-5/8 inches (framed) [62.6 x 44.8 cm]

In Plastics, Gutierrez pulls plastic wrap tightly over her face while wearing messy blonde wigs and contact lenses, holding her breath as she embodies a series of archetypes. The transparent film pushes her features and smears her makeup, creating portraits that speak to the violence and artifice inherent in mainstream ideals of beauty.

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]]> 74000 Half-Breed https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/half-breed-explore-the-exhibition Thu, 05 Aug 2021 21:02:00 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=74886 Martine Gutierrez’s inaugural show at the gallery presents a selection of work spanning the last four years. Acting as both subject and producer, Gutierrez explores the multiplicity and complexity of identity in a series of pop-influenced narrative scenes. Body En Thrall began as an editorial in Indigenous Woman, the single issue magazine Gutierrez created, working […]

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]]> Martine Gutierrez’s inaugural show at the gallery presents a selection of work spanning the last four years. Acting as both subject and producer, Gutierrez explores the multiplicity and complexity of identity in a series of pop-influenced narrative scenes.

Framed collage of a woman kneeling with multicolored symbols for gender pasted on her body
Identity Boots Ad, p99 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
chromogenic print, 30-5/8 x 20-5/8 inches (framed) [77.8 x 52.4 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP
Framed black and white diptych of a person standing amidst mannequins dressed in white
Body En Thrall, p116-117 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
two chromogenic prints, 48-7/8 x 32-7/8 inches (each framed) [124.1 x 83.5 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP

Body En Thrall began as an editorial in Indigenous Woman, the single issue magazine Gutierrez created, working as her own muse, model, photographer, editor, and art director.

Framed color photograph of a woman holding a bundle of sticks over her head
Neo-Indeo, Cheek a Boom, p23 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [139.4 x 93.7 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP
Framed black and white photographs of a perfume bottle and nude figure holding large flowers over one shoulder
Del’ Estrogen, p2-3 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
two chromogenic prints, 30-5/8 x 20-5/8 inches (each framed) [77.8 x 52.4 cm], edition of 8

In an ad from Indigenous Woman, a curvy glass bottle and nude form advertise “Del’ Estrogen,” an imagined perfume. The name of the scent references Delestrogen, a prescription medication used in hormone therapy.

Color photograph of a blonde woman in a black bra against a flowering shrub
Body En Thrall, Blonde Bra, 2020
chromogenic print, 91-3/8 x 61-3/8 inches (framed) [237.1 x 155.8 cm], edition of 2 + 1 AP
Framed color photograph of a woman in red high heels and knitted dress holding ears of corn
Neo-Indeo, Cakchi Lana Caliente, p29 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [139.4 x 93.7 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP
Framed color photograph of a woman in a woven outfit and mismatched socks
Neo-Indeo, Glamour is a Heavy Burden, p36 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [139.4 x 93.7 cm], edition of 8

In Neo-Indeo, a fashion editorial in Indigenous Woman, Gutierrez wears Indigenous textiles, some of which belonged to her Mayan grandparents, in a personal, multicultural version of high fashion.

Framed black and white photograph of a nude woman eating a slice of watermelon under trees leaning against a nude female mannequin.
Body En Thrall, Blonde Watermelon, 2020
chromogenic print, 48-7/8 x 32-7/8 inches (framed) [124.1 x 83.5 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP

Gutierrez has continued the series Body En Thrall beyond the pages of Indigenous Woman. In recent images, the artist embodies a character, now blonde, who acts alongside male and female mannequins to explore the limits of her own erotic power.

Installation view of a framed photograph of a woman seated in a collaged garden

Gutierrez has described the aesthetic of excess in Queer Rage, an editorial from Indigenous Woman, as an expression of her own adolescent frustration and fury.

Color photograph of a blonde woman with clear plastic wrapped tightly around her head
Plastics, Edith, 2020
chromogenic print, 24-5/8 x 17-5/8 inches (framed) [62.6 x 44.8 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP
Framed color photograph of a woman's fave wrapped tightly in clear plastic wrap
Plastics, Dahlia, 2020
chromogenic print, 24-5/8 x 17-5/8 inches (framed) [62.6 x 44.8 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP

In Plastics, Gutierrez pulls plastic wrap tightly over her face while wearing messy blonde wigs and contact lenses, holding her breath as she embodies a series of archetypes.

Framed black and white photograph of a woman seated in a long white dress holding the arm of a mannequin in a white suit
Body En Thrall, Blonde Shoe, 2020
chromogenic print, 48-7/8 x 32-7/8 inches (framed) [124.1 x 83.5 cm], edition of 8 + 2 AP

Gutierrez has described the style of Body En Thrall as “aesthetically closest to my voice.”

Diptych of framed color photographs of, on the left, a woman dressed in blue holding blue and white striped shopping bags of fruit. On the right, a bunch of pink flowers on a green chair next to a bag of pineapples on the floor.
Neo-Indeo, Plastico y Swag, p38-39 from Indigenous Woman, 2018
two chromogenic prints, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches [each framed], edition of 8 + 2 AP
Daphne Palmer on Martine Gutierrez
Duration: 00:02:38 | Release Date: Sep 2021

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]]> 74886 Paris Photo https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/paris-photo-2021 Wed, 13 Oct 2021 21:26:31 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=74919 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to return to Paris Photo with works by Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Sophie Calle, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Martine Gutierrez, John Gutmann, Peter Hujar, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carrie Mae Weems, and others. Explore an extended selection of the works below. Starting in the 1990s, Christian Marclay began incorporating record albums in his work, creating collages that continue his exploration […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to return to Paris Photo with works by Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Sophie Calle, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Martine Gutierrez, John Gutmann, Peter Hujar, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carrie Mae Weems, and others.

Explore an extended selection of the works below.

Framed print of a grid of black and white photographs of an orchestra conductor surrounding Edvard Munch's The Scream
Christian Marclay, Untitled (from “Imagined Records”), 1990
record cover collage, 16-3/4 x 16-3/4 inches (framed) [42.5 x 42.5 cm]

Starting in the 1990s, Christian Marclay began incorporating record albums in his work, creating collages that continue his exploration of the visualization of sound and music.

Black and white photograph of a person and car passing in front of a bus depot
Lee Friedlander, Rochester, New York, 1969
gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (mount) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]

Lee Friedlander slyly compares modes of transportation in a photograph of a Greyhound bus station. 

Gold framed black and white photograph of a woman in wedding attire with tape over her mouth
Carrie Mae Weems, Thoughts on Marriage, 1989
gelatin silver print in a gilded gold frame, 25 x 21 inches (framed) [63.5 x 53.3 cm]

Wearing a wedding dress with her mouth taped shut, Carrie Mae Weems poses for a conventional studio portrait in a satirical comment on marriage. 

Black and white photograph of a teenage couple in a park
Diane Arbus, Girl and boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965, 1965
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of a seated man gazing downward with his hat in his hand
Doris Ulmann, Lang Syne Plantation, South Carolina, ca. 1929
platinum print, 14-1/4 x 11-1/4 inches (mount) [36.2 x 36.2 cm]

Best known for ​documenting Appalachian communities, American photographer Doris Ulmann ​recorded residents of Lang Syne Plantation in South Carolina as part of a collaboration with Julia Peterkin, for her novel Roll, Jordan, Roll, published in 1933.

Color photograph of a woman looking at her reflection in a vanity mirror
Nan Goldin, Self-portrait in the mirror, Hotel Baur, Zürich, 1998
pigment print, 31-3/4 x 46-7/8 inches (framed) [80.7 x 119.1 cm]
Black and white photograph of an empty dirt road through a flat grassy plain
Robert Adams, Near Peyton, Colorado, 1968
gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 inches (sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]
Framed set of five photorealistic paintings made to look like Polaroid images
Elisheva Biernoff, Spectrum, 2021
five watercolors on paper, 15-3/4 x 26-1/4 inches (framed) [40 x 66.6 cm]

Elisheva Biernoff’s carefully observed paintings are based on found and anonymous photographs.

Black and white photograph of a person in the process of flipping off a diving board
John Gutmann, Twist Dive, 1934
gelatin silver print, 9-3/8 x 7-3/4 inches (image & sheet) [23.8 x 19.7 cm]

Born in Germany and trained as a painter, John Gutmann took up photography shortly before he arrived in the United States in 1933.

Framed color photograph of a green, yellow, and black gradient
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Opticks 110, 2018
chromogenic print, 60 x 60 inches (framed) [152.4 x 152.4 cm]

Opticks depict the color of light Hiroshi Sugimoto observed through a prism in his Tokyo studio. Using Polaroid film, the artist recorded sections of the rainbow spectrum projected into a darkened chamber. The resulting works are vivid, near-sculptural renderings of pure light.

Black and white photograph of a white pony's head
Peter Hujar, Horse’s Head, 1969
gelatin silver print, 14 x 17 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 43.2 cm]

Writing in The New Yorker, Chris Wiley notes that Peter Hujar’s photographs “steer us toward the ultimate mystery of animal presence, that of being confronted with a consciousness that, as far as we can ascertain, is fundamentally different in character from our own, but that nevertheless evinces our empathy and our curiosity.”

Upside down color photograph of a woman in a wooden frame with engraved metal text panel beneath
Sophie Calle, Shiner, 2020
pigment print mounted on aluminum, in wooden box, 14-1/4 x 9-1/4 x 3-3/4 inches (overall) [36.2 x 23.5 x 9.5 cm]
Black and white photograph of a graveyard with a memorial of a dog and boy labeled Mott
Walker Evans, Gravestone, Louisiana [Gravestone (Crystal Springs), Mississippi], 1935
gelatin silver print, 16-1/2 x 19-3/8 inches (framed) [16.5 x 49.2 cm]

This print was exhibited in the Walker Evans retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2017/2018.

Black and white collage of a garden with nude women's torsos interspersed
Wardell Milan, One spring afternoon in 2019. 5 women who could engage your imagination., 2021
color pencil, china marker, acrylic, oil pastel, spray paint, cut and pasted paper on inkjet print, 44-1/4 x 61-1/4 inches (framed) [112.4 x 155.6 cm]

Wardell Milan works in mixed media, combining elements of photography, drawing, painting, and collage. Themes of freedom of expression and safe spaces are often at the forefront of his works, especially as they apply to the marginalized body.

Framed print of a sky blue rectangle
Liz Deschenes, Blue Wool Scale #1, 2019
pigment print on aluminum, 34-1/4 x 24-1/4 inches (framed) [87 x 61.6 cm]

​​Since the early 1990s, Liz Deschenes​ has made the medium of photography the subject of her work, exploring the meaning inherent in its materials. This ​pigment print​ is from a series that references the Blue Wool Scale, a standard developed by textile manufacturers and now used by the printing industry to measure lightfastness in inks.

Four framed black and white photographs of industrial structures
Bernd & Hilla Becher, Blast Furnaces, Volklingen, Saar District, 1986
four gelatin silver prints, 36 x 123 inches (overall installed) [91.4 x 312.4 cm]

These four large-format studies of blast furnaces in Germany compare the subtle differences between the strangely anthropomorphic forms. The double-signed prints were sequenced in this order by the artists.

Framed color photograph of a blue water texture
Adam Fuss, Untitled, 2017
unique chromogenic photogram, ​73 x 73 inches​ (framed) [185.4 x 185.4 cm]​


Made without a camera, Fuss’s photograms distill the ​fundamental ​components of the photographic medium: light, subject matter, and photo-sensitive materials.​ Here, recording the form and movement of liquid, Fuss explores ​an​ essential and spiritual element of the natural world.

Color photograph of graffiti scratched into rusted blue paint reading YOU ARE HERE
Richard Misrach, “You are here,” Desert Center, California, 2017
pigment print, 25-3/4 x 20-1/8 inches (framed) [65.4 x 51.1 cm]

Made in response to the fraught political climate following the 2016 US election, Richard Misrach recorded graffiti​ in the series The Writing on the Wall​, a chapter in ​his long-term Desert Cantos project. ​

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]]> 74919 Witness https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/carrie-mae-weems Wed, 30 Jun 2021 17:45:00 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=73225 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present a survey of the work of Carrie Mae Weems examining her extraordinary achievement over four decades. WITNESS traces Weems’s exploration of history, identity, and the structure of power, in photographs and video from many of her most important bodies of work. Weems’s inaugural show celebrates the gallery’s recently announced […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present a survey of the work of Carrie Mae Weems examining her extraordinary achievement over four decades. WITNESS traces Weems’s exploration of history, identity, and the structure of power, in photographs and video from many of her most important bodies of work. Weems’s inaugural show celebrates the gallery’s recently announced representation of the artist.

Explore the exhibition
Black and white photograph of an African American couple at a kitchen table, a man seated and reading the paper, a woman standing behind with her hands on his shoulders.
Untitled (Man reading newspaper), 1990-1999
gelatin silver print, 29 x 29 inches (framed) [73.6 x 73.6 cm]

The exhibition begins with early documentary-style photographs from the series Family Pictures and Stories, depicting Weems’s own multigenerational family in a joyful and nuanced vision of Black family life. In her iconic Kitchen Table series, Weems cast herself as a woman at the emotional center of an imagined domestic world, staging photographs that build a rich fictional narrative around her role as a lover, friend, and mother.

In the series Museums, American Monuments, and Roaming, Weems photographed herself in front of institutions and public spaces around the world, dressed in black and facing away from the camera. Weems has described the character she depicts as a witness whose presence invites the viewer to consider how power is inscribed in these spaces and which groups are welcomed and represented in them.

Artwork showing a soft-focus blue-toned portrait overlayed with blue, yellow, green, and red color blocks.
Color Real and Imagined, 2014
archival inkjet print with silkscreened color blocks, 38-7/8 x 54-7/8 inches (framed) [98.7 x 139.4. cm]

Weems has often used performance marked by highly constructed artifice to explore how history is remembered and created. In Constructing History, Weems worked with college students to re-enact moments of social upheaval from the 1960s, building stage-like photographic tableaux. In the video People of a Darker Hue, Weems addresses more recent history, pairing footage of buoyant city life and solemn protest with a stark, highly stylized vision of oppression, in commemoration of Black men and women killed by police.

Two circular photographs printed in red and black tones depict a man and woman, framed by black. Text printed across the woman reads "You Became Mammie, Mama, Mother, Then, Yes, Confidant-Ha." Text printed across the man reads "Descending the Throne You Became Foot Soldier & Cook."
You Became Mammie, Mama, Mother, Then, Yes, Confidant-Ha/ Descending the Throne You Became Foot Soldier & Cook, 1995-96
chromogenic print with sandblasted text, 26-3/4 x 22-3/4 x 1-1/4 inches (each framed)

In From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, one of Weems’s best known and most powerful series, photographs of enslaved men and women and other Black subjects, collected from museum and university archives and other sources, are tinted red and overlaid with heartbreaking and poetic texts. Using important images in American photography to explore not only race, but rather race through the lens of American photographic history, the series takes on both photography and the racist structures it has supported.

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]]> 73225 Witness https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/carrie-mae-weems-witness-explore-the-exhibition Mon, 30 Aug 2021 20:30:55 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=73833 Carrie Mae Weems’s inaugural show at the gallery highlights many of the artist’s most important bodies of work. Focusing on history, identity, and the structure of power, WITNESS traces Weems’s use of visual storytelling through photographs and video. In the Kitchen Table series, Weems is shown at the emotional center of an imagined domestic world, […]

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]]> Carrie Mae Weems’s inaugural show at the gallery highlights many of the artist’s most important bodies of work. Focusing on history, identity, and the structure of power, WITNESS traces Weems’s use of visual storytelling through photographs and video.

Black and white photograph of an African American couple seated at a kitchen table set with lobster dinner, the man playing a harmonica and the woman listening with eyes closed.
Untitled (Playing harmonica), 1990-1999
gelatin silver print, 29 x 29 inches (framed) [73.6 x 73.6 cm]
Black and white photograph of an African American couple at a kitchen table, a man seated and reading the paper, a woman standing behind with her hands on his shoulders.
Untitled (Man reading newspaper), 1990-1999
gelatin silver print, 29 x 29 inches (framed) [73.6 x 73.6 cm]

In the Kitchen Table series, Weems is shown at the emotional center of an imagined domestic world, in staged photographs that build a rich fictional narrative around her role as a lover, friend, and mother. In the well-known series, Weems cast herself in her photographs for the first time, playing the central character in scenes that depict intimate relationships and explore themes of tenderness and vulnerability.

Image of three framed portraits of an enslaved woman: in the middle is one rectangular framed black and white portrait depicting the woman with her blouse removed, staring directly into the camera, while two circular framed blue and black portraits of the same woman looking down in profile hang on either side
Diana Portraits (Younger Woman), 1992
three gelatin silver prints, 21 inches diameter (framed circular portraits) [53.3 cm], 21 x 17 inches (framed rectangular portrait) [53.3 x 43.2 cm]

The triptych Diana Portraits (Younger Woman), 1992, is one of several reappropriated photographs from Weems’s Sea Islands series, in which she documented traces of West African traditions in Gullah communities off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. In ​it,​ Weems reframes daguerreotypes of an enslaved woman, made in 1850 by Joseph T. Zealy as part of a commission from Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz in support of his racist scientific theories (Weems returned to the Zealy photographs in her later series, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried​​​​). In the introduction to the ​Sea Islands​ catalogue, William T. Dooley writes that with the portraits, Weems “frees these captured icons​,​” and “reinvents their purpose,” declaring them to be art objects in the gallery, and returning to her subjects the dignity and humanity they had been denied.

Framed artwork consisting of a column of three adjacent framed photographs and a framed text panel adjacent to the top image. The images depict homes in West Africa, with stairways leading to the tops of homes.
Stairways to Heaven, 1993
three gelatin silver prints with text panel, 20-3/4 x 20-3/4 inches (each framed) [52.7 x 52.7 cm]

In the 1993 series Africa, Weems photographed structures in Ghana, Senegal and Mali, exploring the ways that gender and power are expressed in architecture, and recording vestiges of the slave trade. Using the language of folklore and storytelling, this series marked the beginning of Weems’s investigation into how buildings and spaces can embody dominance and control, a theme that Weems has returned to in later work.

Installation view of woman looking at a framed sepia toned photograph on a grey wall depicting a woman leaning on a table in front of a boardgame and another woman staring directly into the camera behind her.

“In Cuba, I wanted to be with a number of different kinds of people,” Weems has said about Dreaming In Cuba, a project in which she included herself in photographs depicting the daily lives of Cubans. In order to better understand the country, Weems spent time with workers in sugarcane fields and at the Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art, among other locations, and used her own experience of labor in these places to develop the series.

Black and white photograph of a solitary black-clad figure walking through a Roman plaza.
Piazza del Popolo I – Ancient Rome, 2006
digital chromogenic print, 26-1/4 x 22-1/4 inches (framed) [66.7 x 56.5 cm]

Begun while in Italy as a recipient of the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Weems stands before monumental architecture and wide landscapes in her series Roaming. Positioning herself in the same place as the viewer, facing the monuments, Weems asks us to consider our own relationship to these historically charged locales.

Black and white photograph of a solitary black-clad figure standing opposite of the entrance of the Louvre.
The Louvre, 2006
digital chromogenic print, 73-1/2 X 61-1/2 inches (framed) [186.7 x 156.2 cm]

In the Museum series, Weems photographed herself in front of art institutions around the world, once again dressed in black with her back to the camera. Weems has described her character as a witness whose presence invites the viewer to consider how power is inscribed in the architecture of these spaces. The series asks viewers to think about who is welcomed and represented in the museums she records.

Black and white photograph of a woman standing in front of a presidential monument
American Monuments I, 2015-2016
digital c-print, 46-1/8 x 36-1/8 inches (framed) [117.2 x 91.8 cm]
Person standing in front of a framed artwork showing a soft-focus blue-toned portrait overlayed with blue, yellow, green, and red color blocks.

In Blue Notes (2015-2016), the viewer sees grainy blue portraits of Black pop culture figures and artists whose faces are hidden by blocks of solid color. This concealment of identity suggests the ways in which society values Black cultural production, but often erases the influence of Black people’s cultural contributions to society.

Magenta-toned portrait of Mahalia Jackson.
Mahalia, 2010
inkjet print, 48-3/4 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [123.8 x 93.7 cm]

Similarly, Slow Fade To Black comments on the invisibility of Black women in music, while also paying homage to their influence. The blurred portraits of icons such as Mahalia Jackson have an ethereal, ghostly quality, which speaks to the way that these Black women have vanished from communal recollection of pop culture, due to both the passage of time and racial prejudice.

Black and white photograph showing a studio set upon which one female and two male African American figures are gathered around a supine African American man.
The Assassination of Medgar, Malcolm and Martin, 2008
pigment print, 61-1/2 x 51-1/2 inches (framed) [156.2 x 130.8 cm]
Black and white photograph of three people seated on a pedestal lit by a spotlight in a darkened room
Mourning, 2008
pigment print, 61-1/2 x 51-1/2 inches (framed) [156.2 x 130.8 cm]

Weems has often used performance marked by highly constructed artifice to explore how history is remembered and created. In Constructing History, Weems worked with college students to re-enact moments of social upheaval from the 1960s, building stage-like photographic tableaux.

Two framed blue-toned, soft-focus photographs, one depicting a boy in a hat and hooded sweatshirt facing forward, and one in profile.
All the Boys (Profile 1), 2016
two archival pigment prints, 61-1/2 x 47-1/2 inches (each framed) [156.2 x 120.7 cm]

In All the Boys and the video People of a Darker Hue, Weems commemorates unarmed Black men and women killed by police. The video pairs footage of buoyant city life and solemn protest with a stark, highly stylized vision of the endlessness of oppression.

People of a Darker Hue, 2016
single channel video, duration 14:51
Color photograph of a woman resting her cheek in one hand

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]]> 73833 Art Basel https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/art-basel-2021 Tue, 03 Aug 2021 21:54:28 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=74149 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to return to Art Basel with work by Diane Arbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Sophie Calle, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Martine Gutierrez, Peter Hujar, Richard Learoyd, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carrie Mae Weems and others. Location:Hall 2, Booth A12Messe Basel Explore an extended selection of the works below. Katy Grannan photographed French actress Isabelle Huppert for a recent Balenciaga campaign. This typology was included […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to return to Art Basel with work by Diane Arbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Sophie Calle, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Martine Gutierrez, Peter Hujar, Richard Learoyd, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carrie Mae Weems and others.

Location:
Hall 2, Booth A12
Messe Basel

Explore an extended selection of the works below.

Black-and-white photograph of an elderly couple wearing king and queen costumes
Diane Arbus, The king and queen of a senior citizens’ dance, N.Y.C. 1970, 1970
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
A framed black and white photograph of a seascape at night
Hiroshi Sugimoto, North Pacific Ocean, Ohkurosaki, 2013
gelatin silver print, 60 x 71-5/8 inches (framed) [152.4 x 181.9 cm]
Jeffrey Fraenkel on Hiroshi Sugimoto's Seascapes
Duration: 01:16 | Release Date: Sep 2021
Framed color photograph of a woman in a long grey trench coat holding a black alligator skin handbag standing in front of a grey wall
Katy Grannan, Isabelle, Paris. June 2021, 2021
pigment print, 33-5/8 x 57-5/8 inches (framed) [85.4 x 95.6 cm]

Katy Grannan photographed French actress Isabelle Huppert for a recent Balenciaga campaign.

A grid of 6 black-and-white photographs showing the fronts of industrial buildings.
Bernd & Hilla Becher, Industrial Facades, 1974-1985
six gelatin silver prints, 18 x 22 inches (each framed) [45.7 x 55.9 cm]

This typology was included in On the Art of Fixing a Shadow, the landmark exhibition at the National Gallery in 1989 marking the 150th anniversary of photography’s invention.

Framed color fashion photograph of a woman standing contrapposto holding a machete
Martine Gutierrez, Neo-Indeo, Trade in your quiché skirts, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 46-7/8 inches (framed) [147 x 119 cm]
Framed color fashion photograph of a woman leaning into the sun holding a box of bananas
Martine Gutierrez, Neo-Indeo, Mam Going Bananas, 2018
chromogenic print, 54-7/8 x 36-7/8 inches (framed) [139.4 x 93.7 cm]

Martine Gutierrez is an artist, performer, and musician who produces elaborate narrative scenes that employ pop culture tropes in order to explore personal and collective identity in terms of race, gender, class, indigeneity, and culture. For Indigenous Woman, a 124-page magazine, Gutierrez produced every element, from fashion spreads and ads to an editor’s letter. Gutierrez uses herself as a model in the magazine’s glossy, seductive imagery, and has described the project as a celebration of “ever-evolving self-image.”

Daphne Palmer on Martine Gutierrez
Duration: 02:38 | Release Date: Sep 2021
Framed artwork depicting a blue-toned, soft-focus portrait of Basquiat, with a red rectangle imposed over the top half of the artist's head.
Carrie Mae Weems, Blue Notes (Basquiat): Who’s Who or a Pair of Aces #1, 2014
archival inkjet print with silkscreened color block, 39 x 31 inches (framed) [99.1 x 78.7 cm]

In Carrie Mae Weems’s Blue Notes series, grainy blue portraits of Black pop culture figures and artists are hidden by blocks of solid color.

Explore our current show, Carrie Mae Weems: WITNESS here.

Jeffrey Fraenkel on Peter Hujar and Nan Goldin
Duration: 01:18 | Release Date: Sep 2021
Black-and-white vertical photograph of a standing man wearing a jock strap.
Peter Hujar, Self-Portrait Standing, 1980 / printed later
pigment print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Color photograph of a woman in a lace bra and jeans with hands in her pockets standing in front of a beige wall
Nan Goldin, In my hall, Berlin, 2013
pigment print, 38-1/4 x 25-7/8 inches (framed) [97.2 x 65.2 cm]
Three color photographs depicting poppies against a blue-grey background.
Richard Learoyd, Three part floral, 2020
three unique Ilfochrome photographs, 36-3/8 x 36-5/8 inches (center work, framed) [93.0 x 93.0 cm], 43-7/8 x 36-5/8 inches (outer works, framed) [111.4 x 93.0 cm]
Frish Brandt on Richard Learoyd's poppies
Duration: 01:14 | Release Date: Sep 2021
Black and white collage of a garden with nude women's torsos interspersed
Wardell Milan, One spring afternoon in 2019. 5 women who could engage your imagination., 2021
color pencil, china marker, acrylic, oil pastel, spray paint, cut and pasted paper on inkjet print, 44-1/4 x 61-1/4 inches (framed) [112.4 x 155.6 cm]

Wardell Milan works in mixed media, combining elements of photography, drawing, painting, and collage. Themes of freedom of expression and safe spaces are often at the forefront of his works, especially as they apply to the marginalized body.

A framed image of a person standing wait deep in the ocean with their back turned to the camera
Richard Misrach, State of the Union, February 11, 10:13 am, 2020, 2020
pigment print, 60-1/2 x 80-1/2 inches (framed) [154 x 205 cm]
Framed collage of two record covers stitched together with white thread
Christian Marclay, Hot August Night, 1991
record album covers stitched with thread, 26-1/4 x 17 inches (framed) [66.7 x 43.2 cm]
Black-and-white photocopy multiple exposure of corded telephones spiraling out from a skull.
Christian Marclay, Untitled, 1993
multiple exposure photocopy on paper, 26-1/2 x 19-1/2 inches (framed) [67.3 x 49.5 cm]
Upside down color photograph of a woman in a wooden frame with engraved metal text panel beneath
Sophie Calle, Shiner, 2020
pigment print mounted on aluminum, in wooden box, 14-1/4 x 9-1/4 x 3-3/4 inches (overall) [36.2 x 23.5 x 9.5 cm], edition of 5 + 1 AP in English & 5 + 1 AP in French

Since the early 1960s, Lee Friedlander has focused on the signs that inscribe the American landscape, from hand-lettered ads to storefront windows to massive billboards. Depicting these texts with precision and sly humor, Friedlander’s approach to America transcribes a sort of found poetry of commerce and desire.

Black and white photograph of a rural two story building with the word 'eat' in large white letters on its roof.
Lee Friedlander, Stanzel, Iowa, 1961
gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.64 x 50.8 cm]

Visit our booth at Art Basel, Hall 2, Booth A12.

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]]> 74149 Diane Arbus curated by Carrie Mae Weems https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/explore-diane-arbus-curated-by-carrie-mae-weems Sun, 30 May 2021 17:44:51 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=76952 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of 45 photographs by Diane Arbus, curated by acclaimed contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems. A long-time admirer of Arbus’s work, Weems has selected images spanning Arbus’s fifteen-year career, from 1956 until her death in 1971. “There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of 45 photographs by Diane Arbus, curated by acclaimed contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems. A long-time admirer of Arbus’s work, Weems has selected images spanning Arbus’s fifteen-year career, from 1956 until her death in 1971.

Black and white photograph of a teenage couple in a park
Girl and boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965, 1965
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things on earth: individuals all different, all wanting different things, all knowing different things, all loving different things, all looking different. Everything that has been on earth has been different from any other thing. That is what I love: the differentness, the uniqueness of all things and the importance of life….I see something that seems wonderful; I see the divineness in ordinary things.”

—Diane Arbus in a high-school essay on Plato, 1939

Black and white photograph of couple dancing
A couple at a dance, N.Y.C., 1960
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of family on beach
Puerto Rican family on the beach, Coney Island, N.Y. 1963, 1963
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of protesters walking down road with brush in foreground
Peace marchers, N.J. 1962, 1962
gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.6 x 50.8 cm]

“I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful…”

—Diane Arbus in her Guggenheim Fellowship application, 1963

Black-and-white photograph of a woman sitting alone at a counter
Woman at a counter smoking, N.Y.C. 1962, printed later
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white photograph of a body builder posting behind trophies
Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C. 1959, 1959
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Color image of a typed note added to verso of print written by the artist
Label typed by Diane Arbus on the back of “Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C., 1959”
Triptych of black and white photographs depicting three female impersonators in various states of primping
Female Impersonators, 1960
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (each sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black-and-white photograph of a tanned man sitting with his head resting on his hand
Charles Atlas seated in his Palm Beach home, Fla. 1969, printed later
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Color image of editorial highlighting a body builder shot by Diane Arbus

‘But ladies, I am 76 years old.’

The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man’ now lives among the aged in Florida. But age, to Charles Atlas, does not mean being reduced to a seven-stone weakling again.’

—Headline of article by Philip Norman in Sunday Times Magazine (London), accompanied by photographs by Diane Arbus, October 19, 1969.

Black and white photograph of a young man seated in a city park
Black boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965, 1965
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white image of exhibition showcasing black and white photographs on white gallery walls
Three images in Carrie Mae Weems’s selection can be seen in this installation view of the landmark 1967 exhibition “New Documents” curated by John Szarkowski at MoMA: “A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965;” “Black boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965;” and “Nudist lady with swan sunglasses, Pa. 1965.”
Black and white photograph of a woman with pursed lips
Woman making a kissy face, Sammy’s Bowery Follies, N.Y.C. 1958, 1958
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“For me the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated.”

Diane Arbus
Black and white photograph of a young woman with black eyeliner and tied up dark hair
Woman with eyeliner, N.Y.C. 1967, 1967
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white photograph of teenager with baseball in middle of street
Teenager with a baseball bat, N.Y.C., 1962
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of a formally dressed couple embracing
Late party in a hotel room, N.Y.C. 1963, 1963
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“I don’t press the shutter. The image does, and it’s like being gently clobbered.”

Diane Arbus
Black and white photograph of waitress at counter of diner
Uneeda counter woman at a cash register, N.Y.C., 1962
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of an empty theater
An Empty Movie Theater, N.Y.C., 1971
gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.6 x 50.8 cm]

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]]> 76952 Diane Arbus curated by Carrie Mae Weems https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/diane-arbus-curated-by-carrie-mae-weems Sat, 01 May 2021 20:15:09 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=72461 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of 45 photographs by Diane Arbus, curated by acclaimed contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems. A long-time admirer of Arbus’s work, Weems has selected images spanning Arbus’s fifteen-year career, from 1956 until her death in 1971. The exhibition will be on view at 49 Geary Street from June […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of 45 photographs by Diane Arbus, curated by acclaimed contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems. A long-time admirer of Arbus’s work, Weems has selected images spanning Arbus’s fifteen-year career, from 1956 until her death in 1971. The exhibition will be on view at 49 Geary Street from June 3 to August 13, 2021, and will be followed by an exhibition devoted to Weems’s own work in September.

Explore the exhibition
Black and white photograph of a body builder posting behind trophies
Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C. 1959
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

Weems has cited Arbus, along with David Hammons, as artists of paramount importance to her. To inaugurate Fraenkel Gallery’s recently announced representation of Weems, the artist was invited to curate an exhibition of Arbus’s photographs, the sole directive being to focus on works that speak powerfully and directly to her.

Black and white photograph of a young woman with black eyeliner and tied up dark hair
Woman with eyeliner, N.Y.C. 1967
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

Weems’s selection begins with a single preliminary image from 1945, in which Arbus stands before a mirror, pregnant with her first child. It then leaps to 1956 when, at age 33, Arbus consciously began her career as an artist. The exhibition features three photographs from 1956, including Carroll Baker on screen in “Baby Doll” (with silhouette), N.Y.C. 1956 and Kiss from “Baby Doll,” N.Y.C. 1956, among several photographs in the show set in darkened movie theaters.

Black and white photograph of a woman with pursed lips
Woman making a kissy face, Sammy’s Bowery Follies, N.Y.C. 1958
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

While the exhibition includes well-known images such as Two boys smoking in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1963 and A young waitress at a nudist camp, N.J. 1963, Weems’s selection focuses primarily on lesser-known works. Among them are Woman making a kissy face, Sammy’s Bowery Follies, N.Y.C. 1958, one of the earliest of Arbus’s photographs in which she places her camera strikingly close to her subject’s face, and Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C. 1959, about whom Arbus noted, “he can wiggle his chest muscles separately and has developed a muscle on the back of his thighs which no one else has ever developed.” The photographs Weems has selected trace the evolution of Arbus’s technique and encompass a broad cross-section of her interests. The subjects depicted include couples, children, transvestites and female impersonators, nudists, families, and celebrities, often photographed in parks, bedrooms, and dance halls, in New York City and elsewhere.

Black and white photograph of a man posing a boy kneeling on a podium
Photographer posing communion boy, N.Y.C. 1968
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]

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]]> 72461 Fraenkel POP‑UP https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/fraenkel-gallery-pop-up Thu, 29 Apr 2021 22:37:43 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=69089 We are excited to announce the launch of Fraenkel POP-UP, a short-term gallery space located in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood, starting May 1. Featuring works by Diane Arbus, Vija Celmins, Lee Friedlander, Adam Fuss, Peter Hujar, Richard Learoyd, Helen Levitt, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and more.

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]]> We are excited to announce the launch of Fraenkel POP-UP, a short-term gallery space located in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood, starting May 1. Featuring works by Diane Arbus, Vija Celmins, Lee Friedlander, Adam Fuss, Peter Hujar, Richard Learoyd, Helen Levitt, Richard Misrach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and more.

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]]> 69089 Starting from Wrong https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/elisheva-biernoff-starting-from-wrong Thu, 01 Apr 2021 21:35:51 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=71137 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present its second exhibition of new work by Elisheva Biernoff. Titled Starting from Wrong, the exhibition features twelve meticulously detailed paintings measuring no larger than 4 x 5 inches each. All completed since 2017, Biernoff’s recent paintings are carefully observed, two-sided works based on found and anonymous photographs. The exhibition will […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present its second exhibition of new work by Elisheva Biernoff. Titled Starting from Wrong, the exhibition features twelve meticulously detailed paintings measuring no larger than 4 x 5 inches each. All completed since 2017, Biernoff’s recent paintings are carefully observed, two-sided works based on found and anonymous photographs. The exhibition will be on view from April 1 to May 28, 2021, and will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Fraenkel Gallery.

Photorealistic painting of a man kneeling on a suburban lawn with his arms around two little boys
Envelop, 2019
acrylic on wood, painted both sides, 3-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 1/32 inches [8.9 x 11.4 x .1 cm]

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.

A painting of a polaroid photograph, on a white stand, made at one-to-one scale. The photograph depicts the surface of the ocean, with a triangle of emulsion loss cutting through the top center of the image.
Instant, 2021
acrylic on wood, painted both sides; painted poplar stand, 4 x 4 x 1/32 inches [10.2 x 10.2 x .1 cm]

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?”

A painting of a vernacular photograph, of a rock formation out in the desert. The sun has caused a rainbow light flare in the center of the image.
Signal, (recto) 2021
acrylic on wood, painted both sides, 4 x 5-7/8 x 1/32 inches [101.6 x 14.9 x .1 cm]

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.

Installation photograph of various postcards on shelves
Starting from Wrong, 2021
set of 50 postcards

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring all fifteen paintings the artist has completed since 2017, when her first monograph was published. Each work is reproduced to exact scale and, consistent with the original publication, all paintings are reproduced recto and verso.

In connection with her exhibition Starting from Wrong, Elisheva Biernoff speaks to Frish Brandt about how she begins a painting, and how she thinks about the discarded and mistake-ridden photographs she collects, which have been the basis for her recent work.

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]]> 71137 Christian Marclay https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/christian-marclay Tue, 10 Nov 2020 23:09:58 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=68956 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present new work by Christian Marclay, incorporating collage, video animation, and photography. The exhibition will be on view in the gallery from January 21 to March 25, 2021. The voice is at the center of the exhibition. In a series of photographs showing screaming faces, cut and torn fragments from […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present new work by Christian Marclay, incorporating collage, video animation, and photography. The exhibition will be on view in the gallery from January 21 to March 25, 2021.

The voice is at the center of the exhibition. In a series of photographs showing screaming faces, cut and torn fragments from comic books, movie stills, and images found on the internet are arranged into haunting, mask-like composites, and then recorded by the camera. Capturing the paper’s inherent creases and tears, the photographs mix analog and digital elements, and investigate the computer screen as a contemporary physical surface.

A color photograph of a crumpled illustration from a comic book, with a screaming mouth at the center
Untitled (Pulp), 2020
digital chromogenic print, 33-3/4 x 25-1/8 inches (framed) [85.7 x 63.8 cm], edition of 5

This exhibition marks the premiere of Fire, 2020, a hypnotic new animation. Using small pieces cut from comic books, the single-channel video work is an impressionistic representation of fire. Over fifteen hundred photographs shown in rapid succession suggest a flip book, creating the illusion of a flickering, fiery mosaic in motion. Flames are also the subject of Raging Fire, 2020, a large collage made of paper cutouts from comic book illustrations of fire. The piece transforms representations of all manner of war, catastrophe, explosion, and arson into abstracted yellows, oranges, and reds in a variety of styles.

Also on view will be No!, 2019, a set of 15 original collages made from comic book fragments. Conceived as a graphic score for a solo voice, these original collages were scanned and made into an edition to be used by performers. While earlier works such as Manga Scroll, 2010, incorporated onomatopoeias disconnected from their generative action, No! uses vocal utterances, facial expressions, and body movements to prompt a performance. Writes Marclay, “Like my earlier graphic scores dating back to the 1990s, the use of words that illustrate their sonic counterparts engages non-traditional visualizations of sound as a possibility for generating music.” As in his music and video works, which splice together found recordings and film footage, the comic book segments are culled and re- contextualized in vibrant, dynamic ways.

Color photo of a collage of comic strips and creased paper, showing a screaming man
Untitled (Crying), 2020
digital chromogenic print, 25-1/8 x 33-3/4 inches (framed) [63.8 x 85.7 cm]
In connection with Fraenkel Gallery’s 2021 exhibition, experimental vocalist Elaine Mitchener performs Christian Marclay's graphic score, "No!"

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]]> 68956 Wardell Milan https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/wardell-milan-2020 Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:09:01 +0000 https://fraenkelgallery.com/?post_type=fraenkel_exhibition&p=68334 Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present new work by Wardell Milan. The gallery’s second solo show of the New York-based artist will be on display in our gallery from October 29, 2020 to January 15, 2021. The exhibition features Milan’s ongoing series “Death, Wine, Revolt,” which combines photography, drawing, painting, collage, and sculpture to explore […]

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]]> Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present new work by Wardell Milan. The gallery’s second solo show of the New York-based artist will be on display in our gallery from October 29, 2020 to January 15, 2021. The exhibition features Milan’s ongoing series “Death, Wine, Revolt,” which combines photography, drawing, painting, collage, and sculpture to explore themes of over-indulgence, destruction, and revolution.

explore the exhibition
A brightly colored collage depicting a group of figures in a lush floral garden
Here the mysterious host— raised in the South, now based in the North curates a gathering of friends seeking sanctuary, 2020
charcoal, graphite, oil pastel, pastel, cut and pasted paper on inkjet print, 51 x 60 inches (framed) [129 x 152 cm]

In several large-scale works, Milan uses enlargements of his own photographs of specific locations—the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King was assassinated, or the city of Venice—setting his images in dialogue with historical sites of racist violence or political rebellion. Populating the works are a range of human figures, often nude, whose bodies are pieced together from fractured drawings and photographs, and overlaid with blue and white paint. Some groupings suggest erotic coupling or violent encounters, and many arrangements are based on photographic sources. In 2020, Los Feliz, Los Angeles, Milan positions five figures in white Ku Klux Klan hoods against his own photograph of the city’s hills. The arrangement of bodies is based on a found image of a Klan social gathering, and presents the white nationalists in a bland, contemporary California suburb. In The Parade, the arrangement of figures echoes Diane Arbus’s Untitled (7), from her final body of work made in a home for the developmentally disabled in New Jersey.

A collage of a parade of figures, surrounded by flowers, against a dark black background
The Parade, 2020
charcoal, graphite, oil pastel, pastel, cut and pasted paper on hand-dyed paper, 62 x 100 inches (framed) [158 x 255 cm]

Also on view are a selection of smaller works, including white-on-white cut paper collages depicting hooded Klansmen, and paintings from Milan’s ongoing series of tulips. While earlier flower paintings were inspired by the 17th-century Dutch tulip craze, the new works deconstruct the flowers, transforming them into chaotic arrangements of petals and leaves, hinting at the dissolutions the past year has wrought.

An abstract oil painting of a deconstructed black and white flower, with several bright green leaves
Untitled, (Tulip, Tennessee no. 5), 2020
oil, charcoal, graphite, pastel & china marker, 32 x 41-1/2 inches (framed) [81.3 x 105.4 cm]

Concurrent with the exhibition, in the third gallery, Milan has curated a selection of photographs from the gallery’s archives and beyond. The presentation, which includes works by Diane Arbus, Peter Hujar and George Dureau, is a collection of images that have inspired Milan’s own practice.

Wardell Milan speaks with Elena Gross of the Museum of the African Diaspora about how the pandemic has affected his work, what drew him to depicting the landscape, and how the work in his current exhibition, from the series "Death, Wine, Revolt," evolved.

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