The dense and matte aspect of the black, in Allen Frame‘s photographs—be they in color or black and white—sets the various components of an intrigue unfolding beyond the frame. They follow the pace of empty and quiet streets, only interrupted by the broken sound of a motor, the whisper of a conversation or a silence exploding in a mostly nighttime atmosphere that is both frightening and romantic. The faces reveals themselves in thick shades, alternatively tender and threatening.
Ariadna, emerging from a glass door balancing a plate on her palm, could be dancing a tango with a mother-of-pearl pistol. The music is blasting. In Frame’s deep-perspective and luminous compositions, places suddenly burn with life or stand still. A cliffside devours the peaceful waves, where for an instant land and water share the frame equally. This instant seems, as in each image, to be the one preceding the drama,the alienation.
This fleeting impression distills a palpable melancholy and defines the photographer’s quest. In one image, a car leaves the megalopolis of Buenos Aires in a pursuit that seems primarily aesthetic. This exhibition creates a formalist dialogue between the photographs of Allen Frame and the dark, sensual world of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. Set in an vague era, Bolaño’s fiction is a spiral that deconstructs literature and humanity. In this context, Frame’s personal archive become the material for an uncertain fiction and offer a way of escaping the world by staring into the elegance of the chaos.
Allen Frame Dialogue with Bolaño
Until January 11th, 2014
Gitterman Gallery
41 East 57th Street, Suite 1103
New York, NY 10022
USA
T: 212.734.0868
Links
http://www.gittermangallery.com
http://www.allenframe.net/
