A picture that had the shape of being shaped, and a meaning seemingly conjured somewhere deep in the camera, in the transformation from thick world to flat picture, from presentiment to poem.
- Tod Papageorge
What if the picture’s shape is not singular or static, but is endlessly shaped by desire, love, and shame? What if flatness didn’t lack? What makes thickness? What is the thickness of our relationships? Photographer to subject, performer to audience, stranger to stranger? The Photographs in “Star-Quellers,” by Jill Frank and Adam Pape, alternately present these questions via the fullness of the individual photograph or the narrative of the extended moment. Their resulting pictures create a conversation about social rituals, play, and public space. Here the casual or the mundane is transformed by the camera; the formal Photographic treatment reveals or alters moments and subjects. Via this exchange, whether by dark of night or light of day, it is possible to discover a mystery--a mystery that is right there for everyone to see.
Jill Frank lives and works in Atlanta, GA. She received a BA in photography at Bard College and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Selected solo shows include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia and Institute 193. She has continually shown in group exhibitions around the country, including recent exhibitions at Harvard University, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and an upcoming group show at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. Her work is in many major collections, such as: the High Museum of Art, the Do Good Fund, the University of Kentucky, the Federal Reserve of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, 21C Collection in Louisville, The Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia as well as many private collections. Her work has been on the cover of Art Papers magazine and reviews of her work have appeared in Art Forum, Art in America, Bad at Sports and The Paris Review. Jill is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Georgia State University.
Adam Pape is a photographer based in New York City. Born in Smithfield Virginia, he earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2006 and his MFA from Yale in 2016. His work has appeared in several publications including The New Yorker Magazine. His photographs from Inwood and Washington Heights will be published in his upcoming monograph Dyckman Haze with MACK Books. Pape’s photographs utilize city parks as the backdrop for a narrative that unfolds in between day and night. Like a church or temple, parks are transformative. Here, young people have a public stage where they can try on different roles in the dark. Other citizens wander, fish, smoke, and pass time while animals lurk in the urban fringes, a reminder of nature’s promises and perils. These monochromatic images, directed by Pape and artificially lit, depict an ongoing exchange between humans, animals, and the landscape. In the furthest reach of Manhattan, sectioned off from further development, history and myth are at play.
