The Unphotographable

San Francisco

The Unphotographable is an ambitious survey exploring the history of that which cannot be photographed. Comprised of approximately fifty works, the show interweaves prints by artists as wide ranging as Alfred Stieglitz, Sophie Calle, Man Ray, and Glenn Ligon, as well as works by anonymous and virtually unknown photographers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The gallery owner, Jeffrey Fraenkel, says: “From the moment of its invention almost 175 years ago, photography has proven adept at depicting the photographable: the solid, the concrete, that which can be seen. […] But another tradition exists, a parallel history in which photographers and other artists have attempted to describe by photographic means that which is not so readily seen: thought, time, ghosts, god, dreams. A vast array of strategies has been employed to bring such pictures about, tactics that have intersected and enriched the strains of modern art.”

Artists participating in the exhibition include Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, F. Baldet & F. Quénisset, Walead Beshty, Mel Bochner, Sophie Calle, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Liz Deschenes, Kota Ezawa, Tom Friedman, Adam Fuss, Paul Graham, Idris Khan, Clarence John Laughlin, Richard Learoyd, Glenn Ligon, Adrien Majewski, Man Ray, Christian Marclay, Chris McCaw, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Richard Misrach, Jakob Ottonowitsch von Narkiewitsch-Jodko, Gerhard Richter, Frederick Sommer, Alfred Stieglitz, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Fraenkel Gallery

January 3 – March 23, 2013
49 Geary Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
USA

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