Duration: May 20 – September 17, 2023
Opening: Friday, May 19, 2023, 7 pm
The contribution of the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt to the Frankfurt festival programme “Democracy in the Making” on the occasion of the 175th Paulskirchen anniversary is the retrospective ABE FRAJNDLICH. CHAMELEON. The US-American photographer Abe Frajndlich was born in a displaced persons camp in Frankfurt in 1946 and worked for major international media, including FAZ magazine, from the 1980s onwards. In his pictures, he repeatedly deals with creativity, hope and identity in a free world.
The photographer’s work is strongly influenced by his own biographical experience: Abe Frajndlich's childhood and early youth were marked by migration. His path – and that of his family – led from Germany to Israel, back to Germany, and then via France and Brazil finally to the USA.
Abe Frajndlich began taking photographs in 1970. The FFF retrospective presents photographs from all of the photographer's creative years. Among others, Frajndlich's experimental works, his street photography in various countries as well as his portraits of great artists such as Cindy Sherman, Leonard Cohen, Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero and Jack Lemmon can be seen.
Abe Frajndlich has published numerous books, including Lives I've Never Lived: A Portrait of Minor White (1983, Arc Press, Cleveland), Eros Eterna (1999, Verlag Umschau Braus, Heidelberg), Portraits (2000, Prestel Verlag Munich), Penelope's Hungry Eyes (2011, Schirmer /Mosel, Munich). His work has been shown in exhibitions at renowned institutions, including Nicephore Niepce Museum of Photography, Chalon-sur-Saone/France; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Jewish Museum, Frankfurt; National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.; In 1997 the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt showed the exhibition; Exiles, Abe Frajndlich in it’s Print Room. Today he lives in Cleveland, Ohio.