Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
Braubachstraße 30-32, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
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Exhibition
ABE FRAJNDLICH. CHAMELEON
Duration: May 20 – September 17, 2023
Opening: Friday, May 19, 2023, 7 pm
ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME
Saturday, May 20, 2023, 3 pm
Gallery talk with Abe Frajndlich and Celina Lunsford, Curator and Artistic Director FFF
Sunday, May 28, 2023, 3 pm
Curator’s tour with Celina Lunsford, Curator and Artistic Director FFF
Sunday, June 25, 2023, 3 pm
Curator’s tour with Celina Lunsford, Curator and Artistic Director FFF
Wednesday, September 6, 2023, 5 pm
Curator’s tour with Abe Frajndlich and Celina Lunsford
Friday, September 8, 2023, 6 pm
Performance with Butoh dancer Minami Azu
Sunday, September 10, 2023, 3 pm
Abe Frajndlich in dialogue with author Peter Stephan Jungk
Public guided tours
every Wednesday, 5 pm
Jack Lemmon, actor. Hollywood, 1996, © Abe Frajndlich, 2023
Jane Fonda, November 3, 1970 on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, © Abe Frajndlich, 2023
He has portrayed creatives from music, art and show biz, icons of photographic history as “Masters of Light” and surreally depicted the limitlessness of the cosmopolitan city. With CHAMELEON, the FFF presents the iridescent diversity of the US-American photographer Abe Frajndlich (*1946, Frankfurt am Main).
He 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.
Thanksgiving Day Parade, Central Park West, 1986, © Abe Frajndlich, 2023
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, Jack Lemmon or Aperture founder Minor White, staged images of Gordon Parks or Louise Dahl-Wolfe, as well as images from his emotionally dynamic book Eros Eterna can be seen.
The retrospective, curated by Celina Lunsford, together with Esra Klein (both FFF), reflects stations from Frajndlich’s historically moving biography, and is FFF's contribution to the 175th Paulskirchen anniversary.
Gallery tour with Abe Frajndlich and Celina Lunsford through the exhibition “ABE FRAJNDLICH. CHAMELEON”
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.
FOTOGRAFIE FORUM FRANKFURT
The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) is one of the leading centres of photography in Europe. As an exhibition space, institution and event forum the FFF deals with all aspects of photography. Since its founding in 1984 it has presented more than 260 exhibitions with historic and contemporary artists. Additionally, the programme of the FFF comprises of regular workshops, talks and discussions with internationally renowned photographers, artists and experts.
