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PHOTOGRAPHY SURVEYS | COLLECTIONS | MOVEMENTS | EXHIBITIONS

PUBLISHER
Fraenkel Gallery

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 10 x 11 in. / 256 pgs / 99 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 33   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781881337393 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00 GBP £57.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

TERRITORY
WORLD

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

San Francisco, CA
Fraenkel Gallery, 11/14-12/14

THE FALL 2025 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Artbook | D.A.P. Catalog Cover Link
Preview our FALL 2025 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

FRAENKEL GALLERY

The Plot Thickens

Introduction by Jeffrey Fraenkel.

The Plot ThickensPublished to mark the esteemed Fraenkel Gallery's 35th year, The Plot Thickens is an eye-opening expedition through the history of the medium, with approximately 90 wide-ranging photographs by artists as diverse as Diane Arbus, Christian Marclay, Robert Adams, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Mel Bochner, Walker Evans, Sol LeWitt, Lee Friedlander, Alec Soth, Katy Grannan, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Richard Learoyd. In the tradition of Fraenkel Gallery's award-winning anniversary publications from years past (such as Furthermore, 20Twenty and The Eye Club), The Plot Thickens includes a trove of images by unknown photographers, virtually none of which have been reproduced before. Designed by Katy Homans and printed with extraordinary fidelity, The Plot Thickens is a meditation on the inexplicable essence of the medium and an essential new publication for anyone who cares seriously about art and photography..

Featured image, of an unknown bank robber shooting at a security camera, is reproduced from The Plot Thickens.

The Plot Thickens

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/2/2015

The Plot Thickens

The Plot Thickens

"Photography's plot has been thickening since the first photographers made their second photograph," Jeffrey Fraenkel writes in The Plot Thickens, Fraenkel Gallery's intriguing and magnificently produced centuries-spanning survey of mostly unpublished photographs. "Now, 175 years later, the plot has so thickened that little consensus exists about what, exactly, a 'photograph' is. (Several recent museum exhibitions have explored precisely this question.) New forms and functions proliferate, and we find ourselves swamped in images that evaporate, as exemplified by Snapchat, as quickly as they appear. The irony, of course, is that Snapchat itself may speedily evaporate, to be replaced by an even more seductive image dematerialization… For anyone … inclined to pause, look and think about photographs in an age when paying attention may be a disappearing art, the ninety-odd images on [these] pages are guaranteed to reward the effort." Peter Hujar's 1974 Self-Portrait Jumping (II) is reproduced from The Plot Thickens. continue to blog


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