"How soon will anyone dare photograph peppers, after Weston?" – Hollis Frampton’s ADSVMVS ABSVMVS (1982) at Museum Folkwang (2018)

Description

Between November 5-27, 1982 the 14 photographs of Hollis Frampton’s ADSVMVS ABSVMVS, In memory of Hollis William Frampton, Sr., 1913-1980, abest could be studied at the Visual Studies Workshop Gallery in Rochester, New York. The series and exhibition presented a collection of dried, decomposed, skinned, and flattened plants and animals displayed on a black ground and provided visitors with a brochure, which contained a short introductory text, the Latin classifications of each specimen, miniature reproductions of their photographic representations, and short descriptive captions for each image. From April 13-May 13, 2018, an original set of Frampton’s ADSVMVS ABSVMVS was presented at Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. The exhibition was conceived as a critical reiteration of Frampton’s own show in Rochester and was conducted in collaboration with students, scholars, and curators at Folkwang University of the Arts and Free University Berlin. The project allowed all participants to conduct in-depth research on ADSVMVS ABSVMVS and its specific imagery and texts, which were understood as a complex collection of palimpsests, a system of referential opulence, and an installation with its own spatial choreography. For the Hollis Frampton panel at CAA Chicago 2020, I propose presenting selected results from this educational and curatorial project, which also resulted in the publication of a catalogue. Within my proposed presentation, I suggest using ADSVMVS ABSVMVS as a key to retrospectively understanding Frampton’s conceptual work involving photography between 1958-1984.

Period	2020
Event title	108th College Art Association of America Annual Conference - CAA 2020
Event type	Conference
Conference number	108
Organiser	College Art Association
Location	Chicago, United States, IllinoisShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International