Palermo Publishing announces the publication of its first monograph of photography, Whereupon, a selection of images by New York photographer Allen Frame, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in black and white and color. Whereupon expands the premise of his recent book Fever, (color photographs of 1981), to show a broader time period with the same subject: his artist friends in their apartments and lofts and on the streets of New York. Also included are scenes from theater rehearsals of David Wojnarowicz’s Sounds in the Distance, which Frame co-adapted and co-directed in 1983 and 84. Like photographers from his generation, such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Philip-Lorca Di Corcia, Frame uses a highly cinematic style, but in his case, the framing and mise en scène have also been influenced by his forays into theater.
As Mark Alice Durant writes:
His images are not decisive moments, they are not exactly
portraits, or figure studies either. They exist interstitially.
A quiet intimacy and muted staging share the proscenium,
as friends, acquaintances, and strangers pause and
proceed through the mostly nocturnal tableaux. Allen’s
photographs are unique in their elegant understatement,
they observe without judgment, are melancholy but not
sentimental, smolder without clamor.
Frame is also a writer and has collaborated with the
publisher/editor Michela Palermo previously on three
photo zines, Suddenly, Sorry for Your Loss, and Boy on a
Dolphin, which have featured his poems in juxtaposition
with his photographs and anonymous photos, drawings,
and paintings.
First edition October 2023
Published by Palermo Publishing
ISBN 978-88-947117-2-1
120 pages
9x 11 inches
49 duo plates on uncoated paper
Clothbound hardcover