A Hollis Frampton Slide Show in New York

Tomorrow, April 7, New York’s Anthology Film Archives will be offering viewers a look at Hollis Frampton’s artistry from a different angle. For an edition of the theater’s ongoing series Single Frame, Frampton scholars Ken Eisenstein and Michael Zryd will be on hand to introduce and explain a collection of the avant-garde filmmaking legend’s slides recently donated to the institution. As Eisenstein explained to us via email, “Over the years, materials left behind by Frampton [who died in 1984] have been making their way to Anthology via the efforts of the executrix of Frampton’s estate, Marion Faller . . . This collection (mostly papers and film) includes a number of slide trays filled with mysterious groupings.”

Anthology was kind enough to send us three of these ambiguous images (there are around 150 total) as a preview of the show. The first of the trio, Eisenstein explains, “seems to be conceptual, a stepping stone for other activities,” while the second and third are examples of straight photography, “particularly thrilling as they date from the late 1970s, i.e., after the voice-over in Frampton’s 1971 film (nostalgia) declares ‘I think I shall never dare to make another photograph again.’”