Lightening Field 131, 2009; silver gelatin print. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. As a conceptual photographer often heavily invested in his process, Hiroshi Sugimoto has always been interested in photography's ability to capture light as well as the medium's capacity to frame and objectify its subject. In his current show, "Lightning Fields," Sugimoto references the history of photography by pursuing two distinct projects related to William Henry Fox Talbot--inventor of the photographic negative. The first part is Sugimoto's literal and meticulous reprinting of two of Talbot's botanical photograms while the second is inspired by the pioneer's... Read More

The Fraenkel Gallery is a treasure for Bay Area arts audiences, a commercial gallery that serves the community as well as most museums in the quality of its exhibitions and the erudition of its programs and publications. One of its current exhibitions is The Book of Shadows, an exhibition and book based on Jeffrey Fraenkel's eccentric personal collection. For several years, as the field of vernacular and anonymous photography has gained wide interest, Fraenkel has been accumulating a snapshot collection whose common theme has been inclusion of the picture taker's shadow within the frame. At the surface level the... Read More