WHEREUPON, TURMOIL: Installation of photographs and ephemera from the book Whererupon by Allen Frame and the fanzine Whereupon, Turmoil curated by Allen Frame published by Palermo Publishing. With Allen Frame and Michele Bertolino

We’re happy to inaugurate the Italian launch of the book Whereupon with an installation of photographs and ephemera and talk between the author and Michele Bertolino. Whereupon is a selection of images by New York photographer Allen Frame, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in black and white and color. 

Like photographers from his generation, such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Frame uses a highly cinematic style, but in his case, the framing and mise en scène have also been influenced by his experiences in 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.”

Whereupon expands the premise of Allen Frame’s recent book Fever (color photographs of 1981, Matte Editions, 2021) to show a broader time period with the same subject: his artist friends in their apartments and lofts and on the streets and beaches of New York. Also included are scenes from theater rehearsals from Turmoil in the Garden, a series of monologues from David Wojnarowicz’s Sounds in the Distance which Frame co-adapted and co-directed, with Kirsten Bates, in 1983 and 84 in New York and Berlin.

A new zine, Whereupon, Turmoil (Palermo Publishing, 2024) will also be released that includes screenshots of performers in Turmoil in the Garden, from a 1983 super 8 film by Frank Franca, along with posters from the production in New York in 1983 and a subsequent production in a loft in Berlin in 1984. The zine also reproduces memorabilia from Allen Frame’s private collection from that period, along with postcards and posters of other events.

On show in Leporello 3 silver gelatin prints from the book’s  limited edition, a series of colour images reproducing some of the photographs of Whereupon, Turmoil, Berlin 1984 performance and a selection of ephemera published in the eponymous fanzine printed on wallpaper.

The Italian launch continues in Palermo and Roma with

Readings from Sounds in the Distance

text by David Wojnarowicz

with Allen Frame, Gabriele Giugni and Jeanine Oleson

May 31st, 6 pm

Sicilia Queer Filmfest

Cre.Zi. Plus, Cantieri Culturali della Zisa, Palermo

and June 4th, 7 pm

Spazio Supernova

Santa Maria in Trastevere, 1a Roma

The Roman events are under the patronage of  Circolo di Cultura Omosessuale Mario Mieli

Allen Frame’s first photography monograph, Detour (KEHRER), was published in 2001, followed by Fever (Matte Editions) in 2021. His book Innamorato (Meteoro Editions) was published in 2023. He won the Rome Prize in photography in 2017/18, and spent a year in Italy at the American Academy in Rome. After residencies in St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg, Russia, through CEC Artslink in 2019, he returned to Italy in 2021 as a Director’s Guest at Civitella Ranieiri in Umbria. Much of his recent work has been made in Italy. Last year he co-curated, with Antonio Sergio Bessa, an exhibition called Luxe, Calme, Volupté about New York in the 1980s with 75 artists, a satellite show at Candice Madey Gallery coinciding with the exhibition Darrel Ellis: Regeneration, presented at the Bronx Museum. Darrel Ellis is featured both in Whereupon and in Fever. Other notable artists depicted in the two books include Peter Hujar, Bill Rice, Cady Noland, Robert Gober, Siobhan Liddell, Frank Moore, and Nan Goldin. Frame is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts, the International Center of Photography in New York, and for Strudelmedia. He grew up in Mississippi and graduated from Harvard. His work is represented by Gitterman Gallery.

Dedicated to contemporary book culture, Palermo Publishing is a publishing house sensitive to the poetics of the margin. Publications are designed with special attention to the selection of materials, and through their curation and quality, convey an experience that transcends the visual. They focus on what might be called the “marginal gaze” working closely with artists, curators, institutions, and archives to provide a counterpoint to mainstream narratives. We are in the process of building a catalog which will be a bridge between visual arts, poetry and critical thinking. New books to be released in the summer ALBUM 900 – Lucia Pescador (IT) and Songs for birds and the lonely – Dietmar Busse (GE)

Michele Bertolino (he/him) is an independent curator and researcher. He collaborates with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as coordinator of the Young Curators Residency Program and with GUCCI as curator of Controluce, a video art program for the Gucci Garden. He is curator of the publication Porpora – book of photographs by Lina Pallotta about Porpora Marcasciano, a historic Italian trans activist. In 2016 he founded with Bernardo Follini, Giulia Gregnanin and Sebastiano Pala the curatorial collective Il Colorificio. His writings have been published in NERO Magazine, Flash Art, Mousse Magazine.

Sicilia Queer Filmfest is the first international festival of lgbt cinema and new visions in Sicily. It was born from the widespread demand for non-sanctioned, innovative, critical thought and culture and the need to represent a society in movement.

Cre.Zi. Plus, Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo 25 May – 31 May 2024

Spazio Supernova is a site-specific art experiment, exhibition and cultural space. Roma, Santa Maria in Trastevere, 1a.