Fraenkel Gallery presents Whipped Cream & Other Delights, a two-week pop-up residency at Ortuzar in New York, on view May 9–21 in the gallery’s West Broadway space. Reflecting Fraenkel Gallery’s idiosyncratic approach to photography and its intersections with other media, the exhibition moves freely through centuries and brings together works by Eadweard Muybridge, Diane Arbus, and Robert Adams alongside more recent “delights” by Martine Gutierrez, Kota Ezawa, and Liz Deschenes—some created specifically for this project. An opening reception will take place Saturday, May 9, from 3-5pm.
The exhibition takes its title from a new piece by Martine Gutierrez, in which she inserts herself into the iconic cover of Herb Alpert’s 1965 album of the same name, playing on the uncanny resemblance between her performative self-portraits and the model famously draped in whipped cream. Interweaving the unexpected with the canonical, the exhibition juxtaposes an 1887 nude self-portrait by Eadweard Muybridge with an eighteen-part typology of water towers by Bernd & Hilla Becher. Other highlights include a 1955 “paste-up” by Bay Area artist Jess, whose fiercely personal work weaves together text and image fragments drawn from an eclectic range of sources, and John Waters’s fabled Faux Video Room installation from 2006. A new work by Carrie Mae Weems, The Law of Diminishing Returns, explores the intersection of history and memory in connection with the transatlantic slave trade.
The residency at Ortuzar reflects Fraenkel Gallery’s long-standing belief in the value of collaboration, bringing together the sensibilities of both galleries while reaching new audiences. As Fraenkel Gallery President Daphne Palmer states: “It’s simple: we enjoy working with our friends. Given the challenges of today’s art world, it makes sense to nurture alliances and build on mutual strengths. We were especially drawn to working with our great colleagues at Ortuzar because their artists and ours often seem in unspoken dialogue with one another.”
Ortuzar founder Ales Ortuzar adds: “Fraenkel Gallery has consistently expanded the conversation around photography and how it is understood within contemporary art. We’ve long admired their program, so it’s a pleasure to welcome them to Ortuzar for this project. The exhibition captures something we both value—unexpected connections between artists, ideas, and generations.”
Since 1979, Fraenkel Gallery has presented nearly 400 exhibitions exploring photography and its relation to the other arts. Based in San Francisco, the gallery exhibits and publishes significant works of art across a variety of media spanning two centuries.
Founded in New York by Ales Ortuzar in 2018, Ortuzar represents artists who play a significant role in the development of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art. Through well-researched exhibitions, global institutional placements, and market leadership, the gallery advances the careers and legacies of artists and estates.
Concurrent with Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Fraenkel Gallery will partner with New York’s Metrograph theater for Fraenkel Gallery Presents, a selection of highlights from the Fraenkel Film Festival. Held annually at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, the series invites gallery artists to select films that have shaped their creative, intellectual, or aesthetic outlook. From May 8-10 and May 15-17, Metrograph will present films chosen by Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Martine Gutierrez, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.
