May 16th, 2011
ART TALK | TUE APR 12, 2011 | Host: Edward Goldman
Strolling through the sprawling, meticulously maintained gardens of the Huntington Library always puts me in a very special mood. It makes me feel as if I am walking through the elaborate set design during a grand performance of a Shakespeare play: King Lear, Twelfth Night, or maybe The Merchant of Venice? (Listen/Read here.)
May 16th, 2011
(Tall figure in hundred-eye coat)
2005-2011
John Frame
Wood, fabric, glass eyes, and found objects over stainless steel armature
21″ x 9″ x 7″
Photo: John Frame, Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino
“Three Fragments of a Lost Tale,” John Frame’s first solo show since 2005, is a brief look into the artist’s ambitiously scaled current project. The exhibit at the Huntington Library, which opened March 12 and runs through June 20 and includes Frame’s sculpture, still photography, and a short stop-motion film, is really only a snippet of what the final product will be. (Read More Here)
May 15th, 2011
The artist John Frame has come down from the mountains with a new exhibit that came out of a dream. “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale” is at the Huntington in San Marino until June 20th. It blends found objects, dozens of eerie hand-carved mannequins, stop-motion animation, and the sets the movie was filmed on. Off-Ramp host John Rabe met Frame at the Huntington. (Interview)
May 15th, 2011
John Frame, “Argus,” sculpture, currently on view at the Huntington Library.
The sculptures of John Frame have always had an air of narrative about them. Meticulously carved and delicately posed, his wooden figures have often suggested actors in a grand drama, caught mid-action by the spotlight. Viewers tend to stand before his sculptural tableaux as if waiting for the play to resume; puzzling out what they can by gathering clues from the figure’s masks, their expressive gestures and fragments of words that bounce helplessly off the figure’s wooden lips. These latest works take the next step. He ups the emotive potential of what was implied theatre to present a fully staged, puppet-performed film. Remarkably, his work loses nothing of its power or enigma with the fleshing out. (Read More Here)
May 14th, 2011
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May 2nd, 2011
May 2nd, 2011 by Daniel Rolnik
John Frame currently has an exhibit at the beautiful Huntington Library in San Marino, California. “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale”, showcases sculptures and an accompanying animation in a totally immersive environment that took Frame over 5 years to build.
Daniel Rolnik: Why did you choose not to give the characters human voices or sound effects?
John Frame: I had originally planned to do either voiceover or subtitling or some other form of general dialogue for the characters. As it turned out the effect of the silent film with music added was the perfect choice for what I was trying to achieve. I have a very strong sense of wanting the visuals to carry the primary content rather than adding an overlay of information that might have caused the viewer to miss the deeper areas of meaning, deeper here meaning deeper than language can take us. (Read More Here.)
May 1st, 2011
JOHN FRAME’S EERIE, BEAUTIFUL DREAM WORLDby LESLEY KINZEL | original article here
On a trip to Los Angeles last June, I visited The Huntington Library, because museums are my favorite places to be and because this particular museum promised to satisfy all three of my most obsessive fixations: books, art and history. I did not expect to run across a contemporary exhibition by John Frame, showing his work-in-progress “The Tale of the Crippled Boy,” nor did I expect it to affect me so thoroughly.
Frame is building an imaginative, almost hallucinatory world populated by his remarkable moving sculptures, which are constructed of found objects and an abundance of vivid textures. These characters are animated in both senses of the word: They can be moved, but they also seem independently alive.
It all comes together in a beautiful stop-motion film. I recommend you watch his work so far in full-screen high-definition, if possible.
I saw Frame’s short, incomplete film a couple of days after seeing the Tim Burton exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which had left me feeling a little let down — not just because of the inexcuseable void of “Ed Wood” paraphernaila, but also because it was incredibly crowded and lacking in introspection, plus I found the physical exhibition design to be confusing.
Frame’s work, however, has all the humanity that I didn’t know I was missing, or that I needed. You can help him finish it by donating to the project or purchasing still photographs from the filmmaking process. I mean really, don’t you want to see how it all ends? Watch this short film, and then help make art happen.
April 30th, 2011
By Peter Clothier
So what are we to make of this endlessly fascinating work-in-progress, Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame, currently on view at the Huntington Library in San Marino? It’s part puppetry, part kinetic sculpture; part grand opera, part grand guignol; part medieval morality play, part post-Armageddon futuristic narrative; part fairy tale, part visionary quest; part Luddite hand-carving and stitchery, part hi-tech animated movie.
Perhaps the German compound word does it best: Gesamtkunstwerk—the “all-together-art-work.” (Read More Here.)
April 16th, 2011
Apr 16, 2011, 5:04 PM | For visitors who are thinking of visiting the Huntington Gardens, Library and Gallery in San Marino (near Pasadena)— and for locals who haven’t visited in a while:
In addition to its usual treasures (finest gardens in Southern California, interesting art collections and world-class library, AND yummy treats at the tea room), the Huntington is showing an amazing exhibit of sculpture by Southern California artist John Frame. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Magical, otherworldly, strangely alive and spiritual small figurative sculptures/puppets, inhabiting a mysterious world of their own. Part of an ongoing project that will include a film and a “story”, some of which can be seen as part of the exhibit. My friend and I were just blown away; I can’t wait to take other family and friends to see this exhibit.
It is there til mid-June; recommended for all ages (I think children will love it); tucked away in a hard-to-find location in the very back building, so ask if you can’t find it. (read more)
April 15th, 2011
Edward Goldman | Art Critic, NPR-Affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM
Strolling through the sprawling, meticulously maintained gardens of the Huntington Library always puts me in a very special mood. It makes me feel as if I am walking through the elaborate set design during a grand performance of a Shakespeare play: King Lear, Twelfth Night, or maybe The Merchant of Venice? (Read More.)
