Thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate the recent publication of JANET FRIES.
For those who were unable to attend our event on May 21, 2024, the book is available for purchase for $50.00 including shipping. Please contact us with the number of copies you would like to purchase along with your mailing address.
JANET FRIES includes 54 portraits including photographs of Marion Barry, President Joe Biden, former Senator John McCain, Angela Davis, Joan Didion, Maureen Dowd, Jane Fonda, Jerry Garcia and Harvey Milk among others.
Janet Fries | Portraits
126 pages with 44 black and white and 10 full color reproductions, with an introduction essay by the publisher.
Published by HEMPHILL Artworks.
9" x 12" soft-bound with foiled cover.
ISBN 978-0-9725406-3-6
Contemporary society sees itself in the pictures of those gaining and retaining fame. Images of the famous and the infamous shape the way we see the past. Winston Churchill's often-attributed quote, "The victors write history," is no longer entirely true. The power of the famous is now measured in the frequency with which we see their image, regardless of whether their actions were good, evil, or banal. Photography and all its tributary mediums, for better or worse, are part of how we illustrate the stories we tell and represent the kind of people we wish to be or want to avoid. We did not step into the current dynamic between image and power unconsciously. Media fame has been building and evolving for centuries, but there has never been such an intrusive and instrumental use of photographic portraiture to sustain power as that which we experience today.
Janet Fries' photographic portraits, shot on assignment for printed magazine publications between 1973 and 1991, were part of a swelling information wave just before the flood of shared cell phone photos, blog postings, text messages, influencers, and social media stills and reels of today's world. The nostalgic sensation of viewing the once fabulous and notorious captured by Fries kindles a fondness for the humanity of those pictured. Their visages are the content from a time before content would be entirely overwhelmed by the new speed and energy of today's frenzied media.
Many of Fries' subjects have passed on; some are still alive. Collectively, they hold a place in time, as they are of an era before the peculiarities of the current information landscape. They possess personality, regardless of their accomplishments. Together, Fries' portraits give us insight into how we defined a particular period and raise questions about how the current portrayal of the famous has changed us.