Allen Frame came to New York in 1977 and began to photograph his buddies in his condominium and theirs — intimately noticed, unposed scenes that were being influenced by his love of movie and theater. Just after his very first solo present in 1980, he located himself forged as Jack Nicholson in Gary Indiana’s play The Roman Polanski Story, starring his friend John Heys as Roman and Cookie Mueller as Sharon Tate.
He was suddenly launched to a environment of downtown legends that incorporated Monthly bill Rice, Taylor Meade and Jack Smith. In the exhibition, Whereupon, at Gitterman Gallery, a haunting picture of Heys and Mueller shows them coming out onto the terrace of Heys’ East Village penthouse terrace. There is also a photograph of William Burroughs at residence in the Bunker on the Bowery. Nan Goldin is noticed sitting on Frame’s bed with artist Siobhan Liddell and a mate, their limbs mysteriously intertwined. Quite a few of the very same close friends who seem in Fever show up in these black and white images: a self-portrait with painter close friend Charlie Boone Butch Walker with Charlie and his boyfriend Bill a early morning photo of a youthful gentleman lying across a mattress on the flooring as a youthful woman crosses the space. As Mark Alice Durant writes:
“His illustrations or photos are not decisive times, they are not precisely portraits, or figure reports possibly. They exist interstitially. A silent intimacy and muted staging share the proscenium, as good friends, acquaintances, and strangers pause and continue through the largely nocturnal tableaux. Allen’s images are unique in their exquisite understatement, they notice without judgment, are melancholy but not sentimental, smolder without clamor.”
