Frazier King is a photographer, collector and curator, living and working in Houston, TX. His photography work focuses on constructed still life with use of film and gelatin silver prints as well as digital capture and archival pigment prints. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of many individuals along with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France; and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has been a collector since the 1990s. During his 15 years serving as a member of the board of directors of HCP, he curated or co-curated exhibitions and participated as a reviewer in photography portfolio review events around the world.
With the Griffin’s opening of The Collector’s Eye: A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries, we compiled a list of questions for Frazier to get detailed insight of his journey in collecting.
It is evident that collecting has had a much broader impact on your life than simply providing you with a hobby and monetary possessions- throughout your travels, what are some experiences, people, or places that have stuck with you the most and strengthened your passion for the world of art collecting?
Making connections with photographers has been the most significant thing for me during my collecting experience. This has been important for several reasons: First, their work has inspired and informed my own work. In addition, I have developed friendships with many photographers in my collection which have lasted many years and the fellowship has enriched my life. These friendships have also connected me both to other places and to other organizations in the U.S. and, indeed, around the world. All of this has made me aware of and a part of an international photography community. Probably the best example of this is my acquisition of prints from John Chervinsky. John and his wife Kirsten lived in the Boston area, where his wife remains. I first saw his work at the FotoFest International Discoveries Exhibition (October 25–December 8, 2007). I attended his lecture on November 15, 2007 in which he discussed his series titled An Experiment in Perspective. Afterwards I discussed with him his thoughts behind the series. I was fascinated by his very inventive manner of expressing physical principles involved in the photographic process. Mental images of a number of his prints stuck with me. I keep thinking about his prints and, subsequently, when I met him at the 2008 FotoFest Meeting Place I purchased from him In Motion . . . At Rest. But it was not the only image I loved. When Continuum I appeared in the HCP Annual Print Auction in 2009, I was able to acquire a second image that was in my mental file. I continued to think about this work and in December 2013 I purchased a third print, The Analysis, from Lightwork, located in Syracuse, NY. With his untimely death in 2015 resulting from cancer, I lost a dear friend. However, in working with Kirsten to acquire information on John’s prints necessary to produce the book, I acquired a new friend and a fourth print, Providence, through her very kind generosity. My friendship with John also made me more aware of the Griffin Museum and its importance in providing a top-quality exhibition venue. I have had similar experiences with Elaine Duigenan, a photographer living in London, and over the years have acquired prints from six different series. There are a number of other photographers like Pavel Banka from Prague in Czech Republic and Roberto Fernández Ibáñez from Uruguay.
The collecting process has also deepened my connection with many institutions, such as the Griffin Museum, the Houston Center for Photography, FotoFest International, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Smith, Colorado, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and a number of others.
You call your collection “accidental” as your acquisitions come from a place of impulse and intuition rather than strategic planning and research. Do you ever take a step back to look at your collection in its entirety and introspect on these “purely visceral responses” that have allowed it to evolve into what it is today?
this is a great question! My collecting process started in earnest in 2000 but, due to a demanding legal career and an intense schedule of both HCP board membership duties and a photographic practice with associated events, I had not really taken a reflective moment until 2012. Early that year Wendy Watriss, one of the founders of FotoFest, decided to present my collection as the second exhibition in the Collector’s Eye series. At the time, in the statement for the exhibit I did indeed describe the collection as “accidental” because its acquisition process happened without a specific plan. However, the task of developing a statement for the exhibition gave me the opportunity to examine the works and to address the nature of the collection–both how it came to be and exactly what it had become. I gave gallery talks each Saturday while the exhibit was on display. This gave the chance to explore the nature of the prints and determine both the sources and the meaning of the impulses driving the collection. While I promised Wendy at the time that I would produce a catalog of the exhibition, I was far too busy with work and my own photography to be able to do it. However, when I retired in 2014 I started to work on my promise. It quickly became obvious that it was long past the time when a catalog would be appropriate. Therefore, I undertook to make a book with an essay. Wendy also contributed an essay as did Madeline Yale Preston, the Executive Director of the Houston Center for Photography during a large portion of the time I was collecting. I took the FotoFest name for the exhibit plus my own explanatory statement and called it The Collector’s Eye– A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries.
Given that the art of photography has evolved exponentially during your time as an artist and collector, particularly with the rise of social media and advanced software in the 2010s, what are some of the greatest thematic and aesthetic shifts you’ve noticed from the start of your career until now? In a world that has arguably become oversaturated with media, how do you see the culture of art collecting changing with the times?
It seems to me that there are three independent parts to this question: (1) what is the impact of digital photography, (2) what is the impact of social media, and (3) what is the impact of image saturation on collecting. To comment on these three aspects, I would note that as a photographer I started presenting portfolios of work in earnest at reviews in 1998. When I was the Chair of the Exhibitions Committee at HCP in 2008, I started reviewing work of other photographers. I have continued both activities until the present day. In these capacities, I have had the opportunity to both view the presentation of work in person and to discuss the evolution of work with other photographers and reviewers.
(1) With regard to the first question, I think that I can say with some confidence that the consensus is that the development of digital cameras, software, and printing has dramatically increased the participants in the “fine art” photographic field. The ease of the process has brought another level of democratization to the field equal or greater than the advent of the Kodak Brownie. There have been both positives and negatives to this development. On the positive side, there have been many new subject areas which have been developed addressing many evolving aspects of society. Showing such work has brought focus and understanding to long suppressed social conditions and also to evolving conflicts which are impacting peoples around the world. Work which has been viewed as primarily journalistic is now treated as fine art work. While the inventiveness of these presentations has continued to grow through such techniques such as collages, combination with text, use of video, and other digital techniques, the use of innovations which are camera-based seem to have diminished. On the negative side, some reviewers (including me) have noticed that there is an increasing amount of work that comes to review in a more undeveloped state than in the past. My speculation is that because it is so much easier to make and print images some people feel that the work is ready for release before it has been sufficiently developed.
(2) With the regard to the use of social media, there have been a number of developments. I think that there is more work addressing social topics because social media makes it possible to reach a wider audience with a minimum of cost. Also, social media makes it easier to distribute and promote work.
(3) I am not sure that the image saturation on social media has had an impact on collecting. Maybe some people have switched to Artsy to purchase prints. Not sure if this has caused a net increase in prints purchased. A few years ago, there was a bit of interest in NFTs which social media seemed to promote. However, I do not hear people talking about that too much. Social media continues to announce and promote exhibitions and openings and that seems to drive the traditional print sales.
What do you believe is your ultimate goal in collecting?
This is a topic that could be the subject of a rather long treatise or book. However, to try to reach the essence, I would say that my goal is to continue to experience the twin aspects of wonder and discovery. When a photographer/artist produces an image which touches a common chord or elucidates a philosophical topic, it creates a sense of wonder. In turns wonder results in learning and discovery, not only about the human condition, but also the self. I want to continue to experience this as long as I can.
In terms of the goal of what happens to the collection, the aspirational goal is that the collection could continue to live on as a curatorial work in and of itself and that it be a representative of the work being done in this segment of time in photographic history. As I explain in the book, it would show the concerns and aesthetics of the time in which we live.
I also want to talk more specifically about the images that are being put on display here at the Griffin Museum:
Do you see a visual thread in the works of Collectors Eye hanging in the Griffin? There looks to be a combination of abstraction, surrealism, and minimalism that all comes together to create a rather cohesive series.
Yes, there is a single thread which unites all of the images you see in the primary part of the exhibit here. As I explain in more detail in The Collector’s Eye–A Photographer’s View of His Contemporaries, in 2012 when I was preparing the
exhibition statement, it became apparent that the largest part of my collection consisted of what at the time I called contemporary constructed photographs. In a 1976 essay, A.D. Coleman initially labeled this type of photography directorial photography, where the photographer acts by “intervening in ongoing ‘real’ events or by staging tableaux . . .
“. At the time of The Collector’s Eye II exhibition in 2012 I used the term constructed photography (in a not-so-academic or precise way) in the statement to describe the show. My understanding of the term was much broader than Coleman’s definition, in that it included all types of interventions. To be sure, it encompasses what we generally think of as “staged photography,” i.e. staged or artificially constructed scenes made only for the purpose of photographing them. Nonetheless, to me the word constructed includes both staged and manipulated photography. In my collection there are prints created using several different methods to create a constructed photograph: constructions in front of the camera, on the medium inside the camera (either the negative or the digital file), and in the printing process.
In addition, there is a smaller group of images which feature a strong horizon line. While I did not think about it at the moment of shutter release, I have come to realize the importance of this point in nature. The horizon line is that magical place where one can see heaven and earth in the same field of vision—and the location where they meet. That point where earthly vision stops and heavenly vision begins. That place where the sun—our source of energy and life—magically disappears, only to reappear again in the morning. It has such a powerful quality that photographers are drawn to it like a moth to a flame—quite literally. Penelope Umbrico has shown us thousands and thousands of images of sunsets posted to the Internet. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is both the source and the destruction of the moon and the stars. It is that place where one’s vision is closest to infinite—where you can see forever. It is the anticipation and symbol for
tomorrow—the future. At the same time, it is a mysterious place that one can never attain—ever receding—like the end of the rainbow. It shows us the duality of the concrete earth and the ethereal sky and it teaches us how small and inconsequential we are.
Are there any pieces in particular that hold a special place in your heart because of the story, people, or place that it is associated with?
First, I have to mention the untitled print by Jerry Uelsmann which I acquired in a workshop with him in 1991. This showed me that I could create magic with the camera and the darkroom.
Second, I would have to point to the print that really started my collecting as a strong and present force. That is titled Window Collage with Lily by Susan Dunkerley Maguire. That one really instructed me in how I could construct an image using symbols. It was closely related to my Tableau portfolio and gave validity to what I had done there.
In addition, I would say that the four prints by John Chervinsky were so important to me because they addressed the ideal of the perspective that the camera has and how one can create both mystery and learning with perspective.
The work of Pavel Banka is important because the prints are successful staged images filled with philosophical insight and humor.
Elaine Duigenan’s prints show not only that a camera is not a necessity but they also show the beauty and elegance of simplicity.
Of course, I could go on and on, but I will stop at this point for the sake of brevity.
Upon first viewing the collection, I noticed a ‘constructed’ contemporary style more than candid photography- is there reasoning behind this?
This is another very insightful question. The answer is that I am interested in images created when the photographer intervenes at some point in the creative process. It could be by arranging or staging the scene. Or it could be in the camera by creating multiple images. Another point of intervention could be in the printing process. All of these alternatives are illustrated in the exhibition as well as in the book and are discussed in my essay in the book. The reason for this interest is that this approach to photography says something about the photographer in the strongest and most direct way. It says something about how the photographer connects with the world and the philosophy that is the object of the image. It seems to me to give the best way to articulate the concerns and aesthetics of the time.
Say your collection stays archived centuries from now, how do you see it being interpreted by art historians and anthropologists?
I think that the work in this collection shows that point when many photographers changed from simply capturing the “candid” photograph of a landscape or some other situation that existed as is, in situ, and began to inject the photographer’s own meaningful and symbolic elements into the image. Of course, there are a couple images in the collection that are representative of this approach prior to 1976 and, as discussed in the book, they are forerunners of the work to come. But, by and large, it is the prints in the collection and the images in the book document the time when the constructed image was first manifested in a number of inventive and interesting ways.
