The Frostig Collection has announced a fundraising exhibition and auction of photographs by some of the leading photographers of our time, who generously donated limited edition prints to a most worthy cause. All proceeds of the auction sale will benefit the social skills program at the renowned Frostig Center, a school for children with learning disabilities, Asperger’s and high-functioning autism located in Pasadena. The exhibition was curated by Jamie Lee Curtis: actress, author, photographer, longtime photography collector.
All works are exhibited at the collection’s gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica and are being sold through an online auction, which ends on February 16th. Jamie Lee Curtis writes, “At the end of my solicitation letter asking artists to donate their work to help raise funds for The Frostig Collection, I wrote, ‘My hand is out, my heart is open, my aim is true.’ My aim is help and advocacy for the social skills program at The Frostig Center. These crucial skills are a struggle for children with learning and developmental differences. Every person and especially these students need an assist, a helping hand. This program provides that and this show helps fund the program.” The “aim” referred to in the show’s title is also the photographer’s aim–the point of view of his or her lens, the choice of subject and the articulation of intention. As Curtis has said, “The show is a collection from nurture to nature, light and dark, whimsical, deadly serious and most importantly, the universal themes of love and freedom.” The images gathered together in the exhibition are extremely varied, but most display a great deal of heart. As might be expected of an exhibition and sale intended to benefit a school program, images of childhood abound. They are seen in photographs that reflect on the condition of children and adolescents in contemporary society, as in photographs by Sally Mann, Andrew Eccles, Martine Fougeron, Francie Bishop Good, Polly Gaillard, Arne Svenson and Shawna Ankenbrandt. They are seen too in images of childhoods of yesteryear taken by Vivian Maier and Todd Webb. Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey, Sebastião Salgado and Judy Ellis Glickman focus their cameras on children in foreign lands.
It is also not surprising, given the celebrity status of the exhibition’s curator, that MY AIM IS TRUE includes many celebrity portraits, although often of a most unexpected kind. Among them are iconic images of iconic figures, such as Richard E. Aaron’s photograph of the young Michael Jackson, Henry Diltz’s portrait of “Sweet Baby James” Taylor, Bob Gruen’s famed images of John Lennon in New York, Diana Walker’s intimate portrayals of Steve Jobs and Andy Warhol’s Polaroid of a radiant Diana Ross. Greg Gorman offers an appropriately quirky image of painter David Hockney and Art Streiber shows us celebrities in absentia (empty Academy Award seats), while celebrity photographer Eugene Pinkoski presents a meditative formal study taken in an interior. Also featured is a townscape by William Eggleston, a landscape triptych by Alexandra Hedison, cityscapes with famous landmarks by Michael Hughes and figures on a beach by Leon Levinstein. A lush, romantic still life by Cy Twombly contrasts with one that is cool and analytical by Taryn Simon. Last, but certainly not least, is a rare early diptych commenting on gender stereotypes by Cindy Sherman, one of the most celebrated figures in contemporary art.