Jill Frank

The Salon

Photographed primarily on 4 x 5 film with the composure of classical portraiture, Frank's subjects appear mid-performance in the rehearsed ceremonies that structure American life: dances, beach parties, children's costume contests, spring break, social events and competitions, and the smaller rites in between. At first glance, the pictures resemble the images Americans already make of themselves — yearbook poses, vacation snapshots, prom portraits, the soft iconography of a country that learned to photograph its own adolescence. Held a beat longer, they become something stranger: monuments to the private psychic labor that ordinary American life requires.

"I want to make these moments important, big and visible," Frank says. "Rather than categorize them as 'whatever youth experiences,' I'm interested in the fact that these kids survived something — something tense, something intense — and I want to treat that as the triumph it is." The resulting work sits between portraiture, documentary, and something closer to ceremony — refusing the critique common to teenage activities and asking the viewer to see them as moments of real consequence.