By Whitney Hubbs, March 10, 2025
Liz Deschenes’ “Frames Per Second (Silent)” made for Rochester’s George Eastman Museum presents an installation that is a curious and keyed up conversation pushing traditional histories of photography into a contemporary dialog. Here it is the Museum’s collections and objects on display that intermingle with Deschenes’ work.
The seriousness of photography’s past often disconnects me from fully relating to what I’m looking at, be it in a museum, textbook or lecture. Deschenes’ installation is an exhibition that is assertive and present and also yields to the medium’s history, playing a game of refusal to photography’s rules. Her work always expands the experience of both looking, and physically engaging with an otherwise a usually very flat rectangular print.
The vertical photograms in the three bays down the museum corridor correspond to the three frame rates (12, 16, and 18) and are intermixed in the installation. The works are all 60 inches high and ranging in narrow width. While each bay represents a second of cinematic time, within each bay (or second) the rates change, so that each bay has photograms corresponding to 12, 16, and 18 frames per second and are intermixed in the installation with, so that each section represents a second of cinematic time and within each bay (or second) the rates change. These photograms are bookended with two works. At the start of the installation is “Untitled (Gorilla Glass Yellow 90), 2023” a yellow UV-cured inkjet on glass and stainless steel that hangs from the dividing wall. At the end of the bays rests “Study Shelf, 2024-2025”, three yellow Kodak dye-transfer works varying in sizes mounted and leaning on a shelf and protected by a sheet of glass.
These yellow shaped squares start and finish the installation: one mimicking a screen while the other imitates photographic color filters. In between these bookends are three sections of tall silver-toned photograms that push far enough away from the medium’s standard rectangular ratio. The pacing and placement emulate the frame rates of silent films and it is notable that the Eastman Museum is known for its archive and collection of them. Thus, “Frames Per Second (Silent)” converses with several other displays and exhibitions around it, like the floor to ceiling presentation of technicolor dyes, a hand cranking film projector, and the museum’s 75th Anniversary show. What Deschenes’ installation provides is a contemporary language for understanding (and enjoying) the history on display around her work.
“Frames” works body (crouching, backing up, and pacing up and down the length of the room) and brain (ongoing) through several passages of extended time. The work questions representational practice with traditional processes. As a photographer, I’ve always had a secret photographic drive (way better than a death drive) to make cameraless pictures and admire Deschenes’ work for pursuing a visual language to communicate photography’s ideas and materiality that lands in the unsayable.
The rhythm of this installation is smooth and staggered, and the entire experience condenses into a binary of tough and soft – tough because it is securely withholding information, and soft in that it concentrated looking: reflections, patterns, flat textures, brackets, and shadows. Looking and its aftermath is not only a pleasure but importantly, a fascination. Much like the iconic 1972 Can album, “Ege Bamyasi,” “Frames Per Second (Silent)” is a rhythmic surprise, offering curiosities and connections to photography’s medium, materiality, history, and contemporary landscape that engages and leaves one wanting more.
Whitney Hubbs is a photographer and a recent book of her work, “Say So”, was published by Mack/SPBH in 2021. She is the Associate Director at Light Work in Syracuse, New York.
"Liz Deschenes: Frames per Second (Silent)", George Eastman Museum, 2025. © the artist, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; EmanuelaCampoli, Paris and Milan; and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.
"Liz Deschenes: Frames per Second (Silent)", George Eastman Museum, 2025. © the artist, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; EmanuelaCampoli, Paris and Milan; and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.
"Liz Deschenes: Frames per Second (Silent)", George Eastman Museum, 2025. © the artist, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; EmanuelaCampoli, Paris and Milan; and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.