JONA FRANK
May 6 - July 8, 2023 *extended

EUQINOM Gallery is pleased to present Jona Frank’s You Are Not Enough, an exhibition that will reflect Frank’s youthful journey to find herself while attempting to grasp and failing to conform to the social mythologies encapsulated by the post-World War II suburban dwelling of her upbringing. Through photographs as well as various objects Frank identifies with her childhood, You Are Not Enough will invite viewers to experience episodes—both real and imagined—from Frank’s upbringing, and, in so doing, to explore the promises and perils of suburbia conceived not so much as a material landscape as a state of mind.

Picking up on themes explored in the memoir Cherry Hill: A Childhood Reimagined, including the alluring promise of the nuclear family that conforms itself to the demands of school and church, the deadening simulacra that populate “readymade” homes understood as the culmination of personal desire, and the claustrophobia created by heteronormative, patriarchal models. While using the language of photography, the artist simultaneously acknowledges and subverts the suburban rituals with which it is associated. Tacitly pointing to the common tendency to “perform” a particular role for the camera, Frank’s self-investigation does not directly picture the photographer and her family but instead uses surrogates: actor Laura Dern portrays her mother while younger actors depict a maturing Frank. Forbidden as a child from handling the family camera (an experience “documented” by Frank), the artist plays with the residue of memory filtered through snapshots. This assemblage of unsettling “Kodak moments,” pictures brandish moments of aggressive suburban pride: an expectant young mother places her hand over her abdomen with a knowing smile; mother and daughter in matching outfits show off “picture-perfect” pies.

Also present is the rotary dial phone that seemed to bring only life-shattering pronouncements and meticulous recreation of a birthday party gone awry. Colorful embroideries reference the handiwork traditionally associated with “woman’s work” and humorously elevate the seemingly mundane to objects worthy of real attention. At the center of the exhibition stands a miniature sculptural facsimile of the artist’s childhood home, through which viewers can watch projections of the domestic tableaux unfolding within. The exhibition serves as a counterpoint to the photographs it features, bringing the viewer back into contact with the physical environment that so powerfully imprinted the mind of the artist as a young girl.

“From the very beginning of this project, I have been interested in playing with the structures of storytelling,” said Jona Frank. “In addition to using photography to explore the feelings and tensions I felt as a child, this project has also been about translating the sensations of childhood into a narrative experience.

Two publications accompanying this exhibition will be available at the gallery; Cherry Hill, A Childhood Reimagined by Jona Frank, published by The Monacelli Press, a coming-of-age photographic memoir about Frank’s upbringing in—and flight from—a suburban New Jersey household. Also Jona Frank: Model Home, an exhibition catalog by Bowdoin College Museum of Art, featuring essays by Jona Frank, Anne Collins Goodyear, photography critic Arthur Lubow, writer Hanna Rosin, curator Dorothy Moss, journalist Jori Finkel, cultural historian, and essayist D.J. Waldie, and an interview between the artist and actor Laura Dern.

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