An exhibition examining Lee Friedlander’s five-decade long obsession with signs is currently on view at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco.

Since the early 1960s, Friedlander has photographed the signs that inscribe the American landscape. Made in cities and small towns from New Jersey to Montana, Arkansas to South Dakota, this highly influential photographer chronicled hundreds of the hand-lettered ads, storefront windows and massive billboards he encountered. The photographs record milk prices, cola ads, neon lights, road signs, graffiti, and movie marquees.

Depicting the signs with “precision and sly humor, Friedlander’s approach to America transcribes a sort of found poetry of commerce and desire,” writes the gallery in the press release. A large majority of works in Lee Friedlander: Signs will be shown for the first time. Also on view will be a group of 16 early Friedlander prints, made on the road in the 1970s, on travels across the United States.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 144-page hardcover book published by Fraenkel Gallery.

Lee Friedlander (born 1934) began photographing in 1948. One of the most important living photographers, Friedlander’s prints are held by major collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Lee Friedlander: SIGNS
Fraenkel Gallery
San Francisco
Through August 17, 2019

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