Review: “The Long Story of a Story” by Franco Klein at Yancey Richardson Gallery

In 2017, photographer Tania Franco Klein didn’t travel anywhere—or even close to where she could have been. He went to a small desert town in California, which, except for an RV and the occasional car, was barren. In fact, Franco Klein found out a lot of abandoned cars, he joined these cars, put his camera equipment and shot. This is where he took one of his classic photos: Car, Window (Independence) from the Proceed to Route chain.

In the photo, a well-dressed Franco Klein shields his eyes from the desert sun. His illustration shows a desert vista of RVs, standing akimbo, and mountains. Warm, fuzzy desert tones wash over the image. It’s amazing that Franco Klein’s photo, the RVs near the mountains were all taken from inside the car. And although we’re not as close as the photographer, his image–and his influence–is always discussed inside the car. We get the idea that the photographer wishes to hide.

Franco Klein’s “Long Story Short” exhibition at the Yancey Richardson Gallery makes it clear that obscurity is Franco Klein’s currency. The show, which draws on works from Franco Klein’s episodic series Break in Case of Emergency, Get On Track and Good Breakup. , a map of the artist’s intentions.

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Take it Toaster (Your Self-Defense) in his Positive Disintegration series. Toaster (Your Self-Defense) analog of Car, Window (Independence) Once again, Franco Klein does not photograph himself in direct contact with the lens but as he has been filtered by something else. In this case it’s a toaster. We see his helpless face, slumped over the dining room table, reflected by a Proctor Silex toaster. Aspects of his likeness are distorted and spread widely around the outside of this device. In the lower right corner, almost cut off by the frame, is the real, skin-and-bones Franco Klein. Since the real Franco Klein is almost invisible, we are left to grapple with his distorted, enigmatic likeness.

In another work, Content (Your Privacy)Franco Klein is strapped to an old CRT television box. The shape of the screen obscures the photographer’s face, and Franco Klein, in all his grayness, covers a small part of the picture which is usually a cramped, poorly lit room. Warm light from a nearby room enters the picture; it is the only thing that prevents Franco Klein from entering the belly of the black darkness.

There’s this idea that the more you capture the world, in any creative medium, the harder and more defined it becomes. It’s a philosophy that sends criminals hunting for Bigfoot. That’s what novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor meant when she said, “I write to find out what I know.” Here, Franco Klein drops it all. In his photography, the photographer is not concerned with blurring himself out of society or dispelling myths. He is not even willing to find himself in his art. What could be a long story, an extended release, is left to summarize his work.

In a Guardian interview, the photographer tells journalist Edward Siddons that he doesn’t see himself in his work. “I completely isolated myself. The people in the pictures are actors. […] I see myself as a tool for work. Self-portraits are not my way of discovering things about myself—if anything, it’s a way of hiding.”

It would seem that the world, its institutions and people, expect us to work to define them. In his painting, Franco Klein urges us to take the time to escape society’s definition, to get lost and distant—whatever the world may take us to be.

Tania Franco Klein, “Long Story Short” will be on view at Yancey Richardson through December 21.