Judith Eisler: Center of the Frame

Book signing and conversation with Judith Eisler & Kirsty Bell

On the occasion of the publication of the new monograph Center of the Frame by Judith Eisler at Lenz Press with texts by Kirsty Bell, Christopher Bollen, Judith Eisler and Wade Guyton, designed by Joseph Logan, there will be a conversation with Judith Eisler and Kirsty Bell.

Center of the Frame, which brings together paintings made between 1997 and 2024, is Judith Eisler’s first monograph. The artist’s paintings depict paused moments in cinematic time in which predominantly female subjects are caught mid narrative, cropped, and recontextualized by the fundamental elements of painting: form, color, and light. Using preexisting material borrowed from moving images, Eisler defines the abstractions inherent in the representational image with shifting marks of paint. The structure of the painting is informed by the source material as well as the more intangible issues of perception, desire, and mediation.

Featuring an essay by Kirsty Bell, an introduction by Christopher Bollen, and an interview with Wade Guyton, the texts delve into the artist’s fascination with cinema and the transmission of images through the various formats of analog film, television broadcasts, internet videos, and of course, the painted canvas.

“Eisler seizes on the information within the cropped still image in an entirely structural sense, beyond any cognitive meanings of expression, action, or emotion, focusing in on these differentiations as if examining the very infrastructure of vision.” (Kirsty Bell)

Books are available for purchase at the Secession. You can order a copy online here.

Access to Secession is via the side entrance on the back side of the building.

Photo: Nicola Gnesi