PORTS AND SHIPS, 2004 - 2008

Despite the expansion of air transport in the last half century, global trade still moves mainly by sea, as it has for centuries. Ports and Ships illuminates the invisible global network of vessels crisscrossing the seas, delivering goods, and connecting continents. These colossal ships, signed by time and their rough maritime environment, radiate a multi-faceted beauty and melancholy. They are the aging, noble beasts of transport that serve our thoroughly modern desires to send, receive, and consume at a rate that is increasingly better, cheaper, and faster.

In this current wave of globalization, the demands of modern shipping have forced ports to adapt to the growing appetite for volume and speed in sea trade. Capturing on film the points of origin and destination of these worldtraveling vessels is the conceptual axis on which this project revolves.

Ports visited for this series include Venice, Rotterdam, Athens, Marseille, Barcelona, Miami, New York, Boston, Singapore, Laem Chabang, and Saigon.

A catalogue with an interview, essays and 50 color plates is available: Andrea Frank Ports and Ships Published by Kunsthalle Göppingen (Germany) in collaboration with MIT Museum Compton Gallery (Cambridge, MA) and Galleria Michela Rizzo (Venice, Italy) 110 pages, 50 color plates, English, German, and Italian Interview by Werner Meyer, essays by Dabney Hailey and Laura Fanti. $24.95 Order by email from Kunsthalle Göppingen or afrank@mit.edu

2010
Brevard Art Museum, Melbourne, FL (solo exhibition)

July - August 2009
Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston, MA (solo exhibition)

February - June 2009
The MIT Museum Compton Gallery, Cambridge, MA (solo exhibition)

July - September 2008
Kunsthalle Göppingen, Germany (solo exhibition, catalogue)

2007
Columbia University Gallery, New York, NY (group exhibition, curator Maurizio Pellegrin)

2005/6
New Photographs Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, NY (solo exhibition)