GLR July-August 2023

the past by creating new narratives, new timelines. He looks for what’s hidden in a photograph, the unspoken story. Edward Hopper, in his journal Notes on Painting (1950), wrote of his desire to make “a real istic art from which fantasy can grow.” In a similar manner, Frame begins with the re alistic photograph and then engages his imagination to show his viewers the infi nite perceptual possibilities it contains. He challenges us to see more deeply so that what is hidden from view, not only in the photo but in ourselves, will come into the light. Irene Javors is a frequent contributor to TheG&LR and lives in New York City.

of 1960s snapshots of an Italian young man who appears to spend all his time at the beach or in the water. Frame mingles these photos with his own color photographs of men and women enjoying themselves on land or in the water. In this album, Frame imagines all of the inhabitants of the photos as one extended family. Frame’s albums Fever and the forthcom ing Whereupon are best discussed together, as they feature the same group of artists and friends. In the 1980s, he photographed a cir cle of artists including Darrel Ellis, Frank Franca, Frank Moore, Nan Goldin, and many others. At the time, AIDS had not yet wreaked havoc upon an entire generation. The photos in Fever are in vibrant color

showing subjects full of joy and possibility. Unfortunately, AIDS entered the scene. Many of those included in the album died from AIDS. At the end of the album, Frame includes interviews with eight of the artists who are still living. The photos in Whereupon were exhibited at the Gitterman Gallery in New York in 2022. The work includes black-and-white photographs taken between 1977 and 1992 . These pictures offer the viewer a window into a bohemian New York—grungy streets, dilapidated buildings, crash pads, and the ever-present lit cigarette. There is a sense of film noir’s shadows and light coursing through these photos. Frame stresses his desire to re-animate

Goldin

the risk of overdose. Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray that’s now approved for over-the-counter sales, can swiftly and easily re verse an opioid overdose. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed has relevance for the LGBT communities in its attention to the legacy of ACT UP, harm reduction strategies, narratives about NYC’s downtown subculture, the AIDS pandemic, the complexity of sexual ori entation, and performative activism. Apart from the theatrical aspects of ACT UP, another legacy of AIDS is harm reduction strategies that were developed, from safer sex to needle ex change. Research on opioid misuse in LGBT populations is in adequate. In one study, nearly twice as many adults in those populations misused opioids as in the general population. The LGBT community has been targeted by predatory individuals who have administered fentanyl in gay bars to cause incapaci tation so as to commit robbery and murder. In April 2023, two individuals were arrested and charged with murder in connec tion with a series of killings and robberies. The bankruptcy court hearing documented in All the Beauty and the Bloodshed included Goldin’s testimony and that of oth ers who’ve been devastated by opioids and the Sacklers’ disre gard for human life. For the record, among those who didn’t testify are two sets of lesbian parents separated by thousands of miles, both grieving the loss of an adopted adult son due to an overdose of fentanyl-laced drugs: Arlene Istar and Sundance Lev in Albany, whose son Shaiyah died in 2016 at age 21; and Sylvia Allen and Martha Shelley in Portland, whose son Solomon died in December 2022.

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Goldin’s photography and the documentary confirm the re lationship between representation and intimacy. She is never a stranger to the LGBT community. In an interview in the pho tography magazine Aperture , “The Ballad of Nan Goldin: A Conversation with Darryl Pinckney,” she said: “The lesbian community in Provincetown at the time was very small, and all the women were fucking each other, which made it interesting. I fell in love with a woman and obsessively photographed and filmed her for a long time, even after she broke up with me. I guess that was the beginning of what drove me to photograph people.” Of her sexual orientation, she said: “I’ve always been able to live with ambivalence.” Goldin acknowledges that ACT UP is the model for her style of activism. She and PAIN have been successful, with several significant victories. In 2019, the Louvre removed the Sackler name from its walls, becoming the first major museum to erase its public association with the philanthropist family linked with the opioid crisis in the U.S. In December 2021, the Met in NYC removed the Sackler name from seven exhibition spaces, and five months later, the Guggenheim erased the family’s name from an education center. Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy in September 2019, facing 614,000 claims filed by individuals, municipalities, hospitals, tribes, and states, accusing the com pany and the Sackler family of contributing to a public health crisis with about 500,000 deaths since 1999. Purdue Pharma paid $500 million to claimants and was dissolved. For a decade before the bankruptcy, the Sacklers withdrew more than $10 billion from the company, distributing it among trusts and over seas holding companies. Economists estimate the cost of the opioid epidemic, including law enforcement, healthcare, and treatment, to be in the trillions. The leading cause of death for Americans aged eighteen to 45 is a fatal overdose of fentanyl. Goldin noted: “Fentanyl is in all the drug supply now.” Within a year of PAIN’s formation, its mission shifted to one of harm reduction. In one scene, she’s learning how to operate a machine to analyze the presence of fentanyl in drugs (PAIN had raised $35,000 for the device). Fen tanyl test strips (FTS) provide essential information about fen tanyl in the illicit drug supply so users can take steps to minimize July–August 2023

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