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Frank Franca is a photographer, educator and creative director. Born and raised in Havana, Cuba, he later also spent time growing up and living in Spain, the US, and the UK. His work has been exhibited and published internationally.
Publications include: Aperture, Art Forum, Art in America, BOMB, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue (US), Vogue (Germany), ID, Vice, PDN, Marie Claire, Details, W, The Village Voice, Le Monde (Paris), The African Sun (Cairo), The Guardian (London), Photo (Japan), Die Ziet (Germany) among others.
Exhibitions include: Royal Festival Hall (London), Matte Editions (Brooklyn), Gitterman Gallery (New York), Studio Galleria (Budapest), Institutes for Contemporary Art: Kaliningrad and Ekaterinberg (Russia) The International Center of Photography (ICP in NYC), Hamburg House of Photography, Museum of Nonconformist Art (St Petersburg, Russia,) and others.
In 2017 in Milan, Franca curated an exhibition of New Photography by young Americans: Fondo Malerba per la Fotografia- Fabbrica del Vapore Milano. The exhibition was presented as a series of large scale digital projections.
In 2015 Franca presented #helloicp, an Instagram based, interactive, public, photo-mural in the street windows of the International Center of Photography- Bowery. This projected included photographers from 6 continents representing hundreds of cultures globally. #helloicp was commissioned by the International Center of Photography
Franca was a member of the arts activist group, The Visual AIDS Artist's Caucus, creators of the public art actions including: The Red Ribbon- international symbol of AIDS awareness, the first use of a ribbon as a quiet wearable symbol in support of a cause. The red ribbon symbolized support for the plight of people with AIDS at a time when when the AIDS crisis was being ignored by the establishment.
With the Visual AIDS Artists’ Caucus, including Nan Goldin, Allen Frame and a few other friends, Franca was a cofounder of Electric Blanket, an epic slide show and projected public street action which addressed the AIDS crisis and which was intended as a vehicle to effect change with the masses. Electric Blanket has also been projected on the facade of buildings in heavily trafficked pedestrian areas throughout the world. It has also been displayed as an installation in art spaces internationally (Museum of Modern Art MoMA PS1; Pacifico Yokohama, Japan; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Milch Gallery in London; Gray Gallery of Art in NYC; Museum of Nonconformist Art in St Petersburg, Russia; High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Hennie Ostead Museum of art in Oslo, Norway; Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, Germany, and many others).
Citations: Franca is featured in Alexander McQueen; Blood Beneath The Skin, a biography of Alexander Mcqueen by Andrew Wilson. And Images of Ambiente: Homotextuality and Latin American Art, 1810-today, a historical rendering of imagery in Latin American Art by Rudi Bleys.
Currently a faculty member at The International Center of Photography and at Pratt Institute, Franca has guest lectured all over the world, notably including The School of Visual Arts (NYC), The Cooper Union (NYC), The Studio (Moscow), Dumb Type (Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan), Milch (London), LCI and MARCO Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (Monterrey, Mexico).
Franca was a founding faculty of ICP @ The Point. The work with his class of teenage students in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx at ICP @ The Point was honored and awarded with the President's Committee on the Arts Award, presented by First Lady Laura Bush at The White House in 2006.
Former London Correspondent for Fairchild Media, WWD (Women's Wear Daily) in the UK, Franca holds a BFA in Filmmaking from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He has also worked extensively as a lighting designer, and as a museum/gallery installation designer.
Grants and awards include: Citizen's Exchange Council, Open Society, Arts Link, The British Council, Pratt Faculty Development Fund, PS 122 Studio Program, and others.
Has worked extensively in the US, UK, Italy, Russia, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Germany, and Norway.
Franca Glacier in Antarctica is named for Franca’s father, Dr. Fernando E. Franca, an explorer, inventor, pilot and physician.
Franca is fluent in English and Spanish and based in NYC.
For more information:
FFFranc@aol.com
FFranca@ICP.edu