NEW YORK, NY.- It is a rare thing for a woman to enter a boxing gym – and to be accepted there. But, that is what photographer Jona Frank accomplished. Gripped by the atmosphere, in 2010, and continuing for the next four years, she began to explore and photograph at an amateur boxing club in a working class community outside Liverpool, England. Her new book, The Modern Kids (Kehrer Verlag, April 2016), is an emotionally charged record of adolescent boys at a formative time in their lives when sport becomes intertwined with character. Combining the qualities of formal portraiture with the intimacy of viewing the sport of boxing from a woman’s view, The Modern Kids reveals a world that is both heroic and violent. The book features an essay by artist and filmmaker Bruce Weber who Frank credits as an influence.
In boxing, the two opponents are physically and psychologically stripped down, determined to express their power. The boys of The Modern Kids, sweaty and spent and sharing their moments of winning or defeat, try to act tough for the camera posing after their fights with faces that evoke the timelessness of boxing. Yet, while Frank’s photographs provide a record of the sport, they also highlight a community whose presence is slowly fading, as gyms begin to close and work is hard to come by.
“I liked hanging out in the gym,” says Frank, who was first introduced to the boxing clubs by an English friend she had met over 20 years earlier while on a road trip through the U.S. “I liked how inviting and open the spaces are and I liked watching how hard these boys worked. I also liked the history – here was a place where age and youth and dads and lads all coincide and work together.”
Frank’s photographs show the grit and toughness of the boys, as well as the courage it takes to get in a boxing ring where it is constant movement and constant focus. After the fights, the boys share their moment of glory with the camera, and are in turn made heroes in these photographs. “People will take notice, writes Bruce Weber. “Their hard work will matter.”
As a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, an excerpt from Frank’s project is on view at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, from March 12, 2016, through January 8, 2017. She will also have a solo show at Bild Kultur gallery in Stuttgart, Germany, April 16 - May 22, 2016.
In tandem with The Modern Kids, Jona Frank has made Baby Faced Assassin, a short film completed in 2014 about British Super Flyweight boxer Paul Butler as he prepares for his first title fight.
Jona Frank is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. She has exhibited her films and photographs internationally. Her work is in prominent collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her other books include RIGHT: Portraits From the Evangelical Ivy League (Chronicle Books) and High School, (Arenas Street Publishing, Los Angeles). Born in Camden, New Jersey, she currently resides in Santa Monica, California. Her work is available through De Soto Gallery, Venice, California.
