Frame to Frame is a film series that places movies in dialogue with paintings. This year, guest curator, Carlos Valladares paired film with pieces in the exhibition Boy: Joys and Sorroes that represent some of the most iconic works of Nicolas Africano.

Nicolas Africano, born in 1948 in Kankakee, Illinois, is a contemporary artist whose cast glass sculptures uniquely merge classical form with modern sensibilities. Living and working in Normal, Illinois, since the 1960s, Africano’s art is deeply personal, with his wife and muse, Rebecca, serving as the central subject of much of his work.

The cinema is the quintessential artistic medium of the 20th century; it is the meeting point of literature, poetry, theater, painting, photography, essay, music, and dance. Yet those who look at, make, or study movies have a tendency to segregate it from the other arts.

Frame to Frame is guest curated by Carlos Valladares, a writer, critic, and curator based in New York City. He has written for Gagosian Quarterly, n+1, the San Francisco Chronicle, and others. He received his Bachelor's from Stanford University in Film and American Studies, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Film and Art History at Yale, studying French cinema of the 1960s. He has taught on such topics as Latin American film and literature, the French New Wave, screenwriting, Classical Hollywood.

Carlos Valladares

Generously supported by Visionary Society, Film Society, Illinois Arts Council