Image: Fran Herndon, Jack Spicer and his Radio, 1960, oil on canvas, 58.4 x 71.1cm.
Dinsdag, 4 november, 2025 – zondag, januari 25, 2026
Fran Herndon: A Folio
Text #1: JUF: The Art of Fran Herndon: Cavities, Circles and an Outward Radiation
The Estate of Fran Herndon has been informally looked after by Juf (Bea Ortega Botas and Leto Ybarra) since 2023. Through Juf—which focuses on contemporary art and poetry—the pair learnt of the work of Fran Herndon (1926–2020) when researching the San Francisco Renaissance poets and the social scene surrounding their work. In wanting to learn more about Herndon but not exactly knowing where to look, Ortega Botas and Ybarra reached out to figures from this scene, and were then, perhaps unexpectedly, informally appointed by this very friendship group—comprising of figures like Jack Spicer, Robin Blaser, Jess and Robert Duncan, Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy, George Albon, Norma Cole and Elizabeth Robinson—to be the central point in an otherwise decentralised and previously unestablished archive. Since then, the pair have been collating information on the work of Herndon, which can largely be found hanging on the walls of her friends’ homes in San Francisco.
As part of their contribution to The Clock Wife—and in seeking more scholarship on the work of Fran Herndon as a key goal of the estate—Juf have commissioned a series of texts that will be published throughout the exhibition via The Back Room, an online publishing platform of Small Press Traffic—a San Francisco Bay Area seedbed for poets who push boundaries in the arts. In elaborating on Herndon’s practice and distributing the findings across the geographical network forged between Small Press Traffic, A Tale of A Tub and Juf, Ortega Botas and Ybarra further their work in the establishment of this estate, continuing to care for the legacy of Fran Herndon in a social manner that seems wholly fit for her work. Each month a new text will be published, with this event marking the first official text of the folio. The publishing timeline is as follows:
October 27, 2025: Introduction: Isabelle Sully & Maxe Crandall
November 4, 2025: Juf
November 24, 2025: Tumelo Mtimkhulu
December 19, 2025: Sanja Grozdanić
January 13, 2026: Ariel Goldberg
Biografieën
JUF is a curatorial and research project that revolves around contemporary art and poetry, directed by Bea Ortega Botas and Leto Ybarra, and now based between New York and Madrid. Juf’s work has recently been shown at Et. al (San Francisco), 99CANAL (New York), Judson Memorial Church (New York), Gasworks (London), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), NYU Tisch School of the Arts (New York), Hangar (Barcelona) and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Madrid). Juf is currently investigating the work of the artist Fran Herndon, carrying out an inventory of her oeuvre, and contributing to the establishment of her estate.
SMALL PRESS TRAFFIC is a Bay Area seedbed for poets who push boundaries in the arts. They present programs, publications,and curatorial opportunities with an ethos of radical inclusivity. THE BACK ROOM is small and carefully tended online publishing platform of Small Press Traffic. It recognises the reality that there’s no dearth of places to publish online, but a severe shortage of writing outlets that privilege respectful editing and fair compensation. They publish biweekly in the spring and fall, simultaneously engaging with Small Press Traffic’s live programming and exploring independent community interests.
Part of the exhibition