The label below will be present in the exhibition alongside this piece. It is provided here so that fans submitting fanworks know in advance how fandom will be discussed in this project. However, fanworks do not need to take into account the below information and should be inspired by or responding to the piece of art alone: 

Frank Kleinholz 
American, 1901 - 1987 
Forbidden Fruit, 1969 
Serigraph 
13 x 19 in 
86.11.20 
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alan L. Radcliff

The work of Brooklyn-born Frank Kleinholz focuses on urban life in New York, as well as flowers and birds, and intimate scenes of parents and children. His style is marked by vivid color, energetic brushwork, geometric shapes, gestural linework, and shortened perspective. Conceptually, his works contrast underlying themes: dreams/fantasy, alienation/striving, despair/caring, and social criticism/exuberant individualism. Here, Kleinholz takes the biblical concept of “forbidden fruit” and subverts it, using it instead to consider the simple desires of children. What risks come from wanting? 

Collections 

When one considers the collections of fans, they are likely to imagine a grouping of objects; comic books, Funko Pops, movie paraphernalia, and Pokémon cards are all examples of things that one might collect and display as an expression of fandom. Yet fans create and curate collections not just of objects, but also of facts and knowledge. Fans display their collected knowledge when they share information about their fandoms. While an outsider to the fandom might find an overflowing of this knowledge strange or even off-putting, within fandom it can serve as a kind of capital, like that of collectible objects, with both being evidence of one’s devotion to the fandom.