There is a certain historical irony in the way “ADSVMVS ABSVMVS,” Hollis Frampton’s last major photographic series, became the basis for his first solo exhibition in New York some thirty years after his death in 1984. Frampton himself might have delighted in this inversion of firsts and lasts; his thinking, elaborated in his theoretical writings, was often preoccupied with the origins and overlapping destinies of the media in which he practiced, namely photography, film, and, well ahead of his time, the burgeoning field of computer arts. “ADSVMVS ABSVMVS,” a series of plant and animal specimens in various states of decomposition, evinces these diachronic concerns. Paralleling the work’s archaeological overtones, this excavation of Frampton’s photographic legacy promises to be the first of many shows to bestow upon this major American artist and polymath the recognition he has long deserved. For those familiar with Frampton’s films, it may come as a surprise that he continued to make photographs: in (nostalgia) (1971), he suggests that he has abandoned photography altogether. The film, which screened at Anthology Film Archives in conjunction with the exhibition at ROOM EAST, provides a voiceover account (spoken by Michael Snow) of the young photographer’s struggles in New York from the …