[Photo credit: Robert Frank, 1955, US 90 en route to Del Rio, Texas; courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London]That's how Jack Kerouac described Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank. The famed beat writer went on to write, Frank's photographs are the equivalent of poems on America -- on film.
Big, ambitious shows can disappoint but the NY Met's "Looking In," a look at Frank's "The Americans" series was vivid. (Click here for more exhibition information.)
INTIMATE STYLE, THEMATIC SEQUENCING
It's easy to miss Frank's ground-breaking vision as it's so prevalent today. Frank, who came to the States in '47, helped pioneer an intimate style of photography. Up-close and personal, sometimes the focus is below the subject's torso, slightly off focus, as if Frank didn't even bother to look into the viewfinder and just clicked.
Frank also pushed the thematic sequencing of images, lining up of images to tell a story, something that seems to basic today.
When Frank first came to New York he worked for Harper's Bazaar and other magazines, work he despised. Disillusioned he traveled to Europe and South America including Peru.
I know the show is called "The Americans" but my favorite image was "City of London" '52. It's a shot of men, bankers presumably, walking down a foggy city street. The man in a bowler hat (?) scowls slightly at the camera, as if angered he's been caught in the dirty act of making money. The city's buildings are sharp, looming. I loved it and had to go back to look at it again.
GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP; RETURN TO AMERICA
When Frank returned to the U.S., he applied for and received a Guggenheim Fellowship to capture the expanse of America from '55 to '57. His fellowship letter, drafts, along with letters from friends, supporters including Kerouac are on display as well. (Typed letters with pen edit marks! Ah the days of hand copy-editing. Remember those green visors?) Frank's art colleagues included photographer Walker Evans, who shot "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" that documented white sharecropper families in the South in unflinching closeness.
Side note, the NY Met show features edited contact sheets, with markings by Frank, illuminating his editing process, deciding which images were the strongest. This is a key reason why I think the show was such a success (and what was lacking in other big recent NYC shows like Frank Lloyd Wright at the Guggenheim). Detailed, meaningful curating lets the viewer in on the art-making, editing process. Very tactile experience.
Frank's "The Americans" indeed was the trip of a lifetime. Chinese cemeteries in San Francisco. Crowded Canal Street in New Orleans. A small-town view with smoke from chimney stacks from a hotel in Butte, Montana. A lunch counter in Detroit offering 10c(ent) orange whips to weary-looking blue-collar workers.
ART VS. REAL LIFE?
But there was a price, it seems. At one point Frank in '55 invited his wife Mary and two kids to join him on his epic project.
U.S. 90 en route to Del Rio, Texas. Mary sits inside a car with her child tucked against her, a moment of love, safety. But Frank -- the photographer -- captures the moment outside of the vehicle, the photographer on the outside looking. The curator text says it was the price (the separation) Frank paid for pursuing his art.
"I'm always looking outside trying to look inside, trying to say something that is true..." -- Frank, '85.
The show runs until Jan. 3, 2010; and the museum is open Columbus Day Monday.
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