art days...the met.

typically when i think of going to the met it is followed by some audible type disappointment like, "ughhh" or "...damn." it just tends to be pretty inconvenient and overwhelming. this past friday i had to meet meet my english architecture class there. whatever. then i was excitied to find out that the robert frank show was up. i was excited to see it. at that point i liked what i knew of his work and wanted to see more. then i also realized i've never really written about photography except for the blurb i wrote about jurgen teller a few posts back. i'm a painter and [to me] it's way easier to be critical of painting techniques. i think there's a set of much more extensive decisions that go into a painting than a photo. i've been heavily into photo recently so i decided i would enjoy looking at some photo work that's held in high esteem.

looking in: robert frank's the americans.





arguably frank's most famous work from the series, trolley-new orleans. 1955. shot a few weeks before rosa parks refused to get up.

released at the height of the cold war, the americans is a series of 83 photographs of raw american life in a consumer economy. all of the images are black&white gelatin silver prints and the lighting [natural i assume] is suberb. often depicted subjects are miners, street cleaners, pedestrians, diners, buses, etc. some of the images are slightly out of focuz but they still succeed as photographs. there is a beautiful depth of field and there often visible grain which could be the result of the size. however the photos are still sharp and i like the aesthetic. his working often depicts people being people, or what i like to call lifestyle photography. frank terms it, "the humanity of the moment." he also uses this to describe his interaction with some of the candid subjects that approached him after a photo was snapped.

a lot of these photos have a cinematic styling that connects the images and gives them a common factor. it makes me wonder if some of these photos are staged or if frank was really in these spots at these times.

it was interesting to see a lot of the elements to this show...there a photos depicting some places in farmiliar with like hoboken, the east river and canal street. i also enjoyed seeing some of robert frank's contact sheets. you can gather some of his thought processes. it also reminds us that he was definitely not working in the ubiquitous digital age. it's such a different mind set knowing that a photo can't be erased with the click of a button. once you pull the trigger on a film shot that's it...no going back to the moment.

through the show theres quotes on the wall above the photos, often by jack kerouac who was the writer for the americans. concerning frank's photos, he says, "any body doesn't like these pictures don't like poetry, see? anybody don't like potry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses." i think that commentary still rings true today.

some of the photos i liked...

us 285, new mexico. 1955.

charleston, south carolina. 1955.

rodeo-detroit. 1955.
movie premiere-hollywood. 1955.

"i am always looking outside, trying to look inside, trying to say something that is true. but maybe nothing is really true. except what's out there. and what's out there is constantly changing."
i felt this quote bt robert frank was a proper ending to the show...it will end this post as well.