Robert Frank Art Exhibit

I really enjoyed the Robert Frank exhibit. While I enjoyed the Americans exhibit, I was particularly moved by the Black, White, and Things. In that exhibit, I really liked the way the pieces were visually similar (through the use blacks and whites, as well as people, and objects) yet they contained distinct moods in each section and were conceptually deep. For example, with Black, there was a funeral procession and a procession of nuns in two of the pictures I believe, while White had more outdoor/nature scenes that were very freeing. In a way, one can think about them as life/death, black/white, inside/outside, etc. The short exhibit was able to portray a series of dichotomies through a small number of images. It strongly influenced/inspired me to use the surroundings to create visually interesting series of photographs that also convey a deeper meaning. I feel the photographs in Black, White, and Things were more visually tied together than the Americans, which was more conceptually tied together.

I enjoyed the conceptual ties between photographs in The Americans, which one can see better when they are all up on the wall, as opposed to in a book, since on the wall one could more easily see the juxtapositions of people, such as a black couple in one image next to a white couple in another. In this way, there was social commentary, and almost an element of the story as themes were carried through one image to the next, such as stars from the flag, lights, words, etc.

However, my favorite part of the exhibit was not the final images chosen by Robert Frank, but rather his work prints and contact sheets. In particular, I liked seeing the work prints since I could kind of see how he conceptually processed all the images, based on how he grouped them on the wall. Half the time, they didn’t seem to make sense to me, but it was cool to try to organize pictures when they were from so many different places, of so many different people. It was also nice, since sometimes the work print images weren’t particularly “good” in my opinion, and looked more like some of my own work prints. It made me feel better as a developing artist, since I could see that all the images didn’t come out perfectly each time. Obviously, that’s common sense, but it was refreshing to see that even a famous, well-respected photographer didn’t have a perfect picture each time.