Robert Frank at Tate Modern 13/11/2009

In 1957, Frank casually showed his American photo essay to the young beat writer, Jack Keruoac, whom he met at a party in New York City. Kerouac was impressed and responded with– “Sure I can write something about these pictures,” and penned the introduction to the U.S. edition of The Americans. Robert Frank’s work is now widely considered an important, intimate peak inside small-town America, but originally it was not met with open arms by all– at the time of its release many of the images were considered controversial, while other critics just outright dismissed his work as a blurry mess of nothingness.

I've been trying to work out why I failed to appreciate the photography of Robert Frank on display at Tate Modern. Theories:

1. my lack of sympathy with American culture
2. the way it was curated
3. my laziness
4. not liking his photos

1. Well, I don't much like seeing the American flag or cowboy hats but on the whole American photography is as interesting to me as any other.
2. I didn't like the way the strip photographs were framed and hung on the wall - probably because it's not what I'm used to and also because I wouldn't want to hang such a framed picture on my own wall. I would have liked to have seen a few photos enlarged and framed singly.
3. I did find it hard work to look at all those small photos. However, if they'd been presented as if in a book - which is how Frank himself presented them, as I understand, and as many works of art are presented at Tate Modern, in glass cabinets - then I think I'd have made more effort. I know this doesn't make a lot of sense!
4. Of course I don't like all his photos but there are plenty I do like.

I love the following photos which I found on Google images:



For me this one represents multi-cultural America and technically is brilliant with the pair in the foreground in focus and those in the background blurred. The light trim on the woman's dark coat helps to make this a great B & W picture.

From a series called 'From the Bus' which was exhibited at Tate Modern in 2004. I also like taking photos from the bus! This is what he wrote about it:

'The Bus carries me thru the City, I look out the window, I look at the people on the street, the Sun and the Traffic Lights. It has to do with desperation and endurance - I have always felt about living in New York. Compassion and probably some understanding for New York's Concrete and its people, walking... waiting... standing... holding hands... the summer of 1958.'

I love the facial expression of this child, and the dark/light contrast between the two overcoats.

I like the way Frank has captured the social class diferentiation of that time.

I found the following extract quite interesting and I acknowledge the importance of his work:

Sociologist Howard S. Becker has written about The Americans as social analysis:
Robert Frank's (...) enormously influential The Americans is in ways reminiscent both of Tocqueville's analysis of American institutions and of the analysis of cultural themes by Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. Frank presents photographs made in scattered places around the country, returning again and again to such themes as the flag, the automobile, race, restaurants—eventually turning those artifacts, by the weight of the associations in which he embeds them, into profound and meaningful symbols of American culture.