Robert Frank
dal 2/9/2005 al 20/11/2005
Segnalato da
2/9/2005
Robert Frank
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
Storylines. Over 250 photographs, as well as films, videos and art books
(in collaboration with Fotostiftung Schweiz)
The Dream of Myself,
the Dream of the World –
Set 2 from the collection of
the Fotomuseum Winterthur
12 March to 9 October 2005
Robert Frank (born in Zurich in 1924) is one of the most important and influential
photographers of our time. His contribution to the understanding, the creative and
narrative aspects of photography is virtually incalculable. He is the recipient of
numerous prizes including the Hasselblad Award in 1996. In collaboration with the
Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Fotostiftung Schweiz, the Tate Modern has compiled a
large-scale monographic exhibition on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The
exhibition will contain over 250 photographs, as well as films, videos and art books
selected especially for this exhibition in co-operation with the artist. Robert
Frank – Storylines is dedicated to the essence of this oeuvre, which comprises
around 60 years work. It introduces the narrative and serial/sequential aspects of
his photography and discusses the outstanding significance of this photographer,
filmmaker and visual artist.
After attending school in Zurich and training as a photographer in various Swiss
photography studios, he emigrated to New York in 1947. With him he took his first
book of photographs, which so impressed the art director of Harper's Bazaar that he
offered him a job as a studio photographer. Robert Frank subsequently embarked on
travels to South America, Europe and the USA that lasted until the mid-1950s and
developed his own inimitable style that had a lasting influence on the language of
post-war photography. In 1951 he made a series of portraits of the city of London in
a time of great tension between poverty and wealth following World War II. In 1953
he went to Caerau in Wales, where he worked on a photo-story about a mining village,
and in particular about the miner Ben James and his family.
Two art books, Peru from 1948 and Black White and Things from 1952, demonstrate his
interest in a mixture between realistic portrayal, the narrative potential of
photographic sequences, and the visual poetry of everyday life. The exhibition also
contains a series of important photographs from the book Les Américaines
(1958) / The Americans (1959), which is probably his most famous and influential
picture series.
Other unpublished photographs of his travels in America and pictures of the Ford
"River Rouge" car factory near Dearborn (Detroit) are presented together
with pictures of the National Democratic Convention in Chicago (1956), which the
client Esquire considered too hard and strong to be published in the same year.
A short photo series photographed through the window of a New York bus and entitled
simply From the Bus (1958) marks a decisive step in his development. After this
series, Robert Frank declared that he intended to give up photography in favour of
film. His first film was Pull My Daisy (1959) with an improvised narration by Jack
Kerouac. The narrative and cinematographic quality of his photographs is underlined
in the exhibition by the confrontation between his semi-autobiographical films
Conversations in Vermont (1969), and Home Improvements (1985). Robert Frank returned
to photography in the 1970s, with the emphasis on complex constructions with series
and sequences of pictures, Polaroids and hand-written texts, stills from films and
videos, rather than on the single picture. Robert Frank's latest pictures, including
Memory for the Children (2001-2003), examine the world from the inside to the
outside and explore the acts of seeing, feeling and thinking – as well as loss, mo
urning and the ageing process – in metaphors.
The exhibition, which in its original form was curated by Vicente TodolÃ,
director of the Tate Modern, London, and Philip Brookman, curator at the Corcoran
Gallery of Art in Washington DC, has been expanded in Winterthur to include some of
Frank's early photographs taken in Switzerland. A series of photographs documenting
the Appenzell Landsgemeinde (assembly of the citizens) in Hundwil (1949) will be
shown for the first time.
The book "Robert Frank: Storyline"; is accompanying the exhibition, as
well as a volume of 9 essays on Robert Franks work, edited by the Fotomuseum
Winterthur and the Fotostiftung Schweiz, and published by Steidl.
Main sponsor of the exhibition: Swiss Re
With the valuable support of the Federal Office of Culture, the Pro Helvetia Arts
Council of Switzerland, the Kulturstiftung der (Spinnerei) Streiff AG, and the
Stiftung der Schweizerischen Landesausstellung 1939.
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Gruzenstrasse 44 + 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zurich) Switzerland
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 11am-6pm / Wed 11am-8pm