Robert Frank. Photo/Courtesy of respondents
Text/Muztag
For Robert Frank, success is tiresome.
In the early 1970s, Frank's friend Edward Grazda received an email postmarked in a remote mining village in Nova Scotia, southeastern Canada.
Attached to the letter was a small note: "Ed, I am famous," Frank wrote, "now what?" ”
For artists who want to be famous, Frank's complaints are intolerable. He and his partner, June Leaf, traveled north to Canada to escape the crazy admirers on new York's doorstep, but he was overwhelmed.
"Once decency and success are part of life, it's time to find a new lover." He hates repeating himself because "photography is too easy for me and I get a taste of sweetness almost immediately."
Tired of endless "sweetness," Frank plunged into film. He released 31 small documentary-style films over the next 40 years and managed to become obscure.
Half a century after he wrote that grumbling note, Frank's death in Inverness, Nova Scotia, in 2019 immediately sparked a flurry of media coverage.
Frank always noticed people who struggled to make a living. "Even in California, there isn't as much sunshine," he wrote, "and they have to work harder to keep fed." According to Frank's friends, he was a "very compassionate" man.
Resonance is not the same as similarity
Few photographers have had as profound an impact on world photography as Frank. It can be said that Frank offers not a method of photography, but a methodology. On this basis, the expression of the individual's will becomes one of the most important photographic principles.
The exhibition "Resonance: A Tribute to Robert Frank" is currently on display at the Three Shadows In Beijing, and in the view of imaki, the curator of this exhibition, the qualities of Frank's work can also be seen in the works of some Chinese photographers, although the connection is not necessarily the result of direct impact, but more like a resonance.
"The impression that people are influenced by a photographer and first think that they are shooting something very similar is precisely the least important point," Imaki said. "Frank's influence on the world of photography is so great because he inspired photographers to think about their own style. This kind of inspiration refers to the method of observation, as well as the understanding of the nature of the image, the expansion of the boundaries of photography. For Chinese photographers, they also have their own local practices and experiences. There are two meanings, one is influenced by Frank, but not necessarily similar to his style. There is also a way that the work looks similar to Frank, but in fact it has not been influenced by him, and the similarity is only an accident. ”
On the other hand, Imaki believes that the development of photography in China is phased, "This feature is obvious, there was salon photography in the Republic of China period, and after 1949 photography became a narrative tool, we need photography to express a theme, we need it to refer to." This also leads to a lot of people not being able to understand Frank's work, because we always expect him to shoot something, to tell a thing, rather than just showing the image itself. ”
Wang Yishu, the artist in the exhibition, once met Frank himself, and he called him "his favorite photographer". "Frank broadened the expressive power of photography as a medium, before which photography was just about viewing and recording, but Frank used photography to make a point of view of the world."
"I like the imaginary part of documentary photography, the things that go beyond the content of the photo." Wang Yishu believes that there are at least two worlds that we know, one is the everyday, secular world, "and the other world is that when you see a person, you will wonder why he is here, what his relationship with the world is like, what his relationship with other people is like, this relationship is difficult to express in words." ”
In this exhibition, Imaki found individual experimental samples of Chinese photographers from the 1980s for nearly 40 years, reflecting the self-consciousness of photography as an artistic language through the works of 13 artists (groups) in different periods. While looking to the West, they also seek the value of their own local experience.
At first glance, the work of these photographers is "so far removed" from Frank's work that it has nothing to do with it. But it also corresponds to Imaki's expression that "similarity is the least important point." In Mo Yi's "Sunshine in Winter," two elderly men face the sun with their backs to the sun, with one hand in their pockets and the newspaper in the other; Huang Qingjun shows all the belongings of a Mongolian family, which are placed outside the white yurt, from iron pots, television sets, washbasins to a black dog.
Chinese photographers present very different works in their local practice, but their directions are surprisingly similar, that is, through photography to give their own point of view to the world, as Kant said, human reason is the natural legislation.
"Make words look useless"
In 1955, Frank applied for a scholarship to the Guggenheim Foundation, writing in his application letter that his eyes would sharpen when an observant American traveled abroad. Conversely, a European looks at America the same way. I want to talk about scenes that are everywhere but not so easy to interpret through photography. I have some scenes in my mind: a small town at night, a supermarket, a parking lot, a road, a new house, a deformed partition house, the public face of walking in front of or following people, the faces of farmers and his children, leaders and their followers, and those billboards, neon lights, gasoline barrels, post offices or backyards...
Frank is ambitious, declaring that the photographs he is about to take are enough to "render words useless."
From 1955 to 1956, Frank drove his second-hand Ford to conduct a "study of civilization through vision" in the United States.
Every time he went to a new town, Frank would visit the local Woolworth department store, a place that resembled a "two-dollar shop" and was a mixture of "lower classes" that interested him; he liked to take pictures in public places, sidewalks, rallies, churches, restaurants, or parks; he photographed ladies, farmers, tramps, bikers, trumpeters, newlyweds, and some interesting details: mink shawls on women's shoulders, tweed hats on men's heads, cheap light-down suits, roadside trash cans, coffins, and jukeboxes.
In June 1956, Frank returned to New York. After taking about 27,000 photographs and more than 760 volumes, he washed out more than 1,000 photographs and categorized them according to "symbols, cars, cities, people, signs, cemeteries, etc."
He wrote: "My project will be very large and can be used in sociology, history, and aesthetics. As the project progresses, I categorize and annotate my work, and finally I'll bring together these documents like a library of the Library of Congress. A more direct use is the publication of books or magazines.
Frank eventually picked out 83 photos. In 1959, the American version of The American was released.
The Americans, a parable
Roland Barthes once said that if you connect the photographs in the history of photography around the world into a labyrinth, then the United States must be the center of this labyrinth. In 1937, the exhibition Photography: 1839-1937 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was seen as a sign that photography was established as a medium of modern art. Since then, photography from Europe has had a certain inevitable connection with the United States as a country.
That's what American meant, it became a milestone in American photography, even though it wasn't embraced by the mainstream media when it first came out. Frank's crooked photographs were considered a serious deviation from the accepted photographic guidelines of the time.
But apparently, Frank didn't think so. "I think my moments were better than Bresson or anyone else's. For a photograph, the most important thing is not the composition and perfect lighting, but the photographer's feelings about the people and things he sees. ”
On the title page of the collection Valencia, there is a passage from Frank's statement: "One thing must be included in photography, and that is the moment of humanity. This kind of photography is realism. ”
His close friend Alan Ginsburg said: "Robert invented the method of viewing by luck alone with his humble Leica camera. This is the vision of nature, the reality of chance. ”
"Robert's work looks sloppy, but it's not —they're very emotional. The widely accepted style at the time was precise and technically excellent photography." Elliott Ewett said, "But Robert Frank's picture is very different. ”
Time, Life magazine, and Magnum Pictures scoffed at Americans, a tome of later generations, arguing that photos taken like drunkards should be mercilessly thrown into the wastebasket. Frank succeeded in making the Post-World War II optimism-contagious America look like a crappy joke:
Overflowing patriotic fervor is nothing more than worthless self-indulgence, public celebrations are empty and boring, ordinary people are sneaky, and politicians are arrogant and frivolous, like arrogant maniacs.
Frank quietly shattered the American Dream, a hater and demagogue to the book's early readers. Critics have questioned the ill-intentioned "Mr. Swiss", arguing that he is not only anti-American, but also anti-photographic. Frank turned a deaf ear to this: "I am completely tired of Romanticism". He wrote to his parents in Zurich, "There is only one thing you can't do, and that's to criticize anything. The American is not a work of criticism, but a work of painful and firm honesty. ”
In the 1950s, after World War II, an optimism was born in the United States. But in The American, optimism is not only scarce, it's even untraceable. One of the "happiest" photos comes from a newlywed couple named "City Hall - Reno, Nevada." In the photo, the husband puts his arm around the bride from behind, while the bride smiles shyly with her head bowed.
Frank hated things that were uplifting and full of positive energy, and he said in a nonchalant manner, "Those damn stories that have a beginning and an end!" ”
New Yorker writer Anthony Lane wrote in the article: "To Europeans, Frank's insistence on open-ended endings is neither ironic nor out of paradox; it is called realism.
Opening The Americans, it opens with a white woman hiding in front of a window behind a flag. Harvard photography historian Robin Kelsey commented on the photo: "It overthrew you right away. Next, Frank's footage extends from the smoking industrial landscape of Butt, Montana, to a white baby in the arms of a black nurse.
All of these landscapes describe facts that are difficult to put into words, and they reach the deep roots of our innermost uneasiness —and stir them up in them. Frank said: "People love this book because it shows people's ideas that are not spoken."
Half a century later, is the America in Frank's work different from what it is today? Whether in the United States or the world at large, repression, anger, income inequality, me too movements, and "I can't breathe" gender and racism persist, Frank knew us before we knew ourselves, and in a way, American is a fable.
outsider
Frank felt like a detective, "No one embarrassed me because I had a talent for not being noticed". He was neither tall nor short, dressed scruffily, and drove his Ford.
"I like that car," he says, "it's like any car on the street, it's not conspicuous." I call it Luce – it's my only connection to Mr. Henry Luce (founder of Time magazine and Life magazine). ”
When Frank raises his camera to shoot, the whole process is blurred, meaning that "seeing" and "taking pictures" are done at the same time. With this talent, he can always capture people's most intimate moments. "People don't like to be photographed for their own private moments, but that makes the photos interesting."
A few days after the publication of On the Road, Frank met Jack Kerouac at a party, and he seized the opportunity to ask Kerouac if he could write an introduction to The American. The other person said, "Of course. I'm going to write something. ”
In the 1940s and 1950s, the American Abstract Expressionist movement arose. Grenor writes in Contemplation that the artists of this period were "inspired by the idea that art is not an expression of fact, but an expression of experience, and that what they create is a record of their confrontation with the canvas." ”
To a large extent, Abstract Expressionism defined the artistic atmosphere in which Frank created photographs for The American. The likes of Jackson Pollock and de Kooning set a precedent for Beat writers and poets whose improvisational style sought authenticity and spontaneity.
In his apartment on East Third Street in New York, Frank watched through the window as William De Kooning paced around the studio in his underwear. "I'm a very silent observer, and no one will notice me. DeKunin's house had only a stove, a refrigerator, and an easel. He could go all day wearing only his underwear and be authentic with those canvases. ”
There is no doubt that Frank was attracted to the style of painters such as William De Kooning and Franz Klein. "In Europe, I don't know people who live like this. They were free, and that impressed me. They simply don't pay attention to what you're wearing and where you live. They made their own rules, which were alien to my background – the European bourgeoisie. ”
Art aside, these friends of "proletarian" artists from the United States made Frank no longer alone. "When I came to New York, I found this group of people, and I was with them, we were friends, we were a family." Still, loneliness permeates Frank's life and In The American. He was attracted to people who were lonely, "not people who went to picnics or swims.".
Frank never gave up his identity as an outsider. "Whenever I talk to people, I know I'm a foreigner, and they know I'm a foreigner." In 1963, the Swiss gentleman acquired American citizenship, "I am An American"—a scene that, when Frank uttered it, was as elusive as his American.