Tag: Trolley – New Orleans

Exhibition: ‘In Focus: Protest’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 29th June – 10th October, 2021

Curator: Mazie Harris

 

David Wojnarowicz in 1988 wearing the "If I Die of AIDS" jacket

 

David Wojnarowicz in 1988
Please note, this photograph is not in the exhibition

 

 

Speaking up when others are silent

This one-room exhibition seems like a missed opportunity.

I note the observation of Anne Wallentine: “In Focus: Protest, a one-room exhibition at the Getty Center, focuses on palatable images of protest. There are no disturbing images of the police’s violent attacks on protesters during the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, for example, or of self-immolations protesting the Vietnam War. On the one hand, we don’t need to see violence to understand injustice. But this subject deserves a much deeper and broader show to explore the important power dynamics of protest – and of documenting it – than the Getty’s somewhat muddled march through the lowlights of American history.”1

Although I haven’t seen the exhibition I have been able to gather together numerous photographs from installation shots of the show. The exhibition focuses heavily on the civil rights photographs of the 1960s with sporadic abortion, women’s lib, Vietnam War, contemporary Black Lives Matter and metaphorical images standing in for actual protest photographs (such as the photographs of Robert Frank). As Wallentine observes, the subject deserves a much deeper and broader show to explore the important power dynamics of protest, and of documenting it.

America has a long history of protest stretching back to its very beginning, such as the Boston Tea Party in 1773. But thinking about the photography of protest in America – where are the cartes de visit of slavery abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth or Frederick Douglass, the photographs of protests for women’s suffrage, after the Stonewall Riots, against the lack of funding for HIV/AIDS, for gun legislation, photographs of protests for Native American enfranchisement, marches for equal rights, anti-nuclear protests, Iraq War protests, climate change protests, and the worldwide Occupy movement?

What are issues and the politics involved with documenting protest, both for an against, as an expression of the photographers own beliefs? How does the presence of photographers affect how people “play up” to the camera? Does the photographer participate in the protest or stand aside and just document? How is documenting a form of protest in itself? How are these images then made propaganda and to what ends? What is the difference between the vernacular photography of protest and that of a professional photojournalist? How are both disseminated and what is the difference of this impact?

How is the framing of protest photography undertaken in a system – and here I am thinking, for example, of the selective cropping, editing and addition of text in photo essays by professional photographers such as Gordon Parks for Life magazine – and how do we, as viewers, recognise that the systems in which the works are viewed often obscure the networks in which they are created and operate… that is, structures that sit around those pictures re/presentation in galleries or newspapers, journals.

Essentially, in the power of the image, what lies in and beyond the frame of reference – in terms of the technologies of production, technologies of sign systems, technologies of power and technologies of the self2 – has an “affect” upon the reception and interpretation of images, their inculcation in memory through repetition, their performativity, their intertextuality and their promulgation in the world as acts of resistance and freedom, both from the point of view of the photographer and the viewer.

The one image that is my favourite protest photograph “of all time” can be seen above. To my knowledge, this photograph is not included in the exhibition. Taken by an anonymous photographer in 1988 it shows an anonymous man at a protest rally (evidenced by the placard in the background top right) wearing a jacket emblazoned with words in white capital letters “IF I DIE OF AIDS – FORGET BURIAL – JUST DROP MY BODY ON THE STEPS OF THE F.D.A” over the pink triangle, symbol of homosexuals in the Nazi concentration camps later reclaimed as a positive symbol of self-identity for various LGBTQ identities. The F.D.A. referred to is the United States Food and Drug Administration which is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs and biological products… at the time dragging their feet over AIDS research.

The anonymous man is, in fact, American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz who died at the age of 37 in 1992, four years after the photograph was taken, of AIDS-related complications.

“… during the plague years, he watched his best friends die horribly, while religious leaders pontificated against safe-sex education and politicians mooted quarantine on islands.

It filled him with rage, the brutality and the waste. He writes: “I want to throw up because we’re supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder, and I’m amazed that we’re not running amok in the streets and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.” …

“It is exhausting, living in a population where people don’t speak up if what they witness doesn’t directly threaten them,” he writes. Long before the word intersectionality was in common currency, Wojnarowicz was alert to people whose experience was erased by what he called “the pre‑invented world” or “the one-tribe nation”. Politicised by his own sexuality, by the violence and deprivation he had been subjected to, he developed a deep empathy with others, a passionate investment in diversity. During the course of Close to the Knives he touches repeatedly on other struggles, from fighting police brutality towards people of colour to standing up to the erosion of abortion rights. …

As the rallying cry of Aids activists made clear, “Silence = Death”. From the very beginning of his life Wojnarowicz had been subjected to an enforced silencing, first by his father and then by the society he inhabited: the media that erased him; the courts that legislated against him; and the politicians who considered his life and the lives of those he loved expendable.

In Knives he repeatedly explains his motivation for making art as an acute desire to produce objects that could speak, testifying to his presence when he no longer could. “To place an object or piece of writing that contains what is invisible because of legislation or social taboo into an environment outside myself makes me feel not so alone,” he writes. “It is kind of like a ventriloquist’s dummy – the only difference is that the work can speak by itself or act like that magnet to attract others who carried this enforced silence.””3


The jacket that he made and the photograph of it form an intertextual art work, one both (physically) sculptural and photographic, objects that could visibly speak in the world by transgressing the taboo of invisibility, of silence. The photograph was taken by an anonymous photographer of an initially (to the viewer) anonymous man. It then proceeds to transcend its subject … through the projection of the voice of the artist through time, through the knowledge of the story of his own vitality and resistance, now his absence/presence. His protest stands “in eternity” where there is no time. Standing with others, speaking up when others are silent. That is the essence of protest. I just wonder where that jacket is now?

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Footnotes

1/ Anne Wallentine. “A History of Protest Photography That Plays It Too Safe,” on the Hyperallergic website August 18, 2021 [Online] Cited 12/09/2021

2/ Michel Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” quoted in Luther Martin, Huck Gutman, Patrick Hutton (eds.). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Tavistock Publications, London, 1988, p. 18.

3/ Olivia Laing. “David Wojnarowicz: still fighting prejudice 24 years after his death,” on the Guardian website, Friday 13 May 2016 [Online] Cited 12/09/2021


Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

We are reminded frequently of the power of photographs to propel action and inspire change. During demonstrations photographers take to the streets to record fast-moving events. At other times they bear witness to daily injustices, helping to make them more widely known. This exhibition of images made during periods of social struggle in the United States highlights the myriad roles protest photographs play in shaping our understanding of American life.

 

 

In Focus: Protest, a one-room exhibition at the Getty Center, focuses on palatable images of protest. There are no disturbing images of the police’s violent attacks on protesters during the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, for example, or of self-immolations protesting the Vietnam War. On the one hand, we don’t need to see violence to understand injustice. But this subject deserves a much deeper and broader show to explore the important power dynamics of protest – and of documenting it – than the Getty’s somewhat muddled march through the lowlights of American history. …

… depicting individuals carries new risks now. Contemporary protest photographers have to navigate the dangers of photo recognition technology for their subjects – notably, Kris Graves’s 2020 photo depicts a luminous memorial to George Floyd projected and graffitied onto a Confederate statue, rather than an image of identifiable marchers [see below]. At the very least, the issue deserves mention in the wall text to contextualize current photography amid this threat to human rights and the tricky role photographers have to navigate while recording and participating in protests. Documenting can be a form of protest, but it can be used against its subjects, too. The exhibition text, however, tends to swerve away from engaging with the complexities of history, mentioning the passage of the 19th Amendment and Voting Rights Act 1965 without referencing the continued struggles to ensure voting access in marginalized communities. It does provide images of counter-protest during the Vietnam War and women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, but these only sharpen the desire for a better understanding of the ebb and flow of human rights efforts into the present.


Anne Wallentine. “A History of Protest Photography That Plays It Too Safe,” on the Hyperallergic website August 18, 2021 [Online] Cited 12/09/2021

 

 

Underwood & Underwood (American, founded 1881, dissolved 1940s) '[Women's Campaign Train for Hughes]' 1916 from the exhibition 'In Focus: Protest' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, June - Oct, 2021

 

Underwood & Underwood (American, founded 1881, dissolved 1940s)
[Women’s Campaign Train for Hughes]
1916
Gelatin silver print
18.7 × 24.9cm (7 3/8 × 9 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Adger Cowans (American, b. 1936) 'Malcolm X Speaks at a Rally in Harlem at 115th St. & Lennox Ave., New York' September 7, 1963 from the exhibition 'In Focus: Protest' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, June - Oct, 2021

 

Adger Cowans (American, b. 1936)
Malcolm X Speaks at a Rally in Harlem at 115th St. & Lennox Ave., New York
September 7, 1963
Gelatin silver print
16.2 × 23.5cm (6 3/8 × 9 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Adger Cowans

 

Bruce Davidson (American, born 1933) 'Birmingham, Alabama' Negative 1963; print 1970-1979

 

Bruce Davidson (American, born 1933)
Birmingham, Alabama
Negative 1963; print 1970-1979
Gelatin silver print
19.9 × 31.1 cm (7 13/16 × 12 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

An African-American woman is arrested by two Caucasian police officers, each holding her by her arms. In the background is a theatre marquee, bearing the signs for the movies, “Back Street” and “Damn the Defiant.”

 

Leonard Freed (American, 1929-2006) 'March on Washington, Washington, D.C.' August 28, 1963

 

Leonard Freed (American, 1929-2006)
March on Washington, Washington, D.C.
August 28, 1963
Gelatin silver print
26.5 × 38.7cm (10 7/16 × 15 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Leonard Freed / Magnum Photos

 

Robert (Bob) Adelman (American, 1930-2016) 'Washington, D.C., Cheering crowd during speeches at historic March on Washington' 1963

 

Robert (Bob) Adelman (American, 1930-2016)
Washington, D.C., Cheering crowd during speeches at historic March on Washington
1963
Gelatin silver print
27.9 × 35.6cm (11 × 14 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Bob Adelman/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'March from Selma, Alabama' Negative 1965; printed later

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
March from Selma, Alabama
Negative 1965; printed later
Gelatin silver print
21.7 × 32.8cm (8 9/16 × 12 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

 

Photographs not only capture a nation’s values and beliefs but also help shape them. Camera in hand, photographers often take to the streets, recording protests and demonstrations or bearing witness to daily injustices to make them more widely known. Such images have inspired change for generations.

The late United States Congressman John Lewis emphasised the crucial role photography played in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. “The unbelievable photographs published in newspapers and magazines… brought people from around the globe to small Southern towns to join the movement,” he said. “These photographs told us that those who expressed themselves by standing in unmovable lines… must be looked upon as the found mothers and fathers of a new America.”

This exhibition highlights how photographers have recorded periods of social struggle and transformation in the United States. Amid the country’s current and ongoing efforts to address and rectify injustice and systemic racism, and as the United States continues to grapple with how best to forge a new and better future, these images help us consider the myriad roles photography plays in shaping our understanding of American life.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Voting Rights Act 1965

Voting Rights Act, U.S. legislation (August 6, 1965) that aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. The act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.

In the 1950s and early 1960s the U.S. Congress enacted laws to protect the right of African Americans to vote, but such legislation was only partially successful. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed and the Twenty-fourth Amendment, abolishing poll taxes for voting for federal offices, was ratified, and the following year Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson called for the implementation of comprehensive federal legislation to protect voting rights. The resulting act, the Voting Rights Act, suspended literacy tests, provided for federal approval of proposed changes to voting laws or procedures (“preclearance”) in jurisdictions that had previously used tests to determine voter eligibility (these areas were covered under Sections 4 and 5 of the legislation), and directed the attorney general of the United States to challenge the use of poll taxes for state and local elections. An expansion of the law in the 1970s also protected voting rights for non-English-speaking U.S. citizens. Sections 4 and 5 were extended for 5 years in 1970, 7 years in 1975, and 25 years in both 1982 and 2006.

The Voting Rights Act resulted in a marked decrease in the voter registration disparity between white and Black people. In the mid-1960s, for example, the overall proportion of white to Black registration in the South ranged from about 2 to 1 to 3 to 1 (and about 10 to 1 in Mississippi); by the late 1980s racial variations in voter registration had largely disappeared. As the number of African American voters increased, so did the number of African American elected officials. In the mid-1960s there were about 70 African American elected officials in the South, but by the turn of the 21st century there were some 5,000, and the number of African American members of the U.S. Congress had increased from 6 to about 40. In what was widely perceived as a test case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, et al. (2009), the Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), however, the Court struck down Section 4 – which had established a formula for identifying jurisdictions that were required to obtain preclearance – declaring it to be unjustified in light of changed historical circumstances. Eight years later, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), the Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act by finding that the law’s Section 2(a) – which prohibited any voting standard or procedure that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color” – was not necessarily violated by voting restrictions that disproportionately burden members of racial minority groups.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Voting Rights Act,” on the Britannica website last updated July 30, 2021 [Online] Cited 12/09/2021.

 

John Simmons (American, b. 1950) 'Unite or Perish, Chicago, Illinois' 1968

 

John Simmons (American, b. 1950)
Unite or Perish, Chicago, Illinois
1968
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© John Simmons

 

Simmons began his career at 15 as a photographer for the oldest African American-owned newspaper, The Chicago Daily Defender in 1965. Over his decades long career, he’s photographed icons of the Civil Rights Movement, turbulent protests and demonstrations, famed musicians and poignant intimate moments of everyday life. “I’m glad to see photographs I took back in my teens are still relevant today,” he says. …

Two of Simmons’ photographs are featured in “In Focus: Protest,” “an exhibition featuring images made during periods of social struggle in the U.S. and highlighting the myriad roles protest photographs play in shaping our understanding of American life,” says Mazie Harris, assistant curator in the department of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “With this exhibition we aim to give visitors a place to think about some of the ways photographers have brought attention to efforts to address and rectify injustice.” …

“My position on protest is interesting,” says Simmons. “My father was much older than my mother and when Harriet Tubman died my father was around 12 or 13 so that puts me in close relationship to slavery and to people who were arounds slaves. My great grandmother saw Abraham Lincoln and my great aunt was babysat by former slaves. I picked up a camera in 1965, the first year African Americans were allowed to vote. That was behind those eyes the first day I pressed a shutter. So in reality, every photograph I take is a protest photo.”

John Simmons quoted in Steve Simmons. “Photographer John Simmons, ‘Chronicler Of The Civil Rights Movement,’​ Featured In Three Exhibits,” on the Linkedin website August 4, 2021 [Online] Cited 11/09/2021.

 

Robert Flora (American, 1929-1986) 'A Women's Liberation Marcher Is Temporarily Overwhelmed by a Group of Women Marching against the Women's Liberation Movement in Downtown Los Angeles' August 26, 1970

 

Robert Flora (American, 1929-1986)
A Women’s Liberation Marcher Is Temporarily Overwhelmed by a Group of Women Marching against the Women’s Liberation Movement in Downtown Los Angeles
August 26, 1970
Gelatin silver print with typed caption
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of the Flora Family
Reproduced with permission via Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

 

Bill Owens (American, born 1938) 'Untitled' early 1970s

 

Bill Owens (American, born 1938)
Untitled
early 1970s
Gelatin silver print
19.2 × 21.5cm (7 9/16 × 8 7/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Robert Shimshak and Marion Brenner
© Bill Owens

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'American Flag' 1977

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
American Flag
1977
Gelatin silver print
35.3 × 35.3cm (13 7/8 × 13 7/8 in.)
Jointly acquired by the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with funds provided by the J. Paul Getty Trust and the David Geffen Foundation
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

 

“Mapplethorpe evoked the frayed character of American ideals during a period when equal rights for gay men and women in the United States seemed nearly unimaginable.”

 

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents In Focus: Protest, an exhibition featuring images made during periods of social struggle in the United States, and highlighting the myriad roles protest photographs play in shaping our understanding of American life. The exhibition is on view at the Getty Center Museum June 29 – October 10, 2021.

Photographs not only capture a nation’s values and beliefs but also help shape them. Camera in hand, photographers often take to the streets, recording protests and demonstrations or bearing witness to daily injustices to make them more widely known. Such images have inspired change for generations.

“In Focus: Protest reminds us of the ability of photographs to both document and propel action,” says Mazie Harris, assistant curator of photographs at the Museum. “With this exhibition we aim to give visitors a place to think about some of the ways that photographers have brought attention to efforts to address and rectify injustice.” Among the works on view are images by well-known artists including Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965), Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989), and L.A.-based cinematographer and artist John Simmons (American, born 1950). The exhibition also includes resonant images by photographers Robert Flora (American, 1929-1986), William James Warren (American, born 1942), An-My Lê (American, born 1960), and a 2020 photograph by Kris Graves (American, born 1982).

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum

 

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) 'Pledge of Allegiance, Raphael Weill Elementary School, San Francisco' Negative April 20, 1942; print about 1960s

 

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Pledge of Allegiance, Raphael Weill Elementary School, San Francisco
Negative April 20, 1942; print about 1960s
Gelatin silver print
34 × 25.6cm (13 3/8 × 10 1/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Children’s symbol of hope and innocence can also be tied to their shielding from the “outside world”. Here we have a young Japanese girl reciting the American pledge of allegiance with much determination and passion, all while the United States government would take Japanese Americans into internment camps weeks later, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

 

Robert Frank. 'Trolley – New Orleans' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans
1955
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

“America is an interesting country… but there is a lot here that I do not like and that I would never accept. I am also trying to show this in my photos.” ~ Robert Frank

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019) 'Railway Station, Memphis, Tennessee' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Railway Station, Memphis, Tennessee
1955
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Fred W. McDarrah (American, 1926-2007) 'Jose Rodriguez-Soltero Burned a Flag in a New York Happening' April 8, 1966

 

Fred W. McDarrah (American, 1926-2007)
Jose Rodriguez-Soltero Burned a Flag in a New York Happening
April 8, 1966
Gelatin silver print
34.8 × 25.8cm (13 11/16 × 10 3/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Estate of Fred W. McDarrah

 

William James Warren (American, b. 1942) 'Robert F. Kennedy and César Chávez Celebrate Mass as Chávez Breaks a Twenty-Five Day Fast, Delano, California' 1968

 

William James Warren (American, b. 1942)
Robert F. Kennedy and César Chávez Celebrate Mass as Chávez Breaks a Twenty-Five Day Fast, Delano, California
1968
Gelatin silver print
31.2 × 21.6cm (12 5/16 × 8 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of William James Warren
© William James Warren

 

Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015) 'Vietnam Pro Demonstration' 1968

 

Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940-2015)
Vietnam Pro Demonstration
1968
Gelatin silver print
24.3 × 16.7cm (9 9/16 × 6 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Mary Ellen Mark Foundation

 

Louis Draper (American, 1935-2002) 'Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi' 1971

 

Louis Draper (American, 1935-2002)
Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi
1971
Gelatin silver print
22.86 × 15.56cm (9 × 6 1/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

In 1971 Essence magazine sent Draper on assignment to Mississippi to photograph civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. This portrait appeared with the article “Fannie Lou Hamer Speaks Out,” in the October issue. Known for her fearlessness and strength in the midst of violence and intimidation, Hamer had been arrested and severely beaten by police in 1963 for her work on voter registration drives. She gained national attention when she returned to her activism in the mid-1960s, and this photograph visually distills her voice: “Today I don’t have any money, but I’m freer than the average white American ’cause I know who I am. I know what I’m about, and I know that I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

Anonymous text from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts website

 

Anthony Friedkin (American, b. 1949) 'These Are the Thoughts that Set Fire to Your City' 1993

 

Anthony Friedkin (American, b. 1949)
These Are the Thoughts that Set Fire to Your City
1993
Gelatin silver print
32.6 × 22cm (12 13/16 × 8 11/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Sue and Albert Dorskind
© Anthony Friedkin

 

This photograph was taken following the 1992 Rodney King Riots that happened across Los Angeles.

 

Rodney King (American, 1965-2012)

Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was an African-American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, King was beaten by LAPD officers during his arrest, after a high-speed chase, for driving while intoxicated on I-210. An uninvolved individual, George Holliday, filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage showed an unarmed King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public furor.

At a press conference, announcing the four officers involved would be disciplined, and three would face criminal charges, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates said: “We believe the officers used excessive force taking him into custody. In our review, we find that officers struck him with batons between fifty-three and fifty-six times.” The LAPD initially charged King with “felony evading”, but later dropped the charge. On his release, he spoke to reporters from his wheelchair, with his injuries evident: a broken right leg in a cast, his face badly cut and swollen, bruises on his body, and a burn area to his chest where he had been jolted with a stun gun. He described how he had knelt, spread his hands out, and slowly tried to move so as not to make any “stupid moves”, being hit across the face by a billy club and shocked. He said he was scared for his life as they drew down on him.

Four officers were eventually tried on charges of use of excessive force. Of these, three were acquitted, and the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge for the fourth. Within hours of the acquittals, the 1992 Los Angeles riots started, sparked by outrage among racial minorities over the trial’s verdict and related, longstanding social issues. The rioting lasted six days and killed 63 people, with 2,383 more injured; it ended only after the California Army National Guard, the Army, and the Marine Corps provided reinforcements to re-establish control.

The federal government prosecuted a separate civil rights case, obtaining grand jury indictments of the four officers for violations of King’s civil rights. Their trial in a federal district court ended on April 16, 1993, with two of the officers being found guilty and sentenced to serve prison terms. The other two were acquitted of the charges. In a separate civil lawsuit in 1994, a jury found the city of Los Angeles liable and awarded King $3.8 million in damages.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960) 'Screen' 1996

 

Glenn Ligon (American, b. 1960)
Screen
1996
Silkscreen on canvas
213.36 x 365.76cm (84 x 144 in.)

 

Taking up an entire wall of a four-walled exhibit is Ligon’s “Screen”, where he took and enlarged a newspaper photograph from the Million Man March in Washington, DC. “Ligon has noted that while the march was meant to inspire African American unity, women and gay men were excluded,” says the photograph’s blurb. Ligon states, “I’m interested in what citizenship is in a democratic country… and the responsibilities that come with it.” On the video screen is Louis Farrakhan, a controversial organiser of the Million Man March.

Text from Julianna Lozada. “”In Focus Protest”: A Close Look at the New Getty Center Exhibit,” on the Karma Compass website July 14, 2021 [Online] Cited 11/09/2021

 

Million Man March

The Million Man March was a large gathering of African-American men in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1995. Called by Louis Farrakhan, it was held on and around the National Mall. The National African American Leadership Summit, a leading group of civil rights activists and the Nation of Islam working with scores of civil rights organisations, including many local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (but not the national NAACP) formed the Million Man March Organizing Committee. The founder of the National African American Leadership Summit, Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr. served as National Director of the Million Man March.

The committee invited many prominent speakers to address the audience, and African American men from across the United States converged in Washington to “convey to the world a vastly different picture of the Black male” and to unite in self-help and self-defence against economic and social ills plaguing the African American community.

The march took place in the context of a larger grassroots movement that set out to win politicians’ attention for urban and minority issues through widespread voter registration campaigns. On the same day, there was a parallel event called the Day of Absence, organised by women in conjunction with the March leadership, which was intended to engage the large population of black Americans who would not be able to attend the demonstration in Washington. On this date, all blacks were encouraged to stay home from their usual school, work, and social engagements, in favour of attending teach-ins, and worship services, focusing on the struggle for a healthy and self-sufficient black community. Further, organisers of the Day of Absence hoped to use the occasion to make great headway on their voter registration drive.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

An-My Lê (American born Vietnam, b. 1960) 'Fragment VI: General Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard Monuments, Homeland Security Storage, New Orleans, Louisiana' 2017

 

An-My Lê (American born Vietnam, b. 1960)
Fragment VI: General Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard Monuments, Homeland Security Storage, New Orleans, Louisiana
2017
Inkjet print
142.2 × 100.3cm (56 × 39 1/2 in.)
Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco
© An-My Lê courtesy of the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery

 

John Simmons (American, b. 1950) 'Fight Like a Girl, Los Angeles' Negative 2019; print 2020

 

John Simmons (American, b. 1950)
Fight Like a Girl, Los Angeles
Negative 2019; print 2020
Pigment print
24.1 × 38.1cm (9 1/2 × 15 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© John Simmons

 

Kris Graves (American, b. 1982) 'George Floyd Projection, Richmond, Virginia' 2020

 

Kris Graves (American, b. 1982)
George Floyd Projection, Richmond, Virginia
2020
Inkjet print
40 × 50.1cm (15 3/4 × 19 3/4 in.)

 

 

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European photographic research tour exhibition: ‘Robert Frank. Unseen’ at C/O Berlin

Exhibition dates: 13th September – 30th November, 2019
Visited September 2019 posted January 2020

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Utopian dreaming / dystopian dreams

Synchronicity… when I visited this exhibition on the 16th September 2019, the grand man had only died the previous week on the 9th September 2019.

This was a fabulous exhibition of mainly VINTAGE prints (see labels) at C/O Berlin, with the added bonus of seeing many Robert Frank photographs I had never seen before.

Thoughts

1/ The vintage prints were much larger than I had thought they would be

2/ The English photographs were very impressive. A similar tonal range to Josef Sudek’s prints in these works i.e. no hard blacks or whites zones 2.5-8

3/ The Americans – to actually see a large vintage print of the Trolley Car was incredible. The Black American man’s face was only his mouth, nose and eyes, the rest was completely dark

4/ The vintage prints seemed more whimsical than the later prints: not so much contrast. Sometimes edges bleed off, grain was large, depth of field low, skylines askew. Frank loved his silhouettes and chiaroscuro


It was a great pleasure to see these iconic photographs together in one place. Several times I had to catch my breath as one famous image followed another. But then there were images I had never seen before. Mostly vintage prints as well… as close to Frank’s original vision as you can get. More poetic, more spontaneous, than the later prints. The United States photographs form a road trip of impressions, a reflective and elegiac poem to the American dream.

It’s not often that you can say that an artist changed how we see and interpret the world but that is the case. Through his seminal work The Americans, Frank’s importance to the history of photography and visual culture cannot be denied. Americans didn’t like the mirror that was held up to their society by an outsider, a European Jew. Frank certainly wasn’t afraid to picture the underbelly of America – a phlegmatic portrait of a disaffected and divided country that still has great relevance today.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing photographs titled 'Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz' (1949)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing photographs titled 'Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz' (1949)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing photographs titled Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz (1949). Later silver gelatin prints. No individual titles. Donation of the artist.
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz' 1949 (installation view) at the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz' 1949 (installation view) at the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz' 1949 (installation view) at the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Landsgemeinde / Cantonal Assembly Hundwil, Schweiz (installation views)
1949
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Peru' 1948 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Peru (installation view)
1948
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur
Permanent loan of the Volkart Stiftung
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

'Robert Frank. Unseen' wall text

 

Robert Frank. Unseen wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Geneva' 1945 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Geneva (installation view)
1945
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Geneva' 1945 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Geneva (installation view)
1945
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Geneva' 1944-45 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Geneva (installation view)
1944-1945
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'New York' c. 1949

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
New York
c. 1949
Vintage silver gelatin print
Donation of the artist

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Times Square, New York' 1949 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Times Square, New York (installation view)
1949
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

'Robert Frank. Unseen' wall text

 

Robert Frank. Unseen wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Portfolio. 40 Photos' 1941-46 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Portfolio. 40 Photos' 1941-46 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Portfolio. 40 Photos (installation views)
1941-1946
First Edition Steidl, Göttingen, 2000
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Mississippi, St Louis' 1948 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Mississippi, St Louis (installation view)
1948
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Paris' 1949 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Paris (installation view)
1949
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Paris' 1949 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Paris (installation view)
1949
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Mary and Pablo, New York' 1951 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Mary and Pablo, New York' 1951 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Mary and Pablo, New York (installation views)
1951
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Robert Frank (b. 1924 in Zurich, d. 2019 in Nova Scotia, Canada) traveled thousands of kilometres between America’s East and West coasts, taking almost 30,000 photographs. Just 83 black-and-white pictures from this mixture of diary, social portrait, and photographic road movie have influenced generations of photographers after him. Frank’s book The Americans was first published in Paris before it was released in the United States in 1959 with an introduction by the Beat novelist Jack Kerouac. Oblique angles, cropped figures, and blurred movement became the hallmarks of a new photographic style that would change the course of postwar photography. In 1985, Franks photographs have been displayed in Germany for the first time – in the Amerika Haus in Berlin. Now, C/O Berlin presents contact sheets, first editions, and vintage material from the photographer’s early work at the same place. His time in Switzerland, travels through Europe and South America, and unpublished pictures from the United States in the 1950s will be shown together with famous classic photos from The Americans.

Robert Frank. Unseen reveals the narrative power of a visual language that Frank developed long before it earned him international recognition.

The exhibition was organised in cooperation with the Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur.

Robert Frank was born in Zurich in 1924. A trained photographer, he traveled to New York for the first time in 1947, where he found a position at the Harper’s Bazaar photo studio. He worked between Europe and the US for several years and in 1950, Edward Steichen invited him to participate in the 51 American Photographers exhibition at Museum of Modern Art, New York. Frank freelanced for Life, McCall’s, Look, Vogue and other magazines. In 1955, he was the first European to receive a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship that funded a comprehensive photo series for which he traveled across America. The result was the seminal photobook The Americans (1959). Following the volume’s unexpected success, the photographer turned to film. His later work juxtaposed Polaroids and autobiographical text fragments. This year Frank published his most recent book, Good Days Quiet, at the age of 95. Frank’s photographs have been exhibited internationally, most recently at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2018); Albertina, Vienna (2018); Art Institute of Chicago (2017); Museum Folkwang, Essen (2014); and at Tate Modern, London (2004). His films were shown at C/O Berlin in 2009. Robert Frank lived in New York and in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he died on September 9, 2019.

Text from the C/O Berlin [Online] Cited 28/12/2019

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at bottom, photographs of London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
London (installation view)
1951
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Paris' 1949 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Paris (installation view)
1949
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at right a photograph of London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
London (installation view)
1951
Vintage gelatin silver print
Arnold Kübler Archive
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
London
1951
Vintage gelatin silver print
Arnold Kübler Archive

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
London (installation views)
1951
Gelatin silver photographs, later prints
Permanent loan of the Friends of the Fotostiftung Schweiz
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'London' 1951

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
London
1951
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Permanent loan of the Friends of the Fotostiftung Schweiz

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Paris' 1952

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Paris
1952
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist

 

America

 

'Robert Frank. Unseen' wall text

 

Robert Frank. Unseen wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing at left, 'Nevada' (1956); at second left, 'Los Angeles' (1956); and at right, 'On the road to Carolina' (1955)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left, Nevada (1956); at second left, Los Angeles (1956); and at right, On the road to Carolina (1955)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019) 'Nevada' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Nevada (installation view)
1956
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Los Angeles' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Los Angeles (installation view)
1956
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'On the road to Carolina' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
On the road to Carolina (installation view)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Route US 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho' 1956 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Route US 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Route US 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho (installation views)
1956
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'U.S. 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho' 1956

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Route US 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho
1956
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing at left, 'Florida' (1956); at third left, 'New York City' (early 1950s); and at right, 'Ranch Market, Hollywood' (1955-1956)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left, Florida (1956); at third left, New York City (early 1950s); and at right, Ranch Market, Hollywood (1955-1956)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'New York City' early 1950s (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
New York City (installation view)
early 1950s
Vintage gelatin silver photograph
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Florida' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Florida (installation view)
1956
Gelatin silver print
Swiss Foundation for Photography Collection, Winterthur
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Florida' 1956

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Florida
1956
Gelatin silver print
© Robert Frank
Courtesy Swiss Foundation for Photography Collection, Winterthur

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'New York City' early 1950s (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
New York City (installation view)
early 1950s
Vintage gelatin silver photograph
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing at left, 'Bar – Gallup, New Mexico' (1955) and at right, 'Rodeo – New York City' (1954)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left, Bar – Gallup, New Mexico (1955) and at right, Rodeo – New York City (1954)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Rodeo - New York City' 1954 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Rodeo - New York City' 1954 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Rodeo – New York City (installation views)
1954
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Rodeo – New York City' 1954

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Rodeo – New York City
1954
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing at right, 'Charity Ball, New York' 1954

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at right, Charity Ball, New York 1954
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Charity Ball, New York' 1954 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Charity Ball, New York' 1954 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Charity Ball, New York (installation views)
1954
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Charity Ball, New York' 1954

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Charity Ball, New York
1954
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin showing at left 'Bar – New York' (1955) followed by, 'Yom Kippur – East River, New York City' (1954)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left in the bottom photograph, Bar – New York (1955) followed by, Yom Kippur – East River, New York City (1954)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Los Angeles' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Los Angeles (installation view)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver photograph
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Los Angeles' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Los Angeles
1955
Vintage gelatin silver photograph
Donation of the artist

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Wanamaker Fire, 10th Street East, New York' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Wanamaker Fire, 10th Street East, New York (installation view)
1956
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Bar - New York' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Bar – New York (installation view)
1955
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Bar, New York City' 1955-1956

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Bar – New York
1955
Gelatin silver photograph, later print
Donation of the artist

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Yom Kippur - East River, New York City' 1954 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Yom Kippur – East River, New York City (installation view)
1954
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'USA' 1950s (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
USA (installation view)
1950s
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 62 / Factory, Detroit' 1955 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 62 / Factory, Detroit' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Contact Sheet 62 / Factory, Detroit (installation views)
1955
From The Americans. 81 Contact Sheets.
Yugensha, Tokyo/Motomura Kazuhiko, 2009
Private Collection
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 31 / U.S. 91, Leaving Blackfoot, Idaho' 1956 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 31 / U.S. 91, Leaving Blackfoot, Idaho' 1956 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Contact Sheet 31 / U.S. 91, Leaving Blackfoot, Idaho (installation views)
1956
From The Americans. 81 Contact Sheets.
Yugensha, Tokyo/Motomura Kazuhiko, 2009
Private Collection
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 18 / Trolley, New Orleans' 1955 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Contact Sheet 18 / Trolley, New Orleans' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Contact Sheet 18 / Trolley, New Orleans (installation views)
1955
From The Americans. 81 Contact Sheets.
Yugensha, Tokyo/Motomura Kazuhiko, 2009
Private Collection
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Bryant Park, New York' around 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Bryant Park, New York (installation view)
around 1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) '42nd Street, New York' early 1950s (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
42nd Street, New York (installation view)
early 1950s
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) '41st Street and 7th Avenue' 1953 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
41st Street and 7th Avenue (installation view)
1953
Vintage gelatin silver print
Donation of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Les Américans' book cover (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Les Américans' pages (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Les Américans book cover and pages (installation views)
1958
Delpire. Paris

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Gli Americani' book cover (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Gli Americani book cover (installation view)
1959

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'The Americans' book cover (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'The Americans' pages (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
The Americans book cover and pages (installation views)
1959
Grove Press, New York

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Trolley - New Orleans' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans (installation view)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Trolley - New Orleans' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans (installation view)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Trolley, New Orleans' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern

 

Installation view of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left, 'Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey' (1955) and at right, 'City Fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey' (1955)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin showing at left, Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey (1955) and at right, City Fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey (1955)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey (installation view)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'City Fathers - Hoboken, New Jersey' 1955 (installation view)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'City Fathers - Hoboken, New Jersey' 1955 (installation view)

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
City Fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey (installation views)
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'City fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
City Fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey
1955
Vintage gelatin silver print
Property of the Confédération Suisse, Federal Office of Culture, Bern

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Frank. Unseen' at C/O Berlin

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Frank. Unseen at C/O Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

C/O Berlin Foundation, Amerika Haus,
Hardenbergstraße 22–24, 10623 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 2844416 62

Opening hours:
Daily 11am – 8pm

C/O Berlin website

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Exhibition: ‘Among Others: Photography and the Group’ at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Exhibition dates: 31st May – 18th August, 2019

Curator: Joel Smith, the Morgan’s Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head

 

Bob Adelman (American, 1930-2016) 'People Wall, World's Fair, New York' 1965 from the exhibition 'Among Others: Photography and the Group' at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, May - August, 2019

 

Bob Adelman (American, 1930-2016)
People Wall, World’s Fair, New York
1965
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Nancy and Burton Staniar
© Bob Adelman Estate

 

 

Love Mike Mandel’s classic Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards (1975, below)

Some of my favourite group photographs:

Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters

Edward J. Kelty’s Circus photographs

Crowds at Weegee’s crime scene photographs and his Coney Island (c. 1939)

Cindy Shermans’s early Film stills

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the The Morgan Library & Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Photographer Unidentified. 'Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees)' 1913 from the exhibition 'Among Others: Photography and the Group' at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, May - August, 2019

 

Photographer Unidentified
Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees)
1913
Commercially processed gelatin silver print; postcard
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Photographer Unidentified. 'Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees)' 1913 (detail)

 

Photographer Unidentified
Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees) (detail)
1913
Commercially processed gelatin silver print; postcard
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Myers Cope Co. Atlantic City. 'Photo-multigraph of unidentified girl (Woman in trick photo-booth)' c. 1920s

 

Myers Cope Co. Atlantic City
Photo-multigraph of unidentified girl (Woman in trick photo-booth)
c. 1920s
Gelatin silver print with postcard back
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Studio Retrato-Escultura Victor. 'Fotoescultura' with eight subjects c. 1940s

 

Studio Retrato-Escultura Victor
Fotoescultura with eight subjects
c. 1940s
Carved, painted, and assembled wood with hand-coloured gelatin silver prints
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Richard and Ronay Menschel

 

Photographer Unidentified. 'Group at the Main Building, Moscow State University' after 1953

 

Photographer Unidentified
Group at the Main Building, Moscow State University
after 1953
Gelatin silver print and mixed media
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Photographer Unidentified (American) 'Untitled (seventeen women in swimsuits hold magazines up on a low stage on a lawn)' 20th century (c. 1950s)

 

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (seventeen women in swimsuits hold magazines up on a low stage on a lawn)
20th century (c. 1950s)
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Trolley – New Orleans' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans
1955
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum

 

Harry M. Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Collage, Chicago' 1957

 

Harry M. Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Collage, Chicago
1957
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Richard and Ronay Menschel
© The Estate of Harry Callahan; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Art Kane (American, 1925-1995) 'Harlem' 1958

 

Art Kane (American, 1925-1995)
Harlem
1958
In “The Golden Age of Jazz,” Esquire, January 1959
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by Peter J. Cohen, Ronald R. Kass, and Elaine Goldman
Photograph by Art Kane for Esquire, a publication of the Hearst Communications, Inc.,
Art Kane Courtesy © The Art Kane Archive

 

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941) 'Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr' 1965

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941) 'Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr' 1965

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941) 'Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr' 1965

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941) 'Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr' 1965

 

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941)
Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr
1965
Gelatin silver prints
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Allen Adler
© Jean-Pierre Ducatez

 

Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948) 'The dressing room, Fryeburg, Maine, USA, 1975' 1975

 

Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948)
The dressing room, Fryeburg, Maine, USA, 1975 (Before the show)
1975
From the series Carnival Strippers
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

 

Amy Arbus (American, b. 1954) 'The Clash, NYC' 1981

 

Amy Arbus (American, b. 1954)
The Clash, NYC
1981
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Amy Arbus
© Amy Arbus

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Haitian women praying in the market, HAITI, March 1986' 1986

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Haitian women praying in the market, HAITI, March 1986
1986
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Ronald R. Kass
© Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos

 

 

The Morgan Library & Museum presents a new exhibition about photography’s unique capacity to represent the bonds that unite people. From posed group portraits and candid street scenes to collages, constructions, and serial imagery, photographers have used many methods to place people in a shared frame of reference. Opening May 31, 2019, Among Others: Photography and the Group brings together more than sixty exceptional works spanning the 1860s to the present to explore the complexity of a type of image that is often taken for granted. Drawn primarily from the Morgan’s collection, the works in the exhibition include images by Amy Arbus, Eve Arnold, Robert Frank, Peter Hujar, and August Sander.

Among Others presents the seemingly endless possibilities of the group photograph, placing historically important portraits alongside records of significant cultural moments and experiments that helped reinvent the genre. In representations of the group, artist, subjects, and circumstances come together to create an image that might call to mind a loving family, a chance encounter among strangers, an embodiment of the democratic spirit, or a photographer’s ability to read and respond to a crowd. The photographs in the exhibition come in many formats: not just exhibition prints, snapshots, and posters, but also photo books, painted wooden sculpture, collages, baseball cards, and even a wastepaper basket featuring Richard M. Nixon. In their range and ingenuity, the works pose questions about family, diversity, democracy, representation, and the varieties of visual delight.

One section of the exhibition features candid scenes from public life, such as Robert Frank’s Trolley, New Orleans (1955), seen in a large-scale print the artist made around the time it graced the cover of his landmark book, The Americans (1959). Also on view are photographs of collective actions that came to define significant cultural moments, such as Eve Arnold’s 1960 photograph of a training school for Black sit-ins and Danny Lyon’s image of Haitian women praying in the month after the collapse of the corrupt regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Photographers took a wide range of approaches to representing the group beyond the arranged sittings of families or civic organisations. Bob Adelman’s People Wall, World’s Fair, New York exploits the way IBM’s 1965 attraction cast a spotlight on the social and ethnic diversity of fair attendees. For a 1970 recruitment poster for the Gay Liberation Front, Peter Hujar asked the group’s members to run exuberantly toward him on the street, enacting their slogan, “Come Out!!” Camera artists have often embedded themselves in the action they portray, as Susan Meiselas did when mingling with carnival strippers, first to capture them behind the scenes and then to photograph their audience from a performer’s perspective.

When the subjects are beloved celebrities, the portrait seals a relationship of shared admiration between maker and viewer. In 1965, press photographer Jean-Pierre Ducatez made four images that zeroed in on the lips of each of the Beatles, creating likenesses that appealed directly to dedicated fans. In 1981, Amy Arbus happened to snap a photo of a photogenic group hanging out near Times Square, and only later learned they were members of the Clash and their entourage.

The exhibition features items of “pop photographica” that play radically with the conventions of camera representation. In these pieces, individual portraits are mixed and matched to suit the purposes of board games, collectibles such as cigarette cards, and even psychological tests.

“The Morgan’s photography collection has grown and evolved in many directions since its founding in 2012, always with a dual emphasis on the camera’s creative possibilities and its role in shaping modern sensibilities,” said Colin B. Bailey, Director. “We are excited to present this wide-ranging selection of works, most of which are recent acquisitions and have never been exhibited before at the Morgan.”

Joel Smith, the Morgan’s Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head, said, “The group is a subject we’re so accustomed to seeing in photographs, it’s easy to forget that the conventions around it had to be invented, and that they shape our picture of reality. This exhibition invites viewers to explore the many ways images have defined – since long before the selfie – how it looks to belong to a group and what it means to be represented.”

Press release from The Morgan Library & Museum [Online] Cited 21/07/2019

 

Powell & Co. 'Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture' 1865

 

Powell & Co.
Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture
1865
Albumen print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund

 

Powell & Co. 'Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture' 1865 (detail)

 

Powell & Co.
Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture (detail)
1865
Albumen print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund

 

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986) 'Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947' 1947

 

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986)
Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947
1947
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by members of the Photography Collectors Committee

 

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986) 'Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947' 1947 (detail)

 

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986)
Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947 (detail)
1947
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by members of the Photography Collectors Committee

 

Photographer Unidentified (American) 'Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium)' 20th century

 

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium)
20th century
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Photographer Unidentified (American) 'Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium)' 20th century (detail)

 

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium) (detail)
20th century
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Eve Arnold (American, 1912-2012) 'A training school for Black sit-ins. They are harassed but taught not to hit back when harassed by Whites, Virginia, USA' 1960

 

Eve Arnold (American, 1912-2012)
A training school for Black sit-ins. They are harassed but taught not to hit back when harassed by Whites, Virginia, USA
1960
From the series Non-Violence
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Photography Collectors Committee Fund
© Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot' 1969 or 1970

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot
1969 or 1970
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot' (detail) 1969 or 1970

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot (detail)
1969 or 1970
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot' (detail) 1969 or 1970

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot (detail)
1969 or 1970
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950) 'Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards' (front and verso) 1975

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950) 'Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards' (front and verso) 1975

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards (front and verso)
1975
Photo-offset lithography on cards
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950) 'Imogen Cunningham Baseball-Photographer Trading Card' 1975

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Imogen Cunningham Baseball-Photographer Trading Card
1975
Photo-offset lithography on card
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950) 'Duane Michals Baseball-Photographer Trading Card' 1975

 

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Duane Michals Baseball-Photographer Trading Card
1975
Photo-offset lithography on card
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

 

 

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225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY
Phone: (212) 685-0008

Opening hours:
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Friday from 10.30am – 7pm

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Exhibition: ‘Robert Frank in America’ at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University Part 1

Exhibition dates: 10th September 2014 – 5th January 2015

Curator: Peter Galassi

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'En route from New York to Washington, Club Car' 1954

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
En route from New York to Washington, Club Car
1954
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

 

The lunatic sublime of America

This is the first part of a bumper two-part posting. View Part 2 of the posting.

Robert Frank (1924-2019) is one of the most important photographic artists of the twentieth century. He was born in Switzerland but he emigrated to American in 1947. He soon gained a job as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. He honed his craft as a photographer in England where he took formal, classical images of British life during a trip to Europe and South America in 1947.

He became friends with Edward Steichen and Walker Evans, and it was Evans who supported him in his Guggenheim Fellowship application in 1955 which enabled him “to travel across the United States and photograph all strata of its society. Cities he visited included Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; Miami Beach and St. Petersburg, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana;Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Butte, Montana; and Chicago, Illinois. He took his family along with him for part of his series of road trips over the next two years, during which time he took 28,000 shots. 83 of these were selected by him for publication in The Americans.”1

In The Americans, Frank documents, “the tensions between the optimism of the 1950s and the realities of class and racial differences. The irony that Frank found in the gloss of American culture and wealth over this tension gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists, as did his use of unusual focus, low lighting and cropping that deviated from accepted photographic techniques.2

Originally published as Les Américains in 1958 by Robert Delpire in Paris, and finally in 1959 in the United States by Grove Press, reaction in America was initially hostile. They American critics did not like Frank’s shoot from the hip style of photography, nor the mirror that was being held up to their society, especially by a Jewish foreigner. Over time The Americans came to be seen as a seminal work of American photography and social history. Like many artists, Frank only took photographs for a relatively short period of time, before moving on to become a filmmaker.

One cannot forget the era in which Frank took these photographs – that of McCarthyism and “the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterised by heightened political repression against communists, as well as a campaign spreading fear of their influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.”3 Americans were suspicious of foreigners, especially ones with cameras, and this was still the era of racial segregation pre the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

With regard to the structure of the photographs, their origin is based in classicism. This was Frank’s training. It was his skill as an artist, his intuitive and prescient vision of America – how he saw America like no one else before him had – that enabled him to ramp up the intensity, shoot from weird angles, low lighting, cropping, depth of field, unusual focus – and focus on the iconography of America as never seen before: jukeboxes, American flags, cars, highways, death, racial segregation – that was so revolutionary. But he could not have done that without his formal training. You only have to look at the comparison between the photographs of Robert Frank and Walker Evans. Formal and elegant in Evans Church Organ and Pews (1936) and Downtown street, New Orleans (December 1935) with lines vertical and clean… and then Frank, with hardly a straight line or neat angle to be seen. But the one does inform the other, otherwise Frank’s photographs would just become snapshots, vernacular photographs with very little meaning. Which they are not.

This is one of the most powerful, lyrical, humanist photo essays of a country that has ever been taken. Critic Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans “changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. […] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century.”4 As an artist, Frank became the great connector for he is the critical link in the chain that stretches from Lewis Hine through Walker Evans… and on to Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz.

As an artist you marvel at his intuition and inspiration, to look at the world as no one else had done before, to push the boundaries of medium and message. To photograph people, alone and in groups; politics; religion; race; automobiles and the road; and the media and thrust them into the white, bright, happy world of 1950s consumerist America saying: this is what this country is really like, this is my “impression” of you in all your fleeting madness, “America as an often bleak and lonely place.” You only have to look at the “eye” in U.S. 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho (1956, below) or look at the photograph of the grave by the side of the road to know that you are in Blue Velvet territory (David Lynch, director 1986, the title is taken from The Clovers’ 1955 song of the same name).

I am not sure yet how one world pierces the other but believe me they surely do.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Footnotes

1/ “Robert Frank” on the Wikipedia website

2/ Ibid.,

3/ “McCarthyism,” on the Wikipedia website

4/ Sean O’Hagan. “Robert Frank at 90: the photographer who revealed America won’t look back,” on The Guardian website Sat 8 Nov 2014 [Online] Cited 06/07/2021


Many thankx to the Cantor Arts Center for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“It was the vision that emanated from the book that lead not only me, but my whole generation of photographers out into the American landscape, in a sense, the lunatic sublime of America.”


Joel Meyerowitz

 

“Like a boxer trains for a fight, a photographer by walking the streets, and watching and taking pictures, and coming home and going out the next day, the same thing again, taking pictures. It doesn’t matter how many he takes, or if he takes any at all, it gets you prepared to know what you should take pictures of, or what is the right thing to do and when.”


Robert Frank

 

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Main St., Ossining, New York' 1932

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Main St., Ossining, New York
1932
Gelatin silver print

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Detroit' 1955

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Detroit
1955
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

 

In 1955 and 1956, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank (b. 1924) traveled throughout the United States on a Guggenheim Fellowship, photographing ordinary people in their everyday lives. His book The Americans – 83 photographs, mostly from those travels, published in 1959 – repudiated the bland good cheer of the magazines with an image of the country that was starkly at odds with the official optimism of postwar prosperity. The book became a landmark of photographic history; but Frank soon turned to filmmaking, and the rest of his early photographic career was largely forgotten. An important group of unknown or unfamiliar photographs in the Cantor Arts Center’s collection provides the core of the exhibition Robert Frank in America, which sheds new light on the making of The Americans and presents, for the first time, Frank’s American photographs from the 1950s as a coherent body of work.

“We are delighted that the Cantor’s collection has provided the basis for a fresh look at one of the great achievements of 20-century photography,” said Connie Wolf, John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center. “We are also deeply grateful to Robert Frank, who has generously contributed to the project.”

The exhibition Robert Frank in America, on view September 10, 2014 through January 5, 2015, features 130 photographs drawn primarily from the Cantor’s collection as well as from other public and private collections and from Frank himself. Peter Galassi, former chief curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, is the exhibition’s guest curator and author of the accompanying publication.

The Exhibition’s Development from the Cantor’s Collection

In the summer of 2012, Wolf invited Galassi to offer his thoughts on one of the museum’s hidden treasures: more than 150 photographs by Robert Frank given to the Cantor in the mid-1980s by Stanford alumnus Bowen H. McCoy and his colleague Raymond B. Gary. This remarkable collection spans the full range of Frank’s photographic career before he turned to filmmaking in the early 1960s. It is especially rich in Frank’s American work of the 1950s, including scores of photographs that are unknown or unfamiliar even to scholars. Wolf and Galassi saw an opportunity to share this work with Stanford students, faculty, scholars at large and the general public.

Research began at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, where more than two decades ago the artist established the archive of his photographic career prior to 1970. Studying more than 1,000 contact sheets enabled Galassi to determine the locations and dates of dozens of previously unidentified photographs in the Cantor collection. He then selected works for the exhibition so as to identify Frank’s major themes and artistic strategies. The compelling sequence of The Americans poetically weaves diverse images into a seamless whole, but Robert Frank in America groups related pictures to explore the pictorial strategies that Frank developed as he worked, and also to highlight important subjects – people, alone and in groups; politics; religion; race; automobiles and the road; and the media.

Frank repeatedly photographed isolated figures so that they seemed trapped by pictorial forces, for example. This powerful metaphor for Frank’s vision of lonely individuals imprisoned by social circumstances is announced in the first picture, The Americans, where the flag obliterates a spectator’s face (Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955). In Robert Frank in America, that photograph is juxtaposed with another that uses the identical pictorial scheme but a different subject; the interior of a bar (New York City, 1955).

“Although The Americans is famous – partly because it is famous – Robert Frank’s American work of the 1950s has never been considered as a whole,” said Galassi. “The full range of the work shows just how Frank turned the vocabulary of magazine photojournalism on its head and used it to speak in a personal, poetic voice.”

Inviting Galassi to organise the exhibition was part of the museum’s renewed commitment to collecting, studying and presenting photography, Wolf says. The Cantor has been adding to its already strong holdings, presenting innovative exhibitions of work by distinguished artists and providing a valuable opportunity for Stanford students and faculty to work directly with photographs. Leland Stanford’s commission more than a century ago for Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering work on animal locomotion serves as a foundation for the museum’s extensive collection today.

Exhibition catalogue

The major catalogue accompanying this exhibition is published by the Cantor Arts Center in association with international publisher Steidl, with whom Frank has worked closely on most of his books. All 130 photographs in the exhibition are reproduced as full-page tritone plates. Galassi’s extensive essay traces the evolution of Frank’s work from his arrival in the United States in 1947 until he abandoned his first photographic career in the early 1960s. The text provides a thorough outline of the photographic context in which Frank at first sought success as a magazine photojournalist as well as a detailed analysis of the methods and strategies that lie behind The Americans. The essay features 24 illustrations, including an unprecedented map of Frank’s 1955-56 Guggenheim travels, which locates the sites of nearly all of the photographs in The Americans and in Robert Frank in America. The 200-page book, with a foreword by Connie Wolf, is designed by Katy Homans, New York.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank was born in 1924 in Zürich, Switzerland. The conclusion of World War II ended his vulnerability (his father was a German-born Jew) and enabled him to escape what he regarded as a narrow, antiquated culture. Soon after reaching New York in March 1947, he was hired by Harper’s Bazaar, but his distaste for photographing fashion led him to quit after six months. Over the next five or six years, in Europe and the United States, Frank aimed to establish himself as a freelance photojournalist, with limited success. A Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded in March 1955 and renewed a year later, freed him to pursue his work independently, and he soon began to travel in hopes of making a book. Les Américains was published by Robert Delpire in Paris in 1958 and, as The Americans, by Grove Press in New York in 1959. The latter included an introduction by Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road.

Film and video have formed a central aspect of Frank’s work since 1959, when he collaborated with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Alfred Leslie on Pull My Daisy. In 1972, however, he resumed making photographs, often using Polaroid positive-negative materials and incorporating text and multiple images. That same year he published the first of several editions of The Lines of My Hand, a book that surveyed his career in all mediums and initiated reconsiderations of his early photographic career. The first full-scale retrospective of his photographs was organised at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1986. In 1990, a major gift by Frank established the Robert Frank Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which has since presented two major exhibitions, each accompanied by an important book: Robert Frank: Moving Out (1994) and Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The Americans” (2009).

Press release from the Cantor Arts Center

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Beaufort, South Carolina' 1955

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Beaufort, South Carolina
1955
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

Guggenheim proposal summary

“To photograph freely throughout the United States, using the miniature camera exclusively. The making of a broad, voluminous picture record of things American, past and present. This project is essentially the visual study of a civilization and will include caption notes; but it is only partly documentary in nature: one of its aims is more artistic than the word documentary implies.”

The full statement

“I am applying for a Fellowship with a very simple intention: I wish to continue, develop and widen the kind of work I already do, and have been doing for some ten years, and apply it to the American nation in general. I am submitting work that will be seen to be documentation - most broadly speaking. Work of this kind is, I believe, to be found carrying its own visual impact without much work explanation. The project I have in mind is one that will shape itself as it proceeds, and is essentially elastic. The material is there: the practice will be in the photographer’s hand, the vision in his mind. One says this with some embarrassment but one cannot do less than claim vision if one is to ask for consideration.

“The photographing of America” is a large order - read at all literally, the phrase would be an absurdity. What I have in mind, then, is observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States that signifies the kind of civilization born here and spreading elsewhere. Incidentally, it is fair to assume that when an observant American travels abroad his eye will see freshly; and that the reverse may be true when a European eye looks at the United States. I speak of the things that are there, anywhere and everywhere - easily found, not easily selected and interpreted. A small catalog comes to the mind’s eye: a town at night, a parking lot, a supermarket, a highway, the man who owns three cars and the man who owns none, the farmer and his children, a new house and a warped clapboard house, the dictation of taste, the dream of grandeur, advertising, neon lights, the faces of the leaders and the faces of the followers, gas tanks and post offices and backyards.

The uses of my project would be sociological, historical and aesthetic. My total production will be voluminous, as is usually the case when the photographer works with miniature film. I intend to classify and annotate my work on the spot, as I proceed. Ultimately the file I shall make should be deposited in a collection such as the one in the Library of Congress. A more immediate use I have in mind is both book and magazine publication.”

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Florida' 1958

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Florida
1958
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

 

“I am grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for their confidence and the provisions they made for me to work freely in my medium over a protracted period. When I applied for the Guggenheim Fellowship, I wrote: “To produce an authentic contemporary document, the visual impact should be such as will nullify explanation.”

With these photographs, I have attempted to show a cross-section of the American population. My effort was to express it simply and without confusion. The view is personal and, therefore, various facets of American life and society have been ignored. The photographs were taken during 1955 and 1956; for the most part in large cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and in many other places during my Journey across the country. My book, containing these photographs, will be published in Paris by Robert Delpire, 1958.

I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. It is important to see what is invisible to others – perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness. Also, it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.

My photographs are not planned or composed in advance and I do not anticipate that the on-looker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind – something has been accomplished.

It is a different state of affairs for me to be working on assignment for a magazine. It suggests to me the feeling of a hack writer or a commercial illustrator. Since I sense that my ideas, my mind and my eye are not creating the picture but that the editors’ minds and eyes will finally determine which of my pictures will be reproduced to suit the magazines’ purposes.

I have a genuine distrust and “mefiance” toward all group activities. Mass production of uninspired photojournalism and photography without thought becomes anonymous merchandise. The air becomes infected with the “smell” of photography. If the photographer wants to be an artist, his thoughts cannot be developed overnight at the corner drugstore.

I am not a pessimist, but looking at a contemporary picture magazine makes it difficult for me to speak about the advancement of photography, since photography today is accepted without question, and is also presumed to be understood by all – even children. I feel that only the integrity of the individual photographer can raise its level.

The work of two contemporary photographers, Bill Brandt of England and the American, Walker Evans, have influenced me. When I first looked at Walker Evans’ photographs, I thought of something Malraux wrote: “To transform destiny into awareness.” One is embarrassed to want so much for oneself. But, how else are you going to justify your failure and your effort?”

Robert Frank, U.S. Camera Annual, 1958, p. 115

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Lusk, Wyoming' 1956

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Lusk, Wyoming
1956
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Main Street - Savannah, Georgia' 1955

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Main Street – Savannah, Georgia
1955
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Raymond B. Gary

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Downtown street, New Orleans' December 1935

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Downtown street, New Orleans
December 1935
Gelatin silver print

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'New York City' 1949

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
New York City
1949
Gelatin silver print
Lent by Peter Steil

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'New York City' early 1950s

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
New York City
early 1950s
Gelatin silver print
Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Bowen H. McCoy

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘At the Window: The Photographer’s View’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 1st October 2013 – 5th January 2014

 

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) 'Trolley - New Orleans' 1955

 

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019)
Trolley – New Orleans
1955
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.9 x 34cm (9 x 13 3/8 in.)
Trish and Jan de Bont

 

 

Another fascinating exhibition from the J. Paul Getty Museum that features classic photographs and some that I have never seen before. In my opinion, the two most famous photographs of windows have to be Minor White’s rhapsodic Windowsill Daydreaming, Rochester (1958, below) and Paul Strand’s Wall Street (1915, below, originally known as Pedestrians raked by morning light in a canyon of commerce) which, strangely, is not included in the exhibition. I can’t understand this omission as this is the seminal image of windows in the history of photography.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976 'Wall Street, New York' 1915

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Wall Street
1915
Platinum print

 

In this photo, taken by morning light 1915, the recently built J.P. Morgan Co. building appears sinister and foreboding and dwarfs (perhaps consumes even) the humanity of suited men and women, their long shadows dragging behind them, walked alongside its facade.

Paul Strand studied under Lewis Hine and Alfred Steiglitz. Although he set up in New York as a portrait photographer, Strand often visited Stieglitz’s gallery to see the new European painting which it exhibited. In 1914-1915, under the influence of this new form of art, Strand turned from soft-focus Pictoralism towards abstraction. It was in this spirit that the above photo was taken, originally named, “Pedestrians raked by morning light in a canyon of commerce”. Strand did not intended to show Wall Street in a bad light, he admitted. However, as the Great Depression happened (criticism was squarely towards Wall Street back then as it is today) and Strand turned more communist, he later spoke of “sinister windows” and “blind shapes” inherent in the above picture.

The photo, now simply titled “Wall Street”, was one of six Paul Strand pictures Stieglitz published in Camera Work. In three of the six pictures, humanity strides out from abstract ideas, and each figure was a study in itself – an irregular item complimented by modular formats that surround it. Another set of eleven Strand photos were published in the magazine’s final issue in 1917, and those pictures, overwhelmingly endorsed by Stieglitz as ‘brutally direct’ made Strand’s reputation.

Alex Selwyn-Holmes. “Wall Street by Paul Strand,” on the Iconic Photos blog, December 2010 [Online] Cited 12/01/2021

 

Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915-1985) 'Girl at Gee's Bend' 1937

 

Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915-1985)
Girl at Gee’s Bend
1937
Silver gelatin print
Image: 40 x 49.7cm (15 3/4 x 19 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Edmund Collein (German, 1906-1992) '[Four Women Looking Through Window]' about 1928

 

Edmund Collein (German, 1906-1992)
[Four Women Looking Through Window]
about 1928
Gelatin silver print
Image: 8.2 x 11.1cm (3 1/4 x 4 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Ursula Kirsten-Collein, Berlin

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Wall Street Windows' about 1929

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Wall Street Windows
about 1929
Gelatin silver print
Image: 29.8 x 19.2cm (11 3/4 x 7 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) '[The Milliner's Window]' before January 1844

 

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
[The Milliner’s Window]
before January 1844
Salted paper print from a Calotype negative
Image: 14.3 x 19.5cm (5 5/8 x 7 11/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) 'Barn Window and Ice, East Jamaica, Vermont' 1943

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Barn Window and Ice, East Jamaica, Vermont
1943
Gelatin silver print
Image (trimmed to mount): 19.4 x 24.3cm (7 5/8 x 9 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Aperture Foundation

 

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993) 'Rain Drops' 1953

 

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Rain Drops
1953
Gelatin silver print
Image: 20.2 x 25cm (7 15/16 x 9 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of Christian K. Keesee
© The Brett Weston Archive

 

Sebastião Salgado (Brazilian, b. 1944) 'Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam' Negative 1995; print 2009

 

Sebastião Salgado (Brazilian, b. 1944)
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Negative 1995; print 2009
Gelatin silver print
Image: 34.3 x 51.4cm (13 1/2 x 20 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Sebastião Salgado

 

 

In many respects, the window was where photography began. As early as 1826, the sill of an upstairs window in the home of the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce served as a platform for his photographic experiments. His View from the Window at Le Gras is today considered to be the first photograph. Since then, the window motif in photographs has functioned formally as a framing device and conceptually as a tool for artistic expression. It is also tied metaphorically to the camera itself which is, at its most rudimentary, a “room” (the word camera means “chamber”) and its lens a “window” through which images are projected and fixed. The photographs in At the Window: A Photographer’s View, on view October 1, 2013 – January 5, 2014 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, explore varying aspects of the window as frame or mirror – formally or metaphorically – for photographic vision.

“The Getty Museum’s extensive collection allows us to explore themes and subjects within the history of photography that highlight not only the most famous masters and iconic images they produced, but also less obvious subjects, methods and practitioners of the medium whose contributions have not yet been fully acknowledged. At the Window is one such an exhibition, and holds in store many surprises, even for those who know the field well,” explains Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “The exhibition also allows us to celebrate a substantial body of work that was recently added to the collection with funds provided by the Museum’s Photographs Council, whose mission it is to help us support the growth of the collection, and a number of highly important loans from private collections.”

Shop Windows and Architecture

Featured in the exhibition is an exceedingly rare early photograph, William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Milliner’s Window (before January 1844) which depicts not an actual window but a carefully constructed one: shelves were placed outdoors and propped in front of black cloth, while various ladies’ hats were arranged to simulate the look of a shop display. Throughout the history of photography, actual shop fronts have been a popular subject and reflections in their windows a source for unexpected juxtapositions. This motif is well represented in the exhibition with photographs by William Eggleston, Eugène Atget, and Walker Evans.

Photographers have also taken an interest in the distinctive formal arrangements made possible by the architectural facades found in a cityscape. André Kertész’s Rue Vavin, Paris (1925), a view from his apartment window, is one of the first photographs he took upon arriving in Paris from Budapest. Photographers like Alfred Stieglitz carefully framed their views of urban exteriors, using the window as a unifying device within the composition.

The Window as Social Documentary

While windows provide an opportunity to observe life beyond a single room, the camera’s lens opens a window to the world at large. Arthur Rothstein believed in photography’s ability to enact social change – his Girl at Gee’s Bend (1937) features a young girl framed in the window of her log-and-earth home in Alabama, highlighting the schism between magazine images and the actual lives of most Americans at the time. Similarly, Robert Frank’s Trolley – New Orleans (1955) frames racial segregation through windows in a trolley, while Sebastião Salgado’s Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (negative 1995; print 2009) uses the barely separated windows of a housing structure to evoke the cramped quarters and dire economic situation of its inhabitants.

The Window as a Conceptual Tool

Artists have used the window in other novel ways, whether to create an enigmatic mood or suggest a suspenseful scene. In Gregory Crewdson’s Untitled (2002) from the series Twilight, the image of a woman standing in a room and turned toward a window creates a suspended, unsettling moment of anticipation that is never resolved. In her Stranger series (2000), Shizuka Yokomizo actively engages subjects by sending letters to randomly selected apartment residents, asking them to stand in front of a window at a particular date and time in order to be photographed. Uta Barth’s diptych …and of time (2000), where the path of a window’s light and shadow is followed across the wall of the artist’s living room, illustrates something the artist phrased as “ambient vision.”

“The window has been a recurrent and powerful theme for photographers from the beginning of the medium,” explains Karen Hellman, assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum and curator of the exhibition. “In a collection such as the Getty’s that is particularly rich in work by important photographers from the beginnings of the medium to the present day, the motif provides a unique way to travel through the history of photography.”

The Window in Photographs (Getty Publications, $24.95, hardcover) investigates the recurrence of windows both as a figurative and literal theme throughout the history of photography. From the very vocabulary we use to describe cameras and photographic processes to the subjects of world-renowned photographers, windows have long held powerful sway over artists working in the medium. When documented on film, windows call into question issues of representation, the malleability of perception, and the viewer’s experience of the photograph itself, and the window’s evocative power is often rooted in the interplay between positive and negative, darkness and light, and inside and out.

Yet despite the ubiquity of windows in photography, this subject has been rarely addressed head on in a single exhibition or publication. From the birth of the Daguerreotype to the development of digital imagery, this volume presents a full account of the motif of the window as a symbol of photographic vision. Its eighty featured colour plates, all drawn from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection, are arranged thematically rather than chronologically, allowing the window’s many uses in photography to be highlighted and explored stylistically. Including images from all-star contributors such as Uta Barth, Gregory Crewdson, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Minor White, The Window in Photographs is a remarkable examination of a theme that has inspired photographers for over a century. This book is published to coincide with the exhibition At the Window: The Photographer’s View at the J. Paul Getty Museum from October 1, 2013 to January 5, 2014.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Windowsill daydreaming' 1958

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Windowsill Daydreaming, Rochester
Negative July 1958; print 1960
Gelatin silver print, selenium toned
Image: 28.6 x 22.2cm (11 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
Purchased in part with funds provided by the Greenberg Foundation
© Trustees of Princeton University, Minor White Archive

 

Charles Swedlund (American, b. 1935) 'Buffalo, NY' about 1970

 

Charles Swedlund (American, b. 1935)
Buffalo, NY
about 1970
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.7 x 15.9cm (7 3/8 x 6 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Purchased in part with funds provided by an anonymous donor in memory of James N. Wood
© Charles Swedlund

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Penny Picture Display, Savannah' 1936

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Penny Picture Display, Savannah / Photographer’s Window Display, Birmingham, Alabama / Studio Portraits, Birmingham, Alabama
1936
Gelatin silver print
Image: 25.6 x 19.9cm (10 1/16 x 7 7/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) 'Petit Bacchus, 61, rue St. Louis en l'Ile' (The Little Bacchus Café, rue St. Louis en l'Ile) 1901-1902

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Petit Bacchus, 61, rue St. Louis en l’Ile (The Little Bacchus Café, rue St. Louis en l’Ile)
1901-1902
Albumen silver print
Image: 22.1 x 17.8cm (8 11/16 x 7 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) '[From My Window at the Shelton, North]' 1931

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
[From My Window at the Shelton, North]
1931
Gelatin silver print
Image (trimmed to mount): 24.3 x 19.1cm (9 9/16 x 7 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

 

Yuki Onodera (Japanese, b. 1962) 'Look Out the Window, No. 18' 2000

 

Yuki Onodera (Japanese, b. 1962)
Look Out the Window, No. 18
2000
Gelatin silver print
Image: 59 x 49.2cm (23 1/4 x 19 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© Yuki Onodera

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966) 'Stranger (15)' 1998-2000

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966)
Stranger (15)
1998-2000
Chromogenic print
Mount: 124.5 x 104.9cm (49 x 41 5/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© Shizuka Yokomizo

 

Alex Prager (American, b. 1979) 'Megan' 2007

 

Alex Prager (American, b. 1979)
Megan
2007
Chromogenic print
Framed: 125.7 x 62.9cm (49 1/2 x 24 3/4 in.)
Michael and Jane Wilson

 

Gregory Crewdson (American, b. 1962) 'Untitled' from the series 'Twilight' 2002

 

Gregory Crewdson (American, b. 1962)
Untitled from the series Twilight
2002
Chromogenic print
Image: 122 x 152cm (48 1/16 x 59 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Trish and Jan de Bont
© Gregory Crewdson

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Untitled (...and of time. #4)' 2000

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Untitled (…and of time. #4)
2000
Chromogenic print
Image: 88.9 x 114.3cm (35 x 45 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© 2000 Uta Barth

 

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5.30pm
Saturday 10am – 8pm
Sunday 10am – 5.30pm
Monday closed

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