The Americans

Indianapolis
Robert Frank (1924-) b. Zurich
from "The Americans" (check out more about the exhibition here.
image: artnet.com

On my recent trip to San Francisco I was finally able to visit SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They had a wonderful special exhibition, Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans". I'm well familiar with Frank's work as well as with "The Americans" (it was our most commonly stolen book at one of my art libraries) yet it was awesome to see all of the photographs from the book organized in sequence in accordance with the book throughout the galleries. I also didn't know much about the creation of the book other than Robert Frank takes a camera around the country. Frank conducted his travel and art on a Guggenheim Fellowship. The exhibition contained an incredible amount of archival and ephemeral material beyond his photographs, from his letter of application for the fellowship (with the edits of his friend, photography, Walker Evans) to letters about getting arrested on his way through Arkansas for ridiculous reasons, to the proofs of what were to become one of the most well-known photography books of our time. Part of Frank's intent with his travels was to see America through the eyes of someone getting to know it, the varied world that America is, from consumerism and materialism, to loneliness and displacement.

Frank's book is known not only for the revelation of an America not everyone could see both sad and beautiful, but also for the design and construction of the book. Each photograph was tightly bound to the one before and after as well as engaged in a thematic discourse throughout. Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction. This exhibition was organized on the 50th anniversary of the books publication in America. Frank initially had difficulty finding a publisher for his book in the US due to the nature of the photographs, they were not too keen on his portrayal of America.

A Flickr pool of photographs in the style of "The Americans"

Depth of Image

Collage, 1929
Joan Miro Spanish (1893-1983)
Conté crayon, gouache, ink, flocked paper, newspaper, abrasive cloth, and various papers on flocked paper, 28 5/8 x 42 3/4"
Museum of Modern Art

I am simply blown away by the online exhibition
of a current MoMA exhibition , Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting. First alerted to the show by a beautiful catalog received at work I meant to find a Miro for my blog. I promptly forgot as I am wont to do with the amount of art I see on a daily basis, but a search for a Magritte painting (which will surely come along after not too long) brought me to Miro and here we are (you just love to hear my pathways to selection don't you? :). Miro has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. His colorful, abstract and surrealistic paintings were always a draw for me, one of my favorite museums on my European tour in college was the Fundacio Joan Miro in Barcelona. As I got older I wasn't as sure, but some time spent with my broader art knowledge as well as exposure to a greater selection of Miro's oeuvre (drawings, collages etc.) my love for, appreciation and understanding of Miro grew.

I intended on sharing one of the colorful, rich paintings, but a perusal of the online exhibition encouraged me to share a work that showcases what museums are doing with images online and in turn focus more on the "Anti-Painting" part of the exhibition. Collages are wonderfully dimensional, something that is often difficult to get any grasp of unless you see it in person. The large images and zoom function are fantastic. You can see the ragged edges and wrinkles of the paper. The online exhibition also incorporates works that are not a part of the physical exhibition (a great way to complete a theme, discussion etc. as it is often the case that desired works could not be used for the show for various reasons, this particular work is not in the exhibition).

Another fantastic aspect of the online exhibition is the ability to present a group of works in more than one grouping. MoMA has presented the works as series (by both medium and subject), a chronology, an index, and most interesting of all by size. You can easily scroll through these rows, click on a work of interest, increase its size and read it's "wall label".

I've went on for a bit, haven't said anything about the collage! Check out the online exhibition and have fun! (It definitely works better in the full screen version).