Robert Frank Retrospective, 2004
Tate Modern, London
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'Robert Frank' is a legend. Part of the deal with being a legend is that it usually is in the legend's best interest to keep out of sight and therefore being dead helps, big time. Robert Frank retreated so long ago to the wilds of Nova Scotia that the mystique survived the decades intact. You might have been forgiven for thinking that he was long dead, in fact. This despite the occasional publication of some book of gloomy polaroids, blurry records of nothing in particular on which he had scrawled while seemingly being a bit upset about something.
Swiss Born, Frank had already travelled widely before getting the Guggenheim grant that funded his travels across the USA which resulted in the photographic masterpiece 'The Americans'. Consisting of 83 images from 27,000 shots he had become an all-seeing image-making machine. Yet, the highlight of this exhibition for me was seeing the work immediately prior to THE BIG ONE. His images from his travels in *Peru are exultant, playful, full of life and full of vitality. None of the pathos but all of the pace of the American work. Pasted into handmade books where each page has been painstakingly drilled along the spine with tiny perforations for binding - this was surely a labour of love. This work is the equal of anything in 'The Americans'. That the babies and children in these photographs would now be elderly conflicts with the astonishing freshness of the framing and the fabulous timing that raises these photographs to a point of transcendence. They are a sheer joy to discover - as Peru must have been to the young Robert Frank.
(*April 2008 Peru published by Steidl.)
After such a spectacular coup in the first room of the Tate show it was unexpected to travel through the entire remainder of the rooms and find little, if anything, of such an inspirational nature. To be fair, the decision to round up original prints must have been a difficult one - and one that can be easily justified on grounds of authenticity. We are, after all, getting to see THE prints. Originals from the time. Does this neglect that the essence of Frank's work is spontaneity and immediacy though? The majority of the classic prints are half a century old and they simply have not aged well. Most photographers follow 'good practice' in the darkroom but it may not necessarily be best practice for archival purposes. The practicalities of life often mean that prints are developed, stopped, fixed and washed in a way that is a compromise between speed and reasonable permanence. The majority of prints from the key years of Frank's life appear to have lost much of their tonal subtlety. Whites have faded into a soft brown veil of fix and dark tones have degraged to form areas of soft, dull mass. The cost of reprinting would have perhaps been more than enough to discourage any serious consideration - but the result is that although these are vintage prints of THE famous photographs they look disappointingly jaded and oh so tired out. The vitality is missing. One day, I predict, a gallery will arrange for reprinting from the original negatives and this will, I expect, remind us of the forceful sensitivity of his pictures. I can imagine this happening on the hundreth anniversary of publication of 'The Americans'.
Frank's essence was to be ready to go in close, to intrude. He would be disengaged but would have the nerve to look people right in the face to get his shot. You sense that he lived with his Leica to hand and every single waking moment held the potential to come up with a photograph. Whether it be portraying the insignificant existance of a lift girl or the numbness of those gathered by a car accident victim as snow starts to fall. Everything is up for grabs. He somehow sneaks himself into lives, revealing the nuance of the moment, urgently looking for some personal revelation - while always remaining unseen, the outsider, passing by. This full-on up close and personal sensibility owes much to the French photographers post World War II, who used the medium so successfully to re-assert a shaky national identity de Francais. In his case, Frank uses his skill to undermine what appears to him to be the quintessence of American life. At times, though, and particulary in his London photographs, this can descend to caricature. He is at his best though, when he penetrates life to reveal something unexpected but universal - and this revelation is to himself as much as to anyone else. It's the bigger picture.
As proved common with those attempting this kind of observational photography, Frank burned out and eventually made a fresh start in film-making where his free-form experiments occupied him for years to come. These were included in this retrospective and, like his much later polaroids of his desolate home environment are ultimately unsatisfying. In accompanying interview footage he openly admits it has been many decades since he has even had an original idea. His honesty at times appears to be morose and driven by guilt and is uncomfortable for him and maybe more so, for us.
Haunted by several personal tragedies in his life and revealing a rather grumpy, insecure side, Frank has successfully avoided becoming caught up in his own mystique and he has persevered as a practising artist. But like his friend Jack Kerouac, perhaps, that first youthful energy burned up everything he had to give in one intense blaze across a continent. Those years are enough though for us to be grateful that he made that trip.
Cafe
Tate Modern, London